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    Data, Diet and Better Set Pieces: Seeking Soccer’s Future

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNumbers, Knowledge and Better Set Pieces: a View Into Soccer’s FutureF.C. Midtjylland’s search for competitive advantage has made it a place where ideas emerge. The problem is pretty soon everyone else has them, too.The world’s best clubs are already getting a competitive edge through psychology, data and nutrition. The next frontier? Better set pieces.Credit…Clockwise from top left, EPA, via Shutterstock; Steven Paston, via AP; pool photo by Laurence Griffiths; The New York TimesDec. 30, 2020, 1:00 a.m. ETEverything that happens at F.C. Midtjylland is quantified. Well, almost everything. Every game played by every one of the Danish soccer club’s teams produces data points in the thousands. Each training session, from the first team to the preteens in the academy, is recorded and codified and analyzed.The only exception is a game that happens on Fridays at lunchtime, pitting two teams of staff members — coaches and analysts and communications officers and sports scientists — against each other. It is a chance for everyone to let off steam at the end of the week, a reminder of the importance of having fun, said Soren Berg, Midtjylland’s head of analysis.“We joke about doing video and data analysis on it,” he said, though perhaps it is best left unexamined. “The players probably do not need to see it,” he joked as he watched the game earlier this month. “You know, we tell them a lot about press intensity. And I do not see a lot of press intensity out there.”Midtjylland has numbers on everything else. The club knows how much its players have run and what they have done in the gym and what they have eaten and where they shoot from and how well they have slept. It is attempting to know even the most intimate parts of their minds: how they think, how they feel, how they learn.Midtjylland’s analysts collect data on every player from every match, every training session, every workout.Credit…Ritzau Scanpix Denmark/via ReutersMidtjylland, founded in 1999, has what its sporting director, Svend Graversen, regards as a “growth mind-set.”“We are a new club,” he explained. “We are not dragged down by history because we don’t have any. So we have to make our own.” It is willing to try new things, to seek competitive edges wherever it can find them.The approach has worked. This young, ambitious club from Herning — a quiet city in the middle of Jutland, “a long way from Copenhagen,” according to Rasmus Ankersen, the team’s chairman — now sits not only at the pinnacle of Danish soccer, a three-time national champion and a regular in continental competitions, but at the very cutting edge of the sport.Midtjylland’s search for competitive advantage has made it a place where ideas emerge. It was the first team in Denmark to make its young prospects train every day. It was one of the first teams to embrace the use of data in recruitment, training and playing style. It employed a full-time coach just for throw-ins.Now, of course, all those ideas have been adopted at clubs of far greater scale, of far richer history. Where Midtjylland has gone, Europe has generally followed. Danish academies train every day. The vast majority of teams across Europe are committing vast resources to building teams of analysts and statisticians and physicists. Thomas Gronnemark, the throw-in coach, now works for Liverpool.That is the fate of the pioneer, of course: Once the trail has been blazed, everyone and anyone is free to follow it. Ideas forged in Herning have been adopted and adapted and occasionally lifted wholesale. All Midtjylland can do is what it has always done: try, once again, to see what the future looks like, so that everyone else might, once again, follow.Low-Hanging FruitIn the days after the death of Diego Maradona, Ankersen found himself — like so many others — trawling through grainy footage of the maestro at work. He would not have been alone in noticing that Maradona seemed to be a Technicolor player in a black-and-white world. “In those clips from the ’80s and ’90s, the game seems so slow,” he said.What is important, though, is that it did not seem that way at the time. “The coaches would have said that they could not train more, that they could not make the players get thinner or more athletic,” he said. It is a reminder, to him, of a kind of end-of-history illusion: how easily the current version of something — soccer, in this case — is assumed to be final, complete.Awareness of that illusion is baked into everything Midtjylland does. “The first thing you have to remember is that success now does not mean success in the future,” said Berg, the head of analysis. “We try to be innovative, but it is fundamental that you have to stay curious.”Not all of soccer’s innovations make sense in the test phase.Credit…Pool photo by Jon SuperLooking back, Ankersen regards the first few edges his club found to be “simple” ones: coaching academy players every day, rather than three times a week, was an easy win. But while he accepts that the search is now a little more complex, he does not believe soccer has yet cleared away all of the low-hanging fruit.“There are a lot of areas on the physical side,” he said, improvements that can be made in conditioning and strength and, particularly, in the individualization of training programs, understanding what types of fitness are required by players in specific positions. Soccer’s interest in fields like nutrition, recovery and sleep, too, is still young.He is eager to explore whether structured coaching from earlier ages might help the technical development of young players — “the next edge is starting earlier” — and turn generating talent into less of an exercise in panning for gold. “At the moment, it is a little like investing in a start-up,” he said of player development. “The upside is potentially great, but there is a lot of risk, because most of the investments will not work out.”And Ankersen is convinced that even Midtjylland, the great data evangelist, has only scratched the surface in terms of what analytics can do. “The quality and collection of data is still poor,” he said. “Most of it is event data, but most of football happens without the ball.” Artificial intelligence, he believes, will help to improve that considerable blind spot, as tracking data grows more sophisticated.Those technologies, of course, will eventually be available to everyone, just as performance data is sold now. The next great battleground will not, then, be which teams use data and which do not. It will not be who has the most data or, to some extent, who has the best data. Soccer’s next leap forward hinges on who uses that data best.F.C. Midtjylland’s soccer laboratory is in Herning, Denmark.Credit…Bo Amstrup/EPA, via ShutterstockSpeaking FootballThere is one area in which there is clearly no competitive edge for Midtjylland: telling journalists, in depth, about its work. Graversen, Berg and Ankersen are all amiable, thoughtful, helpful sorts, happy to talk about principles and philosophies and approaches. As is often the case when writing about the use of data in soccer, precise examples are thin on the ground. Knowledge is power, after all, but it is also proprietary.A single question, though, underpins much of what analysts do, of what they ask their data to show: How can the game be played more effectively?Midtjylland, for example, is better at set pieces than any team in Europe. “Over the last five years, we have scored more goals than anyone else that way,” Ankersen said. “The gap between us and the team in second is the same as the gap between the team in second and the team in 73rd.”That is no accident. Ralf Rangnick, the German coach, technical director and all-purpose visionary, is confident that soccer as a whole will place greater emphasis on set pieces in the years to come. Teams will develop specialized routines and updated training methods to maximize what is, across the world, a reliable source of goals.Midtjylland is there already. The club maintains an extensive set-piece playbook, continually updated with new routines and ideas. “A quarter of all goals come from set pieces,” Graversen said. “But the culture in football is defined, and it is very hard to shift.”Some coaches contend set pieces, which can be practiced, are ripe for exploitation as an offensive weapon.Credit…Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images for F.C. MidtjyllandThere is a measure of preoccupation, too, with shot location. Over the last decade, the N.B.A. has undergone a seismic shift in where and how its teams score their points. To the minds of those at Midtjylland, the same effect may be felt in soccer by discouraging players from taking shots from low-percentage positions, and encouraging them instead to work the ball into higher probability areas.