Champions League Final 2021: The European Super League Non-Committed Members Final

Caught the Champions League final yesterday, as I always do, and I've been thinking about the narratives I could take from it. There were a few, the most obvious one being the fact mentioned in the title, which is that Chelsea and Manchester City were the first two members of the mooted European Super League to pull out when everyone got all up in arms about it.

I think the most interesting one, though, is the fact that this is the eighth final overall that was contested between two teams from the same country. If you narrow it down to the current era of Big 4 dominance (the big 4 being Spain, England, Germany and Italy), it's the sixth time this has happened since 2004, which was the last final in which a Big 4 team wasn't involved. It's also the third all-English final, compared with two all-Spanish finals in the same period (Real Madrid v Atletico Madrid in 2014 and 2016), and one all-German final (Bayern Munich v Borussia Dortmund in 2013). Prior to 2004 there were just two such finals, in 2000 (Real Madrid v Valencia) and 2003 (Milan v Juventus).

This has been my hobbyhorse for a few years now (or you could say for as long as I've had this blog), but I find that the increasing weight given to the Big 4 countries has distorted the competition in unfortunate ways. I understand the argument that viewers would rather see the stars of Madrid and Barcelona in the final, than Partizan Belgrade vs Benfica, to pull two teams out at random. Indeed, this was the reasoning behind the ESL, and the reason why I think that idea hasn't been killed off completely.

On the other hand, European games between teams from the same country are frequently less than stellar - the most recent example being the 2019 final, when Liverpool beat Spurs 2-0. This is just like when the biggest teams play one another in the league: they play more conservatively because they'd rather avoid losing than positively go out and win. Yesterday's game is a pretty good example, since there was just one goal, at the end of the first half, and Man City didn't manage any shots on goal after about 20 minutes.

I think this was one of the best arguments against the ESL, incidentally - part of what makes the European cup special is seeing match-ups that you wouldn't get to see normally, like Real Madrid against Manchester United or Barcelona vs Bayern Munich. But even before the ESL these match-ups were becoming commonplace - for instance two of this season's quarterfinals were rematches of the previous two finals (Bayern vs PSG in 2020 and Real vs Liverpool in 2019).

On top of that, the club of winners is growing increasingly rarefied. This may have been Man City's first Champions League final, but it was the third time Chelsea had contested it, and the second time they won. Indeed, Chelsea is the most recent first-time winner, having first won the tournament in 2012; before them the previous first-time winner was Borussia Dortmund, all the way back in 1997. Beyond Dortmund there were three other teams who won it for the first time in 1990s, among whom are Barcelona, and six who won it for the first time in the 1980s.

Of course, the reason it was so much more open then is that the tournament didn't feature so many teams from so few countries. That's also why we've started seeing so many match-ups from a single country - if half the places are already guaranteed to go to the top four teams from each of the top four countries (plus another three from France and two from Russia) then it's actually quite hard for none of the Big 4 to be represented in the final.

The odd thing about this type of match-up is how the teams have placed in their league. Man City won the Premier League pretty handily this season, while Chelsea just squeaked into fourth place on the final day, despite losing to Aston Villa. They notched up 67 points compared with Man City's 86, so it's pretty clear that over the course of the 380 games that made up this EPL season, City were the best team overall. Yet they lost to a team that performed nowhere near as impressively and had to make a mid-season managerial change.

Does that mean that Chelsea are actually better than City? No, even if City were hamstrung by Pep Guardiola overthinking his tactics and playing everyone out of the positions in which they did so well. But it also doesn't mean Chelsea aren't deserving champions, even if they only qualified for this tournament by coming in fourth in last season's EPL.

We can argue the merits of the current Champions League format all we want, but it's maybe a little sobering to think that the fourth-best team in England is better than any of the other champions in Europe. If that's true, then it says something about the gulf in class between the Big 4 leagues and those in the rest of Europe. The ESL wasn't aiming to fix that, but let's also not pretend that the status quo is in any way equitable.

