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      Manchester United and the Perils of Living in the Past

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      Years of success under Alex Ferguson changed the way United viewed itself. But the glory days are gone, and the sooner the club admits that, the better.Old Trafford’s gangways were still packed with Liverpool fans, basking in the sight of their team’s sacking of the Theatre of Dreams last month, when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, representing himself, made the case for the defense.What he had just witnessed, he admitted, represented the “darkest day” of his three years in charge of Manchester United. But, he said, he would not — could not — countenance the idea of stepping down, of walking away. “We have come too far as a group and we are too close to give up now,” he said.Leaving Old Trafford that day, the idea that Solskjaer might emerge unscathed seemed fanciful. He had become something worse than an object of pity: He had become a punchline. That night, United’s executives met to discuss how to react. Somehow, they came to the same conclusion as the man they had appointed: Now was not the time to turn back. Solskjaer survived.There are several ways to explain Manchester United’s reluctance to accept the blindingly obvious, the mulish refusal of the self-styled biggest club in the world to recognize that its manager was way in over his head until it had not only been humiliated at home by Liverpool, but swatted aside with disdain by Manchester City and then humbled, plaintive and pathetic, by modest Watford.One explanation — the easiest one, the Occam’s razor one — is cool, uncaring cynicism: United’s hierarchy appointed Solskjaer, initially temporarily and then on a series of ever-extending permanent contracts, and demurred from taking a decision that would effectively be an admission of error, and the club’s owners did not mind who was in charge as long as the money kept rolling in.Another, far kinder version, would point to the curious sentimentality that seems to infect Manchester United: For an organization that behaves in almost every other sphere of its existence as a faceless corporate monolith, carving up and selling off its history to whoever will pay for a slice, United thinks with its heart, rather than its head, more often than might be expected.That sentimentality was there in the rush to award Solskjaer a permanent contract after the uplift of his early caretaker months in 2018 and 2019, and again when the club extended his deal last summer after finishing a distant second to Manchester City in the Premier League.Solskjaer is a former player — a club legend, as the fawning statement that announced his departure put it — and the romance that it might be him who restored the team to its place at the pinnacle seemed to be irresistible to those who employed him. Solskjaer was even permitted an exit interview, a chance to say goodbye on his own terms, with tears in his eyes.Perhaps that should be standard practice: Managers, even ones who have lost heavily at Watford, are human, and should be treated as such. Certainly, the affection for Solskjaer among United fans made the interview entirely understandable. It is not, though, the move that most hard-nosed, unapologetically ruthless businesses would make.But then United is not quite as hard-nosed as it might be, not all of the time. There will have been plenty within the club rubbing their hands with glee at the impact of Cristiano Ronaldo’s return last summer: his vast Instagram following, his army of devotees, his huge commercial profile.It was not any of that, though, that persuaded Rio Ferdinand and Alex Ferguson and Patrice Evra to intercede when it looked as if Ronaldo might be about to join Manchester City. They helped make the case to Ed Woodward, the club’s central power broker, to intervene. Ronaldo’s talent played its part of course, as did the status he had acquired in all his years away, but so too did the allure of bringing home a prodigal son, the feeling that he was back where he belonged.United sent stars to Solskjaer’s rescue when what the club seemed to need was a strategy.Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThis is not, of course, the “best in class” behavior that United would like to think is its hallmark. It did not take any great depth of knowledge, even in advance, to wonder if this little jaunt down memory lane might come at the cost of United’s balance, that Ronaldo might relegate the club’s future — Mason Greenwood and Jadon Sancho, in particular — to the shadows.It did not require any sort of tactical qualification to work out that Ronaldo, Bruno Fernandes and Paul Pogba, as well as the rest of United’s glittering array of attacking talent, cannot be easily subsumed into a cogent system. No searing insight was required to see that the money might have been rather better spent on a defensive midfielder. After all, even Solskjaer knew that.But then that is the grand irony of the modern Manchester United, the one that sits at the heart of the third, and perhaps most compelling, explanation for how the Solskjaer experiment lasted this long — through the loss to City and the collapse against Liverpool and the defeat in last season’s Europa League final and the 6-1 loss at home to Tottenham and the 4-0 mauling by Everton and all of the other bright, burning red flags.This is a club that, for 20 years, did nothing but win. There is a banner at Old Trafford that sets out just how central ultimate victory is to this club: images in silhouette of every trophy available to an English soccer team surrounding the slogan “We’ve Won It All.” Most of them were accrued between 1991 and 2013, when Ferguson turned Old Trafford into a monument to his own greatness.That is the standard that Manchester United’s current and future iterations must match; that is the measure by which they have failed, again and again, in the eight years since Ferguson stood on the field at Old Trafford, an emperor believing the sun would never set, and assured the fans that the good times would never end.Manchester United embraces glory days, even as they move further away every year.Carl Recine/Action Images Via ReutersAnd yet, for all that winning, there is precious little indication that anyone at Old Trafford understands quite how it happened. Solskjaer spoke often about restoring United’s traditions, but what they were was never made especially clear.In that, he joins a long and not especially proud list of Ferguson’s alumni to have tried to follow in their mentor’s footsteps and have failed. United had plenty of players during Ferguson’s tenure who looked cut out for management: the calm authority of Steve Bruce, the inspiring anger of Roy Keane, the fierce intelligence of Gary Neville, his brother Phil.None has lived up to the billing. Ferguson’s former assistants have fared a little better — Steve McClaren and Carlos Queiroz, in particular — but there is little evidence of a Ferguson school.It is not a unique phenomenon — Liverpool’s dynasty of the 1970s and ’80s did not produce a string of managerial titans, either — but it is, in the context of United’s failures since its totemic figure departed, noteworthy.In retirement, Ferguson has built a lucrative cottage industry in books on management and leadership. It is not to disparage his genius or his legacy to suggest that he did not pass those lessons on to those around him contemporaneously. Few of his former players absorbed them effectively, and, according to all available evidence, none of his theoretical superiors did. Ferguson does not seem to have left behind anyone at Old Trafford who truly understood the inner workings of his winning machine, who could reverse engineer his brilliance.Solskjaer in 2019, when United only saw sunshine ahead.Rui Vieira/Associated PressIt is easy to drift into meaningless jargon when listing all of the things required for success in modern soccer: a clear vision, a defined philosophy, a coherent structure. At times, their importance is overblown; Real Madrid won three Champions League titles in a row because it had the best players, after all. But whether they come by accident or design, most elite teams possess them. Manchester United does not.Perhaps that is why the club’s executives could believe Solskjaer when he said that, in the face of all that had happened against Liverpool, the club was “too close to give up now.” It was not clear what United was supposed to be close to, a few minutes after the yawning chasm between Solskjaer’s team and its greatest rival had been laid brutally and surgically bare.But how were the people charged with deciding whether he kept his job or not to know if he was right? They know that Manchester United ought to be great, because it was great under Ferguson, but they do not know how Ferguson made that greatness happen, so they have no way of measuring the club’s current proximity to it.Instead, they fell back on the solitary lesson that the club does seem to have learned from Ferguson: that success lies in the gift of a single great individual, and that all it needs to do to be restored to its perch is to find that person. They hoped, with all of their hearts, that might be Solskjaer. It was not. And so now they will set out on their search again, hoping to get close once more, even as they drift further and further away. More

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      Barcelona, Real Madrid and Transfer Rumors From Another Age