“And if shot locations are changing, then why not optimal passes?” Ankersen said. “You can model the right decision to make in each moment because football is a controlled environment: You have data going back 50 years, when the game was still inherently the same, to feed into it.”The challenge, Berg said, is not finding out this information. It is conveying it to players, incorporating it into the way a team plays, taking it off the screen and onto the field. “Doing it on Excel is one thing,” he said. “What matters is, who can deliver that data in a way that suits the style of play?”Ankersen puts it another way: To get the most out of the information at their fingertips, clubs need to be able to get through to their players. “You have to make it relevant,” he said. “You have to speak football.” It is why this club that can turn everything into numbers now thinks, more than anything, about people.Bodo/Glimt set a host of records on its way to its first Norwegian title.Credit…Fredrik Varfjell/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Person Behind the PlayerOften, Bjorn Mannsverk’s sessions get deeply, intensely personal. He encourages the players who meet in his office every few weeks to share their innermost thoughts with him, and with their teammates. They talk not only about their professional worries, but their domestic ones. Sometimes, there are tears.Mannsverk, a former fighter pilot in the Norwegian air force, now serves — in a part-time capacity — as the team psychologist to Bodo/Glimt, the team from the Far North of the country that in November claimed its first national championship, breaking a host of records along the way.To Bodo’s players, Mannsverk and the environment he has created — one that focuses on performance, not results — has been vital to their success. He has, in the words of the team captain Ulrik Saltnes, emboldened them to play the “kamikaze” style that allows them to confront their fears.It is no surprise that Ankersen, at Midtjylland, is fascinated by Bodo’s story. Midtjylland, too, has a psychologist with a military background: B.S. Christiansen, a former member of the Danish huntsmen corps. Midtjylland, too, spends as much time thinking about the personalities of its players as their technical abilities.“We have to take care of the person behind the player,” Graversen said. “We have to be his or her family.”That paternal approach applies, he said, to all employees, whether they are on the field or not. But it is also another attempt to find a competitive advantage. By making the players feel more valued, the club feels it is better placed to draw out their best performances.Understanding the psychology and the personality of players is still fresh ground for soccer, but Midtjylland — as the success of Mannsverk and Bodo suggests — sees it not as uncharted territory but as a frontier to be claimed.The club is currently running one study, alongside one of Denmark’s largest data firms, to identify which traits are shared by players who have thrived there in the past. At the same time, they are working with educational consultants to work out how players absorb information, how they think, how they learn. In an era when soccer is saturated by data, Graversen sees that knowledge as crucial.“The next key thing is getting data into the playing style,” he said. “By finding out the way they learn, we can accelerate getting those principles into the way we play. We can design virtual reality tools to help them train. We can give them more useful feedback. In the next few years, the team that accelerates that process as much as possible will have the edge.”That, ultimately, is what Midtjylland has always done: search for an edge, wherever one might be found. And where it has blazed the trail, the rest of European soccer has followed. If Midtjylland, the game’s great laboratory, is thinking not just about what players do with their feet but what they do with their minds, then it is reasonable to assume, sooner or later, everyone else will, too.Midtjylland won Monday and will enjoy Christmas, and its winter break, from the top of the table.Credit…Miguel Medina/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Our Altered View of Sports After 2020

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonThe Warriors Are StrugglingVirus Upends Houston RocketsMarc Stein’s Fearless PredictionsThe Reloaded LakersCredit…By The New York TimesOur Altered ViewThe coronavirus changed sports. But it also changed us. Will our connection as fans always be divided into a before, and an after?Credit…By The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyIt was all taken for granted, wasn’t it?Before 2020, sports were the one thing we could rely on. There could be wars or disasters or depressions, storms and loss and grief, but there was always an escape hatch. There would be games.There would be games on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons and pretty much some sort of diversion at all other times of the week. It was just that easy.Things were so certain that they printed team schedules on little cards for your wallet and on posters for the barroom walls, and they were gospel. Fans could look at the schedules months in advance and think, yep, I know where I’ll be that day. I know what I’ll be doing that night.That was part of the allure, right? The certainty of it all? We think we watch sports because we don’t know what will happen. We mostly watch because we do.We knew that the teams would show up. We knew the best athletes would be there, all at the appointed time.There would be order. It could be 82 games or 162 games or 16 games, and it would somehow lead to a champion decided through a system only decipherable to the faithful. There would be 60 minutes or 90 minutes or three periods or four quarters or nine innings, because there are lives to plan around these games and life isn’t a test-cricket match.There would be rules and uniforms and officials to keep things fair.There would be things to complain about, because that is part of the ritual, too, and just enough hope to maintain devotion. It is the hope that binds the ritual.Cruel, these diversions, taken away just when we needed them most.But that is the lesson of 2020, isn’t it? The reminder that losing a game is not the worst kind of loss. Not even close.But where do sports fit in now? Is it the same place as before?Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesStrange how innocent, even reckless, things can look in hindsight. There was a Super Bowl in February, and J. Lo and Shakira had a halftime dance-off.The Chiefs came back to beat the 49ers. The stadium was packed. Millions watched on television.Any mention of a “mask” referred to helmet design. “Social distancing” was not a phrase that made any sense.By March, the N.B.A. and N.H.L. were in midseason form. College basketball was headed toward madness. Baseball was at spring training. The Summer Olympics loomed.Spring is the season of expectation, and expectation was in full bloom.Do you remember where you were or who told you? There were signs, smashed into about a week that feels like it’s still going on.