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    What Qualifies as Success at Borussia Dortmund?

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRory Smith On SoccerWhat Qualifies as Success?Borussia Dortmund’s business is winning matches and grooming some of the world’s best young talent. To do both, sometimes you have to put up with a few growing pains.Three of Dortmund’s crown jewels: Giovanni Reyna, Erling Haaland and Jadon Sancho.Credit…Friedemann Vogel/EPA, via ShutterstockDec. 18, 2020, 10:05 a.m. ETEven after Lucien Favre turned 60, he could still do things with a ball that left even some of European soccer’s brightest talents just a little awe-struck.He could juggle it as well as any of the budding superstars under his tutelage at Borussia Dortmund. He had tricks up his sleeve that some of them had not yet mastered. He could join in a small-sided training game — alongside Erling Haaland and Jadon Sancho and the rest of his squad, all more than half his age — and hold his own.Favre has always been a coach in the traditional sense. Some managers are characterized as motivators, rhetoricians and demagogues, urging their troops into battle. Others are portrayed as canny, scheming strategists. Favre is, to some extent, a throwback to what the role was when it was first conceived: He is, at heart, a teacher of technique.His training sessions — at Dortmund and at Nice and at Borussia Mönchengladbach, and all the other stops on his long and subtly successful managerial career — are regularly interrupted in order to amend some individual technical detail, to make a minor alteration to where a foot is planted or how a ball is struck or the way a body is shaped to receive a pass.It is a risky approach for a coach in elite soccer. In his time at Real Madrid, Rafael Benítez found that his interventions along similar lines were not warmly welcomed by his star-studded squad. They did not, several players made clear, need someone to tell them how to play soccer.Lucien Favre considered himself a teacher. Dortmund decided it needed wins more, so it fired him.Credit…Uwe Kraft/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFavre, though, never faced that issue at Dortmund. In part, that was because of his own, enduring ability. Those tricks in training games were not just evidence of a showman streak or a waxing nostalgia for his days as a player in his native Switzerland; they were a way of garnering respect, a sign to his players that he had something to teach them.Just as significant, though, the tricks were a testament to the profile of Dortmund’s squad. Favre was fired this week because a club of Dortmund’s stature could not tolerate yet another season drifting away from Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga title race. It most certainly could not accept the idea of a 5-1 defeat at home to Stuttgart, or a struggle to qualify for next season’s Champions League.Dortmund is, after all, Germany’s other superpower, a club that regards itself — in terms of finance and history and clout — as effectively the Bundesliga’s second in command. It is one thing being overwhelmed by Bayern; it is quite another to glance down the league table and have to spool through Bayer Leverkusen, RB Leipzig and Wolfsburg, too, before finding Dortmund.If Bayern Munich expects to win championships, Dortmund at least demands to be contending for them. Under Favre, in charge since 2018, that had not quite materialized. When it started to look like this season, too, might prove another false dawn, the cutthroat rules that govern Europe’s elite clubs kicked in, and the 63-year-old Favre had to go.But Dortmund is not like any other club of its size in Europe. Though Favre and the sporting director Michael Zorc had added a dash of experience to the squad over the last couple of years, reacquiring Mats Hummels from Bayern and signing the likes of Emre Can and Axel Witsel, it remains a tremendously young place.Haaland and Sancho might be two of the most coveted players in Europe, but they are both only 20, and Haaland has yet to complete a full year in one of the continent’s major leagues. Giovanni Reyna has emerged as a key part of the team over a similar time span, but he is still just 18.Youssoufa Moukoko, left, turned 16 in November. Within three weeks, he had become the youngest player in Bundesliga history, and the youngest to appear in a Champions League match.Credit…Olga Maltseva/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesJude Bellingham was signed over the summer with one eye on a slow-burn introduction to the first team, only to force his way into Favre’s plans almost immediately. He is 17. Youssoufa Moukoko, a prodigiously talented striker in the club’s youth teams and regarded, already, as a natural deputy to Haaland, has only last month turned 16.This is Dortmund’s system: to recruit blue-chip talents from across Europe — and occasionally further afield — and to expose them to elite soccer, in both the Bundesliga and the Champions League, earlier than might be possible elsewhere. It is that reputation for trusting and empowering youth that the club emphasizes in its sales pitch to prospective signings.And it was that approach that made Favre, in some senses, the perfect coach for Dortmund. For all their very obvious talent, these are players who still need some instruction on the finer, technical points of the game. They have not, unlike Real Madrid’s squad, learned all they ever need to learn.They are all at Dortmund to improve, and to be improved, so that they can then be sold on, to make the leap to Real Madrid or Barcelona or one of the Premier League’s great houses (or, to Dortmund’s chagrin, to Bayern Munich). Favre fit not just Dortmund’s philosophy, but its financial model.Haaland and Reyna may not be long for Dortmund. The brightest young talents rarely are.Credit…Friedemann Vogel/EPA, via ShutterstockThe problem, of course, is that both are a little at odds with how the club perceives itself. Dortmund has more than enough quality in its squad to beat Stuttgart at home. Its team should not reasonably expect, for example, to find itself trailing Wolfsburg in the table, as it was when it changed coaches. Dispensing with Favre, by those simple metrics, was justifiable.But there is a cost to operating, as Dortmund does, as effectively a high-end finishing school for Europe’s next generation of stars. It means the squad must constantly be a work in progress, as players arrive, flourish and inevitably leave, to be replaced by some new prodigy.It means the emphasis must always be on attack — that, after all, is where there is money to be made — and the style of play must always be fraught with just a little risk. It means accepting a degree of oscillation in performance, the sort of problem Bayern almost never has, over the course of the season. It means riding out the bumps in any young player’s road.Dortmund should not find it hard to appoint a new manager. This is the club that Jürgen Klopp turned into the lodestar of the pressing game, after all. Many of the tenets of modern soccer orthodoxy are not just scoured into Dortmund’s soul, but emanated from here in the first place. It is, in that sense, to soccer in the 2020s what Barcelona was a decade before: the ideological home of the current iteration of the game.Dortmund has entrusted its first team to the assistant coaches Manfred Steves, left, and Edin Terzic, who won his debut as interim manager on Tuesday.Credit…Martin Meissner/Associated PressThere is a wealth of candidates out there, then, who share Dortmund’s principles, who play its soccer, who would fit neatly into its traditions and