Another Premier League Season Done and Dusted

I don't usually mark the end of the Premier League season, but this has been such a remarkable one that it felt right to note down some thoughts on the final day. You can't argue that anything particularly surprising happened on this last match day, particularly the identities of the top four teams, but given how it's blurred in with last season it's just felt like such a long marathon to get here.

That marathon aspect is the first thing I want to talk about, since the season started late, owing to the long break last season when the pandemic hit. That delay meant the 2019-2020 season ended late, and left us with an abnormally short summer break - the narrative for the players all this season has been the fatigue and risk of injuries caused by not having a proper break over the summer. This all means that the past two seasons have blurred together, so that it's hard to remember that, for example, Bruno Fernandes has now been at Manchester United for about a year and a half, or that Aston Villa stayed up by the skin of their teeth in 2020 (when this season started I honestly thought they'd gone down).

The other reason that 2020 to now has felt like one long slog is that my beloved football podcasts haven't had a break either. When the previous season ended, Football Weekly had a wrap-up episode to talk about what had just happened, and then the following week launched into preparations for the season that was about to start a few weeks hence. I think we might have a similar situation this summer, as the upcoming European Championships mean that Football Weekly and Totally Football won't be taking long breaks to recharge.

As for the winners, it's felt a bit anticlimactic that, after the upheaval of 2020 and all its knock-on effects, the champions should be Manchester City again, for the third time in the last four seasons. This is not to detract from their achievement, since they not only came back from a slow start to win the league by 12 points, but they did it by adapting their tactics to the new circumstances of everybody being exhausted and without their main goalscorer, Sergio Aguero. 

Much was made of how out of sorts the big teams were - for instance, when reigning champions Liverpool lost 7-2 to Aston Villa - but City did well to manage their energy, especially in the nervy last few weeks before they clinched the title. There was a point where City lay 10 points ahead of Manchester United, and the title was likely theirs but not sewn up, and they lost a couple of games, which kept the title race plodding along. At the time it was clear that they could afford to drop points, in order to have their first team fresh for the Champions League (and they're now in the final of that competition, so Guardiola's strategy worked).

It's also interesting that City win this season with the lowest total points for a champion since Leicester won the Premier League in 2015-2016 (86 vs 81). More than indicating that City were out of sorts, I feel that total reflects Guardiola's concession that his team didn't need to win every single game to lock in the title - it's just an interesting contrast to the 2017-2018 season where they steamrolled everything in their path to end the season on a record 100 points.

The final notable aspect of this season was the fallout from the European Super League. Man City was, of course, one of the teams involved, but also one of the first to pull back from those plans. That short summer break between seasons likely cut into the top clubs' income by not allowing them their traditional off-season tours of foreign markets, and that lack of money is what precipitated the ESL announcement. Luckily, fan voices made themselves heard in this case, and the plan lasted less than a week, but it would have been an even better repudiation of the ESL if Leicester had managed to beat Tottenham today and get into the Champions League places - especially given that the ESL was a clear response to Leicester's unexpected title triumph in 2015-2016.

In any case, this season's now been consigned to the history books. I'm looking forward to a little break from the weekly football grind, when I'll be watching Euro 2020 daily. But mostly I'm hoping for a more successful fantasy league season in 2021-22, as this one was roundly disappointing.

Spoiler-Filled Thoughts on Ted Lasso

Just finished watching Ted Lasso the other day, and I'm left with The Feels, to a certain extent. I'll be talking about plot points from all over Season 1, so consider this your spoiler warning for anything after the break:

Life, the Universe and Everything

Turned 42 today, so according to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I know the answer to life, the universe and everything, which is of course, 42.

Only problem is, now I still have to figure out the question. I'm reasonably sure it's neither "How many roads must a man walk down" nor "what's six times seven", but I suppose scientific rigor suggests that I not rule them out without thorough investigation.

