Lineker, Gary (1960- )

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    Gary Lineker to Return to BBC Soccer Show ‘Match of the Day’

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    The move calms a crisis at the publicly funded broadcaster after Gary Lineker, a former soccer star, was removed from a flagship show because of a tweet about immigration policy.The BBC announced on Monday that it had reached an agreement with Gary Lineker, a star sports personality, that will allow him to return to hosting its flagship soccer program, “Match of the Day.”The move defuses a crisis that began with a politically charged post that Mr. Lineker posted on Twitter last week about the British government’s immigration policy and escalated into a staff mutiny that threatened the BBC’s reputation and stability.“Gary is a valued part of the BBC and I know how much the BBC means to Gary, and I look forward to him presenting our coverage this coming weekend,” Tim Davie, the broadcaster’s director general, said in a statement.Mr. Davie said the BBC would launch an independent review into its social media guidelines.In a Twitter post, Mr. Lineker said, “After a surreal few days, I’m delighted that we have navigated a way through this.” He also thanked his colleagues at the network who had supported him.Mr. Lineker’s standoff with the BBC had set off a noisy national debate about free expression, government influence and the role of a revered, if beleaguered, public broadcaster in an era of polarized politics and freewheeling social media.It came after a walkout by Mr. Lineker’s soccer colleagues forced the BBC to radically curtail its coverage of a national obsession, reducing the chatty flagship show he usually anchors, “Match of the Day,” to 20 commentary-free minutes on Saturday.The BBC struggled over the weekend to work out a compromise with Mr. Lineker that would put him back on the air, after days of controversy about his criticism of a government plan to crack down on asylum seekers.But the fallout from the dispute is likely to be wide and long-lasting, casting doubt over the corporation’s management, which has made political impartiality a priority but has faced persistent questions about its own close ties to the Conservative government.“All this has put the BBC’s independence at risk, and its reputation at risk,” said Claire Enders, a London-based media researcher and the founder of Enders Analysis. “That’s unfortunate because this is, at heart, a dispute over whether the BBC can impose its social media guidelines on a contractor.”Mr. Lineker, 62, is no ordinary contractor, of course. He is perhaps the BBC’s biggest name, a beloved sports figure who made a smooth transition from the playing field to the broadcasting booth, where he has been a weekly fixture since 1999, analyzing games and shooting the breeze with other retired sports stars. He is the BBC’s highest-paid on-air personality, earning 1.35 million pounds, about $1.6 million, in 2022.But Mr. Lineker, who grew up in a working-class family in Leicester, has never kept his views on social issues a secret. When the government announced strict new immigration plans to cut down on asylum seekers, he posted on Twitter, “This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?”The British home secretary, Suella Braverman, who is spearheading the policy to stop migrants from crossing the English Channel in small boats, said that Mr. Lineker’s comments diminished the atrocities of the Holocaust. Other Conservative lawmakers said that he had misused his BBC platform — not for the first time — to voice a political opinion.“We need to make sure we maintain that trust in the independence and impartiality of the BBC,” the chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, said on Sunday to a BBC journalist, Laura Kuenssberg.The BBC is not the only media organization to hit turbulence over questions about political expression and social media. Tensions have flared at British newspapers, as well as at The Washington Post and The New York Times, over the Twitter posts of journalists, sometimes critical of their own employers.“This is a period of social change, where public attitudes toward the media and social media are rapidly evolving,” said Mark Thompson, a former director general of the BBC who was later the chief executive of The New York Times Company. “Editorial teams around the world are racing to catch up.”What makes Mr. Lineker’s case especially complicated is both his job status — he is a contractor, not a full-time employee, who works for BBC Sports as opposed to BBC News — and the broadcaster’s enforcement of its social media guidelines, which critics say is haphazard at best and hypocritical at worst.Alan Sugar, a British businessman who hosts the BBC’s version of the American reality TV show “The Apprentice,” has tweeted vociferously against a union leader who has pursued a confrontation with the government, as well as against a former leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, whom Mr. Lineker has also criticized.Mr. Lineker got into no apparent trouble with his bosses about that, or for speaking out on the air about human rights abuses in Qatar during his coverage of the World Cup soccer tournament there last year.Mr. Davie, a former marketing executive who also had links to the Conservative Party, has come under fire for his handling of the dispute with Mr. Lineker. In an interview with the BBC over the weekend, he apologized for the spiraling crisis, which forced the broadcaster to all but scrap two days of sports programming.