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      Talk about stars headed to Barcelona and Real Madrid conveniently leaves out an important fact: Neither club can afford them at the moment.Everything starts with the interviews. Mohamed Salah granted the first, to the Spanish newspaper AS, last December. He talked about his career, his ambitions for the season. He demurred when asked if he would finish his career with Liverpool. He offered a couple of placatory bromides about the continuing virility of Real Madrid and Barcelona.A few months later, not long before Liverpool faced Real Madrid in the Champions League, he did the same with Marca. The interview had a copy-paste quality: Salah talked about his career, his ambitions for the season. He demurred when asked whether he would finish his career with Liverpool. He offered a couple of placatory bromides about the continuing virility of Real Madrid. (Marca did not ask about Barcelona.)The interviews were not, it is fair to say, significant because Salah said nothing especially revelatory or surprising or explosive. Their meaning lay entirely in their existence. The fact that Salah, not typically given to inviting newspapers into his home, had broken the trend for Real Madrid’s twin courtiers said all that needed to be said.Appearing in the pages of AS and Marca, after all, is part of a long-established ritual, the first step in a familiar dance. It is — or has been, for a long time — a way for a player to flutter their eyelashes in the direction of either of Spain’s giants (though Real Madrid, most often). It is a sign that they would be interested, should an offer for their services arrive. In general, it is also a signal that Real Madrid, in particular, reciprocates the affection. And it is a whispered warning to that player’s current club that only a new contract, an improved salary, might stave off the inevitable.It is no surprise, then, that the last few months have seen a steady drip-feed of thinly-sourced transfer rumors suggesting that this might be Salah’s final season at Liverpool, that one or the other of Spain’s repelling poles might be at his shoulder, in his ear, coaxing him away.Currently, the favorite is Barcelona. Quite how that has happened is not entirely clear. In the English-speaking news media, the story has been credited to El Nacional, a Catalan newspaper that is, currently, of the view that Liverpool is about to sell not only Salah but also, apparently, its captain, Jordan Henderson, and its record signing, Virgil van Dijk.Players like Dani Alves, 38, now feel like a better fit for Barcelona’s budget.Enric Fontcuberta/EPA, via ShutterstockBut El Nacional does not claim to be the original source: It attributes the rumor to a website called Fichajes. That is, of course, responsible journalism — always credit your sources, kids — but it does not clear anything up, because Fichajes’ original claim was that Real Madrid wanted to sign Salah. Its first mention of Barcelona came three weeks after El Nacional ran the story.Quite what prompted the change is anyone’s guess. Much has been made of a quote from Xavi Hernández, the club’s new coach, a couple of years ago describing Salah as a “top” player. That he said it in a sentence that also referred to Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino is not mentioned. Nor is the fact that it is hardly a staggering admission. Salah is a top player. That is objectively true.What is omitted entirely from this wildfire of speculation, of course, is that Barcelona does not have anything like the money needed to sign Mohamed Salah. This is a club, remember, that has racked up $1 billion or so in debt. It is operating under strict salary controls instigated by La Liga. It has, by a generous estimate, about $10 million to spend on its squad in January.It is projecting yet another loss in this financial year. Its debt restructuring deal with Goldman Sachs means it has to cut back its operating costs drastically by 2025 or grant its lenders control of the television revenue that acts as the club’s primary source of funding. “A sword of Damocles,” as the International Finance Review described it. Barcelona also has a new stadium to build.It cannot afford to pay Liverpool the nine-figure fee it would demand for Salah. It might struggle to meet the $400,000-a-week in salary the player would want, even on a free transfer in 18 months’ time. (It also absolutely should not be thinking about deals like that for aging players: that is, after all, what got Barcelona into this mess in the first place.)Real Madrid’s financial situation is better — though it, too, has an expensive stadium refurbishment to consider, as well as the biting impact of the coronavirus pandemic — but it is significant that when it tried to sign Kylian Mbappé last summer, his current club, Paris St.-Germain, believed it to be nothing more than posturing; Real Madrid could not, the French team concluded, genuinely afford to pay any club $200 million for a single player.There is a reason that Real Madrid waited until the contract of David Alaba, the versatile Austrian master-of-all-trades, expired before signing him from Bayern Munich. There is a reason it is hoping Mbappé’s deal in Paris will be allowed to run out. There is a reason it is considering the likes of Antonio Rüdiger, the Chelsea defender, and Paul Pogba, the Manchester United midfielder, to revamp its team.Real Madrid knows it does not possess the financial heft to persuade Premier League teams to sell these players if they do not want to, because English soccer’s television revenues mean those teams almost certainly never need to sell. It knows, too, that paying a transfer fee and the stellar salaries top players command is beyond its reach. It has to cut its costs, and cloth, accordingly.Real Madrid’s transfer budget may take a back seat to its construction budget.Susana Vera/ReutersThis is a stark shift in soccer’s landscape. For decades, the working assumption has been that Real Madrid and Barcelona represent the apex of the sport’s hierarchy: They were its alphas, its final destinations, its mega-predators. That no longer holds true. Real Madrid and Barcelona, for now and for some time to come, no longer sit at the top of the food chain.That soccer’s whirling rumor industry has not noticed this does not matter, particularly. It is, by its very nature, slightly fantastical. That is part of the fun. Should a whisper ricocheting between click-hungry websites across Europe prove to be grounded in nothing but smoke and air then it does not, really, do any harm*. There may be disappointment at the end — when you expect Mohamed Salah but get Luuk de Jong — but in the meantime, readers enjoy the flight of fancy. The advertisers get eyeballs. The websites get paid.[*Other than to further undermine trust in the news ecosystem in general, and therefore permit the rise of the deliberately, cynically unreliable and the perniciously fake.]What is significant, though, is that players — or, more accurately, agents — do not yet seem to have caught on to that fact. The game’s altered tectonics mean that, for a player like Salah, flirting with Marca and AS is no longer much of a bargaining chip. Real Madrid is not an immediate threat to Liverpool, not any more.That is an important change, and not necessarily a positive one. Players at the Premier League’s top six teams — more or less — are effectively trapped. They will not sell to each other, not easily, as Tottenham proved in refusing Manchester City’s advances for Harry Kane last summer. The only club that can afford to extricate them is, most likely, P.S.G.Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea and Manchester United, in particular, are no longer proving grounds for Real Madrid and Barcelona. In those interviews, Salah twice said that his future was in his club’s hands. It was taken, at the time, as a challenge to Liverpool: to offer him a contract that fulfilled his true value, or else.But perhaps it was simply a recognition of the truth. Liverpool, like the rest of the Premier League’s elite, is in control of what happens to its star players, of how long the dance lasts, of when the song ends.Getting the Numbers RightPortrait of a mismatch.Carl Recine/Action Images Via ReutersAt roughly the same time as England was running in its 10th goal of the evening against San Marino, Italy was running out of ideas. The Italians, the European champions, had a relatively simple task in their final qualifying game, a road trip to Belfast to face a Northern Ireland team with nothing at stake but pride: Italy had to win to seal its place in Qatar next winter, and hope that Switzerland, its rival, did not rout Bulgaria at the same time.With 10 minutes to go, though, it was getting desperate. The score was mounting in Lucerne — two-nil, three-nil, four — but remained unmoving at Windsor Park. Italy could not pick its way through Northern Ireland. It could not play around Northern Ireland. And so, eventually, desperately, it tried to go over, launching a series of hopeful, hopeless, long balls into the penalty area. It did not work. The final whistle blew. The crowd roared.And so, not quite six months after it conquered a continent, Italy faces the prospect of navigating a hazardous playoff round simply to make it to Qatar. The idea brings back unhappy memories: It is only four years, after all, since Italy lost at the same stage to Sweden — a potential opponent, this time around — and missed out on Russia 2018 altogether.Those