Monthly Archives: May 2024

Euro 2024 favourites: how England, France, Spain and others are shaping up

Barcelona’s Pau Cubarsi has earned a first senior Spain.
“The last international break before the end of the European club season will give those national teams who fancy their chances of winning Euro 2024 a vital opportunity to try out new players, and maybe swing the axe at a few of the old guard, too. France — World Cup finalists in 2022 — will be looking to finesse a seriously impressive squad, Euro 2020 runners-up England will be plotting to go one better this time around, while tournament masters Germany will be desperate to improve on the disappointments of the last European Championship and World Cup. The Athletic assesses how those teams and the tournament’s other big hitters are shaping up… ”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)

2023–24 Premier League

“The 2023–24 Premier League was the 32nd season of the Premier League and the 125th season of top-flight English football overall. The season began on 11 August 2023, and concluded on 19 May 2024. Manchester City, the defending champions, won their fourth consecutive title, the first men’s team to do so. … All three of the newly promoted teams were relegated (Luton Town, Burnley, and Sheffield United), the first time this happened since the 1997–98 season; those three teams had a combined total of 66 points. Nottingham Forestavoided relegation with 32 points (including a 4 point deduction), a record low for a team to do so. …The new stoppage time rule was used in the league for the first time this season. In an effort to improve clamping down on time-wasting and to improve the accuracy of time added on, stoppage times were longer across matches. The new rule accounted for stoppages due to injuries, goal celebrations, yellow and red cards, and VAR reviews. …”
W – 2023–24 Premier League
Watch: How 2023/24’s FINAL DAY unfolded (Video)

Xabi Alonso’s evolution: How an elite long-range passer turned against long balls

“It’s no exaggeration to suggest that Xabi Alonso’s first full season in management should be considered one of the most impressive campaigns in the history of the European club game. To end Bayern Munich’s 11-year winning run is remarkable in itself. But Alonso took charge of Bayer Leverkusen a couple of months into the 2022-23 season, when they were second-bottom after just eight matches. To oversee such a dramatic turnaround was almost unthinkable in itself — but Alonso’s side have also gone the league season undefeated. On Wednesday, they will contest the Europa League final against Atalanta, and then they are heavy favourites to complete a domestic double in Saturday’s DFB-Pokal final against second-tier strugglers Kaiserslautern. …”
NY Times/The Athletic – Michael Cox
Guardian: Atalanta win Europa League as Lookman hat-trick ends Leverkusen’s unbeaten run – Jonathan Wilson

Lyon, Brest and Lorient light up Ligue 1 on a final day full of drama

“And just like that, another Ligue 1 season has come to an end. The title had long been decided but the final day served up more than its fair share of drama across nine matches. From Lorient’s heroic attempt to avoid automatic relegation to Brest turning in a bravura performance to secure passage to the Champions League via a top-three finish, this was, despite the absence of Kylian Mbappé, a fine advertisement for the quality of the league. Nowhere witnessed more drama than Lyon. After sinking to the bottom of the table in early December, five points adrift of safety, they rallied in the second half of the campaign under Pierre Sage. …”
Guardian

VAR vote: What Premier League fans want their clubs to do

Everton fans have been battling the Premier League most of the season. They’re not alone.
“With five minutes left in his team’s penultimate game of the Premier League season, Manchester City Manager Pep Guardiola found the tension just a little too much. As a rival striker bore down on his team’s goal, Guardiola — crouching on his haunches on the sideline — lost his balance and toppled over onto his back. Lying on the grass and expecting the worst, he missed what may yet prove to be the pivotal moment in the Premier League’s most enthralling title race in a decade. But the striker did not score. His effort was parried by goalkeeper Stefan Ortega, sending Manchester City above its title rival Arsenal in the standings and positioning it, if it can win again on Sunday, to become the first English team to win four consecutive championships. …”
NY Times
The Athletic – VAR vote: What Premier League fans want their clubs to do
Guardian – Two points in it: the fine margins that could haunt Arsenal in title battle
W – Video assistant referee: Criticism

Anthony Gordon scores the controversial goal for Newcastle that condemned Arsenal to defeat in November.

Scandal Brought Reforms to Soccer. Its Leaders Are Rolling Them Back.

Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, center, in Washington in April. He has overseen the weakening of changes he championed as a candidate for the position.
“The 12-page report was intended to save soccer’s governing body, FIFA, in its moment of existential crisis. Filled with reform proposals and drawn up by more than a dozen soccer insiders in December 2015, the report was FIFA’s best chance to show business partners, U.S. investigators and billions of fans that it could be trusted again after one of the biggest corruption scandals in sports history. In bullet points and numbered sections, the report championed high-minded ideas like accountability and humility. It also proposed concrete and, for FIFA, revolutionary changes: transparency in how major decisions were reached; term limits for top leaders and new limits on presidential power; and the abolition of well-funded committees widely viewed as a system of institutional graft. And there on the report’s final page, deep down a list of its authors, was the name of the man positioning himself as FIFA’s savior: Gianni Infantino. …”
NY Times

The Real Jurgen Klopp, part 1: The ‘normal guy from the Black Forest’

