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    Why Some Women Don’t Want Antonio Brown in the Super Bowl

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Why the Chiefs Will WinTom Brady vs. Patrick MahomesA Super Bowl Trip Is Worth the Risk to Some Fans17 Recipes for Tiny TailgatesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySports of the TimesWhy Some Women Don’t Want Antonio Brown in the Super BowlThe Buccaneers receiver has been one of the most electrifying players in the N.F.L., but he is facing accusations of sexual assault and harassment.Antonio Brown of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers has been one of the best receivers in the N.F.L., but has faced serious accusations of abuse against women.Credit…Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesFeb. 6, 2021, 9:00 a.m. ETGet over it.That was the message Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Antonio Brown tried to convey this past week.The past doesn’t matter, he seemed to say. With the Super Bowl upon us, the only concern should be about his ability to catch passes on Sunday.Brown’s preferred talking points were his love for quarterback Tom Brady, his team’s drive to beat the reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs, and his comeback.That comeback did not involve an injury that eroded his electrifying talent on the field. Those skills have remained sufficiently intact for Brown, 32, to find a plush spot in the N.F.L., in spite of the history he did not want to discuss at a requisite pre-Super Bowl news conference.“I’d be doing a disservice if I talked about things that are not a focus of this game,” he said.Those things include withering verbal abuse aimed at the mother of three of his children and recorded on video. And an accusation of sexual harassment that was described in detail in a national magazine. And a looming lawsuit accusing him of rape, a claim that Brown has vociferously denied.Now, he is one win from a championship ring after off-the-field trouble sent his career into one of the most stunning tumbles experienced by a star athlete in recent memory.Tampa Bay gambled on him in a way that no other team dared, signing Brown to a one-year contract in October after he had been out of the game for a season and a half. The Buccaneers did not heed commentators who, looking at the pattern of trouble around Brown, said he needed time away from the league — possibly for good, but at least until his lawsuit was resolved.The team also chose to look past the #MeToo movement and its fundamental lesson: Women with stories of pain, and of powerlessness in their dealings with famous men, should be heard and taken seriously.Let’s remember that one in four women are subjected to abuse by intimate partners during their lifetimes, according to a government report. Let’s think of what they endure every time they see athletes like Brown, with unresolved accusations around them, take the field.Let’s listen to Brenda Tracy, who describes herself as the survivor of a 1998 gang rape by a group of men that included two Oregon State football players. The players weren’t criminally charged, but they were suspended by the coach for making “a bad choice.” Tracy became an advocate for abused women, working toward change by sharing her story with anyone who will listen. Colleges across the country have hired her to speak to their athletic teams.“I won’t be watching the Super Bowl this year,” she told me. “With Antonio Brown out there, it’s just too much.”Ahead of the big game, Brown characterized himself as a changed man — humbled, grateful, and in control. He spoke in quiet, careful tones. He gave the sense that he sees the accusations as a chance to prove that he can conquer adversity, mostly by catching Brady’s passes.“I want my legacy to be a guy that was persistent, a guy that never gave up, no matter the odds, no matter the hate,” Brown said.Tom Brady said recently that he and Brown had “connected right away” as Patriots teammates. Credit…Brynn Anderson/Associated PressWhat he really wanted was to move on.Let’s not. Let’s look at the claims, made by a personal trainer named Britney Taylor, in the lawsuit.In court filings, Taylor said that Brown assaulted her twice in 2017. She also asserted that Brown raped her in 2018.Through his legal team, the wide receiver has denied the accusations. He has countersued, accusing Taylor of defamation. Brown and Taylor were involved in a “consensual personal relationship,” his lawyer said in a statement.It is important to remember that the court proceedings can still be avoided if the two parties reach a settlement. It is not a criminal trial, in which Brown would face the possibility of prison.But Britney Taylor isn’t alone.In a Sports Illustrated article, an artist made detailed accusations of sexual harassment by Brown. The wide receiver also once targeted the mother of three of his children with a profane tirade and then posted a video of the incident on social media.On Twitter in 2018, he threatened a reporter from ESPN’s The Undefeated who wrote an article about Brown’s thorny personal life and turbocharged social media use. Brown ended up apologizing through a statement: “It is not OK to threaten anyone, and I need to be better spiritually and professionally.”That year he also settled a lawsuit that accused him of throwing heavy furniture from his 14th-floor apartment and nearly hitting a toddler.Brown’s exasperating behavior as a teammate prompted the Pittsburgh Steelers to trade him to the Oakland Raiders in 2019. Just before the start of the season, the Raiders dumped him for similar reasons.He landed briefly in New England, early in Brady’s final season with the Patriots. The lawsuit accusing Brown of rape soon became public, followed by the artist’s accusations of harassment. His third employer of that year cut him loose.Brady, who said recently that he and Brown had “connected right away” in New England, endorsed Tampa Bay’s decision to bring the receiver aboard midway through this season. When Brown arrived in town, he initially lived in Brady’s home.Yet Brown and the Buccaneers seem like an odd pairing. The team has two full-time female coaches, and there were only eight in the entire league this season. The Women’s Sports Foundation has honored Coach Bruce Arians for supporting women in the N.F.L.But Arians proved that talent matters more than principle.Sadly, that’s too often the bottom line for male stars in major sports. If you are accused of abusing or harassing women and are easy to replace, your job is probably gone. It doesn’t take a conviction, trial or arrest. (See Jared Porter, the former New York Mets general manager who was fired after accusations that he had repeatedly sent inappropriate texts to a female reporter.)If you are a star, well, your entitlement is virtually unlimited.Brown signed with the Buccaneers just after completing an eight-game suspension for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. The reason for that penalty? He had pleaded no contest to burglary and assault charges after a dispute with a truck driver.He had every opportunity to express remorse for that incident this past week. He did not. So again, let’s listen instead to women, to people who won’t be in front of a huge global audience this weekend.Mindy Murphy runs The Spring of Tampa Bay, the largest shelter serving domestic violence survivors in Hillsborough County, home to the Buccaneers.When the N.F.L. tried to change its culture a few years ago, after Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was caught striking his fiancée, Murphy helped conduct training with the Buccaneers on abuse.Now she feels disillusioned.Seeing Brown chase a Super Bowl ring is a “disservice to what survivors have experienced,” she said. “When a team in the N.F.L. says, ‘We are going to hire him, and he deserves a second chance,’ or they say, ‘We don’t know for sure what’s happened, because it happened behind closed doors,’ they reinforce the idea that it’s not a good idea to speak up.”Remember that while watching the Buccaneers in the Super Bowl, and also remember Brown’s past.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Newcastle, Leeds and the Importance of Being … Something

