With a room full of navy suits and white trainers still trying to process what had just happened, a glitzy-frocked Katherine Jenkins approached the microphone and started to belt out the opening line of Queen’s We Are The Champions.
Those present at this head-scratching, computer-generated anti-climax of a Champions League draw had certainly paid their dues.
This was meant to be a night that heralded the dawn of a new era. A new format for the competition that host Reshmin Chowdhury, recipient of a hospital pass, boldly promised would ‘bring us more competitive matches for Europe’s top teams’.
But what followed over a bizarre 60-minutes did little to ease concerns that all the new 36-team, one league Champions League will do is increase the number of meaningless fixtures and provide an underwhelming finish.
Not that they did not try to tell us otherwise. They really tried. Monaco, Europe’s over the top capital, was a fitting host for fur-coat promises of little substance.
UEFA kickstarted their reformatted Champions League with a bizarre event in Monaco
Katherine Jenkins closed the show with a rendition of Queen's We Are the Champions
Cristiano Ronaldo's involvement in the event in Monaco was limited to repeatedly pressing a button as a supercomputer allocated fixtures for the first phase of the new-look tournament
We endured a cringeworthy video featuring UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin pretending he was James Bond, (presumably here to save Miss Moneyspinner amid the threat of a breakaway Super League), a cameo from an unusually self-deprecating Zlatan Ibrahimovic and were blessed with an appearance from Cristiano Ronaldo, whose evening consisted of pressing a button multiple times and picking up an award – although it may still have been more challenging than an outing in the Saudi Pro League.
Italian legend Gianluigi Buffon kicked things off in the grand, opera house setting of the Grimaldi Forum, with the claim that the Champions League was ‘the biggest reason I played for so long’ (he retired at 45 and also happened to win a World Cup and 10 Serie A titles) followed by an even more questionable comment that it was ‘not because I wanted to win it but because I enjoyed playing in it’.
Buffon, who picked up a lifetime achievement award, would later pick out the balls from the pot before Ronaldo hit the button which spat out lists of opponents. ‘We’re in safe hands,’ said Chowdhury to no audible groans, setting the bar for the evening.
Ronaldo then collected his own gong for all-time leading scorer and was the modest, good egg we have come to know and love. ‘I won four times at Real Madrid,’ he said. ‘The Champions League and the goals are like ketchup - when you open (the bottle) it keeps coming.’
Unfortunately, there was more life to squeeze out of a balmy, barmy evening in the format of that cringeworthy film. Producer Pete Radovic has won 45 emmys. He may well get a custard pie for this offering. Ceferin, the hero in a rush, assured Luis Figo and others (including Robbie Keane) that the new league is not complicated. ‘Leave me alone, Luis’ the dashing Slovenian said to one of the game’s all-time greats, ‘it’s going to be fine’. Figo may have enjoyed that pig’s head being thrown at him by Barcelona fans all those years ago more than this.
Attendees were treated to an extended promotional video featuring footballing cameos
Zlatan Ibrahimovic delivered an uncharacteristically self-deprecating performance
There was, at least, some self-awareness when Ibrahimovic advised Mr President to tell the nay-sayers ‘This is an all or nothing league where legends are made and hearts are broken…you can almost say this is a Sup…’ before Ceferin interrupted. ‘Shh,’ he said. ‘I told you that will never happen.’ Get it?
Before the draw started there was time for the forthright vice secretary Giorgio Marchetti, who ironically from a distance looked like the tinkerman Claudio Ranieri, to tell the audience that the system would mean ‘every goal and every save may change the course of the season for the team in play and those on other fields’.
Then City were pulled out first and the computer said Sparta Prague and Slovan Bratislava.