two results are worth considering in tandem. England’s 10-0 demolition of the tiny city-state prompted a reprise of the old, loaded discussion about whether UEFA needs to introduce prequalifying to weed out some of the weaker teams in its field. Italy’s 0-0 stalemate convinced Derek Rae, the respected ESPN commentator, to suggest that perhaps Europe merited more spaces at the World Cup.Italy’s week: no goals, but one lifeline.Peter Morrison/Associated PressNeither of these ideas is quite as charged as they seem to be (warning: there is no fulmination about to happen). Only two federations — Europe and South America — do not filter the pool of teams before the final stage of qualifying. It happens in Africa, Asia and North America. It is not anti-competitive. It is not the equivalent of the European Super League. It is simply changing the structure of how teams qualify for the World Cup.Likewise, the concept of expanding Europe’s footprint is not without merit. The presence of not only Italy but Portugal — the last two European champions — in the playoff round indicates Europe’s strength in depth.There is a good chance that 50 percent of all the teams in South America will be in Qatar, as opposed to a quarter of Europe’s, and just 10 percent of Africa’s. Africa, certainly, is underrepresented. But that is not to say that Europe is overrepresented: According to the (flawed) FIFA rankings, 18 of the best 32 teams in the world are in Europe. It has 13 slots for the World Cup.At the heart of both of these arguments is what you think the World Cup should do, and should be. If it is there to gather the world’s best teams, then Europe should have more slots and there should, probably, be prequalifying. If it has another mission, to function as an inclusive carnival, to help countries around the world aspire to something, then it should not.Of course, at least one of these arguments has been rendered moot by FIFA: This will, after all, be the last 32-team World Cup. Starting in 2026, 16 European teams will qualify (and nine from Africa), but the competition’s aspirational quality will not have been diminished. It is easy to rail against the expansion of the World Cup. In some lights, though, it has the faintest glow of logic behind it.Yes, Yes, Canada, We KnowJason Franson/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressAs many of you will have noticed, Canada now sits proudly atop the Octagon that will determine North and Central America’s entrants for next year’s World Cup, thanks in no small part to an impressive 2-1 win against a stalling Mexico in what appeared to be the actual North Pole.We receive reasonably regular correspondence demanding we cover — in this newsletter, for some reason, rather than anywhere else — Canada’s sudden emergence as a global superpower. And we will (because it’s a fascinating story, not because of mob rule), as qualification draws closer. But for now, please make do with this video of a man jumping into a snowdrift in celebration.Cashing In on MaradonaThe majority of speculative emails that I receive, these days, are related to soccer’s nascent romance with the world of NFTs. It is, after all, a natural fit: a nihilistic, self-regarding world where value has been completely detached from inherent worth and, well, cryptocurrency.It is a subject that makes me feel deeply uneasy. Soccer is only just starting to reckon with its unhealthy relationship with gambling, and it seems to be using NFTs — which, as far as I can tell, follow much the same dynamic — to plug the gap. The sport should, I feel, be a little more careful about where it takes its money, and precisely what its partners do. The sport does not feel the same way.But the sheer volume of those emails is, all of a sudden, being challenged by an upstart: correspondence alerting me to some project or other about Diego Maradona. There is an Amazon Prime series about his life, one which seems to borrow its dramatic aesthetic from a telenovela and its soccer scenes from When Saturday Comes. There is a reissue of Jimmy Burns’s biography. There is a Spotify podcast about his final few days, hosted by the renowned investigative journalist Thierry Henry.Napoli’s most recent tribute to Diego Maradona was sartorial.Jennifer Lorenzini/ReutersThis is all harmless, of course: much more harmless, potentially, than NFTs. And yet there is a faint feeling of exploitation here, too, that Maradona’s story has already been packaged as content, his legacy used as script fodder, his myth portioned into rights and sold off. It is only a year since his death. It feels too soon, somehow, to start setting in stone how we should think about his life.CorrespondencePlenty of feedback on alternative cards this week. “The punishment has to be extremely unpalatable to both the players themselves and the managers, while not destroying the contest,” wrote Timothy Ogden. He suggests that the player receiving an orange card would still have to serve a subsequent, one-game suspension, and that a team must have a designated replacement, a player who cannot be used as a regular substitute.Alex McMillan and Carson Stanwood are both in favor of simple sin bins for tactical foulers: 5 or 10 minutes out of the game, with no further punishment. But there was a bit of outside-the-box — literally, as you will see — thinking from David Simpson, too. For a tactical foul, he wrote, “the offended team should be allowed to place the ball anywhere outside the penalty area for a direct free kick.” That’s a really good idea. More

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      Ole Gunnar Solskjaer Is Target of Taunts but Not Alone in Blame

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      A thrashing by Liverpool showed that problems with Manchester United extend well beyond Solskjaer, the team’s manager.MANCHESTER, England — Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s name was still ringing around Old Trafford. It was not, though, coming from the corner of the Stretford End, which contains Manchester United’s most fervent, most vocal fans. Those fans stood silent, fuming, as their nightmare unfurled in front of them.Instead, it was the Liverpool fans, corralled at the other end of the stadium, the afternoon’s events taking them from delight to ecstasy and then all the way to something approaching delirium, offering the hymns in his praise on Sunday. Humiliation on the field is one thing. It is the mockery off it that may prove too much for Manchester United to endure.Until now, Solskjaer has always commanded the loyalty of United’s fans. No matter how many false dawns his team has endured over the last three years, no matter how frustrating it has been to watch a side that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to assemble veer between triumph and disaster, often in the same game, no matter how unclear his vision for the club has been, they have stood by him.Manchester United’s manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, was mocked by Liverpool’s delighted fans during and after the rout.Peter Powell/EPA, via ShutterstockHe was, after all, a hero for the club as a player; his love for Manchester United has never been in question. His reverence for United’s traditions might, at times, come across as a touch sentimental, but it is doubtless sincere. After the mercenary years of José Mourinho and Louis van Gaal, when the well-being of the club came a distant second to the burnishing of their legacies, he has been a welcome palliative.But there is, necessarily, a limit to sentimentality. There is no reason, in particular, to believe that Sunday’s 5-0 thrashing by Liverpool will prove a watershed for the club’s hierarchy: Solskjaer’s iteration of Manchester United has ricocheted almost constantly between hope and despair, and the club has never shown anything but blind faith in him.5th minute Naby Keita’s opening goal was the perfect start for Liverpool on Sunday.Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images13th minute Diogo Jota doubles the lead, stunning the Old Trafford crowd into silence.Michael Regan/Getty ImagesThe fans, too, did not aim their fire in his direction. There were no chants demanding his ouster, no public manifestations of dissent. Equally significantly, though, there were no defiant expressions of support, as there have been in previous low moments. This, perhaps, might have been the day that something significant shifted.It would be difficult to overstate the scale of United’s collapse. How best to express it? That Liverpool did not play particularly well in the first half, giving the ball away cheaply in midfield and inviting pressure reasonably frequently, but still made it to the break with a four-goal lead?Or that midway through the second half the streets outside the stadium were full of fans seeking sanctuary from what was unfolding inside, more and more bolting for the exits as the game wore on and the suffering worsened? Or that Jürgen Klopp’s team was so dominant that it spent the last half-hour, after Mohamed Salah had scored his third goal, and his team’s fifth, toying with United, its rival and peer, playing with all the intensity of a warm-down training session?38th minute Mohamed Salah’s first goal was just a sign of things to come.Phil Noble/Reuters45th minute + 5 Salah’s second, Liverpool’s fourth, came just before halftime.Michael Regan/Getty ImagesOr, perhaps, it would be the fury and the frustration that should have seen Cristiano Ronaldo sent off for lashing out at Liverpool’s Curtis