PFFSSSSSSSSST! That's the first can open. European football is all about the preparation and the game against the Swiss has been tricky.
Most of our other games have been straight forward. Ostrava: Budvar. Villarreal: San Miguel. Sporting: SuperBock. Roma: a nice Chianti.
But what do we know about Swiss popular culture? Cuckoo clocks and cowbells, numbered accounts and Nazi gold. But I've looked at the map and it is practically in Germany so I've settled for a six pack of Becks and a Toblerone... game on.
Blimey. What's happened to Mendi's hair? It's gone Basque to basics. After two years of a wispy Euro-rock barnet he's gone native and had a No 2. Franck as well. It looks like they have cashed in their Advantage points and gone halfers on a set of clippers from Boots.
To be fair it needed doing. That eighties Michael Bolton look was fooling no-one. In the last few games it has started to look more like a Bobby Charlton combover so you know the clippers make sense.
The tufty beard is still there but it doesn't look so daft with the crop. With his long locks he looked like a cross between something out of a Reeves and Mortimer's Mulligan and O'Hare sketch and a bass player from a Stateside Nirvana-wannabe skatepunk band.
What about the hastily arranged white strip? It's an off the peg number from Errea's exciting range of Sunday strips but let's be honest, it is better than some of the awful efforts knocked out in crayon on the kitchen tale by the designers kids that they have offered in the annual vote for away kits.
Basel's outfit looks like Barcelona's centenary halves from a few years ago. Let's hope they don't play like them. Boro look like Real Madrid. Let's hope we don't play like them.
Pffssssssssstt! Half an hour gone and it's been a bit scrappy but Boro look comfortable. I nearly dropped the Pringles earlier when I thought we'd given away a penalty but their lad got booked for some good quality diving. Jose Moaninho has been alerted.
Then suddenly Boom! Boom! Basel Brush Boro aside and score two in a sickening spell just before the break. The first squirted`off a greasy pitch to beat Schwarzer and the second, well, it would be harsh to criticise the fella after his display in Rome but it looked like he made the wrong decision to go to his right too early.
As if that wasn't bad enough the break brings the sight of gun toting riot cops steaming into the Boro end after half time scuffles.
That is a disaster. After Roma we could do with a break from the batons. But the Basel fans have a reputation for having a seventies style mob and have previous for attacking ordinary shirt wearing fans against Liverpool, Newcastle and Manchester United in recent years and the internet warriors were doing a lot of sabre rattling while after Roma Boro fans may have been touchy.
Pffsssssstt. So now we need an away goal. Desperately. Riggott heads against the bar. There's some long balls forward but no real sustaine pressure and none of the incisive movement in and the box we saw against Bolton. Come on Mac, get the Yak on.
Ouch! The Mad Dog has been crunched again. It looked nasty with Pogo down on the deck doing the dead`fly with blood gushing out of his face. I thought his stitches had come out but it turns out to be a badly broken nose. Just what he needs. This week has ruined his pretty boy pin-up looks. He goes of and last week's bloody hero Ugo comes on. A like for like switch.
COME ON! I'm getting tense now. The Yak hasn't had a look in. We haven't hurt them at all. I wish Terry Butcher would shut up. Ugo has a good header saved on the line. All my nails have gone and I've started on the wife's now. Comeoooooon. Pffssssssssstt.
That's it. Game over. Gutted. The camera pans on the crowd and whle I'm looking among the generous clapper for anyone I know the lens lingers briefly on a furious gadgie in a beanie hat. Now, I'm no lip reader but I'd say he was directing a colourful barrage of invective peppered with obscenities and angry gesticulaion - and I'd guess it was aimed at McClaren.
It underlines that the entire season rests on a knife-edge. Salvaging something in the second leg and victory in the replay against Charlton can keep the season bubbling. Defeat in those games and the boo-boys will be back in force for th erecriminations.
But the adventure is not over. We can get three at the Riverside. We could sill be making preparations for Bucharest. Vlad Day At The Office. Drac To Basics. Now, what do they drink in Romania. Pffssssst.
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