FOR some football watchers, international week already seems like an irrelevance.
In their minds, the countdown has already begun to the biggest match of the domestic season so far, to be screened on SkySports with a lunchtime kick-off a week on Saturday.
An epic grudge match between two high profile managers with a bit of history together, this match also opens a new chapter in a simmering city rivalry. Yes, Manchester City versus Manchester United should be some game.
The fact that old pals Brendan Rodgers and Mark Warburton are locking horns as Celtic take on Rangers at the same time - the Old Firm derby kicks off at high noon on Sky Sports 2, while the Manchester derby gets under way 30 minutes later, on Sky Sports 1 - is, of course, not the way that the broadcasters would ideally have planned it.
Their best plans to maximise their viewer numbers were scuppered somewhat by the fact that Celtic and Manchester City were drawn together in the same Champions League group, meaning that playing either of their build-up league matches on the Sunday rather than the Saturday would deprive them of 24 hours rest and was thus rendered impossible.
But comparing the figures afterwards should offer a rather definitive answer to which of these two matches really is the day's 'must-watch' fixture and which is just an idle curiosity. While much play is often made on the global TV audience clamouring to tune into the Glasgow grudge match, if the usual figures are anything to go by, there will only be one winner.
More than 500,000 people UK-wide watched the Scottish Cup semi-final between the Glasgow giants last season while two million tuned in for a Manchester derby in 2015 – the biggest audience for any domestic game in Britain that season. Certain of those more obsessed by events at Old Trafford than Celtic Park are sure to have Scottish postcodes.
The star quality is almost all on Sky Sports 1. With still 24 hours to go before the transfer deadline, Pep Guardiola has already lavished £168m in transfer fees on his new team this summer (compared to Manuel Pellegrini's £152m the year before, and a paltry £87.5m in 2014-15). His old adversary from the Barcelona-Real Madrid days, Jose Mourinho, has settled for just £149m.
The technical and tactical quality that outlay guarantees knocks Scottish football's glamour game into a cocked hat, even if Celtic in particular have upped their box office quotient this summer by refusing to scrimp on the likes of Scott Sinclair, Kolo Toure and Moussa Dembele.
And even for those who argue that the chaotic, error-strewn, powderkeg nature of the Glasgow derby gives it added attraction, there seems to be more chance of Mourinho gouging someone on the City bench than an episode of bad behaviour breaking out between the respective dug-outs like Messrs Lennon and McCoist back in March 2011.
For the record, while last year's Scottish Cup semi-final was a worthy addition to the fixture's illustrious history - an evenly-fought contest with Rangers coming out deserving winners - it isn't true that the form guide goes out the window on Old Firm day.
Celtic's setback last season arrived in close proximity to dropped points against Ross County and Dundee and any recurrence of the early-season frailties which have cost the Ibrox side against Hamilton and Kilmarnock is likely to be punished emphatically by a in-form Parkhead outfit who appear intent on a revenge of sorts for last season.
Whatever transpires next Saturday, all this broadcasting backdrop is worth remembering in the week where Shaun Harvey, the English Football League chief executive, told the Telegraph that the 72 EFL members will decide whether Celtic and Rangers can join a new 20-team ‘fifth division’ planned for the start of the 2019-2020 season.
Should the plans go through, there would be a call for eight new teams to join the 72 existing sides, and inviting Rangers and Celtic, if not other sizeable Scottish clubs, to join the party would be one option.
While a five-year exile from Champions League or top flight football would seem like an eternity, they would certainly add a novelty factor, while their large travelling supports would add additional revenue for the English game. While such a proposal, should it ever drop into the inbox of Peter Lawwell or Dave King, would hardly be risk-free, the potential rewards would surely outweigh them.
Lord knows the BBC get it in the neck often enough for their sports output, so kudos to everyone involved in the documentary Scotland's Game, the first part of which aired last week.
The real star of the show, though, was the Scottish game, in all its shabby glory. The show depicted how our football changed (for better and worse) with the arrival of Graeme Souness and Fergus McCann, sparking a process which has still not been allowed to reach its logical conclusion: Rangers and Celtic outgrowing the rest of the game and jetting off to pastures new. Until this happens, the Old Firm will just have to settle for being the warm-up to the main event.
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