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesA tennis tournament at Indian Wells was canceled.An N.B.A. game was postponed, then another, then all of them. Basketball tournaments were halted between games.Baseball players were sent home. The Olympics said they’d try again next year.Just wait it out, like a storm. Give it a few days, a couple weeks. This will pass. Everything will soon be back to normal.It isn’t.It won’t be.Must the show go on?There were games to be played, money to be made. (People were dying.)Neville E. Guard/USA Today Sports, via ReutersPlans were concocted, undone and concocted again. (People were dying.)Maybe a short season here, a bubble there. (People were dying.) Everyone wear a mask and let’s get the players tested every day. (People were dying.)Sell cardboard cutouts of fans and pipe in some crowd noise. (People were dying.) Spare no expense and get it on television. (People were dying.)There will be playoffs and champions and winners and losers. (People were dying.)And when this season ends we will start the next season anew. (People are dying.)Where do sports fit in?If only the world were so simple. Fight a pandemic. Play the games, or not.But bubbles are not airtight from reality. There is violence on the streets. There are people bleeding, suffering, marching, dying.Yes, they matter.Pool photo by Phil NobleNow is the time. To kneel. To stand up. To speak. To hear. To vote.Wearing a mask does not mean hiding. Wearing a mask can be revealing.It can save lives.Or maybe change them.What does it mean to be a fan now?It is a simple question in a complex year.Maybe it means finding room for small pleasures. Maybe it means clinging to a sense of community. Maybe it means rituals that will not be broken. Not now.Do sports matter as much if the seats are empty?Felix Schmitt for The New York TimesCan the emotion and the meaning be pixelated and streamed into a million little devices and still bring people together?Cardboard cutouts and Zoom screens are two-dimensional stand-ins for the irreplaceable. What do we do now? Will we jam together in sweaty gyms and raucous arenas and huge stadiums again?Will there be crowded beer lines, hot dog vendors in the aisles, standing room only sections, side-by-side urinals?Will there be deafening roars and derisive chants and people insisting on doing the wave? Cap tips and curtain calls? Will there be those singular, unscripted moments when a building full of strangers, loosely knotted by rooting interest and colorful garb and jammed together between the cup holders, elbows to elbows, knees to backs, rise as one?Maybe. Maybe not like before. Maybe not again.There was a November game between two college football powers that encapsulated 2020 better than any other sports event. All season, including that weekend, games had been wiped out by coronavirus outbreaks and single positive tests. But not this one.Matt Cashore/USA Today Sports, via ReutersClemson played at Notre Dame. The Heisman Trophy favorite had tested positive for the coronavirus but still made the trip and stood on the sideline in a mask.About 11,000 fans were in the stands, because that somehow was deemed the right balance between safety and structure. The game went to double overtime. The home team won. And when it did, the fans rushed the field.It was familiar. It was galling.It was 2020.There’s always next year. That is what they say in sports when a team has run out of chances. It is part of the ritual, too, the grasp for hope that better days are ahead.There’s always next year. We probably said that last year, too, back when we took all this — the games, sure, but life itself — for granted.There’s always next year.Except this time, we know: Nothing is certain.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Seahawks Defense Is an Asset Again in Division-Clinching Win

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySeahawks 20, Rams 9Seahawks Defense Is an Asset Again in Division-Clinching WinSeattle’s much-maligned defense held Los Angeles to field goals as the two N.F.C. West teams streak in opposite directions to end the regular season.Seahawks safety Jamal Adams chased down Rams running back Darrell Henderson to save a touchdown in the third quarter of Seattle’s win on Sunday to clinch the N.F.C. West division.Credit…Abbie Parr/Getty ImagesDec. 27, 2020, 9:26 p.m. ETThe corner of the end zone beckoned for Rams running back Darrell Henderson, who took a third-quarter handoff, rounded the edge and sprinted toward the pylon. Scurrying away from Seattle’s line, Henderson evaded one defender — but not the man who raced clear across the formation to drag him down from behind, 2 yards short of the goal line.“There was no way I was going to let him walk into that end zone,” said Jamal Adams, a Seattle safety.By preventing a touchdown, Adams preserved the Seahawks’ lead and embodied a smothering defensive effort that fueled their fifth victory in six games, 20-9, over Los Angeles, clinching their first N.F.C. West title since 2016.Back then, Seattle’s identity revolved around its defense, around a fierce pass rush, formidable secondary and the colorful personalities who powered both. This group doesn’t surpass the lofty standard set by the Legion of Boom. But over the last five weeks, as the playoffs draw near, no team has allowed fewer points (61) than the Seahawks.“There were times during the season where everybody had enough statistics to go ahead and blow us out, that we weren’t worth anything on defense,” Coach Pete Carroll said. “This defense is good. And they’ve shown it and they’ve declared it. This is the kind of defense that we’ve played in years past.”Even though the Rams ran more plays and held the ball six minutes longer than Seattle did, they managed only nine points, on three field goals, stifled in moments big and small. The Seahawks (11-4) sacked Jared Goff three times and intercepted him once, and were at their mightiest near their own end zone, stuffing the Rams on four chances inside the Seattle 4-yard line after Adams’s tackle.Right before that stand, the Rams (9-6), trailing by 13-6, faced second-and-5 from the 7. Adams tore into the backfield as soon as the ball was snapped, pursued Henderson as if powered by rocket fuel and then yanked him down shy of what could have been the tying touchdown. The next four plays went for minus-2, 3, 0 and 0 yards, and after the Seahawks knocked back Malcolm Brown on fourth down, they galloped away together.