would be tempted by its prestige. Mönchengladbach’s Marco Rose is the early favorite, long since hailed by Klopp, no less, as a bearer of his flame. But there are others: Erik ten Hag, the mastermind of the resurgence of Ajax; Ralph Hasenhüttl, shining at Southampton; and the many other alumni of the Red Bull school of coaching, ranging from Adi Hütter to Jesse Marsch.Most would leap at the task. Dortmund offers the chance to work with a wonderfully gifted squad, to shape young players in their image, to craft a legacy for themselves. And, as both Klopp and Thomas Tuchel have shown in recent years, its profile and its potential is such that it can be a springboard for a coach’s own ambition.But whichever new manager takes the post will have to navigate the contradiction at the heart of the club’s identity. Is Borussia Dortmund’s ultimate purpose to win the Bundesliga, to collect a second Champions League crown? Or is its success judged not on the field but in the transfer market? Can the two ever run, truly, in tandem?Dortmund is an appealing job, of course. But that, as all of Klopp’s successors have found, does not make it an easy one.The Better Team Lost. The Better Team Also Won.Don’t let the smile fool you with José Mourinho. Always listen to the words.Credit…Pool photo by Clive BrunskillJosé Mourinho grasped Jürgen Klopp by the arm, pulled him close, and delivered the line. At Anfield on Wednesday night, the Tottenham manager told his Liverpool counterpart, the better team had lost. Only the width of a post had denied Spurs a victory it deserved. Liverpool had been lucky.In a way, in a year of such uncertainty, there is something comforting about seeing an old standard raised: Mourinho has spent much of 2020 actually being quite likable on Instagram, but it is reassuring to know that, deep down, he has not changed. He is still the recidivist fire-starter he always was.But that does not mean his assertion should be dismissed. Liverpool’s 2-1 win was a reminder that there are many ways to read a game and — this is the bit that is too often forgotten — it is possible that all of them are right.Mourinho, certainly, had a case: Spurs created four “big chances” — a measure used by Opta, the data provider, to describe occasions when a team might reasonably expect to score more than half the time. Heung-Min Son scored one; Harry Kane and Steven Bergwijn, between them, missed the others. Liverpool, by contrast, created none.The Expected Goals metric told much the same story: Spurs won that, too. Mourinho’s team went to Anfield with a plan and, bar some erratic finishing — one of those vagaries of soccer that can never be entirely controlled — found that it worked. Mourinho was not playing fast and loose with the facts.But neither was Klopp when he, predictably, disagreed. Liverpool dominated the ball. It dictated play for long stretches of the game. It had more shots. It had countless more opportunities to have shots.Expected Goals is a valuable statistic, but at its basic level it does not (and is not designed to) tell the whole story of a game. It does not capture, for example, the ebb and flow of pressure, how the current of possibility shifts between teams. Not every attack ends in a shot, but that does not make all of those attacks worthless in assessing a team’s performance. (There are metrics, like nonshot Expected Goals, that measure this.)Liverpool won that contest by a country mile. For much of the game, it felt as if Liverpool was the team on the cusp of a breakthrough. Spurs were not hanging on, but nor was their threat constant. So Klopp’s denial was not rooted in fantasy, either. The better team did lose. But also the better team won. It depends how you read it. And neither of those readings is invalid.Still Suspicion Holds You TightImagine thinking about gamesmanship at a time like this.Credit…Catherine Ivill/Getty ImagesIt is remarkable, really, how complicated soccer can make even the simplest thing. Introducing a rule allowing players who have sustained suspected head injuries to be removed from a game for their own well-being should not, really, be an especially convoluted process. It is the sensible thing to do. It is odd, if anything, that the rule does not yet exist.And yet here we are. The body that oversees the game’s Laws — always capitalize; people get very funny if you don’t — has mandated an experiment in which two concussion substitutes per team, per game are allowed. The Premier League, on Thursday, confirmed that it will give the idea a go.But still there are so many questions. Why two? Why not as many as you need? It’s unlikely that there will be several in a game, but you never know, do you? Why limit it? And, more pressing, why in the name of Santa Claus and all his gig economy elves has the Premier League felt the need to add a clause allowing the opposing team to make a change, too, if a concussion substitute enters a match?What are we saying here? That we have to assume teams will try to use this perfectly logical and utterly straightforward health measure for their own ends? That players will be falling over with fake head injuries to try to gain an edge? Do the executives who made that decision have so little trust in each other, and in themselves, that even player welfare cannot be left to chance?Oh, right. Yes.CorrespondencePlease gather around this giant whiteboard. We’re about to talk advanced statistics.Credit…Peter Powell/ReutersYou may remember Vincent Tjeng’s question from last week, wondering whether soccer had an equivalent to baseball’s Wins Above Replacement metric that I don’t fully understand but is basically a number applied to assess how much more likely a team is to win with Player X than it is with the average player in their position.Well, Vincent, the hive mind has found you an answer. A couple of executives at clubs got in touch to say that they have something along those lines, but it is all proprietary, so they’re not going to tell you precisely what it is, thank you very much. They take into account various performance metrics, position, time on the field and specific attributes, and provide a general idea of how much impact players have on their team.There is one possible, publicly-available candidate that several of you, including Avi Rajendra-Nicolucci and Brandon Conner, suggested: G+, which sounds like something you add to Chrome, but is in fact a metric designed by American Soccer Analysis.That’s all for this week. You will have noticed that next Friday is Christmas Day, which means that next Thursday, when we normally prepare this newsletter, is Christmas Eve. We had considered taking a week off, but rather than skip a newsletter, we have something up our sleeves instead to say thank you for reading during this strange, brief and yet also somehow endless year. (Note: It has no monetary value.) So if you’ve gotten used to reading the newsletter online every week, this is the day you may want to finally break down and subscribe.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    NFL Week 15 Predictions: Our Picks Against the Spread

