⚽︎Friday, October 13: The Tottenham Title Delusion
Plus: Ex-FIFA chief Sepp Blatter skewers the 2030 World Cup plan.
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It’s already another international break, the second of the season after eight league games. There’ll be yet another window next month. It’s not just a disruption to the club season for—in some cases—exhibition matches. Top-level players have been asked to play an astonishing number of minutes over the last two years and it is becoming unsustainable.
“The players are getting paid well, but it should never come at the cost of our health,” Liverpool centerback Virgil Van Dijk said this week. “We keep having to play more and more games. We as players should start saying something about it, contribute to a solution.” He was blasting the fixture congestion in English football, but how about we nix one of these international windows so the club matches can be spread out more?
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THE HEADLINES
— Gianni Infantino’s predecessor as FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, has skewered the plan to hold the 2030 World Cup across three continents. “It is absurd to tear the tournament apart in this way,” he told a Swiss newspaper. It’s definitely absurd to make everybody go down to Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina for three out of 104 tournament matches—does each of them get one match?—then have the players, broadcasters, fans and press pack everything up and head to the Mediterranean. (Eco-friendly, too!) Blatter’s got quite a record of his own, but he’s right that they should have just had the tournament in South America if they wanted to mark the 100th anniversary.
— It was a big week for the Premier League’s fallen giants, as both Chelsea and Manchester United contrived to win their matches. The Blues dealt with Burnley thanks primarily to Raheem Sterling, who’s up to his old tricks. That explosive burst of pace is back, and he was a serious threat carrying the ball into the box on the dribble. United required a late double strike from Scott McTominay after another turgid display at home, though Harry Maguire has requested some credit while citing the Red Devils’ “ridiculously high” win percentage when he starts.
— McTominay, by the way, has six goals in six matches (with an assist) in Scotland’s Euro 2024 qualifying campaign. He nearly had another on Thursday with a rip-curled free kick that smashed in off the post from a formidably-angled free kick. It was ruled out after yet another VAR review where nobody knew what the hell was going on. Initially, it seemed to be his Scotland teammate’s foul on the keeper, though the authorities later got their act together to explain it was an offside because he interfered with the keeper.
— Wayne Rooney has linked up with Tom Brady at Birmingham City F.C. The quarterback GOAT is a minority owner—it’s mostly controlled by Knighthead Capital Management—and the Premier League legend has departed D.C. United in the MLS to sign up as manager. The Blues are currently sixth in the Championship, and if they can get themselves up into the Premier League and some battles with Aston Villa, we could have some proper Peaky Blinder derbies in the top division next season. The “Second City Derby” is also a great name, to be fair. Best of luck, Wazza.
— Having teased it with semi-cryptic talk about how it’s time for a few beers, Eden Hazard announced his retirement from professional football this week. He was one hell of a player in his prime at Chelsea, though a Jon Obi Mikel quote that made the rounds following the announcement might explain why he didn’t enjoy more longevity: “I never knew how much training meant to these guys until I joined Chelsea,” Mikel said in February. “There is no place for you to like be like, ‘Okay, I don't want to train today.’ The only player I saw that did that and got away with it was Eden Hazard…Oh, he never trained! He was the laziest footballer I've ever seen in my life! But come the weekend, he produced.”
— Only some players can truly afford to go their own way. Kevin-Prince Boateng reminisced on a podcast about how his former Barcelona teammate Lionel Messi (allegedly) warmed up for a Champions League semifinal by hitting a few longballs and playing the crossbar challenge. KPB also claimed Messi was FaceTiming during the manager’s prematch speech. Then again, the match in question was that first leg against Liverpool, where Messi scored one of the great free kicks of all time. The difference between Messi and Hazard is that one is an alien. The rules do not apply. After all, Boateng also said that during shooting drills, Messi would put 98 out of 100 in the net.
— Romelu Lukaku is on fire in the Eternal City, with seven goals in eight matches for Roma. It’s redemption for the big man who was cast aside by Chelsea and could not secure a move to his happy place of Internazionale this summer. (He also flirted with their hated rivals, Juventus.) He suggested this week that some dastardly things went down during the transfer window that he wouldn’t have been able to handle as a younger man. “Most of the people here in the room know me. I don’t like beating around the bush,” he said, before proceeding to beat around it: “I’ll speak in time, but if I actually said how last summer went, everyone would be shocked.”
— You’ve surely seen it by now, but Olivier Giroud went in the A.C. Milan goal after Mike Maignan was sent off last weekend and made a crucial (if unconventional) intervention to preserve a 1-0 win away at Genoa last weekend. The club was soon offering Giroud keeper shirts that sold out almost instantly, and he was named in the Serie A team of the week as a goalkeeper.
— That was merely an entree to the bizarre at the Luigi Ferraris Stadium, however, as Kanye West (currently d.b.a. Ye) showed up as a guest of Genoa C.F.C. He posed for a picture with Rafael Leão of A.C. Milan looking like he wandered off the set of The Empire Strikes Back.
