If you’ve ever played on a 4G pitch, then you’ll know they’re a bit of a nightmare. Small black rubber pellets get stuck in every orifice and will proceed to appear everywhere you go for at least two months after the match.Your knees and ankles start to ache after a while trudging around on what is essentially spongy concrete, and carpet burns await anyone brave (or stupid) enough to attempt a slide tackle.As mammoth as the skill difference between us mere Sunday league players and professional footballers is, they still faced the very same problems.Rather than rubber bits appearing in a Corsa, they’ll bounce around a Bentley, rather than shoving frozen peas on their joints and taking paracetamol, they have an army of physios at their disposal, and so on and so forth.

Manchester United played their Group L clash on what can be only be described as the most Europa League-looking thing we’ve ever laid our eyes upon - a scruffy artificial pitch.

Admittedly, we weren’t anticipating fireworks from a United side who barely scraped past Rochdale on their beautifully kept heated turf at Old Trafford, but the drab 0-0 draw may be a little more palatable after De Telegraff journalist Marcel van der Kraan explained just how awful the AZ Alkmaar pitch truly is…