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRory Smith On SoccerNewcastle, Leeds and the Importance of Being … SomethingWandering about without a plan inspires neither affection nor success. So why do so many clubs still do it?Newcastle has won only one of its last 11 Premier League games.Credit…Pool photo by Stu ForsterFeb. 6, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETNEWCASTLE, England — The sound system at St James’s Park crackled into life just as the whistle blew and the players took the knee, as they have done for every Premier League game since the spring. The announcement was brief and sweet, an unexpected relic of days past: “Enjoy the game.”In the silence, it was not quite clear who the announcer was addressing. There are only 300 people inside the stadium: the players on the field, the two coaching staffs, a handful of executives, a smattering of stewards and security and journalists. Everyone was there for work, rather than pleasure.And besides, even if the announcer’s words were meant for those in exile at home, the people who would ordinarily pack the empty stands, this is Newcastle United. Few, if any, of the fans would suggest they have enjoyed anything to do with this club for some time.Newcastle is — and has been for a long time — a club in the grip of endemic drift. Its owner, Mike Ashley, wants to sell, so much so that he has sought legal recourse against the Premier League for blocking a potential sale to a Saudi-led consortium last year.The fans, tired of Ashley’s absentee management and his lack of investment, either emotional or financial, want him gone so desperately that they appear ready to embrace any would-be savior, no matter how many concerns there might be about charges of content piracy or human rights abuses.If the loathing for Ashley is universal, the contempt for Steve Bruce — the manager installed by the owner last season — is getting there. It is not just that Bruce used to manage Sunderland, Newcastle’s fierce rival. It is not just that Bruce replaced Rafael Benítez, an object of adoration among the fans. It is not just that Bruce was appointed by Ashley and so — in a way that never applied to Benítez — is perceived as an emissary of a hated regime.Newcastle’s fans are confident they have identified the club’s problem.Credit…Eddie Keogh/ReutersIt is that Bruce, like Ashley, seems to have so little ambition for the club. He has articulated no grand vision of what Newcastle could be. His aspiration seems to stretch no further than stasis, the bare minimum required to maintain the club’s Premier League status. He has no vision beyond the literal wording of his job description: manager.In the middle of another difficult winter at Newcastle, Bruce spoke of addressing a slump in form by doing things “his way.” It was not entirely clear, then, whose way he had been following up to that point: He has been in charge for a season and a half. Quite what his way might be, too, remained a mystery.Those who have worked with him say that Bruce is a good coach, thorough and diligent and likable, if perhaps a little staid, a little cautious. But he espouses no distinct philosophy. He does not have a tightly-defined idea of how the game should be played, or what a squad should look like, or what a team should do. He does not seem to believe in anything in particular. He does not represent anything. He does not stand for anything.Steve Bruce’s Newcastle may be saved from relegation only because three teams are playing worse.Credit…Pool photo by Lee SmithHis counterpart last week, crouching on the touchline a few yards away, is the opposite. Before the game kicked off, Newcastle and Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United were not having vastly different seasons. Both were skirting the edges of the relegation battle: Leeds had 23 points and Newcastle 19, despite having played one extra game.The coverage of the teams — and the mood around them — could not, though, have been more different. Newcastle, as always, was a morass of discontent and bubbling crisis. Leeds, on the other hand, had taken the Premier League by storm, hailed by fans and neutral observers for their courage, their style, their adventure.Bielsa’s team had spent the season as a source of fascination and praise and, lately, a little resentment: No other team could lose by 6-2 to Manchester United, for example, and come out of it not just without criticism but with credit. Some of that, of course, can be attributed to the fact that Leeds, unlike Newcastle, was newly promoted, playing the Premier League for the first time in 16 years. Oscillations in form were to be expected, tolerated.But much of it is down to Bielsa. The Leeds that he has created is, innately, fun: fun to watch, and, though demanding and energy-sapping, apparently fun to be. His players give the impression they are enjoying themselves. Luke Ayling, the right back, charges out of defense like a toddler doped up on sugar. Jack Harrison scurries around like an eager Labrador. Stuart Dallas, in his first season in England’s top flight, has developed a taste for pinging cross-field passes. They put together wonderful, exuberant moves. They score intricate, breathtaking goals.More important, Bielsa’s dogmatism, his fundamentalism, his refusal to compromise his beliefs — all the things that, previously in his career, have been held against him — are now strengths. Leeds stands for something: a way of playing, a series of assumptions about how the game should be, a theory, a creed, an ideal.Leeds Manager Marcelo Bielsa has defenders, and critics. But his players know exactly what he expects.Credit…Andy Rain/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn recent years, soccer has slowly, grudgingly accepted the idea that managers who adhere to a philosophy, a certain set of ideas, are not selling snake oil. It is understood, on some level, that possessing a clear sense of what you want your team to be offers a competitive edge: It helps recruit the right players, it makes coaching them more effective, it offers a barometer of success and purpose that is not reliant on individual results. At an executive level, it can even, at times, ease the transition between one manager and the next.But the benefits of a cogent philosophy are not purely sporting. It has been striking, in Leeds’s low moments under Bielsa, how little discord there has been about his methods. Most fans, if not all, are happy to absorb the lows as an unfortunate, but necessary, recompense for the highs.Subscribing to Bielsa’s philosophy gives them something to take pride and solace in, even when the score line offers no succor. It affords the club, and by extension the fans, an identity. They stand for something that does not depend on results. Newcastle is the opposite. A few days after losing to Leeds, Bruce’s team won at Everton. His side produced a smart, disciplined performance, and the victory alleviated mounting