Jones at the end of the first half, and eventually did see Paul Pogba — only a few minutes after his introduction as a substitute — dismissed for a wild, reckless challenge on Naby Keita.Both were, as much as anything, an expression of United’s absolute impotence, an abdication of control rooted in the embarrassment being inflicted on Solskjaer’s players. They were powerless to match Liverpool. They were unable to stop Keita, Salah and Roberto Firmino, in particular, cutting through them at will. They had lost the game, and so they lost their cool.It was Solskjaer who had to bear the brunt of that, of course. It was Solskjaer who had to stand there, on the touchline, his head ever so slightly bowed, as Liverpool’s fans crowed and taunted and, with a cruel and obvious irony, invoked his name.It was Solskjaer who had to answer the questions at the end, who had to conjure whatever explanation he could, who had to give an instant, taped deposition for what will be, largely, an inquest into his own continued viability. And it is Solskjaer who will be dismissed, in some quarters, as nothing but a frontman for the great Manchester United tribute act, a sort of glorified mascot for a club whose business model is based on milking former glories.That is the way it is, the way it has always been, but it should not disguise the fact that he is not solely to blame. The core difference between United and Liverpool is not just in the quality of their coaches — Solskjaer, granted his job on the basis of his playing career, and Klopp, who earned his because of what he had achieved as a coach — but in the coherence of their structures.50th minute Thousands of United fans were already on their way out when Salah scored his third.Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images60th minute United’s day managed to get worse when Paul Pogba was sent off for a two-footed tackle on Keita.Michael Regan/Getty ImagesPogba started on the bench here because there is, in effect, no system available to Solskjaer that enables him to get the best out of the galaxy of stars at his disposal. Playing a way that suits Pogba means negating Bruno Fernandes or dropping Marcus Rashford or sidelining Mason Greenwood.The club signed Cristiano Ronaldo this summer — get the band back together for the last, ever, world tour — partly out of romance, partly out of cynicism, partly because it was worried he was going to join Manchester City and partly, of course, because he is one of the greatest of all time. But it did so with no real idea of how he would fit into the team, with no regard for the fact that it meant effectively stalling Jadon Sancho’s Manchester United career before it had begun.These are not things Liverpool does. They are not, for that matter, things that Manchester City or Chelsea do. It is Solskjaer’s fault that he cannot get the best out of these players, that he sent out a team so woefully overmatched against Liverpool, but it is not his fault that his resources are so uneven, their shapes just not quite dovetailing with each other.That was of little or no solace as he stood on the touchline, the scoreboard emblazoned with the proof of his humiliation, Liverpool’s fans singing his praises. It was hard, in fact, not to feel sorry for Solskjaer at that moment, and that may be the most worrying thing of all. It is one thing to be beaten, to be criticized. It is quite another to be where he is now, the butt of the joke. A manager can recover from many things. Being a punchline is not one of them.Michael Regan/Getty Images More

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      Manchester United’s Perfect Feedback Loop

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      Title contender, crisis club or cash cow? What you see in United depends, largely, on what you want to see.Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was in the mood to play the hits. Manchester United’s most ardent fans, he said, were “the best in the world.” The players who had the privilege to wear the team’s colors were the “luckiest” on the planet. And, of course, there was the inevitable nod to history, to the club’s “habit” of clawing victory from the maw of defeat.Solskjaer was glowing, and with good reason. United had just given Atalanta a two-goal head start in the Champions League and recovered to win regardless. Cristiano Ronaldo had delivered, yet again. United had been at the bottom of its group at halftime, flirting with elimination, but now it sat comfortably at the top. The fans sang Solskjaer’s name as he gave his postmatch television interviews.Once he had signed off, the British broadcast feed cut back to the studio. The mood, there, was starkly different. Paul Scholes, the former Manchester United midfielder appearing as one of the guests, was not feeling particularly stirred. “That first half worried me,” he said. His voice was stern, his look grave. United faces Liverpool on Sunday. Scholes felt storm clouds gathering.As he spoke, footage played of United’s rousing winner. Ronaldo’s header arrowed into the corner of the goal. “Imagine Jürgen Klopp watching that,” Scholes intoned. Ronaldo tore off in celebration, another stitch woven into the fabric of his legend. “He’ll be rubbing his hands together.” Old Trafford was melting into delirium. “Play like that against Liverpool, and see what happens.”In that contrast lies the very essence of the modern Manchester United, a club where what the eyes see and what the ears hear do not always — or even often — match up. It has been like this almost since the start of Solskjaer’s reign, three years ago, this ability to jumble the senses, to be everything and nothing, to be progress and stasis, promise and despair, success and failure all at the same time. United has become soccer team as Rorschach test: What you see in the spreading ink blot in front of you depends, largely, on what you want to see.The main complaint from Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s critics is that he doesn’t always appear to know what he’s doing with his team.Carl Recine/Action Images Via ReutersIn many ways, of course, that is probably less than ideal. As a general rule, the teams that win trophies are not the ones that radically divide opinion, or the ones whose performances oscillate wildly both within and between games, or the ones who never seem to be more than a couple of defeats from full-blown crisis. League titles, in particular, go to the strong and the steady, the clear and the convincing.And that, of course, is what is supposed to be Manchester United’s priority. That is what Scholes believes is the club’s rightful place, the cornerstone of soccer’s natural order: There can be true harmony and balance in all things only if, at the end of May, Manchester United is crowned the best team in the Premier League.But that is not, of course, Manchester United’s only priority. It is — and this will read as criticism only if you want to read it as criticism — concerned with not only being the best team in England, but being the biggest club, too. That might, in a certain light, feel like little more than semantics. It is not.In a sporting sense, United’s tendency to act as a sort of fuel cell for an apparently inexhaustible debate is very obviously a drawback, a reasonably damning indictment of Solskjaer’s reign in and of itself. Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool are not subject to such wild swings in popular perception. Their exact places in England’s pecking order might be disputed, but that they belong at the very summit is not.The sporting sense, though, is not the whole picture. It is easy to chide United every three months, when its leading executives use their quarterly call with investors to primp and preen over their social media engagement figures. It is simple to see this as yet more proof of how capitalism and/or technology has corrupted the game, how out of line United’s priorities are, how confused its leaders have become about whether their job is to win titles or accrue followers on Instagram.If United’s main business is soccer, mythology and commercial revenue aren’t far behind.Phil Noble/ReutersThe truth is a little of both. It is an awkward coexistence, but clubs are both sports teams and businesses. Those numbers are not brought up as a transparent bid to distract private equity managers from poor performance on the field. They are brought up because the private equity managers probably care about them as much as — or even more than — they care about whether United won or lost last weekend. Those numbers matter.And from that point of view, it is hard to conceive of any strategy better than this version of Manchester United, with all of its inconsistencies and contradictions, each one open to every interpretation imaginable. It is the gift that keeps on giving, a virtuous circle, the highest attainable form of sport as content machine. Presumably by accident, rather than design, Manchester United finds itself in the Platonic ideal of an engagement sweet spot.It is perfect: The presence of so many enormously talented players means that the team is never bad, not in any real sense. It is never going to be out of contention for a place in the Champions League, and so it is never going to be in real danger of missing out on the vital revenue streams offered by European soccer.Most of the time, the team will win: occasionally convincingly, occasionally fortunately, occasionally despite all available evidence suggesting that it really should not have. But, crucially, it will not win all of the time. Winning all of the time is what fans want, of course, but it is not, in truth, a particularly compelling story. If a team wins all of the time, there is not much to say. Look at Bayern Munich, or Paris St.