The Warm-Up: Liverpool march on, Rooney clocks off

You would expect a really big bear with a limb missing to beat a slightly smaller bear with a limb missing in a fight to the death. Their weapons and weaknesses are essentially the same, but the weight-category discrepancy is key. A gorilla or a cheetah or a rhino might rip the three-limbed bear to shreds, but it’s not going to have much trouble with a smaller version of itself.

And so to Liverpool, an amusingly top-heavy football team, who last night booked a place in the Champions League group stages by beating Hoffenheim, an amusingly top-heavy football team who aren’t quite as good.

The home side were impressive, particularly in the opening 22 minutes, when they scored three times to put the tie to bed. Sadio Mané, Mo Salah, Roberto Firmino and Emre Can cut through the Hoffenheim defence like a deluxe knife collection through butter, with Liverpool’s third especially memorable.

Jürgen Klopp clearly agreed. “THAT’S FOOTBALL!” he hollered on the touchline (t-shirt available from the Liverpool club shop in 3, 2, 1…); “the start of the game was like a thunderstorm,” he swooned at full-time.

There were, though, old failings on view: after a rare clean sheet at the weekend, the defence occasionally looked close to descending into full Chuckle Brothers mode again. They were all at sea when Mark Uth grabbed his second of the tie and Sandro Wagner also got his name on the scoresheet late on.

By that point, of course, the celebrations had already started. But how different things could have been had Hoffenheim taken their chances in Germany, or if Serge Gnabry had been more clinical in the first half at Anfield.

A good outcome for Liverpool, then, but challenges far tougher than this (hall of) mirror match await in the Champions League proper.

A bad fortnight for the Wayne Rooney Global Haters’ Network took a turn for the worse on Wednesday, with the striker’s decision to retire from international football prompting a wave of appreciation to complement the warm, fuzzy feelings generated by his Everton renaissance.

He bowed out with a modest, heartfelt statement and a leaves behind a record that will surely stick around for a while yet: 53 goals in 119 appearances for the Three Lions.

“It is a really tough decision and one I have discussed with my family, my manager at Everton and those closest to me,” wrote the artist formerly known as Wazza.

“Playing for England has always been special to me. Every time I was selected as a player or captain was a real privilege and I thank everyone who helped me. But I believe now is the time to bow out.

“I will always remain a passionate England fan. One of my very few regrets is not to have been part of a successful England tournament side. Hopefully the exciting players Gareth is bringing through can take that ambition further and I hope everyone will get behind the team.

“One day the dream will come true and I look forward to being there as a fan – or in any capacity.”

Do you really mean that “any”, Wayne? Because using the retired Rooney as chief mascot for every single game (just imagine him, walking onto the pitch hand-in-hand with Gary Cahill or whoever) would surely confer the kind of psychological advantage for which England have long been crying out.

Where my upsets at? Well right here, as it happens.

Southampton: OUT of the League Cup after surrendering 2-0 at home to the Jorge Mendes Temporary Pleasure Experience, formerly known as Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Newcastle: OUT of the League Cup as well after playing an entire reserve side and losing to Nottingham Forest in extra time at St James’ Park.

The rest of the Premier League sides kept their nerve, however: Huddersfield snuck past Rotherham, Burnley beat Blackburn in the dangers-of-fire derby, West Ham saw off Cheltenham and a Joe-Allen-inspired Stoke ran riot against Rochdale.

In the next round… well, read the COMING UP section at the bottom to find out why you’re going to have to peruse the fixtures elsewhere on this website.

At the risk of just regurgitating my day on Twitter (AGAIN, RIGHT?), these football/TV look-alikes need to go down in the public record:

Absolutely no explanation necessary here. The Warm-Up could – and will, if Thursday’s work can be postponed – watch this on loop for hours.

(This is also very much reminiscent of David Ospina trying and failing to pronounce the word “share”, which suggests this is some weird Arsenal thing.)

The Warm-Up has been out of the dating game for a while. Things are different now. Scarier.

Back in our day, you’d look to your idols – members of Westlife, Dale Winton, Bodger out of Bodger and Badger – for inspiration, be it in their actions, their haircuts, their words or their masterful way of dealing with mischievous badgers.

Do today’s heroes of screen, song and sport provide a similar service? New evidence suggests that Cristiano Ronaldo does, with his latest social media offering providing a fascinating glimpse inside the mind of one of the great chat-up-line craftsmen of the age. Watch out, ladies and gentlemen of the app-dating scene, because a new gold standard in opening gambits is soon to be crashing its way into your lives.

All together now: “Have you ever related steel to eco-friendly?”

And if you think you’ve seen parts of that unstoppably bizarre video before…

Here’s Rory Smith explaining the thinking behind Manchester City’s new Tunnel Club experience, which was launched on Monday night… and here’s Marina Hyde kneecapping it with customary panache.

By the time you read this, the draw for the next round of the League Cup will have been made. Yes, in the early hours of the morning. Presumably at the request of poor, bumbling John Salako.

Luckily, there is another (and much, much more interesting) draw taking place at a reasonable time. It’s for the Champions League group stages and it takes place at 5pm. It’s being held in Monaco, so we can only assume that the great fictional citadel of Nyon is undergoing repairs this summer.

Later in the evening, Everton continue their Europa League campaign – which already seems to have been going on for decades, frankly – against Hajduk Split. They have a two-goal lead to defend in Croatia.