GET YOUR SPAIN END-OF-ERA BINGO CARDS AT THE READY

Slovakia is no place to grind to a halt in October. One day the Fiver promises to bore you with a tale about being stranded at a motorway petrol station many miles north-east of Bratislava in the middle of a long, dark autumn night of the soul back in our days of roaming free from the hovel but … well, that’s actually the tale. Somebody picked us up in the end – and it’s Spain who need a similar service this time around. An era has ended. Again. Just as it did three months ago. And last night, anyone with a Spain end-of-era bingo card would have found themselves rolling in [Fiver grasps for exotic yet relevant currency denomination before remembering Slovakia is in the eurozone] euros. Sixty-six per cent possession! An Iker Casillas howler! Diego Costa taking ‘False 9’ too literally! Vicente del Clouseau looking morose – or happy – it’s impossible to tell!

The veteran detective’s side should have won the game, in fairness, and looked as if they would until being caught by what is known only in football as a sucker punch. “I don’t think we’re on a bad run,” he averred afterwards. Four defeats in six say otherwise but, yes, one man’s Euromeat is another’s Europoison because all that last night’s game really did was increase the likelihood that Spain and Slovakia meet again in France 20 months from now. When Michel Platini had his Definitely A Good Idea to expand the European Championship, this was what he had in mind – bringing the big and the not-so-big closer together without putting any noses out of joint. Spain’s has been bloodied but they won’t be slipping from the consciousness any time soon, the only real tension in their qualifying campaign being in wondering how long this has delayed the inevitable.

The Euro 2016 qualifiers are for the Slovakias, the Hungarys, the Bulgarias, the Finlands and (hides) the Scotlands, all of whom will win and lose against each other with maddening inconsistency while claiming the odd scalp. It will make for some pleasing battles for third place – a play-off passport for all but one – and four years ago such a finish would comfortably have allowed you three defeats. Everyone has some cake now, but the way in which the threshold between success and failure has been redrawn makes us question exactly how we should define either. It’s not how you do, it’s whose criteria tell you how you’ve done. It’s the footballing equivalent of an arbitrary, vainly constructed colonial border drawn up over a sweat-inducing Victorian dinner on a 19th century map.

So while it’s probable that Del Clouseau was deliberately yielding little last night, perhaps he is right. Perhaps a bad run is when you don’t qualify and when you haven’t just beaten Macedonia – now perfectly capable of facing you down in the summer of ‘16 – by five goals to one. Who knows? Spain certainly need some surgery, excellent as Slovakia were, and it feels a little strange that it won’t make a difference to their fate over the next year and a half. There is a sense that we’re all being dragged up or down to each other’s level; whatever the quality of the vehicle that picks Spain up from their mishap in Zilina, it’ll have plenty of time to splutter home.

LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE TONIGHT

Nick Ames is in the Euro 2016 qualifier hot seat tonight. Keep him company from 7.45pm BST.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“[Let’s have] a conversation just to see where they want to go with things. I think something has got to be offered for me to really think about it. I have got so much to offer” – it never rains but it pours for the Tories. Now Sol Campbell wants to clamber aboard.

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FIVER LETTERS

“All this Roy Keane Perma-Fury (Fiver passim) is tremendously entertaining but one does wonder why he’s so angry about every single thing he encounters in life. It made me think of another furious Irishman: Taffin. Now imagine the pay-off from each of Roy’s anecdotes delivered like that. The Ferg stuff. The Robbie Savage line. Everything Roy says, I imagine, is roared out like this” – Robert Young.

“May I be the first of 1,057 Skittles vodka pedants to express concern at Olcan Shaw’s brewing methods (yesterday’s Fiver letters). The ‘huge head of foam’ he refers to is pure vegetable fat from the Skittles, which cannot dissolve in alcohol. The correct harvesting process is to separate the colours, funnel each colour-group into its own bottle of (low-grade) vodka and leave for 10 days. Then run the contents of each bottle through a sieve lined with kitchen roll to remove the vegetable fat, capturing the infused vodka in a measuring jug. Voila. Taste the shamebow” – Jamie Harper (and 1,056 other Skittles vodka pedants).