— It’s not from this week, but this clip just came through the TFW offices. Pep Guardiola is asked what time he gets to work each morning, presumably with the expectation he’ll say, like, 4 o’clock. “At 6am, I’m in bed. I love to sleep,” the master manager responded. What a refreshing thing to hear in the era of the Grindset Mentality, where everybody gets on YouTube to brag they wake up at 2 every morning for calisthenics.
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LA PAUSA
You may have noticed a phenomenon among central defenders and goalkeepers who play under the Premier League’s more experimental managers. When they’re on the ball with the whole game in front of them, they might not do anything at all. They might stop, step on the ball, and wait.
So what are they waiting for? For the other team’s forwards to come put them under pressure. It’s a new iteration of La Pausa, or “the pause,” a principle that began in South America, was embraced by Pep Guardiola’s golden Barcelona teams, and is now a feature of some of the more sophisticated defensive lines in England.
We’ve seen this plenty from Brighton, where manager Roberto De Zerbi is constant with his tactical evolutions. It’s not a stratagem for the faint of heart, as anyone who plays Sunday League can attest: you do not want to face a serious press while in possession as a centerback. But the point of it is to draw in one or two players so you can pass around them and get into the space behind them, where you should have further overloads and your players can combine to take still more of your opponents out of the game. Suddenly, you’re cutting them open and you’re on top of their back line—so long as you’re willing to take the risk with yours.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was quite explicit about all this when discussing some of the close calls for his keeper, David Raya, in the first half last weekend against Manchester City. (Another side who like a little pausa.) Raya kept hold of the ball while getting closed down hard, Arteta said, because that’s his job.
“I ask him to do that,” the boss said in the postgame presser. “He’s got big ones, because with the crowd going like this”—referencing the Emirates Stadium home crowd’s audible anxiety—“other players, I’ve seen it, they start to kick balls everywhere. I said to him, ‘Don’t do that. Make sure you don’t do it.’ And he didn’t do it, and in the end, he got rewarded. Because the team started to much better play the game we wanted to play.”
Did you detect the hint of a shiv in Aaron Ramsdale’s gut there? It seems we’ve gone beyond finding a keeper who can play with his feet. The top teams want keepers who are comfortable doing rondo drills in their own box at 0-0.
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With all the managerial talk, maybe it’s time for a pound-for-pound ranking of Premier League managers:
Pep Guardiola
Roberto De Zerbi
Mikel Arteta
Jurgen Klopp
Unai Emery
Eddie Howe
Ange Postecoglu
Thomas Frank
Gary O’Neil
Roy Hodgson
Marco Silva
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TOTTENHAM TITLE DELUSION
Spurs are undefeated at the top of the league heading into the second international break, and supporters (or at least some TalkSport talkers) are bullish about a Tottenham title charge. Big Ange Postecoglu has them playing some fabulous stuff, with James Maddison in particular a shining example of how to play with a little “To Dare Is To Do”: fluid, swashbuckling, getting forward with some zip and verve, throwing a shimmy to beat a man or open up a clever pass. Son Heung-min is back to his best with six goals in eight appearances, and Spurs look a little more solid at the back.
They’ve feasted on the league’s easier meals, though, with wins over Luton Town, Sheffield United, Burnley, Manchester United, and Bournemouth. They needed a Jorginho superhowler to take a point from Arsenal, and they triumphed over Liverpool only after one of the more egregious refereeing performances in an egregious recent history. They have yet to face Man City, Aston Villa, Brighton, West Ham, Newcastle, or Crystal Palace—which is to say, most of the top half.
Their North London neighbors haven’t had the most difficult run either, but Arsenal have now defeated the champions. The way Kyle Walker and the Citizens reacted afterwards, it was a significant L to an outfit they view as a legitimate threat. Incredibly, Spurs have won five of their last seven Premier League matches against City, but would even another W when they meet on December 2 mark Spurs as the same kind of contenders in Kyle Walker’s eyes?
Until they prove otherwise, Tottenham are a level below City, Arsenal, and Liverpool. Once the season shakes out a bit, it’s more likely they’ll be scrapping for fourth.
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Have you ever had a linesman go Vinny Jones on your teammate at the Sunday League match?
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EURO 2024 QUALIFYING: NETHERLANDS—FRANCE
Friday 2:45pm ET on Fox Sports 2 / 7:45pm GMT on Viaplay
The traditional powers of Group B face off for The Early Weekend. France are clear on 15 points, while the Netherlands are even with Greece on nine. Which is to say, the Dutch need a win. (Euros qualifying is incredibly complicated, but essentially, the top two qualify from each group.) They aren’t quite the powerhouse they were in the days of Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben, and Frenkie de Jong is a huge miss with injury. The Oranje will need to find a way, but the French are favorites in every match they play.
LEAGUE TWO: WREXHAM—SALFORD CITY
Saturday 10:00am ET / 3:00pm GMT on iFollow
It’s a real Hollywood showdown in England’s fourth division, as Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s Wrexham host the club co-owned by Manchester United’s Class of ‘92: Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Paul Scholes, and David Beckham. (That last name there is really the one providing the Hollywood for Salford considering his Netflix dominance this week.) Wrexham will hope it goes better for them than the map that popped up in the Welcome to Wrexham doc and drew ridicule online this week.