“Give us a blade of grass, and we’ll defend it,” said Carroll, who added that he’ll remember that goal-line sequence forever. “We were in full-on attack mode.”That attack mode did not materialize on offense to the extent it did earlier in the season, when Russell Wilson was flinging touchdown passes at will. But after a desultory first half, Wilson led Seattle on an 80-yard scoring drive, then secured victory with a 13-yard pass to Jacob Hollister with 2 minutes, 51 seconds remaining.In clinching the division title, Seattle assured itself of earning at least the No. 3 seed in the N.F.C. It also denied the Rams of a playoff berth that seemed certain eight days ago, when they prepared to host the winless Jets.Even in this week-to-week league, the Rams are as trustworthy as an email from a Nigerian prince. Just as they were approaching stability, winning four of five in a stretch that began with a Week 10 victory against Seattle, they collapsed against Jets. Put another way, after beating Bill Belichick on a short week, Sean McVay had 10 days to out-coach Adam Gase and could not.Against teams with winning records — teams like the Seahawks — the Rams had won their last four until Sunday.The stands at Lumen Field, one of the N.F.L.’s rowdier venues, normally would have been shaking for such a critical game, heaving with boisterous fans. The Seahawks yearn for that ambience. So does McVay, who last week said how much he had expected to miss being yelled at. “I kind of like it in a messed-up way,” he said.Maybe so, but McVay would have preferred seeing evidence that last week’s defeat was an aberration instead of, perhaps, the start of an unsettling trend.The first half unfolded as an extension of both teams’ recent fortunes, all middling offense and suffocating defense with a modicum of scoring. Had the field been shortened to 60 yards, Seattle and Los Angeles might not have noticed: Neither ran a play in the red zone.The Rams’ forays into Seahawks territory produced two field goals and an interception that defied justification. On first-and-10 from the 29-yard line, Goff, flushed right, tottered toward the sideline, where a sliver of open space welcomed him. Instead of running, he floated a pass across his body into an area the size of a city park but absent any receivers.One of a few Seattle defenders nearby, Quandre Diggs swooped in for the interception, Goff’s 13th of the season, and Seattle converted the turnover into the field goal that sent the game sputtering into halftime at 6-6.When asked what he saw on the interception, Diggs said: “I couldn’t tell you. I mean, my coaches always told me in high school when I was a quarterback, never throw the ball across your body.”With their stingy defense and excellent coaching, the Rams need not brilliance from Goff, just competence. He does not have to be the reason the Rams win, just not a reason they lose. In a league loaded with dazzling quarterbacks, the term game manager seems to wield a pejorative connotation, but it shouldn’t.Performing elemental tasks of the position, like making smart decisions quickly and not turning the ball over, is something Goff has done before. But when he fails, it makes Wilson’s capability ever more noticeable.Reliable quarterback play separated Seattle from the Rams on Sunday. But so did something else: Its defense, once maligned but now, just when the Seahawks needed it, was an asset.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    NFL Week 16: What We Learned

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat We Learned From Week 16 of the N.F.L. SeasonThe Steelers came back to beat the Colts, Kansas City survived against Atlanta and Jacksonville secured the No. 1 pick in the draft.Diontae Johnson began the Steelers’ comeback against the Colts with a diving catch for a 39-yard touchdown. Ben Roethlisberger added two more scoring passes in the fourth quarter to help Pittsburgh secure a 28-24 win.Credit…Don Wright/Associated PressDec. 27, 2020Updated 8:22 p.m. ETThe Pittsburgh Steelers overcame a huge deficit to shock the Indianapolis Colts. The Kansas City Chiefs barely beat the Atlanta Falcons and the Baltimore Ravens continued their surge with a win over the Giants. The top spot in the A.F.C. playoffs has been decided — as has the No. 1 pick in next year’s draft — but even a few irrelevant teams showed some pluck Sunday.Here’s what we learned:[embedded content]There is some fight left in the Steelers. Pittsburgh came into the day on a three-game losing streak, and appeared to be headed toward a fourth consecutive loss when it fell behind the Indianapolis Colts, 24-7, in the third quarter. From that point, the game belonged entirely to the Steelers. Ben Roethlisberger started the comeback in the third quarter by throwing a deep 39-yard touchdown pass to Diontae Johnson. He then added a 5-yard touchdown to Eric Ebron and a 25-yarder to JuJu Smith-Schuster in the fourth, as Pittsburgh’s defense shut down Indianapolis. The Colts’ final four drives resulted in two punts, an interception and a turnover on downs.Pittsburgh, which clinched the A.F.C. North title with Sunday’s win, is currently a half-game ahead of Buffalo for the No. 2 seed in the A.F.C. playoffs. Indianapolis, which fell to 10-5, has been one of the N.F.L.’s better teams this season but is currently not in line for a playoff spot because the Baltimore Ravens and the Cleveland Browns own tiebreakers over the Colts.Kansas City came away with a win, but it required a fairly shocking miss by Atlanta’s Younghoe Koo, who came into the day 19 for 19 on field goal attempts of less than 40 yards.Credit…Jeff Roberson/Associated PressThe Chiefs love to play with fire. A win was hardly necessary for Kansas City, as the Chiefs were virtually assured of the No. 1 seed in the A.F.C. playoffs even if they lost their final two games. But watching Kansas City barely hang on for a 17-14 win at home over the Atlanta Falcons reinforced the idea that Patrick Mahomes’s team tends to play down to its competition. A sloppy effort against Atlanta had the Chiefs losing, 14-10, with just over two minutes remaining, and would have headed to overtime if not for an unlikely miss from Atlanta’s Younghoe Koo, as the Pro Bowl kicker’s attempt at a game-tying 39-yard field goal sailed wide right.Regardless of how close they cut it, the Chiefs improved to 14-1 and clinched the A.F.C.’s only first-round bye. Perhaps by the divisional round of the playoffs, the Chiefs will decide that it is important to try for the entire game.Baltimore’s Gus Edwards led a rushing attack that produced 249 yards on 40 carries.Credit…Terrance Williams/Associated PressThe Ravens control their playoff destiny. Baltimore dropped to 6-5 with a loss to Pittsburgh on Dec. 2 — the team’s fourth defeat in five games — and seemed like a long shot to make the playoffs. A soft schedule, and a return to form by quarterback Lamar Jackson, has righted the ship and thanks to a 27-13 victory over the Giants, the Ravens can now secure the team’s third straight trip to the playoffs simply by beating the Cincinnati Bengals next week. Baltimore’s four-game win streak has included only one victory over a team with a winning record, but an average of 37 points a game is impressive no matter the opponent.The Ravens, who thrive when chewing up huge chunks of yardage on the ground, have averaged 233.3 yards rushing a game in the four-game win streak after having been held to fewer than 200 in nine of their first 11 games.Taylor Heinicke was forced into action at quarterback for Washington after Dwayne Haskins was benched. It is unclear who will start at quarterback for Washington in next week’s crucial game.Credit…Mark Tenally/Associated PressCeeDee Lamb and Amari Cooper both had huge days for Dallas as the Cowboys demolished the visiting Philadelphia Eagles. Dallas somewhat surprisingly still has a shot at making the playoffs.Credit…Ron Jenkins/Associated PressThere will be a division winner with a losing record. The Washington Football Team came into the day with dreams of finishing the season at 8-8, but a 20-13 loss at home to the Carolina Panthers dropped Washington to 6-9, meaning the N.F.C. East will be won by a team that is, at best, 7-9. The division’s teams have often been hard to watch, but they will provide the most exciting subplot of Week 17, as the Footballers, the Dallas Cowboys and the Giants will all go into the season’s final day with a chance at earning a playoff game at home. Washington can make it nice and simple by winning a road game against the eliminated Philadelphia Eagles — a result that would be far more attainable should quarterback Alex Smith return from a calf injury.Frank Gore is going out in style. After a loss to the Los Angeles Chargers in November dropped the Jets to 0-10, Gore, 37, addressed his team’s struggles (and his own future), saying “You don’t want to go 0-16, especially if this is my last year. I can’t go out like that.” Last week Gore helped the