concerns over relegation. It did absolutely nothing to dispel the enduring unhappiness.That contrast, between Leeds and Newcastle, holds outside England’s two great one-club cities. Fans, increasingly, no longer see a manager talking about a philosophy and a vision as marketing jargon or corporate bunk. It is, instead, something to cling to and believe in, a reason to be proud.For much of this season, criticism has swirled around Graham Potter and Brighton. The team has lingered in the lower reaches of the table, its neat, attractive, flexible style of play winning plaudits but few games. He did not flinch when he was told he had to deviate from his methods to get results. More impressively, few of the club’s fans did, either. They understood, and appreciated, his plan. In the space of four days this week, Brighton beat Tottenham and Liverpool.The opposite is true at Chelsea. The dismissal of Frank Lampard and his replacement by Thomas Tuchel, vastly more qualified for the role, was made in order to win trophies; that, after all, is Chelsea’s modern, corporate identity. But it left fans feeling rootless: What mattered to them is not just the outcome, but feeling that the route taken has some deeper meaning.Newcastle has big-club resources. What it does not appear to have is a plan.Credit…Laurence Griffiths/Getty ImagesThis is not a uniquely English phenomenon. In Europe, fans “no longer recognize themselves in their clubs,” as Le Monde wrote of Bordeaux, Nantes and Marseille this week, three teams with no apparent broader purpose or identity. [A hat-tip to reader Manuel Buchwald for pointing me in the direction of that piece.]For years, fans have endured a growing sense of dislocation from their clubs, feeling unmoored as teams have morphed into superstores and retail brands and content farms and their players into millionaire entrepreneurs. That feeling will, of course, have only been exacerbated by the physical distance enforced by the pandemic.In that environment, clubs now effectively have to stand for something, anything: a reliance on youth, a certain style of play — expansive or exciting or muscular or intense, whatever it may be — or a distinct, bespoke approach. Those who do, like Leeds, earn not only patience from but also the admiration of their fans.Those who do not, like Newcastle, find that when there is no reason to enjoy the game — not the result, not the journey — the fire of fury and regret can quickly curdle into something much more dangerous for a business reliant on the unyielding affection of its public: apathy. That is the lesson Ashley, and Bruce, can teach the rest of soccer, that those who stand for nothing risk dwindling away into it.Maybe We Were Just Early in the Season?Why are these men smiling again? Take a look at the Premier League table.Credit…Pool photo by Nick PottsThis has been, you will have heard, the most unpredictable Premier League season in history. Well, since Leicester City won it, anyway. It has definitely been the most unpredictable season since that one, five years ago.The reality is slightly different. Yes, pretty much the whole top half of the Premier League might still nurse an ambition to qualify for European soccer next season. But the three teams at the foot of the table seem cut adrift, and by the close of play on Sunday, the title race might have swung fairly dramatically toward Manchester City.If City can beat an exhausted, uninspired and injury-ravaged Liverpool at Anfield, Pep Guardiola’s team most likely will have killed off the reigning champion’s dwindling hopes, and gone at least three points clear of its nearest rival — a vastly improved, but still unfinished Manchester United — with a game in hand. City has won 13 games in a row. It has not conceded a goal since the Franco-Prussian War. In a season of twists and turns, it has found a straight road.There is a strong possibility that, the race for the top four aside, a season that was meant to be marked by the unpredictable will end up with the most predictable outcome imaginable. And, though the circumstances of this year have been unusual, it feels as if this is a sensation we have had before.The table is always tight, chaotic, fluid for the first half of any season. The gaps between teams are smaller, because they have played fewer games, and so it takes a while to settle. In the opening few months, every season has an air of uncertainty.It is only now, as we turn the corner into the home straight, that order emerges. That has happened later, chronologically, this season — because the start was delayed by two months — but at the same time as it always does, in terms of games played. The effect has been more pronounced, thanks to the compacted schedule, the empty stadiums and the greater impact of injury and fatigue, but it is not unique. This is what always happens. It is just that we always forget.CorrespondenceThis Danny Ings goal was ruled offside. Yeah, we don’t know why either.Credit…Pool photo by Michael SteeleSadly, Laurence Dandurant has far too much clarity in his thinking to be consulted on how soccer can extricate itself from the nonsense — as any Southampton fan would describe it — it has made of its own offside rule. “Why don’t they change the offside rule to just a player’s boots? This would end the maddening shoulders and armpits debate.”Personally, I’m an advocate of the daylight rule — if any part of the player’s body is onside, the player is onside — but this works just as well.As I was expecting, last week’s column on the Old Firm inspired quite a bit of feedback, though (amazingly) none of it was especially angry. That must be a first. You raised quite a few points I’d like to address, so bear with me.“I completely agree with the sentiment of the Old Firm buying older players hampering their development on a European stage but think the greatest impact has been on the Scotland national team,” Benjamin Livingston wrote. “The Old Firm and the league as a whole are signing journeymen players from down south, rather than giving their own youth a chance.” This is a really important point: the future for Scotland, like (say) Belgium, is in having a much younger league.Catherine Pereira, meanwhile, pointed out that while Scotland’s men’s team has not been to a major tournament for two decades, its women’s team was at the World Cup in 2019, and performed credibly. “The team is ranked 21 in the world by FIFA,” she wrote. “It’s not great, considering Scotland’s history, but it’s not quite as disappointing as the men’s.” Quite right, too, though much of the praise for that should go to a Glasgow team that is not in the Old Firm.Glasgow City played a Champions League knockout-round match last year. Neither Rangers nor Celtic can say that.Credit…Alvaro Barrientos/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWilliam Bradley noted, quite correctly, that last week’s piece ignored the sectarian roots of the Old Firm animosity. “Your story did not touch on or even mention [that], which I must say from your story’s journalistic quality.” That was deliberate. Everyone involved believes sectarianism to be a stain on Scottish soccer that should be left in the past. In a column addressing the future, I decided to take the same approach.And thanks to Ian Stewart, who has touched on something that is, I think, really important. “There seems to be a strain of thinking that prizes turning clubs into machines of player development, churning out young stars to be sold off to fund the next round of stars-in-development,” he wrote. “This is a front-office mind-set, not a fan’s. As a fan, I simply want to see the best team possible being fielded as often as possible.”This is a tension that a host of teams — right up to the likes of Borussia Dortmund — have to navigate: Soccer would lose a lot of its richness if everyone apart from the established financial elite decided their role was simply to feed the insatiable appetite of the powerful. There is a logical counterargument, though: The process of development-and-sale, if done well, can not only help you win today, but enable you to win more in future, as those funds are reinvested in better-quality players. Perhaps, in this case, a front-office mind-set is healthy.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Britt Reid, a Chiefs Assistant Coach, Is Involved in a Car Crash