-Germain, or even Manchester City. They win, again and again, and the world shrugs.Not Manchester United, though. Sometimes, United will lose. It will never lose often enough to be in genuine peril of finishing, say, ninth — the extraordinary players will see to that, remember — but sometimes having those players is not enough. Sometimes the opposition will have a better system, or United will be less than the sum of its parts, and so sometimes United will lose.No matter what happens, though, there will be something to talk about. Regardless of whether the dice fall for United in any particular game, it will be compelling. The team can be whatever you want it to be: a side building momentum, or one threatening to malfunction. Occasionally, as Scholes proved, it can be both of those things at the same time. The pictures can say one thing, and the words another.Cristiano Ronaldo papered over some more of United’s problems this week.Peter Powell/EPA, via ShutterstockIt leaves every game fraught with meaning. Every single fixture could be the start of something or the end, the day that the club rises to indisputable glory or sinks into unabashed crisis. There will always be something to say, a position to take, an opinion to air. And that means there is always something to sell, because there is always something to watch or something to hear or something to read or something to click. It means Manchester United is always there, front and center, pumping tons and tons of content out into the atmosphere.This weekend, it is entirely feasible that Manchester United will beat Liverpool. Or lose to Liverpool. Or draw with Liverpool. There will be a result, but that is not the same as a conclusion. Not one that lasts, anyway, not one that holds beyond the next game, or the game after that. There never will be, not with these owners, not with this team, not with this manager. Manchester United will just keep on as it is, forever near and forever distant, soccer’s most reliable source of engagement, a club caught in its own perfect feedback loop.No Good Guys HereNewcastle asked its fans this week to stop wearing robes to matches “if they would not ordinarily wear such attire.”Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThis is not something that will be said regularly, in the months and years to come, but it was just about possible to have a little sympathy for Newcastle United’s new ownership group this week. Not for the defeat against Tottenham, of course. Not for firing Manager Steve Bruce. Not even for having to issue a statement urging the club’s fans to stop dressing up in thobes and kaffiyehs because it is, you know, offensive.No, the one aspect that made it just about possible to see the Saudi-backed consortium’s point of view was the decision by the rest of the Premier League to place a temporary stay on related party transactions: that is, deals in which companies linked to a club’s owner suddenly and entirely coincidentally decide they want to spend vast sums of money sponsoring the owner’s team.Some 18 of Newcastle’s Premier League colleagues/rivals backed the motion, with a view to implementing some sort of permanent restriction on the practice in the future. Manchester City abstained from the vote, presumably aware that backing it would be, well, hypocrisy of the highest order.Newcastle’s immediate response was to threaten legal action against the Premier League. This is not uncomplicated, of course, because it is — when you think about it — basically an admission that getting a load of Saudi companies to sponsor a Saudi-backed team so as to fast-track its growth was a fundamental part of the business plan.But that is, perhaps, balanced out — in this case — by the fact that a host of Premier League teams have been doing this for years. And not just Manchester City, the world’s foremost billboard for Etisalat. There is Leicester City, too, with its home, the King Power Stadium. It is curious that Everton’s training ground is sponsored by USM: What benefit a Russian mining giant gets from having its name splashed on a club’s changing rooms is anyone’s guess, but it is apparently worthwhile.This, you see, is the problem with the Premier League’s cynical decision to avoid anything approaching morality as long as the money keeps on flowing. It is an appealing approach, because it absolves the league of having to make any tricky, subjective decisions. Until, that is, something so craven comes along that everyone else’s cravenness pales in comparison. Opting out is not a tenable position in the long run. It is time that English soccer learned that.Enough, Gianni. Enough.Gianni Infantino: a man with a (very bad) plan.Harold Cunningham/Agence France-Presse, via Fifa/Afp Via Getty ImagesIn a way, you have to admire Gianni Infantino. By now, those occupying what we might call soccer’s Blue Sky executive level have conjured so many risibly absurd ideas in such rapid succession that we should be inured to it. They should not be able to plumb new depths of stupidity. Those wells should have been tapped long ago.Credit, then, to Infantino for boldly going lower than anyone else had thus far dared to go. A World Cup every two years, it turns out, is just entry-level stuff. The real galaxy brain idea was decreeing, as he did to various European federations this week, that teams would not be allowed to compete in consecutive tournaments if, and when, the competition goes biennial.That’s right. Infantino, the president of FIFA, the most powerful person in the game, the man responsible for safeguarding the biggest sport on the planet, has considered taking the World Cup and splitting it in two, so that it is not, in fact, a World Cup at all. Infantino appears to think that if you cut a golden goose in half, there is a chance you might get two golden geese.And yet there is reason to be thankful, too. Infantino might not quite have worked out King Solomon’s gambit, but in doing so he has, at least, exposed the fact that FIFA’s plan to double the number of World Cups is crumbling.The powerful European and South American confederations staunchly oppose it. So do the European Union and the International Olympic Committee. FIFPro, the players’ union, is against it. There is a reason for this. It is a bad idea.CorrespondenceA man, a medal and a lesson. Read on for his story.Lisi Niesner/ReutersSoccer, it turns out, is not the only sport with something of an aversion to celebrating second place. “There is the N.H.L.,” wrote David Sullivan. “No second-place trophies or medals, and a similar tradition/superstition that any team award less than the Stanley Cup itself is to be spurned.“The league now awards the Presidents’ Trophy to the team with the best regular season record, but there are documented cases of players looking down, looking away, acting awkward, refusing to acknowledge or touch the trophy they won, and skating away as quickly as possible.”There are, at least, trophies handed out for winning divisional titles, something that was pointed out to me while “researching” — it looks a lot like asking the most recent American I have corresponded with — last week’s column. You can win, in a way, multiple times in most of North America’s major leagues, so even the teams that lose finals can reflect on the fact that they are winners.But there can be no question whatsoever about the most poignant and uplifting email of the week, and possibly ever. I don’t want to edit it too much, even for length, because it deserves your full attention.“I’m 22, and won two silver and one bronze medal at the Tokyo Paralympic Games,” wrote Jaryd Clifford. “My silvers came in the 5000m (on the hottest running day of my life — “feels like 43 degrees and 85 percent humidity”) and the marathon (I spewed my guts up for the last 12 kilometers*).[*NOTE: I have left this phrase in to prove that Jaryd is Australian. It may be the most Australian phrase imaginable.]“I was defending world champion in the 5000m and world-record holder in the marathon. I learned that disappointment can coexist with pride, particularly when you know you gave it everything. I’m disappointed I couldn’t win that gold medal, but I’m proud that I never gave up and that I gave it everything I had.Jaryd Clifford of Australia collapsed after finishing second in a Paralympic marathon in Tokyo.Eugene Hoshiko/Associated Press“What more can you do? Sometimes you’re just beaten by a better opponent on that day. For me, the silver represents the journey I’ve been on from my early teens to now, all the blood, sweat and tears. It also motivates me to one day turn it into gold. My teammate, Scott Reardon, told me as I sat in an ice bath after the 5000m that “sometimes it takes silver to win gold.” In 2012, he won silver/lost gold by 0.03 seconds in the 100m. In 2016, he won gold, he says, because of the lessons he learned from his silver.”That last sentence is a far better encapsulation of what I was trying to express than I managed in a thousand words or so, as it happens. (I’ll be adding Jaryd to the list of people who aren’t allowed to email too often, for fear of showing me up.) You can either see it as losing gold, or you can see it as winning silver. The latter seems far healthier to me and, more important, to Jaryd. More