“This has been a tough time for the BBC,” Mr. Davie said. “Success for me is getting Gary back on air and together we are giving to the audiences that world-class sports coverage which, as I say, I’m sorry we haven’t been able to deliver today.”Mr. Davie, who was appointed during the Johnson government, has made upholding the BBC’s political impartiality one of his major goals as director general. But he denied that the broadcaster was bowing to pressure from the government or Conservative politicians, and said he had no plans to resign. More

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      Wary of Human Rights Issues, World Cup Sponsors Edge Away from Qatar

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      Troubled by worker abuse and human rights, some World Cup sponsors are distancing themselves from the host nation. But not everyone is backing away.For Gary Lineker, a starring role in Qatar’s big show was not an option.Sure, he had hosted a World Cup draw before. And as a former top scorer in the tournament who now works as a popular television broadcaster he has an ongoing professional relationship with the tournament’s organizer, FIFA. But fronting the glamorous event in Doha last month that set the matchups for this year’s World Cup in Qatar — a hosting choice he has regularly criticized — was not something, Lineker decided, that he could consider.So in a conversation with FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, Lineker said no.Lineker’s reluctance to host the draw — which left FIFA scrambling to find a replacement — is only one recent example of the line celebrity athletes and sponsors are having to tread when it comes to the Qatar World Cup, which since its inception has been mired in controversy and complaints about the country’s treatment of migrant workers and the gay community. His decision came as multiple companies, and even the federations of some participating nations, are taking steps to distance their brands from the host country even though they have paid millions of dollars to attach themselves to the world’s most high-profile sporting event.Qatar has long pushed back on perceptions about the country that it considers inaccurate or at best outdated, attempting to explain that as the physical appearance of the country changed, so have its protections for workers. But examples of abusive conduct and poor treatment stubbornly persist and remain fodder for news media outlets, particularly in Europe, where the Qatar World Cup continues to be a source of protest and a lightning rod of criticism for those that associate with it.Qatar has faced years of criticism over its treatment of migrant workers as hundreds, and perhaps thousands, died working on World Cup construction projects.Hamad I Mohammed/ReutersAlarmed, some companies that would have been expected to leverage the biggest event in the most popular sport on earth have instead chosen to step away. For instance, ING Group, a major international financial services and banking group that sponsors the Netherlands and Belgium national teams, has decided not to leverage those relationships during the event. The company said it would not accept any of its ticket allocation for the tournament or engage in any World Cup-related promotion, a spokesman told The New York Times.“Given the discussion and concerns around the human rights situation of the tournament infrastructure we think it’s inappropriate,” the spokesman said. Instead, ING said, the company will focus its efforts on the women’s European soccer championships to be held in England this summer.Several other partners of the Dutch and Belgian teams also issued statements outlining their plans to ignore what would in normal circumstances be a major marketing platform. GLS, a parcel service provider that sponsors Belgium’s team, told The Times that while it has backed the Red Devils since 2011 and would continue to do so, it would not take up its ticket allocation for customer promotions or engage in any advertising campaigns in Qatar “because we consider a commercial use of the World Cup 2022 in the context of the human rights situation better not take place.”Read More on the World CupAmbitious Goals: FIFA has given up on a plan to hold the World Cup every two years. But its president’s plans for the future are bold.Golden Sunset: This year’s World Cup will likely be the last for stars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo — and