The magic of the cup......

......unless you live in Spain where not many people bother to go and the teams field their rezzies.On Wednesday, it was the turn of Hercules C.F. to a do little bit of giant killing, okay maybe not giant per se, but definitely the killing of a fairly tall bloke. The competiton was the Copa del Rey or Kings Cup, and no, it isn't what Juan Carlos I slurps his tea from.

Mid-table La Liga side Almeria were the visitors and, to be honest, their manager hasn't quite achieved in the hot seat what he accomplished as a player.These days Hugo Sanchez, public enemy number one in Barcelona, kind of resembles a bit of a Mexican Tom Jones. Quite how he got to score all those trillions of goals for Real Madrid is a mystery, he's only about five foot nine. As it happened, he could have laced up his boots, played for twenty minutes or so and showed his strikers for the evening where the goal was.

Curiously, the entire Hercules bench will all be playing at the weekend when Real Sociedad visit the Jose Rico Perez in the league. For now though their understudies did all right, the away side were given a goal start, found themselves pegged back and conceded late on to lose the thing 2-1. Fortunately for the visitors, they get to try again in a couple of weeks when Hercules travel south for the second leg.

It's always baffled me why so many Spanish fans leave before the end, tonight I almost joined them, the first half was so bad I was tempted to give it up as a bad job and make myself scarce at ten to nine. To cut a long story short, I hung around and in the end I was pleased I did. Hercules owned the second forty five and could have ended up winning by three clear goals.

Former Tottenham man Noe Pamarot can't get a Segunda game for Hercules, strange that because he's one of the highest paid players on the staff and tonight was excellent. Apart from the goal, Almeria's forwards never really had so much as a sniff, possibly because they had to circumnavigate Pamarot's thighs which are absolutely enormous, so big in fact they'd make Stuart Pearce' legs look scrawny.

Talking of trillions, perhaps Real Madrid could have spent all theirs slightly better; the evening before they took on nearby Third Division Alcorcon, also in the cup, and were humbled four nil in a match later described as "Galacticos humiliated by village team"  So, not all bad then for Almeria, at least they scored.

PHOTO'S:
Top, Copa del Rey trophy
Middle, Hugo Sanchez, dreaming of the green, green grass of Almeria
Bottom, Noe Pamarot - only specially cut shorts accomodate his vast thighs