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      Chelsea Proves a Point While Collecting One at Liverpool

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      A red card put Chelsea to the test, but a draw won with control, composure and calm felt like much more.LIVERPOOL, England — Romelu Lukaku’s second half was not an especially glamorous one. There was a lot of running, darting into the slivers of space on either side of Liverpool’s central defenders, hoping for a ball that rarely came. There was a substantial amount of tussling and wrestling with Joel Matip, in particular, the two scrabbling for every inch of ground.There were not, conversely, many touches: only 20 in all after halftime, not quite one every two minutes. There was only, in the entire span of that 45 minutes, one scoring chance, a single moment that Lukaku spent his entire night trying to conjure, a snapshot from just inside the penalty area. He caught it well. No sooner had it left his foot than Virgil van Dijk blocked it.Such is the lot of the striker, of course: all of those moments of glory, as they wheel away, their arms aloft, adulation pouring forth upon them from the stands are the product of countless hours of unseen, unyielding and often underappreciated work. Every goal is reward for all of the effort silently expended. Lukaku, now in his second tenure at Chelsea, has been doing this long enough to be used to it.Even then, though, Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Liverpool will have felt like an arduous evening. Circumstances had dictated that Lukaku spent much of the second half looking backward, rather than forward. Chelsea had been leading, through a clever header from Kai Havertz, with the clock ticking toward halftime when Reece James handled the ball on the goal line.James was — eventually — sent off, Mohamed Salah converted the penalty, and Anfield smelled blood. From that moment, it was clear that Chelsea’s second half would be dedicated to holding out, not pushing on, and Lukaku, restored to the club for $135 million this summer, would endure an evening of silent toil.Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku tangled with Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk, right, and Joel Matip all afternoon.Peter Powell/ReutersThanks to both his cost — Lukaku is now the most expensive player in soccer history in terms of cumulative transfer fees, at least until Kylian Mbappé joins Real Madrid — and that status, there is a natural inclination to assume that the final piece in the puzzle is also the most important, that this Chelsea team is now constructed for, and around, Romelu Lukaku.His first display, at Arsenal last week, did little to disabuse anyone of that notion. He played there with all of the intent and menace of an avenging hero, scoring within 15 minutes of the start of his second spell in England; he may well have single-handedly robbed Pablo Marí, his direct opponent that day, of any scrap of self-belief for several years.His second game, on Saturday, served as a reminder that there can only be a final piece if the puzzle is nearly complete. Lukaku was, through no fault of his own, an optional extra for much of this game, against one of Chelsea’s putative rivals for the title, and yet the club’s traveling fans still greeted the final whistle of a roar of approval.Thomas Tuchel’s team had not won, of course, not in any strict, literal sense, but championships are built on moral victories, too, and this one was resounding. Chelsea — even playing at a disadvantage after James departed, in front of a baying crowd, against a team with one of the most potent attacking tridents in world soccer — produced a display of quite stunning control, and composure, and calm.There was no dispute that the ball hit Chelsea defender Reece James on the line, keeping it out of the goal.Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe referee, Anthony Taylor, deemed it a penalty, and a red card.Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesChelsea’s captain César Azpilicueta, and nearly everyone else in blue, disagreed.Peter Powell/ReutersFor much of the first half, Chelsea had frustrated its host, seemingly reducing the great green sprawl of Anfield — the open expanses in which Liverpool thrives — to nothing but a postage stamp. Every way that Jürgen Klopp’s team turned, there was a blue jersey. Chelsea has an inexorable ability to fill space, to turn every alley blind.Liverpool had been growing a little rushed, a little ragged as it sought a way out of that vise, with van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold at one point reduced to despairing loudly at each other over the width of the field: Van Dijk wanted his teammate to push forward; Alexander-Arnold could not see where he was supposed to go.The penalty, and the red card, alleviated that pressure, but it redoubled Chelsea’s determination. Tuchel reorganized: Thiago Silva came on in the heart of defense, César Azpilicueta shifted out to the right, the indefatigable Mason Mount played as a holding midfielder and an attacking midfielder and an auxiliary right wing back, too.Chelsea had lost N’Golo Kanté to an injury at the break, a third cause of regret, and yet his spirit seemed to suffuse his team. In 45 minutes in which Liverpool exerted a monopoly on the ball, in which Lukaku barely featured, it did not create a single, clear-cut chance. There were a handful of efforts from range, but no way through, no way around, no way out. Even Klopp, in the aftermath, could barely contain his admiration. “A man extra is not a massive advantage against a side with the defending skills they have,” he said.Liverpool’s Andy Robertson with Chelsea’s Mason Mount.Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIt is this, as much as the threat of Lukaku, that makes Chelsea such a threat: the air of invulnerability, of redoubtable stolidity, that Tuchel has bestowed on his team in his eight months as coach. Chelsea has the firepower to see off the majority of the Premier League’s teams. But just as important is that it has the battery to keep out the great and the good.It is easy, in the frenzy of the summer, as new players arrive to garland old teams, to believe that what matters is who can call upon the most talent, that titles are handed out to the sides with the most dazzling squad lists and the greatest expenditures.But that is not quite how it works. There is another stage to the process: those resources have to be fashioned into a functioning unit, all of those gifted individuals crafted into a team. Lukaku may yet prove the final piece in the puzzle for Chelsea. What matters more, though, is that Tuchel had already put the rest of it together. More

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      Paying the Price for Premier League Riches

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      The surplus players at English clubs would make fine assets for teams across Europe. The problem is that the clubs that could use them cannot afford them.The headed clearance did not quite get the requisite power, or direction. It floated, rather than fizzed, out of Brentford’s penalty area, the danger not quite clear. Two Manchester United players converged on it, sensing opportunity. The ball bounced off the turf, not too high, not too quick, and hung in the air for just a second. And that is where Andreas Pereira met it.There is a reason some Manchester United fans have come to know Pereira — with equal parts affection and admonishment — as the Preseason Pirlo. It is in the exploratory exchanges, the warm-up fixtures and the touring exhibitions, where he does his best work. Once meaning is introduced to the games, once the season gets down to business, Pereira tends to fade from sight.Perhaps that is the sort of player he is: undeniably talented, often capable of the spectacular, but too much of a luxury to fit into a tightly defined system. Perhaps it is lack of opportunity or managerial trust. Perhaps he falls — and this is no criticism — just a shade below the level required to thrive at a club as grand, and as demanding, as Manchester United.Whatever the reason, the chance against Brentford was his sort of moment. Pereira was first to the bouncing ball. He pulled his right leg back, catching the ball at its apex, and cracked a volley toward goal, where it hit the underside of the bar and dropped like a stone. Not quite half full, Old Trafford’s crowd stood, open-mouthed, to applaud.After the game, Pereira used his sudden spotlight to issue a cri de coeur. He stood ready to serve, he said. He just needed United’s manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, to give him a run, he said. He was ready to compete for a place, to play regularly, to show that — at age 25, almost a decade after he first moved to Manchester — he was a man, not a boy.His plea will, in all likelihood, fall on deaf ears. Even with uncertainty hovering over the future of Paul Pogba, Solskjaer has an abundance of options in his central midfield: Bruno Fernandes, Scott McTominay, Fred, Nemanja Matic, Donny van de Beek. Having committed more than $140 million to sign Jadon Sancho and Raphaël Varane, the club needs to balance the books. No matter how much he looks like Andrea Pirlo in the preseason, Pereira will be sold, if a suitable offer arrives.Like Pereira, left, Jesse Lingard has value but also a pricetag that makes offloading him difficult.Peter Cziborra/Action Images, via ReutersPereira is not the only player in that bind. Diogo Dalot, a Portuguese