a profound watershed for soccer.Senegalese Pride: Aliou Cissé, one of the best soccer coaches in Africa, has given Senegal a new sense of patriotism. Next up: the World Cup.A Controversy: A dispute over a player’s eligibility could alter the qualifying results in South America, with Chile asking for forfeits and Ecuador’s spot in Qatar.Carrefour, however, a French-based supermarket chain with outlets in Qatar that also sponsors the Belgium team, issued a robust response to claims that it too would join the others in what appears to be a collective boycott of the World Cup. “Carrefour and its subsidiaries are not engaged in a boycott of any kind,” the company told The Times in a statement that labeled any claims it would take part “fake news.”Even some of the competing teams, though, are treading lightly. U.S. Soccer has held internal discussions about messaging it can provide to players for when they face inevitable questions about human rights issues, and Germany’s team wore T-shirts bearing the slogan “human rights” before a World Cup qualifying match last year.And after Denmark’s team secured its qualification last year, its soccer federation announced that two of its sponsors, the national lottery Danske Spil and a prominent bank, Arbejdernes Landsbank, had agreed to surrender the space they have paid for on the team’s training gear so that it can be replaced by human rights messages during the World Cup. (Arbejdernes Landsbank later ended its sponsorship early, a decision it said was over unrelated issues.)None of the team’s sponsors, the Danish federation said, would take part in any commercial activities in Qatar “so that participation in the World Cup finals is primarily about sporting participation and not promoting the World Cup organizers’ events.”Ricardo Fort, a former marketing executive responsible for Coca-Cola’s multi-decade relationship with FIFA, said many companies were calculating the effects of associating with Qatar, but he predicted that most would ultimately choose not to shy away from the tournament. “To me it feels like a localized issue,” Fort said.Celebrities and individuals would face a tougher choice, he suggested.“If you are a retired footballer planning to sign a deal in Germany or France et cetera, the chances are you will be more successful not being involved with the event,” Fort said.Lineker, a former England striker who was the top scorer at the 1986 World Cup, was just the sort of star FIFA and World Cup organizers would have wanted to headline high-profile events like the draw. Lineker had said yes the last time around, taking center stage at the Kremlin for the draw ahead of the 2018 World Cup in Russia.But after doing so he had faced a backlash from some sections of the British news media, and this time, he told Infantino, he had concluded it would be hypocritical for him to headline a ceremony that would in essence kick off an event about which he continues to have misgivings. (Lineker will continue to play a leading role in the BBC’s coverage of the tournament, having decided that reporting on the event is not the same as endorsing it.)Gary Lineker, a former World Cup player turned broadcaster, rejected an offer to reprise his role hosting the World Cup draw.Carl Recine/Action Images Via ReutersWhen Lineker said no, Jermaine Jenas, a retired player who never appeared in a World Cup match, was a late choice alongside the American Carli Lloyd.Darko Bandic/Associated PressFor others, though, the rich paydays on offer can be too big to turn down. Qatar has for years written some of the biggest sponsorship contracts in sports, and that has only ramped up as the World Cup nears. Its biggest capture to date has been David Beckham, the former England star who like Lineker was present in the hall when Qatar chosen as the host for 2022.Qatar’s multimillion-dollar agreement with Beckham, now also a sports team owner and investor whose celebrity transcends soccer, extends beyond the World Cup; it is, in many respects, a deal for the former England national team captain to endorse Qatar itself. That has led some people close to Beckham to privately express misgivings about the nature of the arrangement. “It’s a deal to promote and support the nation and what they’re doing,” a person with knowledge of the agreement said in describing it.Beckham has not publicly spoken about what motivated him to sign with Qatar, where he has been a frequent visitor since agreeing to a deal more than 18 months ago. His spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.Beckham has so far avoided press scrutiny at events in Qatar, which have included an event with Afghan refugees; a promotional event for Qatar Airways; and an appearance on a panel at the Doha Forum, a flashy event that brings together business and political elites. He was curiously absent, however, from the World Cup draw.“There’s so much risk attached to this,” said Tim Crow, a former chief executive of Synergy, a firm that has advised Olympic and World Cup sponsors. “I was kind of surprised he’s decided to position himself with something for which there’s so much risk, particularly for a guy who doesn’t need the money.”Beckham’s relationship with Qatar may lead to questions for one for his other partners, the sportswear manufacturer Adidas. The company provided few specifics about how it would activate its relationship with Beckham for the Qatar World Cup, saying only that he “is a valued, long-term member of the Adidas family and our partnership will continue as such.” More

