Across Europe midweek cup games have thrown up some shocks
In England, Manchester United were shocked by struggling Championship side Southend United.
Despite fielding Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo, United’s team of reserves and youngster could not find a way past the Shrimpers’ goalie Daryl Flahavan.
The home team’s star striker Freddie Eastwood scored a fizzing 30-yard free kick to fire the Essex seaside club into the quarterfinals and seal a 1-0 victory.
Over the border in Scotland and both Rangers and Celtic have been dumped out of their League Cup – meaning that for only the second time in a decade neither of the Glaswegian big two will make the final.
Rangers lost at home to second division leaders St Johnstone on Wednesday night while Celtic lost on penalties to Falkirk, 24 hours earlier.
In Spain, Real Sociedad were knocked out of the Copa del Rey by second division Malaga (see here for info on their unfortunate relegation last season).
Maybe it wasn’t so surprising as the Basques are La Liga’s bottom side – and at least they won their first competitive game of the season by winning 2-1 – but that was nowhere near enough to overturn a 4-1 first leg deficit.
The holders Espanyol also surprisingly lost to second divsion Rayo Vallecano.
In Holland, Feyenoord crashed out to modest RKC – an extra time header from Stephan Keller knocked the Rotterdam side out and booked a place in the last 16 for the small club from Waalwijk.
That result compounds Feyenoord’s miserable start to the season -- with no place in Europe for them this term, the cup would have been a welcome distraction from a poor league campaign which sees them languishing in sixth – already ten points behind leaders and arch rivals Ajax.
The Italians also played some cup games this week, but like Spain they prefer two-legged affairs so we won’t know of any upsets until the second legs are played in a fortnight.
One minor shock was that Serie B team Arezzo beat top division team Livorno 2-1 in their first game.
Quite how seriously the Serie A side took it is hard to judge – last week, Livorno’s chairman said he wanted his team to lose in the Uefa Cup so they could concentrate on the Italian league!