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Why the Chiefs Will WinTom Brady vs. Patrick MahomesA Super Bowl Trip Is Worth the Risk to Some Fans17 Recipes for Tiny TailgatesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBritt Reid, a Chiefs Assistant Coach, Is Involved in a Car CrashThe team released a statement confirming that Reid, the son of Kansas City’s head coach, Andy Reid, had been in an accident but provided no other details.Coach Andy Reid with his son Britt, an assistant coach, after the Chiefs won the Super Bowl last year.Credit…Patrick Semansky/Associated PressKen Belson and Feb. 5, 2021Britt Reid, the outside linebackers coach for the Kansas City Chiefs and the son of the head coach, Andy Reid, was in an automobile crash on Thursday night, the team said in a statement Friday.The crash occurred just days before both men were expected to be in Tampa, Fla., for the Super Bowl on Sunday, when the Chiefs, the reigning N.F.L. champions, are scheduled to play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Chiefs were planning to fly to Tampa on Saturday, and it was not clear on Friday whether Britt Reid, 35, would make the trip.The team statement provided no details other than confirming that Reid had been involved in a crash.“We are in the process of gathering information, and we will have no further comment at this time,” the statement said.In response to an inquiry about a possible accident involving Britt Reid, a spokesman for the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department said that a crash had occurred on Interstate 435, which is not far from the Chiefs’ training facility. But the spokesman would not provide more details or identify anyone who was involved the crash, citing a Missouri law that prohibits the police from releasing the names of people who have not been charged with a crime.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Tom Brady vs. Patrick Mahomes: A Battle of the Ages

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Why the Chiefs Will WinTom Brady vs. Patrick MahomesA Super Bowl Trip Is Worth the Risk to Some Fans17 Recipes for Tiny TailgatesCredit…Jamie Squire / Getty Images, Rob Carr / Getty Images, Charlie Riedel / Associated Press and Mike Roemer / Associated PressSkip to contentSkip to site indexTom Brady vs. Patrick Mahomes: A Battle of the AgesMuch has been made about the nearly 20-year age difference between the two quarterbacks. But Super Bowl LV will come down to other numbers.Credit…Jamie Squire / Getty Images, Rob Carr / Getty Images, Charlie Riedel / Associated Press and Mike Roemer / Associated PressSupported byContinue reading the main storyFeb. 5, 2021Updated 8:00 p.m. ETTom Brady and Patrick Mahomes function within the same general constructs that have governed the N.F.L. for more than a century — playing on a field measuring 360 by 160 feet, accompanied by 21 other players, trying to gain 10 yards in four downs.Their approaches, though, are a gulf apart, with each quarterback at the pinnacle of styles that define the modern offensive era. Brady, 43, is a pocket passer extraordinaire, an archetype that is waning as teams try to build around dual-threat quarterbacks like Mahomes, 25, who can lead the dynamic offenses that have reimagined how football is played in 2021.Young Quarterbacks Are on the RunRunning the ball is a younger quarterback’s game, as is apparent in the gap between Patrick Mahomes’s rushing yardage (308) and Tom Brady’s (six). Of the top 18 quarterbacks with the most rushing yards, only four were 30 years old or older. More

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    How Does Tampa Host a Super Bowl in a Pandemic?

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Why the Chiefs Will WinTom Brady vs. Patrick MahomesA Super Bowl Trip Is Worth the Risk to Some Fans17 Recipes for Tiny TailgatesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow Does a City Host a Super Bowl in a Pandemic?“We’ll make the best of it,” Tampa’s mayor said. Plenty of people are preparing to party, with businesses eager for some tourism.Tampa, Fla., is hosting Sunday’s Super Bowl between the reigning champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the hometown Tampa Bay Buccaneers.Credit…Zack Wittman for The New York TimesAmaris Castillo and Feb. 5, 2021Updated 6:50 p.m. ETTAMPA, Fla. — The big, national party that is Super Bowl Sunday, with families and friends cozying up on the couch and sharing shrimp platters and beers in front of the television, represents a dangerous potential for new coronavirus infections across the country.Try being the host city.That is the unenviable position of Tampa, Fla., which will host this weekend’s showdown between the reigning champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the hometown Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The city faces two seemingly opposite challenges at once: celebrating the home team’s slot in the Super Bowl, a first in National Football League history, while keeping the game from becoming an embarrassing superspreader event.Mayor Jane Castor will have none of the downer talk. “We’ll make the best of it,” she said.The people of Tampa — Tampanians or Tampeños, not Tampans, thank you — seem intent on having a good time.Because the Bucs are playing, only about half the fans are traveling in, which is a benefit for coronavirus control and a downside for businesses.Credit…Zack Wittman for The New York Times“Thank God it’s in Tampa,” Kim Catalone, 51, declared on Wednesday night as she watched a Tampa Bay Lightning hockey game with a friend at the Pint and Brew bar downtown. “Thank you, Gov. Ron DeSantis, for having Florida open to tourism and allowing such a wonderful experience to happen.”Yes, bars are open in Florida — and they will be during Sunday’s game. Some of them are advertising watch parties, though thanks to the mild subtropical winter — the low in Tampa is forecast to be 57 degrees on Sunday — at least some of the festivities can be held outdoors. And 22,000 fans, about a third of the usual capacity of Raymond James Stadium, will be gathered in the stands.A lockdown it is not.Kelly Ladd, the general manager of the Pint and Brew, said the craft brewery saw a huge jump in customers last weekend after the opening of the Super Bowl Experience, a fan carnival. For Super Bowl Sunday, Ms. Ladd said, the brewery will be open for reservations only. By Wednesday, most tables had been sold.