That said, if anyone has figured this out, please leave a comment below with your insights. I'm sure the rest of us would be grateful.

What Next for Jose Mourinho?

Well, I clearly picked the wrong big piece of football news to write about last week. At the very least, if I'd waited 24 hours I could have dissected why the European Super League collapsed (or rather, repeated everything that I heard on the football podcasts for the next few days).

Instead we're left with the actual big news, which is that Jose Mourinho got sacked by Spurs, in a continuation of the trends from his late-period career. Who couldn't have foreseen this when the team unveiled him less than two years ago? His time at Manchester United was still alarmingly fresh in mind, and there was no reason to expect anything different here.

It's interesting the extent to which he's become the Premier League's greatest villain, but then, among the elite coaches he's probably the one that shows the most personality. Ole Gunnar Solskjær is this genial presence that was previously a little creepy in his devotion to Alex Ferguson's legacy; Jürgen Klopp makes the odd reference to heavy metal music and "this means more", whatever that means; Pep Guardiola is the tactics-obsessed nerd; and both Mikel Arteta and Thomas Tuchel are probably too new to have carved a niche for themselves (though who really thinks they'll come out with the types of zingers that Mourinho used to?)

No, this bunch is too nerdy to really go for the good wars of words that Mourinho used to have with the likes of Arsène Wenger, Rafael Benitez and Alex Ferguson (though of those three only Ferguson is notable for his own mind games and zingers). Who, for example, can forget when Mourinho suggested that Benitez's wife should look to her husband's diet instead of criticizing Mourinho?

Though it must also be said that the Mourinho we saw at Spurs, Man United and even the second time at Chelsea is not that same man as years earlier. Back then, he was fun to hate, because his teams won stuff - but as time has gone by all he's done is turn his negative energies on his own players. He alienated Eden Hazard at Chelsea, Paul Pogba at United and Dele Alli at Spurs, among others. At least for those first two he actually won some trophies - but now when's that going to happen again?

I can't say I entirely miss him when he's gone, but I am curious to see what he ends up doing next. It feels like he's burned his bridges with the elite teams of England (and there aren't any openings anyway), and with Real Madrid, so it'd be interesting if he popped up in Italy again... though again, it's hard to see who might take him. Maybe Napoli? I think I would be disappointed if he ended up at Wolves (though that would be hilarious if Nuno Espirito Santo swapped with him and took over at Spurs), or any of the other also-rans that rarely get into Europe.

The other question is, who will replace him at Spurs? Or indeed will want to? I don't know if there's a legendary ex-player that they could hire, or a German tactical genius - or they could split the difference and get Jürgen Klinsmann. Though if he paired up with Joachim Löw again, they might be on to something...

European Super League or Mourinho's sacking: one problem at a time, please

Well, heck. That was a big day in the world of football, eh?

Not only did a bunch of the biggest and most successful clubs come out with their plans to form a breakaway, closed-shop competition, but one of those teams, Tottenham Hotspur, sacked their manager Jose Mourinho. Today I'll be talking about the European Super League idea, but only because I can only take on one earth-shattering topic per post. Still, it'll come up again at some point in this post, if fleetingly.

So the clubs involved are Spanish (Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Real Madrid), Italian (AC Milan, Inter, Juventus) and English (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Spurs). For the most part, they're the most successful and storied clubs in their respective countries, and in the case of Real Madrid, the most successful club in European competition. Though this doesn't mean they're winning trophies all the time - Manchester United's last Premier League title was 2013, Arsenal's was 2004 and Spurs last won it in 1961. Neither Inter nor Milan have won Serie A in about 9 years, because of Juve's dominance, and Atletico Madrid last won La Liga in 2014.

