Some Manchester United fans travelling to Bucharest via Frankfurt on Wednesday morning were surprised to find they were sharing the second leg of the journey with Germany's national rugby team.
The unheralded part-timers are in action in Bucharest on Friday, taking on Romania at the Rugby Europe Championship. The Six Nations kicks off this weekend and dominates the rugby landscape. The second-tier tournament isn't just shadowed by weekend action in Paris, Edinburgh and Dublin. It is almost invisible by contrast.
The United squad that landed at the city's Henri Coanda International Airport around eight hours later don't have much in common with the German rugby team, apart from a spot in their sport's B-grade European competition. German rugby is punching at its weight, but United know they should really have been part of the fun in the Champions League last night.
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The Europa League isn't as out of sight as the Rugby Europe Championship. It's still a big(ish) deal. The prize for winning it also includes promotion and for Ruben Amorim and his squad, that has to be the target for the rest of this season.
Sunday's scrappy Premier League win at Fulham all but made sure United won't be dragged into a relegation battle, a sentence nobody expected to be writing at the start of the season. But they are 12th in the league, and even with the bonus of fifth place looking set fair for the Champions League, it is a pipe dream given they are a dozen points adrift of Newcastle in that position.
Any kind of European football next season looks out of reach in the league. That's what happens when you get to the end of January without stringing together two successive Premier League victories. So if United fans are to need those passports next season, then it all comes down to the Europa League or the FA Cup.
It is the European competition that will be easier to win. United should beat Leicester City for a third time this season to reach the FA Cup fifth round, but Liverpool and Manchester City could still lie in wait on the route to Wembley, not to mention Chelsea, Newcastle, Aston Villa and even Nottingham Forest, Brighton and Bournemouth.
In the Europa League, United share favouritism for the competition with Tottenham. It is probably inspiration for the rest of Europe that the oddsmakers’ rank the teams 12th and 15th in the Premier League as more likely to lift the trophy than Athletic Bilbao, Lazio, Roma, Real Sociedad, Lyon and Galatasaray, but it shows the power of England's domestic league.
There is also the sense that, at some point, the Amorim project will click into gear. That his 3-4-2-1 system will begin to bed in, Patrick Dorgu will offer vital width on the left, and the penny will drop with Rasmus Hojlund or Joshua Zirkzee. To that end, getting the point required against FCSB to secure a top-eight finish and avoid a two-legged February play-off is vital. Those free weeks will be essential for Amorim at Carrington.
The value of securing European football goes beyond the status it offers. It makes the club a more appealing prospect to players but perhaps most importantly, it solidifies Sir Jim Ratcliffe's business plan. The 72-year-old billionaire has become an unpopular figure after inheriting a financial mess at Old Trafford, and as deep and as unpopular as his cuts get, only the millions on offer from the Champions League can eventually get the balance sheet back in the red.
Amorim will know that, too. His first transfer window has been a stressful, difficult experience. With five days to go, only one player has left, and the first arrival is only set to be confirmed this week. The 40-year-old needed more than that.
United will seek to do most of the business in the summer, but without the Champions League riches, that will be difficult. It could be more square pegs in round holes.
That's why it's time to shift priorities. With a fair headwind, maybe United will finish eighth or ninth this season, but really, that is no different from 12th or 13th. What will really shift the dial is Champions League football.
It's been a stuttering Europa League campaign so far, but in one of Europe's cheapest major cities, where the Mancunian pound goes a long way, United can kickstart their ascent back to the top table.