fullback, also featured in that game at Old Trafford late last month. So did Jesse Lingard. Like Pereira, Lingard spent last season out on loan. Like Pereira’s, his departure this summer from United would most likely be accepted as an economic — and to some extent sporting — necessity. Like Pereira, Lingard had a chance to play in preseason because many of Solskjaer’s first-choice players have been given extended breaks after featuring in the European Championship and the Copa América.There are more — many more — players like them across the upper echelons of the Premier League. A couple of days after United played Brentford, Arsenal hosted Chelsea in another tuneup game. Arsenal’s team included Mohamed Elneny and Sead Kolasinac; Chelsea, the European champion, introduced the likes of Davide Zappacosta, Danny Drinkwater and Ross Barkley from the bench. All of them, too, are available to the highest bidder. Or, in fact, any bidder.It is the same situation at Liverpool — where Xherdan Shaqiri, Nat Phillips and Divock Origi have been part of Jürgen Klopp’s preseason camp — and at Manchester City, where even Patrick Roberts, a wing who has spent the last five years out on loan, has managed an appearance in recent weeks. But City cannot attract bids for Riyad Mahrez or Bernardo Silva, let alone Roberts. Tottenham would like to clear the decks, too, but it has been unable to find a buyer for Serge Aurier, Moussa Sissoko or Harry Winks.Mohamed Elneny, right, was one of the Arsenal players in the shop window during a preseason friendly against Chelsea.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNone of these players, with the possible exceptions of Silva and Mahrez, are likely to feature regularly for their clubs once the season starts next weekend. They are all, to some extent, now more useful to their teams as potential sources of income — not so much as defenders or midfielders or forwards but as assets to be sold, to free up space and to raise funds.And yet, with only a few weeks left in the transfer window, they all remain firmly in place. It is not because they lack talent. It is not, necessarily, because of a shortage of suitors: There are plenty of teams for whom all of those players would be fine recruits. The problem, instead, is money: They all earn too much of it, and the teams that might desire them do not have enough of it.It is an issue that does not just apply to England. No team in Europe requires funds quite so much as Barcelona, with its stratospheric salary bill and its apparent inability to find a way to sign Lionel Messi to a new contract, while somehow staying within La Liga’s financial rules.It has attempted to shed some of its high earners, too, but with no luck so far. Samuel Umtiti, Miralem Pjanic and Philippe Coutinho and all of the others are still there, at Camp Nou, pinned down by the sheer weight of their contracts. There are plenty of clubs out there that would be delighted to have any of them. And there are some that could afford a transfer fee and their salaries. Those two groups, though, do not intersect.This is precisely the problem — albeit a scaled-up, more urgent iteration of it — facing clubs across the Premier League. Their surplus players would make fine assets for teams across Europe, but no club that wants them can afford them.The most immediate explanation for that, of course, is the coronavirus pandemic: a year of hosting games in empty stadiums, along with the rebates due to the broadcasters that have kept the game afloat, has led to purse strings being tightened and reduced budgets.But there is a deeper issue at play, too. Over the last few years, the teams of the Premier League — alongside a cadre of continental superclubs — have gloried in recruiting as many of the best players on the planet as possible. They have done so by offering them far higher salaries than they could feasibly obtain elsewhere.The on-field consequences of that trend have been clear. The Premier League stands alone as the most competitive domestic competition in the world; the rest of Europe’s major leagues have come to be seen as the private fiefs of a handful of elite clubs. It is only now, though, accelerated by the pandemic, that we can see the off-field impact.The player trading market that underpins the activities of every club in Europe — even in the Premier League, insulated from the worst of the downturn by its vast television revenues — is fundamentally fractured. The salaries on offer at English teams, and at the likes of Barcelona, are way out of step with what everyone else can afford to play.For years, that has brought an impressive reward: The Premier League has gloried in its financial potency. Now, though, the cost is becoming clear. England’s elite are able to buy, but — sufficiently detached from the rest of their peers — they are increasingly unable to sell.Riyad Mahrez could help dozens of clubs. But how many can afford him?Lee Smith/Action Images, via ReutersPereira, as one example, most likely could not earn what he does at Old Trafford if he moved to the sort of team, in Italy or in Spain, that might be interested in his services: Lazio, say, or Valencia. Even if he was prepared to accept a lower salary, and willing to join a lower-profile club, United would have to pay out the rest of his contract, as it did with Alexis Sanchez.And even then, signing Pereira — still relatively youthful at 25 — might appeal less to one of those clubs than picking up a younger, cheaper model, with greater resale value, from France, Belgium or Portugal, where prices have dropped precipitously as a result of the pandemic: the very same rationale that means selling players to other Premier League teams is not proving as easy as, perhaps, everybody thought. The unwanted reserves of the great English teams and the overpaid castoffs of the super-clubs are too old, too expensive, too much risk and too little reward.For some of those players, there will be a way out. Moves will materialize once liquidity pours into the market. Pereira may get a chance to prove his Andrea Pirlo tribute act can endure after the start of the season. More creative, lower risk deals — loans with options for future purchase, in particular, offsetting the cost — may rescue others.Still more, though, will remain where they are, stuck in limbo, not valued enough by their current employer but valued far too highly by everyone else. In doing so, they will absorb not only money but space and time in squads increasingly laden with unwanted passengers.The pattern is one that England’s teams would do well to heed, as they consider how best to exercise their financial superiority in what has become, and is likely to stay, a buyer’s market. How much of that money they can spend, of course, may define how much success they enjoy today. It is how well they spend it, though, that will define what tomorrow looks like.The Case for Buyout ClausesHas Harry Kane chased his last ball for Tottenham?Pool photo by Mike EgertonThere are two sides to the great Harry Kane debate, and each one is equally valid. One holds that, as the captain of England and one of the best strikers of his generation, he has the right to decide where he wishes to — borrowing a phrase from LeBron James — take his talents. The other points out, no less convincingly, that he has three years left on his six-year contract, and so he really does not have the right.It is easy to see why Kane might feel that Tottenham is standing in his way. It is easy to see why Tottenham feels Kane might like to come to work, given that Manchester City — his intended future employer — has yet to make an offer for his services worthy of consideration and debate. Predicting how it resolves from here would take a particularly gifted clairvoyant.The problem, as is so often the case, is that both are reasonable positions. Players should, of course, have the right to work wherever they like: Transfer fees are, when you think about it, really quite strange things. But then clubs, too, should be rewarded for the role they play in developing those players, and protected from their sudden loss.The answer, perhaps, already exists: If players’ contracts came as standard with a buyout clause, then there would at least be a little clarity. This is already the case in Spain, and it is increasingly common throughout Europe. The clubs get their protection. The players get their freedom, even if, on occasion, it tends toward the theoretical. And everyone knows where they stand.As One Rises, So Another FallsA dejected Carli Lloyd at the United States’s semifinal loss to Canada. Lloyd scored twice in the team’s bronze medal match, a victory over Australia.