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyN.F.L. Week 15 Predictions: Our Picks Against the SpreadAn empty calories matchup between the Chargers and the Raiders gets things started on Thursday in a week dominated by a potential Super Bowl preview between the Saints and the Chiefs.Drew Brees hasn’t played since Week 10. Can he come back from a rib injury to lead New Orleans in a crucial matchup against Kansas City?Credit…Tyler Kaufman/Associated PressDec. 17, 2020, 12:01 a.m. ETA Thursday matchup between teams that can stretch the field. A pair of entertaining games on Saturday. A potential Super Bowl preview on Sunday. This is shaping up to be an excellent week of football, and we dug in on each team’s playoff chances using The Upshot’s playoff simulator.Here is a look at N.F.L. Week 15, with all picks made against the spread.Last week’s record: 8-8Overall record: 102-101-5A look ahead at Week 15:Sunday’s Best GamesThursday’s MatchupSaturday’s MatchupsSunday’s Other GamesMonday’s MatchupHow Betting Lines WorkSunday’s Best GamesKansas City Chiefs at New Orleans Saints, 4:25 p.m., CBSLine: Chiefs -3 | Total: 51.5New Orleans should be extremely happy with the job Taysom Hill has done filling in for the injured Drew Brees, but last week’s loss to Philadelphia — which knocked New Orleans out of the top spot in the N.F.C. playoff seedings — illustrated how much the team needs Brees back if it wants to compete for a championship.The Saints (10-3) are hopeful that Brees, who hasn’t played since Week 10, can make his triumphant return this week so he can lead them in a potential Super Bowl preview against the Chiefs (12-1). The Upshot gives the Chiefs a 23 percent chance of repeating as champions, while the Saints, at 16 percent, are considered the most likely winner out of the N.F.C.At their best, both teams have explosive offenses and opportunistic defenses. If the Chiefs have a fatal flaw, it is their boredom, but a road game against a top competitor should keep their attention.So where does that leave this game? It depends on Brees’s health. If he plays, and is close to 100 percent, you have to give the Saints a decent chance of an upset. Anything less than that, and a motivated Chiefs team could romp. Pick: Chiefs -3Seattle Seahawks at Washington Football Team, 1 p.m., FoxLine: Seahawks -6 | Total: 44.5If you were to go back to Week 6 and explain to the 5-0 Seahawks and the 1-5 Footballers that they’d be meeting in Week 15 with Washington (62 percent) having a better chance of winning its division than Seattle (39 percent), few would believe you. But the Seahawks (9-4) have leveled out, and were caught from behind by the Rams in the N.F.C. West, while the Footballers (6-7) have improved by leaps and bounds since installing Alex Smith at quarterback and are alone in first atop the N.F.C. East.Seattle has a 99 percent chance of making the playoffs, regardless of whether it wins the division, and on the Seahawks’ best days — such as last Sunday, when they throttled the Jets — it’s easy to envision them as Super Bowl contenders. But Washington’s defense is on the way up, and if Smith is able to play through a calf injury, he could keep things close or engineer an upset. Pick: Footballers +6Ndamukong Suh and the Tampa Bay defense put pressure on Kirk Cousins last week. The Buccaneers finished the day with six sacks and 12 quarterback hits.Credit…Mark Lomoglio/Associated PressTampa Bay Buccaneers at Atlanta Falcons, 1 p.m., FoxLine: Buccaneers -6 | Total: 50.5In a convincing win over Minnesota last week, the Buccaneers (8-5) showed how effective their pass rush can be in creating the disruptions necessary to win tough games. Kirk Cousins was under pressure all game, and even though the Vikings moved the ball well, they couldn’t punch the ball into the end zone. A similar script could play out against the Falcons (4-9), who are a threat in any game in which Julio Jones is active — particularly if that game is in Atlanta — but are prone to problems against Tampa Bay’s pass rush because of quarterback Matt Ryan’s lack of mobility.The Buccaneers are up to a 94 percent chance of ending their 12-season playoff drought, but the line may be too aggressive this week. Pick: Falcons +6Cleveland Browns at Giants, 8:20 p.m., NBCLine: Browns -4 | Total: 45.5Even with last week’s heartbreaking loss to Baltimore, the Browns (9-4) have matched the franchise’s best 13-game start since 1994, when Coach Bill Belichick led them to an 11-5 record and a trip to the divisional round of the playoffs. On the strength of its record, Cleveland has an 84 percent chance of making the playoffs for the first time since 2007. While the Giants (5-8) have made a remarkable turnaround from earlier this season, and have a 25 percent chance of winning the N.F.C. East, they are overmatched in this one. Pick: Browns -4Thursday’s MatchupThe Chargers’ offense hasn’t led them to a lot of wins so far, but Justin Herbert and Keenan Allen never seem more than a play away from scoring a touchdown.Credit…Adrian Kraus/Associated PressLos Angeles Chargers at Las Vegas Raiders, 8:20 p.m., Fox, NFL Network and Amazon Prime VideoLine: Raiders -3.5 | Total: 53The Raiders (7-6) somehow still have a 20 percent chance of getting a wild-card spot in the playoffs despite having lost three of their last four games, with the lone win coming courtesy of the Jets’ incompetence. Now they face the Chargers (4-9), who have a far worse record but a similar ability to alternate between thrilling and terrible.Both teams are loaded on offense, and while neither has had a good season defensively, they both feature defensive players who can make game-changing plays, like Joey Bosa of the Chargers and Maxx Crosby of the Raiders.Last week, the Falcons’ social media team poked fun at the similarities between Atlanta and Los Angeles with a play on a Spider-Man meme, and the same post could be recycled by the Raiders’ social team this week. But if the Chargers can build on last week’s solid ending, they will take a huge step in their rebuilding process. Pick: Chargers +3.5Saturday’s MatchupsGreen Bay’s Davante Adams is leading the N.F.L. in receiving touchdowns and receiving yards per game. With three regular-season games remaining, he is on a pace for career highs in every major receiving category.Credit…Gregory Shamus/Getty ImagesCarolina Panthers at Green Bay Packers, 8:15 p.m., NFL NetworkLine: Packers -8.5 | Total: 51.5Carolina’s defense just got shredded by Denver’s Drew Lock, so it’s hard to imagine the pain Aaron Rodgers and the Packers (10-3) could inflict on the Panthers (4-9) if they were to go all-out. After New Orleans’s loss last week, Green Bay, which had already clinched the N.F.C. North, is in the driver’s seat for a first-round bye. This game has the potential to be a trap, with the Packers looking ahead to a tougher matchup in Week 16 against Tennessee, but Rodgers has been locked in and may trail only Patrick Mahomes in the race for league most valuable player. Pick: Packers -8.5Buffalo Bills at Denver Broncos, 4:30 p.m., NFL NetworkLine: Bills -6.5 | Total: 50It’s hard to know how the Broncos (5-8) will play from week to week, but a road game in Denver is tough for any opponent, even one as good as the Bills (10-3). Add that the Bills can relax a little considering their 98 percent chance of winning the A.F.C. East (but just a 1 percent chance at a first-round bye), and this game could be closer than oddsmakers are predicting. Pick: Broncos +6.5Sunday’s Other GamesQuarterback Lamar Jackson and cornerback Marlon Humphrey sprinted onto the field to celebrate with kicker Justin Tucker last week after Tucker won the game for Baltimore with a 55-yard field goal.Credit…Kirk Irwin/Associated PressJacksonville Jaguars at Baltimore Ravens, 1 p.m., CBSLine: Ravens -14 | Total: 47.5There were so many jokes. Lamar Jackson engineered one of the wildest wins in recent N.F.L. history, completing a 44-yard touchdown to Marquise Brown on fourth-and-5 with less than two minutes left in the game, then watching Cleveland tie the score, and then taking the Ravens far enough for Justin Tucker to kick a game-winning, 55-yard field goal. But all anyone wanted to talk about was Jackson’s brief absence and how it