“I liked the story about Gheorghe Hagi’s protest by only watching Romania on TV (yesterday’s Bits and Bobs). I must be protesting against England, along with all the others who only watch England on TV. It’s nice I can relate to a footballing legend” – Bryan Fettz.

Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is: Robert Young.

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BITS AND BOBS

Former Bosnia-Herzegovina keeper Romeo Mitrovic is in hot water after introducing a referee to Jack Johnson and Tom O’Leary during the second-tier game between Buducnosti and Banovica. The reason? For daring to book him.

Luis Suárez has arranged to fly out Kenny Dalglish to present him with the European Golden Chew … sorry, Shoe, after failing to persuade organisers to have their grand shindig at Anfield. Here’s hoping there’s a dress code.

Swiss club Sion are in a bit of a pickle after offering visiting supporters cheese in a bid to cut down on crowd trouble. Think there’s a hole or two in this idea … Not all fans have allowed themselves to be won by the gourmet offensive of local white wine and grilled raclette, with St Gallen and Luzern visitors setting off flares and Basel supporters flying a banner, saying: “We won’t allow ourselves to be bought.”

A film about Ghana’s row over World Cup bonuses – which led the government to fly £1.75m to the squad in Brazil – is in the early stages of production. “I saw footage of the police cars taking the money on the highway and you can just see that scene playing out in your mind with someone like Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson as the guy having to save the day,” USA! USA!! USA!!!ed writer Darryl Wharton-Rigby in spectacular missing-the-point style. “You can see all kinds of mayhem happening on the highway.”

Belarus police detained scores of Ukrainian and Belarussian fans who chanted abuse against Russian president Vladimir Putin at last night’s Euro 2016 qualifier in Borisov. “Three have been released, 12 are appearing in court. They are accused of sticking up posters,” claimed a foreign ministry spokesman in Kiev.

Another day, another pop. Roy Keane has now windmilled in the general direction of José Mourinho for trying to shake hands with the Aston Villa bench while Chelsea’s recent 3-0 win was still going on. “You wouldn’t do that on a Sunday morning, you would get knocked out,” he Taffined. “I’ve seen him doing it to other managers; it is a disgrace.”

Brazil and Argentina are in Beijing for a friendly, but high levels of smog in the city are likely to hamper tomorrow’s game. “It’s difficult to breathe. My throat is dry, it’s like we’re standing next to a bonfire, like hot smoke,” wheezed Robinho, before David Luiz added: “The Chinese people don’t deserve to live like this.”

And Wesley Sneijder has revealed that Galatasaray have failed to pay his wages in recent months. “It’s true that I did not get the money,” he parped. “[They] are working hard to sort their financial situation.”

RECOMMENDED LISTENING

If you missed it yesterday, here’s the latest edition of Football Weekly Extraaaaaaaaa.

STILL WANT MORE?

Need an article with loads of delicious hyperlinks of players doing rabonas to while away the last few hours of your working week. Here’s Jacob Steinberg’s Joy of Six. You’re welcome.

Jacob’s been busy: he here is having a chat with the very excellent Casey Stoney.

Archie Bland dissects the relationship between Roy Keane and his ghostwriter/Chelsea fan/Booker prizewinning novelist Roddy Doyle.

Nostalgia’s Amy Lawrence on why the faded glories of Serie A might be making a return in the near-ish future.

Landon Donovan might be done as a USA! USA!! USA!!! player, but may yet make his mark on the game there. Watch out Jürgen Klinsmann, warns Graham Parker.

More hot chat from across the pond: Paolo Bandini plots the path Thierry Henry and Jermain Defoe have taken from north london to North America as the two prepare to meet with an MLS play-off place at stake.

Oh, and if it’s your thing, you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.

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COULD DEFINITELY HAVE DONE WITHOUT KNOWING ABOUT TWISTY THE CLOWN