“We’ve just been ramping up and getting ready to be as busy as possible,” she said. “It’s definitely not as crazy as it would have been, but after 2020 we’re just happy to have as much as possible going on. ”Ms. Castor noted that Tampa had already pulled off a victory parade during the pandemic, after the Lightning won the Stanley Cup in September. The Tampa Bay Rays then made the World Series in October, making Tampa the country’s undisputed sports pinnacle these days.Tampa Bay Lightning fans gathered at the Pint and Brew sports bar to watch a hockey game this week.Credit…Zack Wittman for The New York TimesThe virus did lead Tampa to postpone until April its annual Gasparilla festival, a pirate-themed celebration akin to Mardi Gras that would normally have taken place the last weekend in January.“Of course, you have to have a concern: We’re in the midst of a pandemic, there’s no denying that, and it’s a virus that is easily transferable,” Ms. Castor said of the Super Bowl. “But on the other hand, it can be easily managed if people take the simple steps of wearing masks and separating when possible.”Ahead of the game, she extended the city’s mask order to apply to outdoor areas of town where people are likely to gather.Tampa has hosted Super Bowls in unusual circumstances before, though nothing resembling a pandemic. In 1991, the game here took place right after Operation Desert Storm, when American troops had just helped drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, forcing additional security precautions, said Steve Hayes, president and chief executive of Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, one of the Tampa Bay area’s tourism boards. (Tampa Bay is a body of water, not a place; the city of Tampa is on one side of the bay, with its neighbors St. Petersburg and Clearwater on the other.) In 2009, Tampa hosted the Super Bowl after the financial crash.Because the Bucs are in this year’s game, only about half the fans are traveling in, a benefit for virus control and a downside for hotels and restaurants hoping to make up for business lost during shutdowns. With many big-name sponsors and their clients staying away, venues that cater to business executives and the wealthiest fans are also expected to suffer.“This region has always risen up to the challenge of adjusting to make it better,” Mr. Hayes said.Raymond James Stadium will have 22,000 fans in the stands on Sunday, about a third of its usual capacity.Credit…Zack Wittman for The New York TimesMiami hosted the Super Bowl last year in one of the last big, iconic national events before the coronavirus forced the nation to shut down the following month. This weekend’s event in Tampa is thus a milestone of sorts, an indicator of how much the world has changed in a year.While there is no evidence to suggest it, plenty of people in Florida have long wondered whether the virus may have already been circulating at last year’s Super Bowl. Tara Kirk Sell, a senior associate at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, who is an expert in large-scale health events, said that it was not outside the realm of possibility — but that the truth may never be known.There have been a handful of anecdotes from attendees who recalled feeling flulike symptoms in the days afterward, but it was also flu season, and as Dr. Kirk Sell pointed out, no widespread testing for the virus was going on.“We will never know exactly what was happening in the Super Bowl and if the virus was there,” she said.About 7,500 of the people attending Sunday’s game will be vaccinated health care workers invited by the N.F.L. to thank them for a year of arduous work. One of them will be Rebecca Izquierdo, a 41-year-old nurse case manager at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, south of Tampa.“I really feel like my team has risen to the many challenges of this pandemic, and it’s just so special to us that we are going to be able to be a part of history,” she said. “Not only working through this pandemic, but now the history of the Super Bowl: We’re going to see the greatest player of all time, Tom Brady, and the greatest young quarterback, Patrick Mahomes.”(The nickname some attempted to adopt for the region after the Bucs signed Mr. Brady last year was, yes, “Tompa Bay.”)Thousands of people, mostly Buccaneers fans, mingled at the Super Bowl Experience on Wednesday. Credit…Zack Wittman for The New York TimesBut whatever happens Sunday in Tampa, what worries epidemiologists most is not the crowd inside the stadium but the people watching the game in their living rooms — and that concern extends well beyond Florida.Plenty of people may feel an irresistible impulse to gather, munch and celebrate the most American of late-winter celebrations, said Dr. Marissa J. Levine, the director of the Center for Leadership in Public Health Practice at the University of South Florida.“We all need something really positive to look forward to, for our emotional and mental well-being,” Dr. Levine said. “But we need to be with our guard up.”Lauren Adriaansen, 35, a Tampa native who lives near the football stadium — she can usually hear the cannons go off when the Bucs score — said she was happy the team was in the game but concerned about people conglomerating during and after it.“We saw what happened when we won the Stanley Cup,” she said. “There were parades and welcoming the Cup home and everything that involved a lot of people in close proximity to one another for sustained periods of time.”“I think that this looks like most other Super Bowls,” she said. “And as tempting as normalcy is, this isn’t a normal year.”There were certainly crowds at the Super Bowl Experience on Wednesday. Thousands of people, mostly Bucs fans, mingled in Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park. Just inside, a tall poster board listed Covid-19 regulations. Face coverings were required, and they could not have valves or vents. Face shields were not permitted unless accompanied by a face covering. Hand sanitizing stations had been set up throughout the park. Masks could be removed in dedicated concession areas while eating or drinking.Jay Money, 31, who had traveled from the Kansas City area last week, sat alone on Wednesday afternoon drinking a Bud Light at a concession stand. To show his love for the Chiefs, Mr. Money pulled up his right sleeve to reveal an aged tattoo of the team’s logo, which he said he got when he was 13.Watching the Chiefs return to the Super Bowl means everything to him, he said.“It goes, like, my kids being born, and then the Chiefs going to the Super Bowl,” Mr. Money said. “It’s very significant to me.”Amaris Castillo More

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    Behind the Scenes at the Super Bowl Halftime Show

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Why the Chiefs Will WinTom Brady vs. Patrick MahomesA Super Bowl Trip Is Worth the Risk to Some Fans17 Recipes for Tiny TailgatesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBehind the Weeknd’s Halftime Show: Nasal Swabs and Backup PlansPutting on a Super Bowl halftime show is always a mammoth undertaking. The pandemic introduces many more logistical puzzles.The Weeknd is headlining this year’s Super Bowl halftime show, which has had to adapt to the challenges of mounting a live performance during a pandemic.Credit…Isaac Brekken/Getty ImagesFeb. 