looked as if he might have taken a bathroom break.Laugh all you want — Jackson swears he was receiving fluids to alleviate cramping — but the win was a welcome change in what had been a difficult period for the Ravens (8-5). Jackson finally looked like himself, and the Ravens, with a 74 percent chance of making the playoffs, no longer seemed like a team in peril.This game does not figure to be nearly as entertaining. The Jaguars (1-12) haven’t won a game since Week 1, and struggle on both sides of the ball. Having Baltimore as a two-touchdown favorite when you consider the team’s recent defensive struggles seems like a bit too much. Pick: Jaguars +14Houston Texans at Indianapolis Colts, 1 p.m., CBSLine: Colts -7 | Total: 52.5In most years, this would be a key A.F.C. South matchup, but the Texans (4-9) have been eliminated from playoff contention and the Colts (9-4) have an 82 percent chance of making the playoffs and a 36 percent chance of winning their division. Houston’s Deshaun Watson will be the best player on the field, but the Texans have done a shameful job of keeping talent around him. Indianapolis, on the other hand, made crucial personnel moves in the off-season that have taken the team from mediocre to top 10 in offense and defense. Pick: Colts -7Detroit Lions at Tennessee Titans, 1 p.m., CBSLine: Titans -10.5 | Total: 51.5There are situations in which the Lions (5-8) could hold their own against the Titans (9-4), but most of them involve locking Tennessee’s Derrick Henry in a well-guarded room and insisting nobody knows where he is. Barring high jinks, Detroit seems remarkably overmatched, especially if Matthew Stafford misses the game with the rib injury he sustained last week. Tennessee is in a tough fight with Indianapolis for the A.F.C. South crown, and has a 64 percent chance of holding off the Colts, so the Titans certainly have motivation to keep winning. Pick: Titans -10.5Chicago Bears at Minnesota Vikings, 1 p.m., FoxLine: Vikings -3 | Total: 46Both teams are on the outside looking in, but the Bears (6-7) and the Vikings (6-7) are still alive, and both have at least a 20 percent chance of a playoff spot despite Chicago’s recent struggles and Minnesota’s rough start. Assuming the Bears’ offensive resurgence last week was more than a blip would probably be generous, but they certainly have looked their best with Mitchell Trubisky at quarterback. Even accounting for that, Minnesota should be fine, provided the team gives quarterback Kirk Cousins more time to work than he had in a loss to Tampa Bay. Pick: Vikings -3Odell who? Miami’s Xavien Howard stepped in front of Kansas City’s Tyreek Hill to make an incredible one-handed interception last week. Credit…Mark Brown/Getty ImagesNew England Patriots at Miami Dolphins, 1 p.m., CBSLine: Dolphins -2.5 | Total: 41.5The Patriots (6-7) have missed the playoffs just twice since 2001, but even with a recent hot streak they are down to a 4 percent chance at qualifying this year, and that number will drop to zero with a loss to the Dolphins (8-5), who have a 43 percent chance at a wild card. The tables appear to have turned in this rivalry, with New England being the scrappy underdog that could spoil things for the seemingly superior team. Miami’s style of play doesn’t lead to many mistakes, so unless Coach Bill Belichick has something up his sleeve, the Patriots can start making vacation plans for early January. Pick: Dolphins -2.5Jets at Los Angeles Rams, 4:05 p.m., FoxLine: Rams -17 | Total: 44Sam Darnold feels like the Darkest Timeline version of Jared Goff. Instead of developing under the tutelage of an era-defining offensive genius like Coach Sean McVay, Darnold has been saddled with Coach Adam Gase, and the Jets (0-13) seem to have little chance of avoiding a winless season. The talent imbalance in this game — reflected accurately in the point spread — is extreme, and a win for Los Angeles (9-4) should help the team increase its 60 percent chance of winning the competitive N.F.C. West. A 17-point spread is absurd, but so are the Jets. Pick: Rams -17San Francisco 49ers at Dallas Cowboys, 1 p.m., CBSLine: 49ers -2.5 | Total: 45When the schedule came out, this was supposed to showcase Jimmy Garoppolo leading the defending N.F.C. champions into Dak Prescott’s house to rekindle a classic rivalry. Backup quarterback Nick Mullens facing off against Andy Dalton doesn’t really live up to that advanced billing. Technically, neither team has been eliminated from playoff contention, with the 49ers (5-8) having a 9 percent chance at a wild-card spot and the Cowboys (4-9) having a 1 percent chance of winning the N.F.C. East. With San Francisco running back Raheem Mostert uncertain to play and wide receiver Deebo Samuel expected to be out, the Cowboys have a decent chance at a second straight win. Pick: Cowboys +2.5Philadelphia Eagles at Arizona Cardinals, 4:05 p.m., FoxLine: Cardinals -6.5 | Total: 49.5Oklahoma Coach Lincoln Riley will love this one. Kyler Murray of the Cardinals (7-6) transferred to Oklahoma to play for Riley in 2017 and won the Heisman Trophy in 2018. Jalen Hurts of the Eagles (4-8-1) transferred to Oklahoma to play for Riley in 2019 and was a Heisman finalist. Hurts’s promotion to starting quarterback for Philadelphia last week set up this matchup between two of Riley’s star pupils, and while the over-under on this game isn’t particularly high, you can expect plenty of highlight reel plays. Hurts has a chance to keep following in Murray’s formidable footsteps, but right now Murray is a more complete player and the Cardinals are a better team. With Arizona’s chance at a wild card around 50 percent, the team should be motivated to win at home. Pick: Cardinals -6.5Monday’s MatchupMike Hilton contributed an interception for Pittsburgh last week, but injuries to that team’s defense have helped lead to two straight losses.Credit…Jeffrey T. Barnes/Associated PressPittsburgh Steelers at Cincinnati Bengals, 8:15 p.m., ESPNLine: Steelers -11.5 | Total: 40.5Be it injuries, an offensive slump or regression to the mean, the Steelers (11-2) went from 11 straight wins to two consecutive losses. There was a sense, particularly toward the end of the win streak, that Pittsburgh was overrated, but the shift in circumstances has been extreme, especially when you consider it has dropped to the No. 2 seed in the A.F.C., with just an 11 percent chance of overtaking Kansas City for a first-round bye, according to The Upshot.The Bengals (2-10-1), who have been eliminated from playoff contention, are likely to bear the brunt of Pittsburgh’s frustration. It is not that a blowout win over a bad, injury-riddled team would do much for the Steelers’ fortunes, but it might help them wash away the bad taste in their mouths from the last few weeks.There should be no surprises in this one, even if the point spread is a bit large for a team that is struggling offensively. Pick: Bengals +11.5How Betting Lines WorkA quick primer for those who are not familiar with betting lines: Favorites are listed next to a negative number that represents how many points they must win by to cover the spread. Dolphins -2.5, for example, means that Miami must beat New England by at least 3 points for its backers to win their bet. Gamblers can also bet on the total score, or whether the teams’ combined score in the game is over or under a preselected number of points.All times are Eastern.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Roberto Firmino's Goal Vaults Liverpool Over Tottenham in Premier League

