Napoli & Barca last-16 meeting of UCL is clash of football biggest basket cases

Champions League last-16 sets two of football’s biggest basket-case clubs against each other tonight. And with neither side able to contemplate the consequences of an early exit from Europe the stakes have been cranked up far higher than for any other knockout game at this stage.

Barcelona and Napoli both won their leagues last season but the spiral has been downward ever since. And for whoever gets knocked out, the descent will only become steeper and more rapid.

This was meant to be the tie when the losing club sacked their coach but Napoli have already torn up that narrative but getting their firing and hiring in early.

Walter Mazzarri was sacked on Tuesday just 24 hours before tonight’s game.

As for Xavi, can you sack a man who has already quit? Well yes you can because Xavi quit because he knew he was being fired after losing 5-3 at home to Villarreal in January.

He has only been allowed to stay on until the end of the season because of who he is according to president Joan Laporta, and it’s a favour that will be undone if it starts to look like leaving him in charge until the summer will leave Barcelona without European football next season.

Laporta and his opposite number Aurelio de Laurentiis are currently engaged in a long-distance game of ‘mad president Top Trumps’. Laporta probably thinks his fit of temper in hospitality after a recent home draw with soon to be relegated Granada, tipping over a tray of spring rolls, was bonkers enough.

But De Laurentiis saw the canapé carnage and said ‘hold my beer’. He didn’t just change the club’s manager this week he hired the new man while the soon to be fired one was taking the club’s penultimate training session before tonight’s game.

If there is one thing that does set the