5, 2021Updated 2:19 p.m. ETWhen the Weeknd headlines the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday, the stage will be in the stands, not on the field, to simplify the transition from game to performance. In the days leading up to the event, workers have visited a tent outside Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., to receive nasal swabs for Covid-19 tests. And though a smaller crew is putting on the show this year, the bathroom trailers have been going through three times as much water as usual — because of all that hand-washing.Amid a global pandemic, the gargantuan logistical undertaking that is the halftime show has gotten even more complicated.In a typical year, a massive stage is rolled out in pieces onto the football field, sound and lighting equipment is swiftly set up by hundreds of stagehands working shoulder to shoulder, and fans stream onto the turf to watch the extravaganza. This year, there is a cap on how many people can participate in the production, dense crowds of cheering fans are out of the question. And only about 1,050 people are expected to work to put on the show, a fraction of the work force in most years.The pandemic has halted live performances in much of the country, and many televised spectacles have resorted to pretaped segments to ensure the safety of performers and audiences. The halftime show’s production team, however, was intent on mounting a live performance in the stadium that they hoped would wow television audiences. To fulfill that dream, they would need contingency plans, thousands of KN95 masks and a willingness to break from decades of halftime-show tradition.“It’s going to be a different looking show, but it’s still going to be a live show,” said Jana Fleishman, an executive vice president at Roc Nation, the entertainment company founded by Jay-Z that was tapped by the N.F.L. in 2019 to create performances for marquee games like the Super Bowl. “It’s a whole new way of doing everything.”Last year’s halftime show, starring Jennifer Lopez, above, and Shakira, felt like an exultant, glittery party.Credit…Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesOne of the first logistical puzzles was figuring out how to pick staff members up from the airport and transport them to and from the hotel, said Dave Meyers, the show’s executive in charge of production and the chief operating officer at Diversified Production Services, an event production company based in New Jersey that is working on the halftime show.“Usually you pack everyone into a van, throw the bags into the back, everyone is sitting on each other’s laps,” Meyers said. “That can’t happen.”Instead, they rented more than 300 cars to transport everyone safely.Many of the company’s workers have been in Tampa for weeks, operating out of what they call a “compound” outside of Raymond James Stadium, the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The compound includes 50-foot-long office trailers, which used to fit about 20 employees each but now are limited to six. There are socially distant dining tents where people eat prepackaged food, and a signal for which tables have been sanitized: the ones with chairs tilted against them.Outside the perimeter of the event, there is a tent where halftime-show workers have been getting Covid-19 tests. Staff members have been getting tested every 48 hours, but now that game day is close, key employees, including those who are in proximity to the performers, are getting tested every day, Meyers said. Each day, workers fill out a health screening on their smartphones, and if they’re cleared, they get a color-coded wristband, with a new color each day so no one can wear yesterday’s undetected.It is unclear if this year’s show will mimic the high-budget elements of years past, like Katy Perry riding an animatronic lion.Credit…Christopher Polk/Getty ImagesEach time workers enter the stadium or a new area of the grounds, they scan a credential that hangs from around their necks so that in the event that someone tests positive for Covid-19 or needs to go into quarantine, the N.F.L. will know who else was in their vicinity. And there are contingency plans if workers have to quarantine: crucial employees, including Meyers, have understudies who stand ready to take their places.All of those measures are taken so that the Weeknd can step out onstage Sunday for a 12-minute act that aims to rival years past, when the country was not in the midst of a global health crisis.“Our biggest challenge is to make this show look like it’s not affected by Covid,” Meyers said.The challenge was apparent on Thursday at a news conference about the halftime show. When the Weeknd strode to the microphone, he took in the room and noted, “It’s kind of empty.” His words were perhaps a preview of how the stadium might look to people watching from home. (About 25,000 fans will be present — a little more than a third of its capacity — and they will be joined by thousands of cardboard cutouts.)During the 2017 halftime show, Lady Gaga clasped fans’ hands and embraced one of them, but the Weeknd is performing in an age of social distancing.Credit…Dave Clements/Sipa, via Associated PressBut the Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye), a 30-year-old Canadian pop star who has hits including “Can’t Feel My Face” and “Starboy,” is known for his theatrical flair. His work often has a brooding feel, an avant-garde edge, and even some blood and gore (he promised he would keep the halftime show “PG”).This will be the second Super Bowl halftime show produced in part by Jay-Z and Roc Nation, who were recruited by the N.F.L. at a time when performers were refusing to work with the league, in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustice.The N.F.L. and Roc Nation are keeping quiet about the details of the program to build anticipation, so it is unclear whether it will have the usual big-budget effects of halftime shows past, which have featured Jennifer Lopez dancing on a giant revolving pole, Katy Perry riding an animatronic lion and Diana Ross memorably exiting by helicopter.What is clear is that there is unlikely to be anything like the intimate moment Lady Gaga had with a few of her fans during her 2017 performance, when she clasped their hands and embraced one of them before going back onstage for “Bad Romance.” The Weeknd is taking the stage in a much more distanced world.Ken Belson contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Don’t Be Fooled by the Playful, Merry-Making Travis Kelce

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Chiefs Fans’ Generational DivideReconsidering Tom BradySuper Bowl Party TipsThe N.F.L.’s ‘First’ Women Want CompanyAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDon’t Be Fooled by the Playful, Merry-Making Travis KelceThe Kansas City Chiefs tight end spent his formative football years playing quarterback. In his mind’s eye, he can both throw the ball and catch it.Tight end Travis Kelce plays his position with an understanding of the quarterback’s job.Credit…Doug Murray/Associated PressFeb. 5, 2021, 9:00 a.m. ETOff the field, Travis Kelce’s life is unscripted.Yes, sometimes it may seem as if the always playful Kelce is reading prepared lines so he can play the role of a goofy frat-party boy — the N.F.L.’s Midwestern version of Rob Gronkowski. But Kelce, the five-time All-Pro tight end for the reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, insists that is not true.For example, after last season’s A.F.C. championship game, he stole the postgame show by leaning into a CBS microphone to shout: “You’ve got to fight, for your right … to … parrr-tay!”It was a line that might have appeared in character, delivered right on cue.