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOn SoccerLiverpool Pulls in Front, but Premier League Race Has Far to GoA lineup altered by injury, and supplemented by youth, summons the energy to beat Tottenham at Anfield.Roberto Firmino’s header in the 90th minute gave Liverpool a 2-1 victory over Tottenham at Anfield.Credit…Pool photo by Peter PowellDec. 16, 2020Updated 7:44 p.m. ETLIVERPOOL, England — José Mourinho left one name off his list. The Tottenham manager had been busy using his final news conference before his team’s trip to Liverpool to indulge his taste — and his talent — for sophistry, trying to prove Jürgen Klopp’s squad was not quite as threadbare as has been advertised by reeling off names of all the players that would be available.It is an act that has been polished to precision, but even Mourinho seemed to sense he was pushing his luck just a little. He got through the defense OK, and no manager blanks on Liverpool’s front line, but the midfield was more of a problem.He could not think who might join Georginio Wijnaldum and Jordan Henderson in Liverpool’s midfield. Nothing sparked — in the end, he could name only 10 players, which definitely proved a point, but not the one he was making — and so he moved on, not letting facts get in the way of a good argument.Next time, he may not make the same mistake. Mohamed Salah might have given Liverpool the lead against Tottenham on Wednesday. Roberto Firmino might have scored the goal that deprived Spurs of a merited point and sent the reigning champion to a 2-1 victory, and to the top of the Premier League table. Henderson might have provided the moment that will boil Mourinho’s blood, his subtle nudge on Eric Dier clearing a path for Firmino to strike.But much of Liverpool’s play ran through the midfielder Mourinho forgot. Curtis Jones signaled his promise, just short of a year ago, with considerable noise: a spectacular, curling shot to give a youthful Liverpool team a derby victory against Everton in an F.A. Cup tie at Anfield. The game — broadcast live on the BBC — attracted an audience of 7.2 million people, two or three times what most Premier League games command.Jones’s rise since then, though, has been curiously quiet, particularly for a locally-reared talent at one of England’s grandest clubs. He started just one Premier League game after soccer’s restart in June; he made just a couple of substitute appearances — offering flashes of his ability, no more — in the opening weeks of this season.More and more players have fallen by the wayside, though, as Klopp’s squad has been stripped by injury — eight senior players were missing against Spurs, with two more available only as substitutes — and Jones has had to step up. He has started four of Liverpool’s last five league games, and four of its six Champions League appointments so far.And yet he has become an established presence in Liverpool’s side almost unnoticed. That is, perhaps, because having one of the Premier League’s academies produce a gifted young player is not quite so rare as it once was. England — all of a sudden — has a glut of talent in its late teens and early twenties, capturing the imagination at even the most demanding clubs.Curtis Jones, 19, held his own against Lucas Moura and everyone else he tangled with in Tottenham’s midfield.Credit…Pool photo by Clive BrunskillManchester City has Phil Foden, Manchester United has Mason Greenwood, Chelsea has Mason Mount. The days when it was rare for a young English player to make the grade, for him to be given a chance in the Premier League, are long gone. It is no longer possible to celebrate each one individually, as it would have been even five years ago. There just is not the time.Jones’s progress, too, is testament to the circumstances in which he has been given his chance. Liverpool’s early season has been defined by injuries: not just the season-ending damage sustained by Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez, but the seemingly endless run of needling, niggling problems that have made Klopp such an ardent advocate for teams to be able to call on more substitutes. A hamstring here, a knee problem there, three weeks out, four weeks out, another game with Liverpool’s resources depleted.It creates a phenomenon in which watching Liverpool is to note that which is absent more than what is present: How will Klopp’s team cope without Van Dijk? Does it have the same aura without any of its senior, specialist central defenders? Is it running out of energy? Has it lost its spark? It has been so powerful that it has been possible not to notice Liverpool’s presence close to, or now at, the summit of the Premier League.But most of all, Jones’s transition into Liverpool’s team has been so smooth because of him. His teammates joke about his self-assurance, his lack of doubt, his iron self-belief. Klopp has found that he is not backward in coming forward, in asserting that he should, perhaps, be in the team ahead of some of the celebrated stars who have conquered both England and Europe with this team.All of that manifests in his play. Jones demands the ball constantly, drifting into space, directing his teammates, dictating the game. He is not cowed by the standards he must meet. His colleagues have responded with the most significant judgment of all: their trust. It is possible not to notice Jones because he looks like he belongs.None of that, though, should diminish what an achievement it is both for him — winning a place in one of Europe’s best teams at age 19 is, after all, no mean feat — and for Liverpool.By the time Firmino scored his goal, the winning goal, Klopp’s players had been running on fumes for some time. The high-tempo, high-intensity style he demands is being pushed to its limits by the relentlessness of this season. Sadio Mané seemed diminished. Salah had drifted out onto the right flank, hoping something might happen, rather than believing that it would.Steven Bergwijn missed two golden chances to put Tottenham ahead in the second half.Credit…Pool photo by Peter PowellHarry Kane drove an open header into the ground. The bounce carried it over the goal.Credit…Pool photo by Peter PowellBut when Firmino rose above Toby Alderweireld and planted his header past Spurs goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, he seemed to get a burst of adrenaline. He turned and sprinted along the field, across the halfway line, back toward the Kop, where the 2,000 fans permitted entry were punching the air in delight.He — and they — knew this was a significant step on what remains a long and arduous road. The Premier League table is packed tight. Liverpool is only eight points ahead of Wolves, and Wolves are 10th. Spurs and Chelsea and Leicester, as well as both Manchester clubs, lie menacing.Under the circumstances — given Liverpool’s injury list, whether Mourinho regards it as valid or not — the fact that Klopp has his team ahead of them all, even if only for now, is to his immense credit. But it is to the credit, too, of the players who have stepped into the breach, Jones prime among them. Mourinho, you suspect, will not be the last to learn his name.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    N.F.L. Union Delays Cuts in Disability Payments to Ex-Players

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDisabled Former N.F.L. Players Get a Reprieve on Benefit CutsA reduction of disability payments, scheduled to start next month, has been delayed for three years, the players union announced.Cleveland Browns center J.C. Tretter is the president of the N.F.L. Players Association. He had promised a re-examination of the plan to cut benefits.Credit…David Richard/Associated PressPublished More

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    Can Any A.F.C. Team Catch the Chiefs?

