The clock is loud in Nyon. By 18 November, anyone who wants to stand against Gianni Infantino in March must say so, and Uefa and its allies are sprinting to name a challenger, possibly as early as next week. The mood has shifted from gloom to cautious confidence. Talks with potential candidates have gathered pace, even after a bruising setback: Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa, president of the Asian Football Confederation, did a surprise U-turn and endorsed Infantino's bid for a fourth term.

Once a name is settled, it will go to Uefa's executive committee and then to an online meeting of the continent's football association heads. Yet the plan is to delay any announcement until the last possible moment, mainly to deny Fifa the chance of a "dirty tricks" campaign against the nominee. The obvious name, Arsène Wenger, looks like a mirage. Admired in parts of Europe as a unity candidate, he is not believed to be seriously in the picture.

This week he was in Azerbaijan, praising the Fifa Under-15 World Cup, a tournament run by the very organisation he would be challenging. The arithmetic is brutal. A rival would need 106 votes, which means prising away backing in Asia, Concacaf and Africa while holding Europe together in a secret ballot, where loyalty cannot be taken for granted. Some insiders therefore favour a mass boycott of the vote in Rabat instead.