“Nah, it was all instincts,” Kelce said this week.Then, after the Chiefs won the Super Bowl, there was Kelce making a memorable appearance at the end of a celebratory parade through downtown Kansas City. Kelce, a bit wobbly and with a World Wrestling Entertainment championship belt thrown over his shoulder, blurted to the crowd: “I’m wearing about half the beers I’ve been trying to drink.”Fun-loving football players carving out a niche in the public consciousness is nothing new. But in Kelce’s case, there is a twist: His cavalier attitude when out of uniform belies a cunning, resourceful and almost scholarly approach to his work on the football field.The frat boy goes to every class and gets straight A’s. He stays on script.After the A.F.C. championship game last year, Kelce let Chiefs fans know they had to fight for their right to party.Credit…Jeff Roberson/Associated PressTake it from the modern tight end archetype. “Travis has transformed our position,” said Gronkowski, whose Tampa Bay Buccaneers will meet the Chiefs in the Super Bowl on Sunday. “Crafty, smart guy.”The defensive coaches who face the Chiefs know as much. They devise illusions in their coverages meant to hoodwink Kelce. Then the opponents line up against him and discover they have been duped.“He’s sneaky and he’s got a lot of tricks,” Kevin Ross, Tampa Bay’s cornerbacks coach, said. “And he uses them very well.”The Buccaneers’ defensive coordinator, Todd Bowles, who has been in the N.F.L. for two decades, noted that even when the perfect pass coverage has been called, Kelce immediately sniffs it out and already has prepared an ingenious counterattack.“You marvel at watching him play, because if there’s a big play to be had, somehow he finds a way to get open,” Bowles said.He added that while Kelce clearly spends many hours studying opponents, it is more important that he knows what to look for. “He’s savvy,” Bowles said, “probably one of the best I’ve seen.”The evolution of Kelce’s aptitude as a tight end, a position that calls for both blocking and receiving skills, goes back to his days as a high school quarterback in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.Kelce, who had yet to fill out his 6-foot-5 frame, chose to attend the University of Cincinnati because it was the rare place that would let him play quarterback and because his older brother, Jason, now a center with the Philadelphia Eagles, was a starter at Cincinnati. Travis remained a quarterback, albeit often one in the wildcat formation, for much of his time at Cincinnati, but tight end was clearly where he belonged, especially as his body matured. By his senior year, that was where he lined up, leading the team in receptions.Selected by Kansas City in the 2013 N.F.L. draft, Kelce was the fifth tight end taken that year, but the Chiefs coaches soon learned that his time spent in quarterback meeting rooms would be vital. “It gave me perspective of what’s going on with the quarterback, the head man on the field — the guy who’s got the keys to the car,” Kelce said this week. “It helped me go from just being an athletic guy running routes to being a playmaker accountable on every single play.“I tell young guys that if you want to be great, you have to be able to play that chess match with the defensive coordinator out there. You can’t be a one-trick pony.”Kelce’s advanced understanding of how to attack defenses, plus his adaptability, has allowed the Chiefs’ brain trust to move him all over the offensive formation and to run precise, but dicey, timing plays. One example: the underhand toss that Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes threw to Kelce that resulted in a crucial touchdown in the Chiefs’ A.F.C. championship game victory over Buffalo last month.Travis Kelce making a move against Buffalo Bills linebacker Matt Milano in the A.F.C. championship game.Credit…Jeff Roberson/Associated PressMahomes appreciates that Kelce still thinks like the quarterback he once was.“The quarterbacking in his history definitely gives him that understanding of how to run routes,” Mahomes said. “He’s able to read coverages on the move and knows how to get himself, and others, open. It’s what makes him so special.”Kelce and Mahomes have enriched their rich kinship off the field as well, going on couples vacations and double dates that include Kelce’s girlfriend, Kayla Nicole, and Mahomes’s fiancée, Brittany Matthews.This week, however, the two sparred a bit at the Super Bowl media gathering, after Mahomes was asked to choose animals that would best represent himself and Kelce. Mahomes said he would like to be a wolf. “Kind of run around with my pack and being able to be a leader,” he said.For Kelce, Mahomes said the animal would have to be “something funny,” then decided on a giraffe.“He’s kind of just out there, grazing around the field, trying to make something happen,” Mahomes said.Told of Mahomes’s choice, Kelce looked a little wounded but laughed.“He threw me to the wolves,” Kelce said. Then, perhaps recalling that Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill once said that Mahomes talked like Kermit the Frog, Kelce suggested a different animal for his quarterback.“He’s already got the voice of a frog,” Kelce said.A little repartee in the frat house.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Valencia Welcomed Peter Lim. Now It Wants Him Out.

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThey Hailed the New Owner as a Savior. Then They Got to Know Him.Deep pockets, new management and a Cup trophy seemed to herald better days at Valencia. It hasn’t worked out that way.Valencia fans once filled the streets to welcome Peter Lim. Now they do the same, chanting for him to go.Credit…Ana Escobar/EPA, via ShutterstockFeb. 5, 2021, 8:35 a.m. ETValencia fans had waited 11 years for this kind of celebration.A generation earlier, their soccer team, Valencia C.F., had been one of the best clubs in Spain, a two-time Champions League finalist and a domestic champion. That was before financial crises and mismanagement had sent it into a yearslong tailspin.Now, in the spring of 2019, the fans could start to believe again. Victory in the Copa del Rey, Spain’s domestic cup competition, had ended a decade-long trophy drought. A deep-pocketed billionaire with powerful soccer connections now owned the club. The trophy, and the money, would herald the start of a journey back to the top, back to relevance in La Liga, back to closing the gap with the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid.So as thousands of fans lined the streets to salute the team’s conquering heroes, Valencia’s beaming chief executive, Anil Murthy, spoke excitedly as he surveyed the scene from the deck of an open-top bus.“I have never seen anything like this in my life: It’s incredible,” Murthy told a live television interviewer as players took turns with the trophy. “Practically the entire city is in the streets supporting this great club.”It did not take long for the mood to sour. Within months, the coach and the sporting director who had built Valencia’s cup-winning team had both been fired. Within a year, the team was offloading players to save money during the pandemic. Fans shut out from attending games because of coronavirus restrictions now protest the club’s ownership from outside it. Board members are heckled in the street.Valencia has won only two league games since November, and currently sits 14th in the 20-team table.Credit…Jose Jordan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLess than two years after Valencia paraded a trophy through its city, its new dawn has been replaced by disillusion, anger and cynicism.