“After almost nine years in charge and seven major trophies, Jurgen Klopp is leaving Liverpool. He has been one of the most transformative managers in the club’s history and in English football’s modern era. To mark his departure, The Athletic is bringing you The Real Jurgen Klopp, a series of pieces building the definitive portrait of one of football’s most famous figures. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)

Fluid poetry has beaten brutality in the battle for football’s evolution

The 1970 FA Cup final replay was a dirty affair. Here, Alan Clarke (left) of Leeds United takes a shot while Chelsea defenders Ron Harris (left) and Dave Webb approach, as the sides take time out from kicking one another.
“I recently watched a recording of the 1970 FA Cup final replay with my 12-year-old son. You can find the match by searching for ‘football’s most brutal game’. I was attempting to show him how football has ‘evolved’ and it made me smile that the first thing you see in the BBC coverage is an upfront trigger warning that ‘some viewers might find the video disturbing’. That in itself tells us how much society has changed over the past 50 years, before you see the Leeds manager, Don Revie, smoking a cigar in the dugout while Leeds and Chelsea play out a game that today looks like a combination of football and mixed martial arts. …”
Guardian

Geopolitics comes to Vitesse: how ‘Chelsea B’ were swallowed by Abramovich associates

Fans of the Eredivisie club hoped takeovers would transform their fortunes, but instead they face an existential threat to their future
“Vitesse Arnhem are a cautionary tale. At first glance, it is possible to fall into the trap of thinking that they hit the jackpot 14 years ago. Vitesse, a Dutch club with little history of success, had their identity transformed after a takeover led by the Georgian former footballer Merab Jordania. Allegations of links between Jordania and Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch and former owner of Chelsea Football Club, were always denied. Vitesse, whose highest finish in the Eredivisie was third in 1998, trundled along. …”
Guardian
Guardian: Abramovich loans fund owner of Dutch football club, leaked documents suggest

Manchester United 0 Arsenal 1: Title race still alive, Trossard key again, Casemiro blunder

“Arsenal beat Manchester United 1-0 at Old Trafford to return to the top of the Premier League, with just one match remaining for Mikel Arteta’s side this season. Leandro Trossard scored the all-important goal from close range following Kai Havertz’s pass. It now means the title race will go to the final day with Manchester City — who are a point behind Arsenal on 85 — playing their game in hand against Tottenham Hotspur on Tuesday. …”
The Athletic

Biscuit Town to mega-towers: Millwall win modern land battle in Bermondsey

‘Millwall FC is another part of Bermondsey’s history that will, as of this week, get to remain in place while the neighbourhood is repackaged around it.’
“The club has been awarded a 999-year lease on the Den and its surrounds, bringing down the curtain on a fraught few years. Bermondsey has always been a fluid, ever-changing kind of place, shoved up into a bend of the Thames, surrounded on all sides but also oddly isolated. For hundreds of years that whole strip of land south of the city was an interlude of leisure and licentiousness. In his biography of London Peter Ackroyd mentions ‘bear pits, stew-houses and pleasure gardens’, plus a flourishing grassroots industry of cutpurses and dandy highwaymen, a place where ‘flashy women come out to take leave of thieves at dusk and wish them luck’. …”
Guardian

Sassuolo shock champions Inter again but Serie A relegation still beckons

“This was one of those results that felt like an instant piece of sports trivia, future material for the writers of football-themed pub quizzes. “In 2023-24, Inter won their 20th league title with a dominant league campaign in which they only lost two games. Which opponents beat them?” A trick question, as both defeats were to the same team. And an unlikely answer: Sassuolo, who are on course for relegation. We might be getting ahead of ourselves. There are still three games left in this Serie A campaign, time enough for Internazionale to lose again, or Sassuolo to steer themselves to safety. …”
Guardian

Dortmund’s famous win vs Paris Saint-Germain was built on both luck and judgement

“There’s a tendency to frame football matches in black and white: the winners got it right, the losers weren’t up to the task. But the reality is usually somewhere in between — an individual mistake here, or a shot that hits the post and stays out there, moments that can change the game state and momentum. More often than not, the 90 minutes and more played on the pitch are a shade of grey, and Borussia Dortmund’s 1-0 away win against Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday to take them into next month’s Champions League final, 2-0 on aggregate, was the perfect example of that. …”
The Athletic

Real Madrid 2 Bayern Munich 1: Real off to Wembley after yet another extraordinary turnaround – The Briefing

“The right to face Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League final at Wembley on June 1 was the mighty prize on offer on Wednesday evening as Real Madrid took on Bayern Munich. 2-2 from the first leg, this encounter between two of Europe’s most relentlessly successful clubs was finely poised — and it showed in a cagey first half where the two goalkeepers dealt expertly with the few decent chances that were created. The closest either team came to scoring was a Vinicius Junior shot after 13 minutes that was touched onto the Bayern post by Manuel Neuer. …”
The Athletic

How to win a Premier League penalty: A deep dive into the best masters of the dark arts