Jets end their 13-game losing streak by scoring the 100th touchdown of his career. This week he ran for a team-high 48 yards as the Jets beat the Cleveland Browns, 23-16. In doing so, Gore joined Emmitt Smith and Walter Payton as the only players in N.F.L. history with at least 16,000 yards rushing — only two other active players, Detroit’s Adrian Peterson (14,757) and Tampa Bay’s LeSean McCoy (11,102), have more than 10,000.Provided he decides to declare for the N.F.L. draft, Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence will almost assuredly be headed south to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Credit…Ken Ruinard/USA Today Sports, via ReutersTrevor Lawrence is moving about six hours south. The downside of Gore getting his wish to go out well with the Jets is the team having officially handed the No. 1 pick in next year’s draft to the Jacksonville Jaguars, which almost assuredly will lead to Lawrence, Clemson’s star quarterback, taking a long drive down I-95 to replace Gardner Minshew rather than heading north to replace Sam Darnold. The Jaguars were emphatic in their failure on Sunday, losing by 41-17 to the suddenly surging Chicago Bears. But at least on offense Jacksonville should be a terrific landing spot for Lawrence, as he will immediately be handed a good young running back (James Robinson) and two talented young wide receivers (D.J. Chark and Laviska Shenault Jr.)One* Sentence About Sunday’s Games*Except when it takes more.Kansas City’s Travis Kelce needs just 84 yards receiving to become the first tight end to have 1,500 in a season. His biggest obstacle is the likelihood that the Chiefs will rest multiple starters after having already clinched a first-round bye. Credit…Jeff Roberson/Associated PressChiefs 17, Falcons 14 It was a quiet day by Kansas City’s lofty standards, and the team’s running game looked far less effective without the injured Clyde Edwards-Helaire, but the Chiefs did have the silver lining of Travis Kelce reaching 1,416 yards receiving for the season, breaking the single-season record for a tight end set by George Kittle in 2018. Kelce has one more game to add to his total, provided Kansas City doesn’t rest him in next week’s irrelevant game against the Los Angeles Chargers.Steelers 28, Colts 24 At halftime, Indianapolis was romping to an easy win. The second half was another story, as the Steelers stopped trying to dink and dunk themselves to victory and had their aggressiveness pay off in spades, with the team earning its first A.F.C. North title in three seasons.Ravens 27, Giants 13 The Giants’ third straight loss was largely a result of Baltimore’s offense overwhelming them, but the Ravens’ defense had a fine day as well, making Daniel Jones’s life miserable with six sacks and 11 quarterback hits.Seattle’s defense was terrible for most of the season, but the team has been showing dramatic improvement on that side of the ball. Quandre Diggs’s interception in the second quarter of Sunday’s game ended a promising drive by the Rams.Credit…Scott Eklund/Associated PressSeahawks 20, Rams 9 It was hardly an explosive effort, but Seattle clinched the N.F.C. West title, kept alive a small chance at a first-round bye, and continued to show dramatic improvement on the defensive side of the ball. Despite its loss, Los Angeles controls its own fate next week. A win would give the Rams a wild-card spot in the playoffs.Jets 23, Browns 16 It took a total team effort for Cleveland to lose, with Baker Mayfield completing just 28 of his 53 passes, the Browns’ celebrated running game averaging just 2.5 yards a carry and the team’s defense making the Jets’ Sam Darnold look downright competent. A win would have clinched a playoff spot for Cleveland, but the Browns will now go into Week 17 fighting with Miami, Baltimore and Indianapolis for the three wild-card spots in the A.F.C.Cowboys 37, Eagles 17 Everything went right for Dallas, with Andy Dalton throwing for 377 yards and three touchdowns, Ezekiel Elliott rushing for 105 yards and Michael Gallup, Amari Cooper and CeeDee Lamb all putting on a show against Philadelphia’s overwhelmed secondary. Jalen Hurts topped 300 yards passing for a second consecutive week, but wasn’t able to turn that yardage into enough points.Curtis Samuel has been remarkably versatile for Carolina this season. He and Christian McCaffrey could present matchup problems for opponents should McCaffrey get back to full health next season.Credit…Mitchell Layton/Getty ImagesPanthers 20, Footballers 13 Curtis Samuel put on a show for Carolina, piling up 158 yards from scrimmage, but the story of the day was quarterback Dwayne Haskins being benched for ineffective play on the heels of losing his captaincy as a result of off-field behavior. You have to assume that Haskins’s days in Washington are numbered.Chargers 19, Broncos 16 Denver had the ball with a chance to win the game in the final minute, but Drew Lock’s desperation heave was intercepted, handing Los Angeles its sixth win of the season.Chicago’s Jimmy Graham caught two touchdown passes on Sunday, giving him 82 for his career. Among tight ends, only  Antonio Gates, Tony Gonzalez and Rob Gronkowski have more.Credit…James Gilbert/Getty ImagesBears 41, Jaguars 17 It is not like Jacksonville had any motivation to win — quite the opposite — but watching Chicago put up 28 consecutive points to start the second half couldn’t have been very fun. Chicago’s win, combined with Arizona’s loss on Saturday, has the Bears in line for the N.F.C.’s final wild-card spot. That sets up an entertaining Week 17 in which Chicago closes its season with a home game against the top-seeded Green Bay Packers, and the Cardinals have a tough matchup on the road against the Los Angeles Rams.Bengals 37, Texans 31 Brandon Allen threw for 371 yards and two touchdowns and Samaje Perine ran for 95 yards and two scores, powering Cincinnati to its first road win since Sept. 30, 2018. Houston dropped to 4-11, having absolutely wasted a season of quarterback Deshaun Watson’s prime.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Ravens Snatch Back Giants’ Playoff Hopes

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRavens 27, Giants 13Ravens Snatch Back Giants’ Playoff HopesBaltimore made its case for the wild-card spot as the Giants fell back to earth — and toward the bottom of the N.F.C. East — in a rout.Giants receiver Sterling Shepard was tackled by his jersey Sunday as the Ravens frustrated the team’s offense. Credit…Patrick Smith/Getty ImagesDec. 27, 2020Updated 7:43 p.m. ETIn early November, the Giants began a startling run at a playoff berth with four consecutive victories. In that moment, perhaps it seemed as if the long-suffering Giants had been underestimated under Joe Judge, the team’s rookie head coach.At roughly the same time, the Baltimore Ravens, a Super Bowl favorite when last season’s playoffs began, were surprisingly adrift with four losses in five games. Had the Ravens and their sparkling quarterback Lamar Jackson, the N.F.L.’s reigning most valuable player, been overvalued?By the end of the Ravens’ systematic 27-13 thrashing of the Giants on Sunday in Baltimore — a game that was not nearly as close as the score would suggest — it was obvious the Ravens and Jackson had simply been forced to endure a mini-slump inexorably linked to last month’s coronavirus outbreak on the team.As for the Giants, it is now fair to wonder whether the win streak of several weeks ago was true progress for a beleaguered franchise or a hollow mirage that leaves many questions about the roster still unresolved.The fourth successive victory for the Ravens (10-5) greatly enhances their chances at claiming a wild-card playoff spot since they now only need to win their final regular season game against Cincinnati (4-10-1) to qualify for the postseason. The Giants (5-10), losers of three straight games, have one remaining path to the playoffs: They must defeat Dallas at home in their regular season finale next week and the Washington Football Team would have to lose at Philadelphia on the same day.