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storytrend watchCan Any A.F.C. Team Catch the Chiefs?Sure, Kansas City (12-1) is flawed, but its closest challengers have a long way to go to usurp a Super Bowl berth.Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes, left, and receiver Tyreek Hill, with football, usually connect for a few 40-yard touchdowns to compensate for any Chiefs miscues.Credit…Jamie Squire/Getty ImagesDec. 16, 2020, 3:00 a.m. ETThe only real danger to the Kansas City Chiefs in the playoffs will be the Chiefs themselves.The defending N.F.L. champions have grown bored of terrestrial football lately. The Chiefs (who have already clinched the A.F.C. West) now strive to turn their games into inscrutable performance art installations, allowing inferior opponents to stay close while they execute play concepts that appear to have been found scribbled in the margins of Hunter S. Thompson manuscripts.Patrick Mahomes and Tyreek Hill usually connect for a few 40-yard touchdowns to compensate for their penalties, turnovers and self-indulgent noodling, but the Chiefs’ weekly attempts to commune with the cosmos could eventually result in a playoff upset that allows one of the following pretty good — but far from flawless — challengers to represent the A.F.C. in the Super Bowl.Pittsburgh Steelers (11-2)The Steelers rose to 11-0 by pummeling opponents’ backup quarterbacks while hoping that no one noticed that their offense is built entirely out of screen passes. The Washington Football Team and Buffalo Bills figured out in recent victories over the Steelers that Ben Roethlisberger now throws the football like he’s trying to float a Ping-Pong ball into a red plastic cup. The Steelers’ defense remains dominant, when not dealing with health issues, and the team can find reassurance in the fact that Jimmy Garoppolo and the San Francisco 49ers nearly beat the Chiefs in the Super Bowl last season with the same set of strengths and weaknesses.Buffalo Bills (10-3)Decades in the shadow of the New England Patriots left the Bills with a deep-seated inferiority complex, and they lost important midseason games to the Chiefs and Tennessee Titans after a 4-0 start by playing as if they simply felt unworthy of being counted among the A.F.C. front-runners.The Bills appear to have outgrown their self-doubt in recent victories over the Seattle Seahawks and Steelers, but behavioral conditioning can be hard to break. If quarterback Josh Allen transforms back into an interception-happy Winter Soldier when the Bills visit the Patriots in Week 16, it may mean that the Bills have been irrevocably compromised.Tennessee Titans (9-4)Running back Derrick Henry is an indomitable December force, like a Nor’easter, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You,” or a holiday shopper stiff-arming store greeters and grandparents en route to an (empty) PlayStation 5 display. Henry rushed for 215 yards and two touchdowns in the Titans’ victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars last week, and he appears determined to stuff the Titans’ traditional smash mouth values down everyone’s throats for the holidays just like he did last year.The Titans’ defense is not nearly as rugged and playoff-ready as their old-fashioned reputation might suggest, but bludgeoning skeptics into quiet acquiescence is also a December tradition, as is post-holiday disappointment.Titans running back Derrick Henry is an indomitable December force, like a Nor’easter or Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.” Credit…Sam Greenwood/Getty ImagesCleveland Browns (9-4)With their balanced offense and dangerous pass rush, the Browns are almost ready to compete for the Super Bowl. But the universe itself is not quite ready for the Browns to compete for the Super Bowl; Lamar Jackson’s recovery from mid-game cramps and fourth-quarter comeback to defeat the Browns in Monday night’s 47-42 thriller may have been reality’s way of repairing a dangerous rift in its own fabric.The Browns are enjoying their first winning season since 2007. Allowing them to enjoy anything more would simply be too much pleasure for anyone to experience in 2020.Indianapolis Colts (9-4)The Colts are kit-bashed together from leftover pieces of the 2010s San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers (Philip Rivers), 2017 Minnesota Vikings (cornerback Xavier Rhodes) and last year’s 49ers (defensive tackle DeForest Buckner), all hot-glued onto the frame of the Andrew Luck-era team. As a result, they look pretty good until you examine closely and realize that they were cobbled together almost purposely so they could lose a playoff game.Miami Dolphins (8-5)The Dolphins are better at making opponents look foolish than at making themselves look like legitimate contenders. They combined takeaways (they’re tied with the Steelers for the N.F.L. lead with 25) with excellent special teams and an ultraconservative offense to upset the Los Angeles Rams, throw a scare into the Chiefs last week and win lots of low-scoring games against the Jets and other bottom-feeders.Like the Bills, the Dolphins may be programmed by decades of hopelessness to self-destruct if they come too close to success. Head coach Brian Flores already benched rookie quarterback Tua Tagovailoa in one loss in what looked like a panicky move, and Flores might be tempted to turn again to Ryan Fitzpatrick when he needs a comeback, not realizing that the real “FitzMagic” is the outsized reputation the journeyman backup has nurtured by almost winning meaningful games.Baltimore Ravens (8-5)With their midseason swoon behind them but with obvious lingering shortcomings on both sides of the ball, the Ravens are barreling toward yet another off-season of “why can’t Lamar Jackson win playoff games?” conversations. Come late January, that may be the only thing fathers-in-law on Facebook have to talk about.Las Vegas Raiders (7-6)The Raiders handed the Chiefs their only loss of the season in November. But asking them to be on the field during the playoffs is a stretch.Credit…David Becker/Associated PressThe Raiders remain mathematically alive but have lost three of their last four games, and they fired defensive coordinator Paul Guenther on Sunday after surrendering 44 points in a loss to the Colts and (more troublingly) 28 points in a near-loss to the Jets.The Raiders upset the Chiefs in Week 5 and lost by just four points in the Week 11 rematch, so they cannot be discounted as a threat if they reach the playoffs. But again: The trick to winning the A.F.C. is to be on the field when the Chiefs decide to beat themselves. The Raiders are the least likely of the A.F.C. playoff hopefuls to position themselves to make that happen.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Decoding José Mourinho's Instagram

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOn SoccerWhat Is José Mourinho Telling Us on Instagram?The Tottenham coach’s account is a surprisingly unfiltered window into his personality. It’s revealing a side of him he hasn’t always wanted people to see.CreditDec. 