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      Stunning Soccer Moments in European Championship History

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      UEFA Euro 2020, delayed by the pandemic, will sweep across the continent into July.The 16th European Championship, UEFA Euro 2020, is finally about to start, having been delayed until this year because of the pandemic.The soccer tournament, held every four years, began as a four-team event in 1960, won by the Soviet Union, and was hosted by one or at most two countries. But it has since grown. This year’s event, from Friday to July 11, will be a 24-team Pan-European extravaganza, with 11 host nations staging matches.Six groups of four teams will play a round-robin format, with group winners, runners-up and the four third-place teams with the best records advancing to the single-elimination rounds. Baku, Azerbaijan; Munich; St. Petersburg, Russia; and Rome will host the quarterfinals; the semifinals and the championship game are set for Wembley Stadium in London.And fans will be in the stands. Except for Budapest’s Puskas Arena, which will allow full houses, stadiums will fill only 25 percent to 50 percent of their capacity.Dreamed up by Henri Delaunay, the first head of European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, the European Championship is second in popularity and prestige to only the World Cup.The last UEFA championship, held in 2016, was won by Portugal, even though its star, Cristiano Ronaldo, left the game early with an injury. Here are a handful of the tournament’s most memorable moments.Magic Marco, 1988The Netherlands, the “nearly team” of world soccer, won its first and only title with a 2-0 victory over the Soviet Union in Munich. In the 32nd minute of the final match, the Dutch captain Ruud Gullit took advantage of a poorly cleared corner to head in the return ball. Later, at the other end, goalkeeper Hans van Breukelen gave away and then saved a penalty from Igor Belanov. Both plays were vital but ultimately were overshadowed byGullit’s goal.In the 54th minute, midfielder Arnold Muhren lofted a high cross from the left, a few yards outside the Soviet penalty area. Marco van Basten, level with Muhren when the pass was made, strode down the far right side of the area, met the ball in midair, and swung in a wicked volley from an acute angle that flew over Rinat Dasayev (one of the game’s better keepers) into the far corner for the second goal.The game was effectively over at the point, but the stadium didn’t stop buzzing because a goal like that is rare, especially in a final. It was masterful technique, timing and skill, from the weight and arc of Muhren’s pass, to van Basten’s run and audacious finish. The ball didn’t hit the ground from the moment it left Muhren’s foot until it was pulled out of the net. Rinus Michels, the Dutch coach, covered his eyes in disbelief.John Jensen, right, was an unexpected force for Denmark, a late addition to the 1992 tournament. He scored the Danes’ first goal in a 2-0 victory against Germany in the final.Paul Popper/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesJensen’s Big Boot, 1992Sweden hosted Euro ’92 with the slogan “Small Is Beautiful.” The tournament also had a fairy tale ending. After Yugoslavia was expelled from the competition in the spring because of an escalating civil war, Denmark was a late addition. The squad wasn’t quite scooped off the beach, but not too far off.The Danes weren’t a ragtag gang, though. They had a smattering of journeymen from the Bundesliga and goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, in his first year with Manchester United.Denmark’s campaign sparked to life with a late 2-1 win over France that put it in the semifinals against the defending champion, the Netherlands. The Danes won, 5-4, on penalties.Having dispensed with the European champion, Denmark faced the reigning world champion, a reunified Germany (now with added East Germans). Predictably, Germany dominated early, but unpredictably John Jensen gave the Danes the lead. Jensen, for whom self-belief and ambition trumped technique, usually had his shots clear not only the goal, but also the running track and several rows of seats. Not this time. He hit the roof of the German net with a decisive wallop.Denmark defended capably, and Schmeichel rescued the team when it didn’t. After Kim Vilfort added an insurance goal, the Danish fans sang, “Deutschland, Deutschland, Alles ist vorbei” (“Germany, Germany, it’s