“I’m really proud of our guys for handling the situation we’ve been in for the last several weeks,” Baltimore Coach John Harbaugh said. “They’ve managed to stay focused and that says everything about their character.”Added Ravens tight end Mark Andrews when asked to address the team’s losing stretch and a period when at least one Baltimore player tested positive for the virus for 10 successive days: “It was about staying patient. I knew our time was coming and it is coming.”It is much harder to see improvement for the Giants — in the near term, at least. The team will have at least 10 losses for the fourth season in a row, which is a first for the franchise. The Giants will also have double-digit losses in six of seven years. In their last three games, the Giants have been outscored, 73-26.Judge, however, remained unbowed when assessing the season as a whole.“I feel like we’re on the right track,” he said Sunday, referring to the development of less tangible attributes like the team’s heightened work ethic and sustained resilience.“We’ve got the right start, we just need to do more on the field to get the tangible results,” Judge said.The tone for the game, generally utter dominance by Baltimore, was set early when the Ravens took the opening kickoff and used eight minutes and 12 seconds to meticulously march 82 yards downfield on their way to taking a 7-0 lead. The 13-play drive put on display everything the varied Baltimore offense planned to unleash against a Giants defense that had been much improved in the second half of the season.Jackson, who completed 17 of 26 passes for 183 yards with two touchdown passes, threw for 31 yards on his team’s first possession, including a 6-yard touchdown toss to Marquise Brown. Jackson, who would rush for 80 yards on 13 carries, also repeatedly sliced through the heart and strength of the Giants’ defense, which has been the team’s interior linemen.Running back Gus Edwards led the Ravens Sunday with 85 yards rushing on 15 attempts and had two receptions for 37 yards. Edwards, who has rushed for 277 yards in his last four games after gaining 386 yards in Baltimore’s opening 10 games, was especially effective in third-down situations.“He’s doing it all right now,” Jackson said of Edwards. “He’s running tough and getting yards after the catch. But I see it all the time in practice, that’s Gus just being him.”As Baltimore built a 20-3 halftime lead with a 2-yard touchdown run by J.K. Dobbins and two Justin Tucker field goals, the Giants were nearly setting team records for offensive futility. They had just three offensive plays in the first quarter, which is the fewest for the team in 30 years. They had possession of the football for only seven minutes and 22 seconds of the first half when they gained just 16 yards on the ground — compared to the 155 first-half rushing yards for Baltimore.Giants quarterback Daniel Jones, who missed a game because of a hamstring injury earlier this month and appeared rusty in a lopsided defeat to Arizona last week, seemed to be moving more comfortably Sunda. But the results were no better.Jones, who has 406 yards rushing this season, ran just once Sunday for 3 yards. Most problematic for Jones was the Ravens’ pass rush, which overwhelmed the young, inexperienced Giants offensive line for six sacks, all of them in the second half when the Giants showed some life offensively but never truly challenged Baltimore’s lead.Jones completed 24 of 41 passes for 252 yards. Midway through the fourth quarter, he threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Sterling Shepard. It was just Jones’s ninth touchdown pass in 13 games this year. The Giants, who came into Sunday’s game with an offense that was ranked second-to-last in the N.F.L., have now scored 26 points in their last three games.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Opting Out of the N.F.L. Brings No Regret for This Jets Lineman

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Stimulus DealThe Latest Vaccine InformationF.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOpting Out of the N.F.L. Brings No Regret for This Jets LinemanLeo Koloamatangi says he misses his team, even in a dreadful season, and that he has wondered what he might have accomplished this year. But he finds comfort in knowing his family is at a lower risk.Leo Koloamatangi at his dining room table in Fontana, Calif., this summer.Credit…Christian Monterrosa for The New York TimesDec. 27, 2020, 1:00 a.m. ETThe New York Times Sports department is revisiting the subjects of some compelling articles from the last year or so. Here is our August report on N.F.L. players who opted out of the league during the coronavirus pandemic.Like so many people during these turbulent times, Leo Koloamatangi finds comfort in his routines. And so every Sunday and Monday — and in this upended N.F.L. season, most Thursdays, plus the odd Tuesday and Wednesday — he has watched other people do what he loves most.From his Southern California home, Koloamatangi, 26, cheers for his friends around the league, and for his team, the Jets, longing to be on the sideline with the men he calls his brothers. He had a choice. He could have joined them, practiced with them, prepared with them, muddled through 13 losses with them before they got their first win.But not this season.Not during a pandemic that had already killed two close relatives when he made his decision, and not when he had a young daughter, Aurora, and when his wife, Athena, was in the early stages of pregnancy. Along with 67 other players, Koloamatangi, an offensive lineman, opted out before the N.F.L. season, sacrificing career development and potential glory for his family’s well-being.When Koloamatangi spoke with The Times in August, he called that decision the hardest of his life. In early December, he called this year his hardest as a football player. He also said he had no regrets.“I have this overwhelming sense of accountability, to my family and myself personally,” Koloamatangi said. “I’m very grateful that I can play in the N.F.L. and compete at the highest level, and there’s nothing more that I’d want to do than satisfy my job. But because of what I must protect and who I have to look over and look after, my position was to sit out and watch the season play out.”Amid growing restrictions in California, he has hunkered down. Koloamatangi wishes he could have had a large Polynesian party for Aurora’s first birthday last month, and he wonders what might have happened if he had not opted out.Over three seasons, he had pinballed between the active rosters of the Detroit Lions and the Jets, never appearing in a regular-season game. He might have gotten his chance this season, as practice squads expanded to 16 players from 12 to account for Covid-related roster shortfalls.That is how Kendall Hinton, a practice-squad wide receiver for the Denver Broncos, got his first official N.F.L. snaps, stepping in to play quarterback in a game against the Saints after all four of the regular QBs were exposed to the coronavirus.“There are lot of guys out there who have opportunities in front of them because of Covid,” Koloamatangi said. “Times like this, it’s great for players like that. And quite honestly, players like me.”Koloamatangi in August feeding his daughter, Aurora, who was then 9 months old. Credit…Christian Monterrosa for The New York TimesAs transmission rates surge across the country, the number of positive cases in the N.F.L. has also swelled, but the season has continued, often in uncomfortable ways. Outbreaks rampaged through the Tennessee Titans and Baltimore Ravens, sickening not only players and staff members but also family members. And although most players who were infected have returned, at least two have endured serious complications — Buffalo tight end Tommy Sweeney, who has the heart condition myocarditis, and Jacksonville running back Ryquell Armstead, who was reportedly hospitalized twice.League officials have maintained that no evidence exists of players transmitting the virus on the field. But when Koloamatangi opted out, he fully expected to contract the virus, in part because his position requires nearly constant close contact in games and at practices.