15, 2020Updated 1:18 p.m. ETLONDON — The content itself does not, when you type the words, sound especially fascinating. A 15-second video of a man buffing his shoes. A photograph of that moment he checked his phone in the snow, or that time he sat on a bus, or the day he ate some popcorn.In truth, the execution is not especially polished, either. Often, the angle is a little off. The framing is rarely perfect. Little thought has gone into the lighting. In more than a few shots, an eagle-eyed critic might point out that the subject is not actually in focus.None of those minor flaws, though, have stopped what may be the most unlikely transformation of the year: José Mourinho’s blossoming into a bona fide Instagram sensation.It is no surprise, of course, that in the 10 months since Mourinho, the Tottenham Hotspur manager, restarted his account — and particularly in the six since he seemed to remember that he had it — he has managed to pick up 1.5 million followers. He has, after all, been one of the most famous and most fascinating figures in soccer for almost two decades.But that is not what makes his account stand out. On the surface, Mourinho should not be especially well suited to Instagram. At 57, he is not exactly a digital native. He has never shown a particular interest in social media; indeed, as Paul Pogba discovered when Mourinho coached him at Manchester United, he is more likely to have thought of it as a nuisance, if he thought of it at all.Nor has Mourinho ever given the impression that he wants to offer fans a window into his life, professional or personal. He has admitted that his previous dalliance with Instagram, while he was at United, was entirely designed to placate his sponsors. He stayed on it, casually and reluctantly, for two years before deleting his account in May 2018. Friends said he had grown “bored” with it.In his first year at Spurs, too, he grew to resent the ubiquity of the film crews making the Spurs edition of “All or Nothing,” the Amazon Prime documentary series. “Only when I go to the toilet are they not coming with me,” he once said. He was happy when the cameramen and producers left, he said, because it meant that “things can stay inside, between us, the way I like it.”But for all that, it turns out that Mourinho is something of a natural at Instagram. His early contributions were limited: a half-dozen posts in the first four months since he reactivated his account, all but one of them for the benefit of one or another of his sponsors.Since June, though, he has used it more and more frequently, and to better and better effect. Of his 65 posts through Monday, only 12 appeared to be fulfilling some sort of commercial demand. Eight others are likely to be images taken from professional photographers and repurposed for his account. There are five dedicated to causes close to his heart, particularly the United Nations World Food Program.All the rest — 14 videos, 26 still images — are personal, if not taken by Mourinho then taken at his behest. He will, regularly, hand his phone to whichever member of the Spurs coaching team or club staff is closest at hand and ask that they take a picture for his feed.Though he has conceded that his sponsors asked him to rejoin the site — “They felt that when I closed my account a few years ago we had a few million followers and they weren’t happy” — he has not farmed the work out to an agency. He is also not doing it at the behest of the club.He has come to view it, he said, as a chance to “open our world to the world.” According to one consultant who has previously worked with Mourinho, it was a realization that dawned on him after the Amazon documentary aired: The quotidian reality of his existence was at least as interesting to people as his behavior on the touchline or his tactical decisions.Mourinho is a devoted Formula 1 fan — one early video shows him gathered with his coaching staff, watching a Grand Prix race; they do not look nearly as engaged as he does — and would “love to know how a big team, the drivers, the boss, works,” he said. “People love when they see the inside. They love what they don’t see.”And so Mourinho’s account offers regular glimpses not only into his world — a tracking shot of the inside of his office as he analyzes a training session, a glimpse inside the Spurs changing room, the place regarded by most in soccer as a sort of sanctum sanctorum — but into his mind, too.There are captions praising players — “Top players are team players,” he wrote alongside a shot of striker Harry Kane — and ones criticizing his whole squad — “I hope everyone on this bus is as unhappy as me.” And, of course, Mourinho being Mourinho, there are occasional broadsides at anyone who has incurred his displeasure, including a withering assessment of the Covid-19 protocols during the last international break.He uses Instagram to celebrate and to sulk, to badger and to chide, and he does it all with a stripped back, unfiltered, resolutely honest aesthetic. Whether that is a deliberate, artistic choice or a lack of technical skill — it is entirely possible that Mourinho simply does not know his Amaro from his X-Pro — it works.“Generation Z tends to value creativity and humor,” Lucie Greene, the founder of Light Years, a consultancy that works with brands on digital strategies, said. “For millennials, it is generally an aspirational, lifestyle thing: Instagram as the new Condé Nast. But older influencers tend to be a lot more real, a lot less concerned with polish and presenting their personal brand.“Mourinho comes across as quite stoic. His posts aren’t thirsty. That can be quite strategic, to act like you’re not selling it too much. It’s quite self-deprecating: You can see a corporate P.R. freaking out at some of the posts.”Instagram has grown in popularity with an older generation in general and older men in particular, she said.“To millennials,” Greene said, “Instagram is a consumption machine, but to older users it can be more based on community — a way to connect to an audience and exchange ideas.”Mourinho, it is fair to say, is not in it for the community. He follows only 13 people, mostly the official accounts of his sponsors, as well as a couple of family members, his representative at Creative Artists and — a bit of an outlier, this one — the naturalist David Attenborough. None of the accounts are players, past or present.Instead, his account is a fairly clear example of Instagram as a sort of visual diary, Greene said: an authentic, unadulterated vision into his world. Mourinho does not just post when he is happy; he posts after defeats, too.His feed is not addled with the type of humblebrags best exemplified by a picture of a golden stretch of sand, a gleaming blue sky and the caption “today’s office.” (There is one vacation shot, of Mourinho staring at a disinterested dolphin.) The shots he chooses are not designed to embellish his life; they are there merely to reflect it.Mourinho himself still feels that social media does not come easily. “I am not, in my nature, an Instagram man,” he told Tottenham’s official club channels this season. And yet, in a way, he is.Mourinho has spent the last two decades carefully cultivating a public image of himself through meticulously staged media appearances and strategically chosen, often incendiary, public interventions. Instagram is simply a logical next step, one in which he can tweak that image — make it more rounded, more relatable — as he sees fit.And despite himself, he seems to enjoy it. “You can see that he’s definitely got into it,” Greene said.As she scrolled through his feed, she was surprised to see that friends, colleagues and relatives had liked a succession of posts that, to someone who does not like soccer, made little to no sense. Man eats popcorn and man sulks on bus have little artistic merit; they are not, in any traditional sense, aspirational. But they are undeniably, indisputably Mourinho: Champions League winner, Premier League winner, Instagram influencer.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    French Soccer Faces Financial Crisis After MediaPro Pulls Plug

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeHoliday TVBest Netflix DocumentariesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFrench Soccer Faces Financial Crisis After Broadcaster Pulls the PlugThe sudden collapse of a billion-dollar television contract has created a serious cash crisis for French clubs as the January transfer window nears.MediaPro paid a record price to broadcast matches in France’s top soccer leagues in 2018. Last week, it walked away from the deal.Credit…Charles Platiau/ReutersDec. 