all over”).Small might have been beautiful, but Euro ’92 was the last eight-team tournament. Four years later in England, the field doubled. And Jensen? He headed to England too, and continued to shoot wildly from distance, finding the net only once in 138 league appearances for Arsenal.Andreas Möller, left, celebrating with Andreas Köpke, Dieter Eilts, Markus Babbel and Thomas Helmer after Germany’s victory in the 1996 final over the Czech Republic.Paul Popper/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesHome to England, 1996Billed as a return to the game’s spiritual roots, Euro ’96 was in England. “Football’s Coming Home” was the chant featured in the song “Three Lions.”And indeed, the English notched a 4-1 win over the Dutch and beat Spain, with penalty kicks.But the semifinal presented a big impediment: Germany. England played well, but so did Germany. Stefan Kuntz of Germany tied the score after Alan Shearer’s early goal for England. Sure enough, the tie resulted in a shootout. Each team scored five times. Gareth Southgate of England then hit a weak shot that was saved. Amid the general sympathy for Southgate afterward was a notable dissent: from his mother, Barbara. “Why didn’t you just belt it?” she said.Andreas Möller smashed home Germany’s winner, then stood defiantly, hands on hips.Germany won its third title with what is known as a golden goal (in sudden-death overtime), beating the Czech Republic, 2-1. Both goals came from the substitute Oliver Bierhoff, the first a well-directed downward header, the second a low shot that hit off the hand of keeper Petr Kouba and rolled in off the post. It brought to mind the dictum of the former England striker Gary Lineker:“Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win.”Zinedine Zidane, center, during France’s 2-1 victory over Italy in the 2000 final. He carried his team to the title match with a golden-goal penalty against Portugal in the semifinals.Pierre Lahalle/Corbis/VCG, via Getty ImagesZizou’s Light Touch, 2000France’s feel-good home World Cup win in 1998 was hailed as a multicultural phenomenon, Parisian sidewalks spilling over with fans shouting, “Black, Blanc, Beur,” referring to the team’s Black, white and North African players. On the field, defenders got the big goals (Lilian Thuram and Laurent Blanc), and France won without really clicking; not until the final did Zinedine Zidane find his footing.Fast-forward two years, and the team had blossomed into beautiful worldbeaters. Thierry Henry was a star striker, Emmanuel Petit, Patrick Vieira and Didier Deschamps powered the midfield, and Zizou, as Zidane is known, did everything else. He was simply at the top of his game. The strength and acceleration, the close control, the feather-light touch, the ability to pick up a ball and gracefully drag opponents across a field, then shake them off and craft the perfect pass — he was peerless.In the semifinal against Portugal, he was tirelessly inventive. When a move broke down, he demanded the ball and tried something new. And he carried his team into the final with a coolly taken golden-goal penalty.Zidane’s self-belief infused his teammates. Even when they trailed Italy in the final, the French looked as if they would find a way to win. Sylvain Wiltord’s late equalizer disheartened Italy and emboldened France. Then David Trezeguet’s fine volley in the 103rd minute confirmed what everyone knew: France was the best in Europe and world champion, and its midfield maestro was on another planet.An injured Cristiano Ronaldo joined Coach Fernando Santos in directing Portugal to the 2016 championship in the final against France.Mustafa Yalcin/Anadolu Agency, via Getty ImagesCoach Ronnie, 2016He has won a ton of trophies with his clubs, but international success has always eluded Cristiano Ronaldo.At 19, he cried uncontrollably as Greece ruined Portugal’s party when it hosted the tournament in 2004. In 2012, he was an unused penalty taker in a semifinal loss to Spain.In 2016, he was in a mood, seizing a television microphone during a team walk and flinging it into a nearby lake. But Portugal squeaked into the elimination rounds, defeating Croatia, Poland and Wales to get to the final — against the hotly favored host nation, France.The teams emerged to a carpet of moths, drawn by the Stade de France lights. It didn’t take long to end Ronaldo’s night. An ugly collision with Dimitri Payet in the eighth minute left him writhing in pain. He returned with his leg bandaged but collapsed and was carried off.Then the world saw a different Ronaldo. He prowled the sideline, cursed, cheered, shadowed Coach Fernando Santos, barked instructions at his teammates and roared them on, a limping amalgam of coach and superfan. The TV cameras lapped it up.And when Eder scored the winner 20 minutes into overtime, Ronaldo celebrated like the other Portuguese spectators.Often derided as a one-man team, Portugal had accomplished the unthinkable: winning without its talisman.Greece’s Traianos Dellas, left, scored the winner against the Czech Republic in the 2004 semifinals, and later hoisted the trophy with teammates.Tony Marshall/EMPICS, via Getty ImagesKing Otto and His Underdogs, 2004Greece’s 2004 triumph was a giant upset. Make that a series of upsets, as the Greeks twice defeated France, the host nation and reigning champion, and beat Euro 2004’s best team, the Czech Republic, en route to its first international title.A nation that had never won a single game at a major tournament, Greece was regarded as a soft touch and routinely troubled by indiscipline and infighting. But it was transformed by the veteran German coach Otto Rehhagel.