Football Daily | Bigger Cup’s Bigger Draw serves up a buffet of fantasy football thrills

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A Bigger Cup needs a Bigger Draw. Last year Uefa set out the tournament brackets from the quarter-final onwards, showing Real Madrid which particular jails they might need to escape to win the competition for the 15th time. This year Uefa have gone one better by doing the draw for the rest of the tournament at the last-16 stage. It’s a punch up the bracket for Manchester City, who can now empathise with every failed Bullseye contestant. Look what they could have won: Atlético Madrid in the last 16, then Arsenal or PSV Eindhoven in the quarter-finals, then maybe Liverpool in the semis.

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Dubois’ absence will hit ‘Fight Card of Century’ but Bakole is best alternative

Big hitter from DR Congo has flown out to replace ill Briton against Joseph Parker for Saturday’s showdown in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia’s attempts to seize control of boxing have been relentless but not even its massive wealth and swaggering certainty can overrule the harsh vagaries of life. Boxing is an extreme and unhinged version of real life and it is always subject to bedlam and disruption. And so, on Thursday afternoon, there was a familiarly knotty twist in the sleek Saudi plan to stage “the greatest fight card in the history of boxing” in Riyadh on Saturday night.

Daniel Dubois, fresh from his destruction of Anthony Joshua, was meant to defend his IBF world heavyweight title against Joseph Parker as the main undercard bout in a seven-fight extravaganza. It carried the promise of an intriguing and dangerous contest for both men – only for Dubois to fall ill with a virus.

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