15, 2020, 2:00 a.m. ETThe record-setting television deal was, in hindsight, far too good to be true.The billion euros the upstart media company had promised to pay to televise French soccer matches each year represented an increase of 60 percent on the league’s previous television deal, and much more than any other bidder had offered. It was a sum so large — about $1.2 billion a year — that it led officials from the league and the club executives on its board to ignore obvious warning signs; to brush aside the fact that the company making the offer, MediaPro, had no history in French soccer; and to close an agreement without the type of bank guarantees that might have ensured that all that money would eventually arrive.And then the deal simply vanished.Last week, arbitration talks between the Ligue de Football Professionnel (L.F.P.), the governing body for professional soccer in France, and MediaPro, a Spanish broadcaster now controlled by Chinese interests, ended with the company handing back the four years of rights under its control and less than a third of the more than 300 million euros it owes for games this season.The resolution has left league officials frantically searching for a new television partner, and teams facing a very different financial future.For the clubs, the repercussions may be immediate. Instead of being flush with enough cash to build teams to rival those in Germany and Spain, most French teams are facing restructuring measures, starting with the sale of players when Europe’s player trading window reopens in January.MediaPro’s chief executive, Jaume Roures, had bet billions that he could resell the French soccer rights his company had acquired to other partners.Credit…Franck Fife/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOne team director described the situation as “a total disaster.” The chief executive of another one said the situation — coupled with the continuing financial effects of the coronavirus pandemic — was “hugely damaging.” The president of the French champion Paris St.-Germain, Nasser al-Khelaifi, asked the league’s new leaders to conduct a full investigation into the process that ended in catastrophe for France’s teams. Al-Khelaifi is also chairman of beIN Media Group, a rival to MediaPro for rights.What may hurt most, at least from the teams’ perspective, is that it is a crisis of their own making.The trouble began in the spring. As all of Europe’s major soccer leagues plotted ways to reboot, the French league announced it would be the only one not to complete its suspended campaign.A government decree ended the season early, forcing Ligue 1 to tap a national loan program to ensure its teams did not fall into financial ruin. Only the prospect of record-breaking broadcast revenues, set to take effect with the start of the MediaPro deal this season, softened the blow.The agreement, signed in 2018, had been trumpeted as groundbreaking then, a contract worth more than a billion euros per season (about $1.2 billion) for rights to matches in France’s top two domestic divisions. That symbolic figure was one that team executives had long hoped to realize, and one so large that it led them to part ways with the league’s partner, Canal+.But the financial boost — MediaPro had agreed to pay almost 60 percent more than the previous agreement — also led teams to spend more on recruitment in the last off-season, a decision that many are now regretting.“They had anticipated the higher TV rates, and this comes as a shock for most people,” said the chief executive, who asked not to be identified because talks to stabilize the league’s finances continue. He predicted some clubs would look to foreign investors to bail them out in return for heavily discounted equity or outright sales.The French league includes world-class players like Kylian Mbappé and brands like Paris St.-Germain and Olympique Lyonnais, but many of its clubs struggle to match the spending of rivals in England, Spain and Germany.Credit…Yoan Valat/EPA, via ShutterstockSome of the comfort that led the clubs to spend freely can be traced to ebullient comments made by MediaPro’s chief executive, Jaume Roures, at the height of the pandemic’s first wave in the spring, when global sports had stopped and the French league’s main broadcast partners at the time, Canal+ and beIN Sports, announced they would suspend their rights payments.In April, Roures, in an interview with the sports daily L’Equipe, vowed to take over the broadcast rights to French games early if the season restarted in the summer and the league’s partners, Canal+ and beIN Sports, opted out. “To be a good Samaritan is to pay what you owe,” Roures said at the time.But a closer look at the deal French league officials signed with MediaPro, a company started by Roures and two partners that is now largely controlled and financed by a little-known Chinese group, suggests several red flags were ignored in pursuit of the richest offer.MediaPro would not have been allowed to enter the auction for the French rights, for example, had the league not changed the tender process to allow agencies like MediaPro, which did not have a platform in France to broadcast games, to take part.Then, after the agreement was struck, it took several months for an official contract to be signed, and when it was it did not include the type of bank guarantees that would have proved MediaPro would be able to make good on the payments it had promised.French soccer officials are scrambling to find a new television partner before the end of the year.Credit…Daniel Cole/Associated PressThere were other warning signs, too. Another huge deal signed by MediaPro, the stunning capture of rights to Italy’s Serie A, collapsed around the same time it was in talks about its French acquisition. Part of the reason was the company was unable to provide a guarantee for much of the amount it had promised the league.And four years ago, the company’s business practices came under further scrutiny when a United States affiliate, Imagina Media Audiovisual, was implicated in the FIFA bribery scandal. Earlier this year, Gerard Romy, one of MediaPro’s founders, was charged with wire fraud, money laundering and racketeering conspiracy in connection with the case.Roures had looked to blame the impact of the coronavirus when he called for the French league to renegotiate its MediaPro deal in October. But with stadiums largely off-limits to fans, viewing figures for soccer have remained robust across Europe; in some cases, ratings have soared.Didier Quillot, the L.F.P. chief executive who led the tender process, left his post in September with a payment of about $1.8 million, much of which was based on his negotiating the deal with MediaPro. Quillot in recent days has said he is prepared to repay any bonus he received that was linked to the rights sale.MediaPro’s troubles started when it failed to secure 100 percent of the rights, losing a crucial package that included the first pick of the week’s top game to beIN Sports, a Qatar-backed broadcaster. BeIN sold those rights to Canal+, reducing the need for the network, France’s biggest pay television operator, to make a deal with MediaPro for the other games.Unable to find a home for its matches, MediaPro started a subscription service for them, Téléfoot.Credit…Bertrand Guay/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat left MediaPro holding expensive rights without the most viable outlet willing to buy them. Seeking a way out, it sought to start its own channel, Téléfoot, which had little to offer subscribers beyond the matches it had bought. Sales of subscriptions offered on other, smaller platforms failed to reach meaningful numbers, though, leaving MediaPro to burn through millions of dollars with little hope of breaking even.Faced with that crisis, MediaPro failed to make a payment of 172 million euros ($208 million) when the French league started its new season in October. It skipped another one for 152.5 million euros this month.MediaPro moved to defend itself from litigation by taking advantage of new laws passed to protect companies during the coronavirus crisis. Unable to insist on recouping what it was owed, the French league was forced into a mediation process that ended last week with MediaPro agreeing to return only 100 million euros ($121 million).“Clubs are desperately in need of cash; that’s why the league has accepted this very bad offer from MediaPro,” said Pierre Maes, a consultant and author of “Le Business des Droits TV du Foot,” a book on the soccer rights market.The league — which has so far kept its teams afloat with bank loans in lieu of the missing broadcast payments — is now scrambling to find a television partner, most likely Canal+, to come to the rescue. One thing is almost certain: The price the league will be forced to accept will not be celebrated in the manner the MediaPro deal was.“Whatever can be done to deliver cash to clubs, they’ll do it,” Maes said. He predicted that any new agreement for the rights now could bring about half of what MediaPro had promised to pay.“Canal+ is today in a position to correct the market,” he said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More