They've won other stuff since then, but this is the first thing that's come up in a bunch of the commentary I've listened to or read today: Arsenal currently sit ninth in the Premier League, having struggled to land a 1-1 draw with local rivals Fulham, who are in 18th place and headed for relegation. Juve, meanwhile, lost 1-0 to Atalanta, one of the upstart clubs this European Super League idea is meant to exclude (fun fact: in a weekend rife with goals, Juventus were apparently the only team in Serie A not score a goal), and lie fourth.

The other thing that everyone mentions is how hard-hit these clubs have been by the coronavirus pandemic, being a billion dollars or so in the hole as a result of lost revenue from postponed matches, and from not admitting fans for over a year. The ESA aims to create a closed shop, or cartel, if you like, where participants will be guaranteed a certain amount of money each season, regardless of position or performance. They'd (presumably) have more control over TV rights deals, and would aim to leverage their worldwide fanbases to command more merchandising and ticket receipts.

I've been pretty much glued to the internet all day, and I've taken the unprecedented step of downloading both the Guardian Football Weekly and Totally Football podcasts, to get as much information as possible. The common reaction is revulsion at the money-grabbing air of this announcement, and at the "Americanization" of football. I don't disagree with either of these viewpoints, but I fear the good pundits of Britain are relying on emotional arguments that won't really register with the owners of the ESA clubs.

Reactions have talked about the meritocracy of football, and the theoretical ability of any club, no matter how humble, to rise up to the top tier and challenge in Europe. This is the dream I pursue every time I play FIFA on my PS3 or Switch, by guiding Southend United from the doldrums at the bottom of League 2 to the pinnacle of the Champions League. But in practical terms, the ability of Forest Green or Dulwich Hamlets or even Leicester to come from nowhere and win the Premier League does nothing for the coffers of Manchester City, or United.

(Though it should be noted that United's coffers are full enough, thanks to their sponsorship deals, such that actually winning the league feels incidental to the business of drumming up more business)

Another talking point that often comes up in discussions of the ESA is that one of those teams has to take home the wooden spoon - would Juventus, who has dominated nine seasons of Serie A but won exactly no Champions League titles, be content with that?

To which I point out that, with the money they'd be pulling down and the guarantee of continued participation in the ESA, they don't really give a crap. This is the point of a US-style league - the clubs control everything and the earnings are shared out in a more egalitarian manner than they are in the meritocratic European-style leagues.

The other big one is the reaction of the fans, and here again I fear that the pundits and critics of the ESA plan are missing a trick. For one thing, Jonathan Wilson implied on today's Football Weekly that NFL fans don't have as much connection to their teams as English fans do to their clubs. Except that people can and do swear lifelong allegiances to an NFL team, and on top of that the Green Bay Packers are actually owned by their fans - an ownership model that doesn't exist at the top level in England.

I also suspect they're wrong, or at least overly optimistic, about the fans' commitment in England. Soccernomics, by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski, argued that fans are much more casual than the popular perception holds - allegiances change over time, in line with performance on the field and other factors, so that for example die hard Chelsea fans are dwarfed by those who might have supported another club before Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea two decades ago. 

Kuper and Szymanski also suggest that leagues dominated by one or two teams, like Spain, actually see more attendance than supposedly egalitarian leagues, because fans of other teams turn up in greater numbers when Real or Barcelona come to town. This suggests that the ESA's clubs are (probably correctly) banking on the excitement of regular heavyweight matchups to draw eyeballs - after all the group stage of the Champions League draws almost no viewers, but the knockout stage (dominated by the big four leagues of Spain, England, Germany and to a lesser extent Italy) is what draws viewers.

My point here is that, while I would prefer for football to become more egalitarian rather than less, it feels like any proposed sanction against the ESA clubs will lack teeth. If they get expelled from UEFA competitions, then their own super league will keep them going nicely. If their players are banned from the World Cup and other international duties, then the clubs will be delighted, because their most important asset won't be exhausted and at risk of injury.

The only thing I can see that might give the ESA clubs pause is the supply of players. It'll probably be easy for them to snap up the most promising players from around Europe, but there might be ways for FIFA and UEFA to stop players from signing; and from coming back to "regular" football once they leave the ESA clubs.