“If somebody told me, ‘Covid’s going to have a huge impact on our schedule and our practicing and how we meet, but you and your family wouldn’t contract the virus,’ I think I would have went,” Koloamatangi said. “But because no one really had an answer, we didn’t know what to anticipate. There was no way for me to guarantee personal protection over my family.”As per an agreement between the league and its players’ union, Koloamatangi received a $150,000 advance on next year’s salary — not a small sum of money, but a fraction of the $750,000 he would have made.His family does not have an extravagant lifestyle — “we really only splurge on our kids,” he said — and has been able to manage the financial burden well enough. He and Athena give each other time to themselves every day, and Koloamatangi often spends his in their garage. There, he recently installed a deluxe gym, replete with weight machines, a full power rack and a force plate, and he is confident that, after the longest off-season of his career, he will return a superior athlete. That soothes him.He is not naïve enough to think that his presence on the Jets would have prevented them from hurtling toward one of the worst seasons in franchise history. But, he said, he feels as responsible for their swoon as anyone on the roster.So every week, when Koloamatangi watches the Jets play, he thinks about them and their families. He thinks about the pain they must be experiencing this season, and he thinks about how next season he hopes to see them again. Afterward, he sits with Athena and tells her how grateful he is for all their time together.“I’m just looking at her like, ‘I wish I could be there, I need to be there,’” Koloamatangi said. “It’s something that I’m definitely excited to rekindle once I get back. But it’s hard, you know?”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Alvin Kamara Runs for Six Touchdowns Against Vikings

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAlvin Kamara Runs for Six Touchdowns Against VikingsThe Saints running back tied an N.F.L. record set in 1929 in New Orleans’ 52-33 win over the Minnesota Vikings.Alvin Kamara rushed for a career-high 155 yards.Credit…Butch Dill/Associated PressDec. 25, 2020NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Alvin Kamara expects to be fined for wearing a pair of Christmas-themed cleats that, as it turned out, would also be worthy of a Hall of Fame display.With a red shoe on his right foot and a green one on his left, Kamara tied an N.F.L. record set in 1929 by running for six touchdowns in a game. He finished with a career-high 155 yards rushing to help the New Orleans Saints beat the Minnesota Vikings 52-33 on Friday and clinch their fourth straight N.F.C. South title.“It just feels good to have one of those days, just for the team,” Kamara said, showering credit on the Saints’ offensive line.“I’m not focused on personal, like, goals and yards and stuff like that,” Kamara continued. “As long as the team has success, then personal success will come.”That personal success has come all season for Kamara, who during training camp signed a five-year contract worth up to $75 million. He has since set franchise records for rushing touchdowns in a season with 16 and total touchdowns with 21.A possible fine would come from wearing shoes that didn’t conform to the N.F.L.’s uniform codes.“If they fine me, whatever it is, I’ll just match it and donate to charity,” he said. “You know, the Grinch always tries to steal Christmas.”Kamara slipped a couple of tackle attempts and then sprinted into the clear for a 40-yard touchdown on the game’s opening drive. He added scoring runs of 1, 5, 6, 7 and 3 yards against a Minnesota defensive front hit hard by injuries, and equaled the Hall of Fame fullback Ernie Nevers’ achievement.“It was awesome,” Saints quarterback Drew Brees said. “Six touchdowns for a running back is just astounding.”The Saints celebrated Kamara’s final touchdown by making snow angels in the end zone.Credit…Butch Dill/Associated PressMinnesota (6-9) was eliminated from playoff contention while allowing the most points by any Vikings team since 1963, the franchise’s third N.F.L. season. The Vikings also allowed the most yards in a game at 583. The Saints (11-4) never punted.“They just mashed us up front,” Vikings Coach Mike Zimmer said, calling his defense “the worst one I’ve ever had” as a coach. “We couldn’t slow them down. It would be 8-yard gain, 7-yard gain.”Saints Coach Sean Payton said it felt like a Canadian Football League game, with many first-down conversions coming before New Orleans even got to third down. The Saints might have won by a greater margin if not for two interceptions of Drew Brees, one of them on a pass that deflected off receiver Emmanuel Sanders’ hands.Brees completed 19 of 26 throws for 311 yards in his second game back from rib and lung injuries that had sidelined him for four games.Sanders had four catches for 83 yards, while tight end Jared Cook caught three passes for 82 yards. New Orleans’ 264 yards rushing were the most by a Vikings opponent in Zimmer’s seven seasons.New Orleans native Irv Smith Jr. caught a pair of touchdown passes in the third quarter for the Vikings, with the second pulling Minnesota to within 31-27. But the Saints responded with two short touchdown runs by Kamara and one by the versatile Taysom Hill in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach.Kirk Cousins passed for 283 yards and three touchdowns for the Vikings, who never led and trailed for good after Kamara’s second touchdown in the first quarter.Saints players celebrated the last Kamara touchdown by pretending to make snow angels on the Superdome turf, which center Erik McCoy planned during the final drive as something that stuck with the Christmas theme.Payton, who spent part of his youth in the Chicago area, was thinking about Gale Sayers’ six-touchdown game (four rushing, two receiving) against San Francisco in 1965 when he called the play that led to Kamara’s final score with just less than two minutes left.“I’d say most of these players have no idea how good Gale Sayers was,” Payton said, adding that Kamara’s touchdown total “was a big deal. He played fantastic.”The Saints will visit the Carolina Panthers on Jan. 3, the final Sunday of the regular season, while Minnesota will visit the Detroit Lions.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Petr Cech Is Still Saving Chelsea, This Time in New Role