“This is Valencia’s worst time,” said Gaspard Romero, who was born into a Valencia-obsessed family and whose grandfather once served as the club’s accountant. “My nightmare will be to see Valencia in this state for a long period of time, with no purpose, like a zombie club.”Valencia’s new reality is a hollowed-out roster, weakened by the sale of top players in the off-season, and a team that struggles to win even once or twice a month. After a positive start to the new season last fall, which included a 4-1 destruction of Real Madrid, Valencia has cratered, tumbling down the table. That has put a renewed focus on the club’s one-time savior, the Singapore billionaire Peter Lim, a reclusive figure who prefers to stay out of the spotlight but — in Valencia, at least — can no longer avoid it.It was not always this way. Romero, 32, recalled how when he was a boy, the team was one of the most feared squads in Europe. How fans in the steep-banked stands at its Mestalla stadium roared as talented players brought joy and pride to the city. There were consecutive trips to the Champions League final in 2000 and 2001 and a league title in 2004, when Valencia’s team brushed aside Barcelona and Real Madrid teams containing the likes of Ronaldinho and Zinedine Zidane.By the time Lim entered the scene in 2014, though, a financial crisis had engulfed the club. Top talents like David Silva, David Villa and Juan Mata had been sold off to make ends meet, and a combination of bad management and mounting had only made things worse.Lim’s interest in soccer predated his investment in Valencia. Earlier in his career as an investor, he had parlayed his love of the English club Manchester United into a business operating United-themed cafes and restaurants across Asia. That allowed Lim, now 67, to build relationships with a generation of United’s stars, players like Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and David Beckham. Those relationships spawned joint business ventures in the hospitality sector and, since 2014, a co-ownership of Salford City, a team that plays in English soccer’s fourth tier.Lim’s affection for Valencia, the fallen Spanish giant, did not run nearly as deep.“He planned to buy a football club and the opportunity of Valencia came along,” Murthy said. Lim provided the money to acquire the team; loyal lieutenants like Murthy and others were installed to run it.To many Valencia fans, Lim’s management style has been part of the problem. They noticed, for example, that he spent the 2019 cup final in a private box with his friend Beckham but did not visit the locker room to congratulate the team.Though they once chanted his name in the streets, believing him to be their club’s rescuer, many now believe he never understood what the team represents in its city.“It is our essence, what we have loved for so long, what our parents told us about,” Romero said. “It’s like they stole our memories, our traditions, our history, our pride.”Midfielder Dani Parejo lifted the trophy after the 2019 Copa del Rey victory over Barcelona.Credit…Pau Barrena/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesParejo’s move to rival Villarreal in August sparked new anger at the owner Peter Lim.Credit…Domenech Castello/EPA, via ShutterstockLim’s critics also point to the clout of another figure in his soccer network, Jorge Mendes, the soccer agent considered to be among the most influential power brokers in soccer.Even before he bought Valencia, Lim, with Mendes acting as an adviser, had been an active player in soccer’s multibillion-dollar player trading market.By placing speculative bets on players just as he had once invested in small companies, Lim had hoped to profit from their future sales. The practice was banned by soccer’s governing body FIFA in 2015, a year after Lim bought his majority stake in Valencia. But a feature of Lim’s tenure has been the revolving door of talent, with Mendes often pulling the strings.For desperate Valencia fans, though, whatever their concerns, Lim still offered a chance of salvation. The 2007 financial crisis had left the club in a bind, caught with two stadiums — its longtime home, the Mestalla, and the half-built shell of a new one that could only be completed with the proceeds from selling the old arena to property developers. Fear of bankruptcy felt real.Excited by the prospect of restoring the team’s fortunes and completing the Nou Mestalla, fans picketed for the team to be sold to Lim. When his purchase was approved, fans greeted his arrival with the kind of reception usually reserved for a prized signing.The flurry of bold promises and predictions made by the officials he installed to run the club, though, failed to materialize. Fans now bemoan not only the state of the first-team squad but also the seemingly whimsical decision-making that has seen a succession of players, coaches and sporting directors come and go, some replaced by questionable appointments seemingly guided by Lim’s personal relationships with Mendes or his connections to the former Manchester United cohort.Lim appointed Phil Neville as a coach at Valencia in 2015, for example, and then hired his brother, Gary, who had never led a professional team and did not speak Spanish, as the team’s manager. The experiment lasted less than four months, with the team winning only three of Neville’s 16 Liga games.Front-office appointments were just as curious. Figures with longstanding ties to the team and the city were replaced by executives close to Lim. Newcomers sometimes had little or no prior experience in European soccer.Lim has at times seemed more interested in his projects with former Manchester United stars like David Beckham than with repairing problems at Valencia.Credit…Peter Cziborra/Reuters“If you want to remove the coach and sports director, sign another coach and sports director to build a project,” Gaizka Mendieta, who captained the team in both of its Champions League final appearances, told the Valencia newspaper Las Provincias in December. “But no, what Peter Lim has done is take a step back and return to the model of the beginning, when they arrived.”Few are predicting a bright future. Valencia still plays at the Mestalla, and its new stadium is no closer to completion. When the team’s leadership sold or released some of the club’s most established talent last summer — including Dani Parejo, the popular captain who had lifted the Copa del Rey only a year earlier — Valencia’s coach, Javi Gracia, threatened to quit.Murthy said the player sales — more than 70 million euros (about $85 million) came in — were needed to rebalance the club’s books after revenues had been halved by the pandemic. The team remains mired in debt, even after the sales, with more than 400 million euros (nearly $500 million) owed to creditors. And the team’s transfer market dealings under Lim are drawing new scrutiny.Valencia remains in its longtime home, the famed Mestalla stadium, because it cannot finish construction on its new one.Credit…Manuel Bruque/EPA, via ShutterstockMurthy, the former Singaporean diplomat installed by Lim as chief executive in 2017, recently told journalists that there was now a new plan, one focused on producing a stream of players from the club’s youth academy who will instill a Valencian core in the squad and return it to greatness.Murthy predicted a championship within 10 years, a lofty ideal but, to most Valencia fans, an unrealistic one under Lim’s continued ownership. The team, they know, is currently far closer to relegation from La Liga — and another brush with financial ruin — than to its next trophy celebration.Six years after thousands of fans chanted Peter Lim’s name in the streets, many now clamor just as loudly for his exit.“The feeling among fans is Peter Lim doesn’t understand where he is,” said Paco Polit, a journalist and contributor to a book about Lim’s stewardship of Valencia. “He never understood how big Valencia was before he came, and now it feels he has left Valencia to die.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More