Personally, I hate the idea, especially when it's clear that the whole point is to remove the romance of a Leicester City escaping relegation one season, winning the Premier League the next, and getting to the knockouts of the Champions League the season after. But it also seems clear that the clubs involved can probably do whatever they want, and even if they lose this round, not only will they claw back more concessions to entrench their power in the existing Champions League, but they'll also trot out the threat of a breakaway league again someday.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

In the years since I've started this blog, I've frequently written an in memoriam piece whenever a pop culture personality died, if they were relevant to me in some way. I talk about my experience of their work, and how it's changed as I've grown, or if there's some other theme that's relevant to them.

In the case of Prince Philip, it's a little different. Not only am I not a fan of the British royal family, but the Duke of Edinburgh himself is a figure that I had little thought for. To the extent that I knew anything about him, it was the line, oft-repeated by the comedy panel shows, that he was given to racist gaffes when speaking in public. I also encountered the storyline in season one of Netflix's the Crown, which implied he was unfaithful to Queen Elizabeth, but that's about it.

I don't have any relationship to Philip as a pop-culture figure, and my perception of him is roughly unchanged since I started paying attention to his existence in about 2002. So why am I writing about him? I suppose it's because it hit me that his death brings us closer to the day that Elizabeth herself passes away, and the undiscovered country that will be Britain after her death.

There was a time, back in elementary school, that I found the Windsors interesting. But otherwise, I've always sort of rolled my eyes at coverage of them in the press, especially here in the US. Particularly funny to me is the idea that the British royals are constantly up to some form of shenanigans - Americans think they're constantly partying and sleeping around but the House of Windsor is so media-savvy that they keep a tight lid on any whiff of scandal (Prince Harry dressing up as a Nazi in his early 20s aside).

That said, when you stop and think about it, Elizabeth has been on the throne since 1952, longer than my mother has been alive. She's been married to Philip since 1947, when my father wasn't even a year old. Her reign coincided with the rebuilding of Britain after the Second World War, the cultural reinvigoration of the 60s, the doldrums of the 70s, the Thatcher years, the end of the Cold War, the War on Terrorism, economic collapse (again), nationalism and Brexit. Or to put it another way, there are people who were born after Elizabeth and Philip married, and died of natural causes before he died on Friday. Her reign, and marriage, accounts for a very long slice of history, as these things go.

So I wonder what a post-Elizabeth Britain will look like. Bits and pieces have been coming off since the 1940s, and more are looking like they're about to come off now. Prince Charles doesn't really have the love of the British people that his mother, or first wife, command, though I've also heard some people say good things about his involvement in causes like the environment. There was a time when people talked about skipping over Charles to go straight to Prince William, but he seems less in the public eye (though I appreciate him as a fellow early-baldy).

I see the attraction of converting to a republic, but I also don't find the idea of the monarchy that offensive, since it's a cultural institution that helps tie together the British public and gives them a shared sense of community that's sorely missing here. Britain's politics may be as different now from when she took power as politics in America are from their place in 1952, but the vast majority of Britons alive today were born during her reign, so no matter who lives at Downing Street, that whole country has tuned in at Christmas to hear Elizabeth give the Queen's Speech. 

This continuity matters, even when you have divisions as deep as those between England and Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland, or between London and the rest of England, or between the north and south of England. Scottish talk of independence aside, there's a feeling of community and shared vision in Britain that is sorely lacking here - given that the US looks to be splitting asunder on Democratic/progressive versus Republican/reactionary lines at any moment.

So I read a certain amount of the coverage on Philip last Friday, since it's a reminder that Queen Elizabeth II, this presence that we and our parents have grown up with, is still a mortal person and who one day won't be there anymore. He may have been awful or great, or somewhere in between, but it's a reminder that eventually even the longest reigns come to an end.