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOn SoccerPetr Cech Is in His Comfort Zone: In the Middle of EverythingFor the recently retired goalkeeper, a role as Chelsea’s technical director is appealing because of how different it is from playing.Petr Cech’s role as technical director at Chelsea calls on every bit of what he learned in the game.Credit…John Sibley/Action Images, via ReutersDec. 24, 2020, 3:00 a.m. ETLONDON — Petr Cech does not watch a lot of television. Switching his brain off, by his own admission, does not come easily to him. He has always preferred, he said, to fill every minute of his day, not just with work and family but with a moderately intimidating litany of pastimes and projects. Settling down on the sofa counts, to his mind, as time wasted.This year, though, Cech and his wife, Martina, have started getting into “The Crown.” Even then, though, he is not the sort to allow himself to be washed away by the lavish Netflix melodrama. Each episode — he is somewhere in the middle of the second season — prompts him to go away and fill in the gaps in both his knowledge and the series’ contested historical authenticity.“Obviously it’s not completely accurate,” he said. “But there are lots of interesting things. You start Googling those parts of British history, and you realize there are lots of things you didn’t know.” That, just about, encapsulates Cech: He is inclined to see an hour or two of fairly mindless television in his rare downtime not as a chance to relax, but as a learning opportunity.That Cech has time to disappear down a rabbit hole about the Suez crisis — or anything else — is faintly remarkable. Spooling through all of the things he does, it is hard not to assume he is handcuffed by having a mere 24 hours in his day. He is studying for an M.B.A. He plays the drums well enough that last year he released a charity single with Roger Taylor of Queen.He is fluent in five languages — his native Czech, English, German, Spanish and French — but speaks seven. He admits, as if confessing to some great flaw, that he cannot write quite as well as he might like in Italian and Portuguese. He has started running, too; every so often he will knock out a quick 10K on a weekend morning.All of this, he said, means that his “time management has to be right.” These are extracurricular activities, after all. He also has a job to think about. Strictly speaking, in fact, he has two.Cech spent the bulk of his career at Chelsea, but finished it at its London rival Arsenal.Credit…Kerim Okten/European Pressphoto AgencyCech retired as a player in 2019 — after a decorated career spent at Rennes, Chelsea and, in his twilight, Arsenal. He made the decision before it was made for him; within a few months, he found that his “mind started to clear, that I had a new motivation, a new happiness.”He went back to the gym, reveling in the fact that his body — without “a big ball being fired at me at 60 miles an hour” hundreds of times every day — was recovering from the wear and tear it had endured. As far as he was concerned, his life as a player was over. He had plenty of job offers. The one that appealed the most was a post as technical director at Chelsea.He had been doing that for almost a year when the pandemic struck. Suddenly, he found himself dragged back to a life he thought he had left behind. “We were lucky to be able to finish the season,” he said. “But nobody knew how many players would get the virus, and we had really strict numbers and restrictions. Normally, if a player gets injured, you would take someone from the academy, but because we had to be in bubbles, that was not possible.“At one point, we were short a goalkeeper, so the solution was either I stepped in, or a goalkeeping coach did. I was fit, so I said OK.” It was intended as a precaution, a form of emergency cover, but Cech was still more than good enough to be a viable option. He was briefly registered on Chelsea’s squad list for the Champions League this season.His primary focus, though, what all of his other interests must swirl around, is his new role. Cech is — by English soccer’s standards — something of a rarity. In certain parts of continental Europe, and especially Germany, it is not unusual for high-profile players to eschew coaching and move into front-office roles immediately after retirement: Marc Overmars and Edwin van der Sar at Ajax; Leonardo at Paris St.-Germain; almost the entire off-field hierarchy at Bayern Munich.England is only now catching up. For the most part, where Premier League clubs employ a technical director, it is seen as a position for a recruitment specialist, someone who can navigate the choppy, unpredictable waters of soccer’s transfer market. Edu Gaspar, at Arsenal, and Cech, at Chelsea — both appointed last year, both with vast experience as top players — are exceptions.For Cech, the appeal of the job lies in how different it is from playing. He had thought in great depth about what he would do after he retired. He had, he said, realized after fracturing his skull in 2006 that “it took only a split second for everything to be finished.” He knew he had to be prepared.He studied for his coaching licenses while still playing — on international duty with the Czech Republic, he said, “there was always time” — but it occurred to him that coaches, essentially, live the same life as a player: “You spend time training, traveling, at games, in hotels. The routine is the same.”A front office role, by contrast, “allows me to be close to the game, but to organize things in a different way.” The challenge was that soccer the game and soccer the industry are distinct entities; a life in one does not wholly prepare you for a life in the other. Cech was, effectively, “starting from zero.”To some extent, what he has seen since has been eye-opening. Cech chose his agents at the age of 17; they still represent him now. He always made a point of knowing not only exactly what they were doing, but how they were doing it. He can see now, of course, that not every player is quite so thorough, and not every agent quite so transparent. “Lots of players leave things with the agent and carry on,” he said. “There are parts of football on this side that are very surprising, in a negative way.”For all that surprise, the early results suggest Cech is well suited to his new role. His playing career, as it turned out, was not entirely irrelevant. As a player, he was always involved with the various liaison committees that express the squad’s feelings to the club’s representatives. He feels, still, that he knows instinctively how players would react to certain suggestions.The luster his playing career carries can be an advantage, too. At one point this summer, he flew to Germany to meet with Kai Havertz, the playmaker Chelsea would eventually sign for $81 million.Cech’s contributions helped deliver the German forwards Timo Werner and Kai Havertz to the team coached by Frank Lampard, Cech’s former Chelsea teammate.Credit…Donall Farmer/Press Association, via Associated PressCech impressed Havertz’s family not only with the depth of his analysis but his human touch: He spent as much time discussing raising children in London and his own memories of moving to England as a young player as he did the 21-year-old Havertz’s role on the team. His mere presence, though, helped persuade Havertz: He was impressed that the player he had seen winning the Champions League in 2012 would come to see him in person.His other skills have proved useful, too. Earlier this year, Chelsea was trying to figure out how to make headway with the signing of the German forward Timo Werner. Liverpool was circling, and Frank Lampard, the Chelsea manager, and the club’s recruitment department, led by Scott McLachlan, were eager to find an edge in the chase.Over lunch at the club’s training facility one day, Cech pointed out that he spoke German. What if he called Werner directly? Those involved with the deal point to it as the decisive moment.But there is something broader, too, that has smoothed Cech’s transition. The position of technical director varies from club to club and country to country. In Chelsea’s case, Cech is there to tie together the various strands of the club’s sporting vision, the linchpin between the first team, the academy and the recruitment department. The business side is handled by Marina Granovskaia, Chelsea’s director and its de facto chief executive.It is, in other words, the sort of job that requires someone used to balancing a whole host of different demands and needs and priorities. Someone given to thinking in four dimensions to make sure their many and varied commitments can all be met. Someone, like Cech, who does not, as he put it, “like to waste time.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More