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RELEGATION FODDER
It’s not much fun when the newly promoted sides all look doomed, but Sheffield United, Burnley, and Luton Town are all decent bets to go down at this point. If any are to survive, Vincent Kompany’s Clarets could be the most likely. They’ve got a bit about them going forward and have more of the rangey athleticism in key areas you need to play in the top flight. Luton, meanwhile, just do not seem to have the firepower to survive at this level.
TFW’s pick to replace Burnley in the doomsquad would be Bournemouth. How did they even survive last season with such a weak squad? Oh, right, Gary O’Neil got them over the line, so they shipped him out in July. He’s doing his thing at Wolves now, while his replacement, Andoni Iraola, has yet to prove he can cut it in the rough-and-tumble of the Premier League basement.
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ZLATAN TRIALS YOU
The prince among men, Zlatan Ibrahimović, gave an interview to (sigh) Piers Morgan last Friday, just in time to miss last week’s TFW. He was in characteristic form, which is to say he possessed absolute self-belief and self-possession and a lovely turn of phrase. The discussion went all over the place, but Ibra might have had his best moment talking about why—to Morgan’s disappointment—he’d never joined Arsenal. He told the story of meeting Arsène Wenger when he was preparing to leave Sweden in 2001 and had many European clubs for suitors.
“I didn’t expect him to be so tall,” the superstriker now admits, and he said the professorial Frenchman sized him up and tried to get a feel for him: “He [doesn’t just] buy the player. He wants to know what he’s buying.”
Wenger showed Ibra an Arsenal shirt with a #9 on the back, and the young Swede was impressed. But then, there it was.
“We want you to come and do a trial for two weeks.”
Ibrahimović was a relative unknown at the time, while Wenger was Wenger. He’d already won the Premier League, going toe-to-toe season after season with Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United dynasty.
“I don’t do trials,” Ibra responded.
In fact, he’s told this story before, and in another version, he responded to Wenger slightly differently: “Zlatan doesn’t do auditions.”
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FRIENDLY: USA—GERMANY
Saturday 3:00pm ET on TNT & Peacock
It’s one of those level-setters for the USMNT, as they test themselves against The Real Deal. It hasn’t been a great few years for Germany, who’ve been crashing out of tournaments and squandering all kinds of promise along the way, but they’ve got pedigree. They’ve also got a new manager in Julian Nagelsmann, the 36-year-old former Bayern and RB Leipzig coach who could show his level against the USA’s prodigal son, Gregg Berhalter.
The latter has reportedly patched things up with Gio Reyna, who won’t be fit to start. Christian Pulisic will be, and he’s in fine form for A.C. Milan to start this season. Flo Balogun has three goals in five Ligue 1 matches for Monaco, and the Juventus duo of Tim Weah and Weston McKennie could also feature.
Those club affiliations represent the USA’s new era, but it’s pretty much always the era of Germany. It’s always the era of Thomas Müller, too, who’s still earning selections to the Mannschaft, and he’ll be joined in attacking areas by names like Leroy Sané and İlkay Gündoğan.
EURO 2024 QUALIFYING: NORWAY—SPAIN
Sunday 2:45pm ET on Fox Soccer Plus (& Vix) / 7:45pm GMT on Viaplay
Spain romped to victory when these two last met in March, and it’s little wonder with the talent La Roja can call on. This is not the Spain teams of old, not least because they’re not as dominated by Barcelona and Real Madrid, and a new generation led by Barcelona wonderkids Gavi, Pedri, and 16-year-old Lamine Yamal is still taking shape. (Injuries haven’t helped: they’ll keep the latter two out of this one.) In the meantime, the Álvaro Moratas of the world are still carrying plenty of the workload. He scored in midweek to stop Scotland from moving out of both these teams’ reach at the top of Group A.
The picture for Norway, meanwhile, is clearer: they have two world-class attackers in 23-year-old Erling Haaland and 24-year-old Martin Ødegaard who’d be a lot of fun to see together on the big stage of an international tournament.
EURO 2024 QUALIFYING: ENGLAND—ITALY
Tuesday 2:45pm ET on Fox Sports 1 / 7:45pm GMT on Channel 4
It’s a rematch of the Euro 2020 final at Wembley, which actually took place in 2021 and ended in familiar penalty disaster for the English. They top Group C, six points clear of Italy, who might be more concerned with Ukraine and North Macedonia—who are both level with the Azzuri on seven points. The Italians have played one game less than all the rest, in fairness, and the calcio has changed a lot recently. Young stars like Sandro Tonali and Nicolò Barella power this side forward from midfield, though they’re still searching for a standout striker and all the newfound fluidity of recent years has led to fewer clean sheets.
England, on the other hand, are just a very good team. World Cup quarterfinalists last year, they continue to rise with young world-beaters like Bukayo Saka—injured for this match window—and Jude Bellingham. They join a cast of established regulars like Harry Kane, Jack Grealish, Declan Rice, John Stones and others who’ve set the level for years now. England fans said it for too long, then they scarcely said it at all, but have we arrived at the time when it’s a true statement that this is simply one of the world’s best teams?⚽︎