“Arsenal are still level with Bournemouth after 41 minutes and are getting frustrated. They need a win to keep the pressure on Manchester City, who play Wolverhampton Wanderers later that day, in the battle for the Premier League title. Kai Havertz has made a career of finding pockets of space and does so again, gliding into the penalty area to meet Martin Odegaard’s through ball. He uses the outside of his left boot to flick the ball away from onrushing goalkeeper Mark Travers — before keeping that foot down on the turf, elongating it towards the floor like a ballerina performing an axel turn. Travers cannot avoid it and makes contact. …”
The Athletic (Video)

On Queens Soccer Fields, Immigrants Find Each Other and a Sense of Home

“Ender Mora arrived at the soccer field in Flushing Meadows Corona Park one Sunday afternoon with a couple of new Venezuelan friends who had gotten off a bus at Port Authority four hours earlier, after a journey from the Texas border. The two 20-year-olds had no socks, wore only thin jackets and looked confused and exhausted. While waiting for his turn on the field, Mr. Mora, wearing his soccer uniform, busied himself bringing them bottles of water, sandwiches and warmer coats. … For decades, the field in Corona, Queens, in the shadow of the borough landmark the Unisphere, has been home to numerous soccer leagues of mostly Latin American immigrants. The teams are loosely organized around national identity. The latest team to join their ranks, called La Vinotinto, is all Venezuelans. …”
NY Times

Why progressive actions are football’s most important metrics

“Every sport needs a currency, some basic stat to keep track of the important stuff that happens along the way to scoring and winning. A good currency should be easy to count and have an obvious relationship to the point of the game. … Progressive actions are not advanced metrics. You can see them with your eyes instead of a statistical model. If you got bored enough, you could sit in the stadium and tally them up with a Sharpie on some accommodating seat-mate’s bald head. But simple as they are, progressive actions are fundamental to how the game works and can give you a pretty good idea of which teams and players are good at it. …”
The Athletic

Echoes of errors: why has VAR sparked so much fury this season?

“Seven months ago Englandthe country came the closest yet to entering thermonuclear war over a refereeing decision. When the referee Simon Hooper mistakenly ruled out a Luis Díaz goal at Tottenham for offside and the video assistant referee Darren England failed to correct him, the initial response was heated and only bubbled up from there. … The next morning, Liverpool released a statement arguing ‘sporting integrity had been undermined’ the supporters’ group Spirit of Shankly said that ‘VAR and PGMOL are not fit for purpose’ and the club’s former striker John Aldridge alleged corruption. …”
Guardian

Liverpool have run out of steam. But Klopp’s legacy is already cemented

“And so there will be no glorious farewell for Jürgen Klopp. Saturday’s 2-2 draw with West Ham, coupled with victories for Manchester City and Arsenal, means any realistic hope of a second Premier League title is effectively over. Klopp is exhausted, his team is exhausted and the manic emotional energy that gripped the side during the League Cup final and immediately after has dissipated. …”
Guardian – Jonathan Wilson
The Athletic – Liverpool squad audit: Who could be the winners and losers under Slot?

How Inter Milan Returned to the Top of Italian Football Under Simone Inzaghi

“In the summer of 1999, Simone Inzaghi left boyhood club Piacenza and joined Lazio, where he would enjoy a fruitful first season by winning the Coppa Italia as well as their first Scudetto in 26 years (and their last to date). He would spend the following decade at the Biancocelesti before hanging up his boots, quickly transitioning into coaching with Lazio’s youth sides and eventually taking the reins as Lazio manager following Stefano Pioli’s sacking. Inzaghi’s interim spell in charge would last just a couple of months, but after his replacement Marcelo Bielsa walked away after less than a week at the helm, the Italian became the club’s permanent manager. Over the next five years, Inzaghi would lead Lazio to two trips to the Coppa Italia Final, winning the 2018/19 edition and coming away with the Supercoppa Italiana on two occasions. …”
Breaking the Lines
W – Simone Inzaghi

How Football Made the Working Class

8th April 1950: Boys playing football in a residential street in London.
“… In A People’s History of Football, French climate journalist and Le Monde diplomatique correspondent Mickaël Correia argues that things have not always been this way — or at least not to such a grotesquely indefensible extent. The world’s most popular sport has an alternative, ‘antiestablishment’ history, which Correia seeks to uncover and defend. Though he dwells on the ‘subversive aspect’ of football, Correia is hardly a romantic. ‘Globalized football,’ he reminds us in the very opening of the book, ‘has become . . . the very embodiment of unbridled capitalism’s worst excesses.’ …”
Jacobin
amazon: A People’s History of Soccer

The French clubs being bought – and distorted – by Premier League teams

“The message from the Tribune Ouest, home of the self-styled Ultra Boys 90, is loud and clear. Half an hour into Racing Strasbourg’s home game against OGC Nice, a huge banner is unfurled: ‘Non a la multipropriete”’(‘No to multi-ownership’). One of the Ultra Boys, Strasbourg’s most vocal supporters, grabs a megaphone and issues an impassioned diatribe against multi-club ownership — his message reverberating all over the Stade de la Meinau as the match is going on. …”
The Athletic (Video)