“King Otto” instilled organization, discipline and a strong work ethic. The team won ugly, but it was a nightmare to play against. Nothing gave the Greeks more pleasure than watching the air drain out of puffed-up opponents. Faced with banks of blue and white jerseys, harried in the midfield and with dedicated defenders stalking their attackers, other teams were reduced to disaffected spectators.Although Greek scoring chances were rare, the team excelled at the most effective tool of the underdog’s arsenal: the set piece, winning the semifinal and final with headers from corner kicks. In the semifinal, the Greeks took advantage of a silver goal (a form of sudden death that allowed an opponent the remainder of an overtime period to tie the score). Traianos Dellas ghosted between a pair of Czech defenders to head home a corner at the end of the first 15-minute overtime.“I realized when we were given the corner that exactly 14 minutes 36 seconds of overtime had been played,” Dellas said. “I said to myself that now we must do it. Someone heard me.”In the 2008 quarterfinals, Andrei Arshavin of Russia mugged for the camera after his low drive nutmegged the Netherlands goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar in overtime.Laurence Griffiths/Getty ImagesArshavin Sparkles, 2008For the Russia midfielder Andrei Arshavin, Euro 2008 began with a two-game suspension for violent conduct in a qualifier. Guus Hiddink, Russia’s Dutch coach with a reputation for creating overachieving national teams (most recently South Korea and Australia), saw something special in Arshavin, who resembled a cartoon throwback to another era: a bowl haircut, rosy cheeks and uniforms that looked like a big brother’s hand-me-downs.But what talent. He had a low center of gravity, magnetic ball control, a rocket of a shot and a willingness to try anything.Arshavin scored in a 2-0 win over Sweden to secure a quarterfinal matchup with the Netherlands, one of Hiddink’s former employers.“When I’m a traitor, I like to be a very good traitor,” Hiddink said before the game. “I want to be the traitor of the year in Holland.”A late Ruud van Nistelrooy goal for the Netherlands sent the game into overtime at 1-1. Then Arshavin popped up in spectacular fashion. First, he tore down the left flank to the endline, turned and sublimely chipped his defender, giving Dmitri Torbinski the ball to back-heel into the net. Then Arshavin settled matters with a low drive that nutmegged keeper Edwin van der Sar. Arshavin gave a comical shrug for the camera, before pressing an index finger to his lips.Russia lost its semifinal, 3-0, to the eventual champion, Spain, which had a stockpile of midfield tyros of its own. That winter, Arshavin moved from Zenit St. Petersburg to England, treating fans to occasional brilliance before he faded and headed home, where he made headlines exiting a strip club on horseback.Antonin Panenka, kissing the trophy, used a long run-up to loft a penalty kick that sealed Czechoslovakia’s win over West Germany in the 1976 final.Peter Robinson/EMPICS, via Getty ImagesA Panenka, 1976The 1976 European Championship was the last to have only four teams — and the first decided on a penalty shootout.West Germany and Czechoslovakia were deadlocked after 120 minutes. The Czechs went ahead, 4-3, in penalty kicks when Uli Hoeness fired his shot over the bar. Enter Antonin Panenka. He made a long run-up and goalie Sepp Maier committed early; what followed has been variously described as a spoon, a shovel, a slice, a chip or a gently lofted shot that floated over the line and plopped into the back of the net. These days, fans simply call it a Panenka. Czechoslovakia won the tournament.Panenka hadn’t had a sudden inspiration. He had been practicing his specialty during training sessions with his goalkeeper, according to Ben Lyttleton’s book and blog, “Twelve Yards.”“My run-up was always longer to gain a bit of extra time, and faster so the goalkeeper doesn’t have a chance to change direction,” Panenka told Lyttleton. “The shot should not be too fast; you have to chip the ball so it glides.“I always tried to entertain fans, to do something unexpected so they could talk about it after matches,” he said. “And all my goals, all my assists and passes have been forgotten because of this penalty. So, I am obviously proud of the penalty, but also a little bit sorry, too.” More