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesA mixed week for the national teams of the United States. For the men, the prospect of a bright future ahead, after Gregg Berhalter’s side beat Mexico to win the Gold Cup. For the women, a rather darker horizon, after defeat at the Olympics at the semifinal stage at the hands of Canada relegated them to the bronze medal game, where they beat Australia.It is hard to overestimate the men’s achievement. This was, after all, a severely weakened U.S. squad, deprived of most of its most promising talents. When it takes to the field for World Cup qualifying later this year, its lineup is likely to be starkly different. Much better, in fact: If anything, this Gold Cup win is proof of the scale of the strength in depth at Berhalter’s disposal.The United States’ Gold Cup triumph was its second win over Mexico in a final this summer.David Becker/Associated PressFor the women, though, the outlook is a little more troubling. The performances of Sweden — Canada’s opponent in the gold medal match, and easy victors over Vlatko Andonovski’s team in the group phase — and the Netherlands highlight the sense that Europe’s best teams are catching the United States at a considerable rate of knots. At the same time, the timidity of defeat to Canada indicates that perhaps the U.S. is caught between cycles.That is not to say that the U.S. women’s program will no longer be a force, or will see its star wane; when the World Cup begins in two years’ time, it will still, most likely, be the favorite. Tokyo should serve as a warning, though: Its primacy cannot be taken for granted, and that as the game grows, so does the scale of the competition.CorrespondenceDavid Alaba is a great player, but he can’t fix everything.Pool photo by Christof StacheA good point from Paul Tigan on the connections between the two elements of last week’s newsletter: players being suffocated by the pressure placed on them from outside to perform, and the case of David Alaba, who seems to have been given the job of solving all of Real Madrid’s problems.The latter part, Paul wrote, “read like a classic, thoughtful analysis of a club setting unreasonable expectations on an individual. Not just on defensive performance, but also filling the gaps in the culture of a faltering organization (by being asked to fill in the shoes of Ramos and the like).”He is right, of course: There is a link between the two cases, and one that I did not see as I was writing them. Clubs burden players with intolerable expectations, too — the final piece of the jigsaw phenomenon — and that is only heightened, as in Madrid’s case, by poor planning and lack of forethought. If Real Madrid’s struggles, by its standards, this year, Alaba may well be deemed a flop. The consequence will be personal. The cause may well be institutional.Luka Martinac raises a valid question, too. “I wonder how long before sport start rejecting social media in order to protect their stars? Apart from the commercial benefit, it’s hard to see what reason there is to be on it.”I’ve had the same thought. I suppose, first of all, we should not underestimate the commercial value. Second, I know a lot of soccer players — and I imagine this goes for other athletes — genuinely enjoy the chance to connect with fans. But most important is this: They have as much right as we do to use social media safely. If they have to withdraw because of the toxicity toward them, then what does that say about, well, us?And a question from Vincent LoVoi, who wants to know why last week’s newsletter did not make mention of the Olympic soccer tournament, but focused instead on a Dutch player who currently straddles the English and French leagues.This is entirely on me: I’m lucky enough to get to pick what I write about in this newsletter. I’m not sure I can explain my thought process any more clearly than “I thought it was interesting,” but I’ll give it a go.The Olympics move pretty quickly, so the danger of writing a column on the tournament is that, within a few hours of its publication, it might look out of date. The timings of the games have not been great for a Friday newsletter, either: The women’s final, for example, will have finished by the time many of you read this. And besides, I’m not sure anyone, currently, can say they do not have enough Olympics coverage.I hope that makes sense. It may not be satisfying, but that is the thinking behind the choice of subject. More

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      Georginio Wijnaldum and the Collective Toxic

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      No one can compare themselves to Simone Biles, but Wijnaldum’s exit from Liverpool carried many of the same themes.This is not a comparison, because there is no comparison. Nobody, really, can understand what it is like to be Simone Biles. There have, of course, been athletes burdened with the same sort of level of superhuman expectation, their personhood erased in the transcendence to icon, turned into the face of a sport or an avatar for a generation or a standard-bearer for a nation, but they number barely a handful.And none of them have been in Biles’s precise circumstances. None of them — not Michael Phelps or Michael Jordan or Lionel Messi or whoever — know what it is like to be Simone Biles, at her age, in her mind, with her talent, at her level, in her sport, with her background, in this moment and this culture, with all of those things combined.Nobody else has been through what she has been through. Nobody else is qualified to tell her what path to take, because nobody has ever taken that path. Her experience has been unique; it is hers and hers alone. There is a glory in that, but there is also, perhaps, a shadow of bleakness.Georginio Wijnaldum cannot be (and, remember, is not being) compared to Biles. He is an elite athlete, too, of course. He will know — certainly more than most of us — a little of the sacrifices she has had to make and the demands she has had to meet and the devotion she has had to show to reach the pinnacle of her sport.But there is, of course, no comparison at all. Wijnaldum is a fine midfielder, a Premier League and Champions League winner and a sometime captain of his country, but it would be a bit of a stretch to suggest he has redefined soccer itself, or conjured a whole new vision of the sport from his own imagination, or redrawn the boundaries of what we think is possible.He has never had to endure the pressure of competing in an individual sport, or one that is entirely reliant on his own individual performance. If Wijnaldum made a mistake, a teammate might be there to bail him out, or he might get a chance to rectify it a few minutes later, or make up for it the following week.Biles has none of those safety nets. Even the slightest misstep might mean the difference between gold and silver, gold and nowhere, for her and her teammates. There is no second half, no return fixture, no long slog of a league season. There is only, every four years, perfection or failure, here and now.Biles and Wijnaldum are not alike. There is no comparison. But, for one fleeting moment, it may be worth considering their stories in conjunction.This week, as you will have noticed, Biles withdrew (as of this writing) from two of her Olympic finals. She did so, she said, to prioritize her mental health. She had been feeling, as she had alluded to on Instagram, as though she had “the weight of the world on her shoulders” at times.“This Olympic Games I wanted it to be for myself but I came in and I felt like I was still doing it for other people,” she said. “It hurts my heart that doing what I love has been kind of taken away from me to please other people.”“This Olympic Games I wanted it to be for myself but I came in and I felt like I was still doing it for other people,” Simone Biles said after she pulled out of the competition. Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesIn the general tumult of the Olympics, it would have been easy to miss Wijnaldum’s intervention. This summer, he left Liverpool for Paris St.-Germain. His contract had expired; conversations with the club’s ownership had foundered for several months, the two parties unable to find common ground over how much, and for how long, a player of his age should be paid. His last appearance for his former team, at Anfield in May, was very clearly a goodbye: there was a guard of honor, and a special presentation.This week, Wijnaldum attempted to provide a little bit of context as to why he had left a team he had said publicly he would have been happy to remain at for years to come. He seemed to suggest that ownership did not “love” or “appreciate” him as much as it might have done. But he also mentioned the role played by social media.“On social media, if we lost, I was the one who got the blame,” he said. He felt it was heightened during his contract standoff — “when it went bad, I was the player they blamed, that I wanted to leave” — and never spread to fans in the stadium, but he acknowledged that its roots were deeper. “Basically in the last two seasons I had it a few times,” he said.The reaction was, broadly, dismissive: it was assumed that Wijnaldum was either making excuses, or engaging in a little light, perfectly healthy whataboutery to make a decision that was, likely, far more practical (he wanted a longer contract than Liverpool was prepared to offer, and therefore he left) seem more palatable.And yet, in the context of Biles, it is worth taking Wijnaldum at his word. For all the differences between their situations, their worlds, though, their stories echo — however dimly — each other.Athletes of all stripes exist and perform under pressure: from themselves, from their coaches, from their teams and their teammates, from their fans, from their sponsors. That has always been the case; they become adept, far more so than most of us could countenance, at both functioning and thriving in that environment.What has changed, now, is the scale of that pressure: not just its height, but its breadth. Biles came into Tokyo as the designated “face of the Games,” the star of the United States team, the greatest gymnast in history. NBC’s promotional material for the Olympics ran that, to her, “certain laws do not apply, like gravity.”It would be easy — and not inaccurate — to point the finger of blame at the news media for indulging in that sort of hype, for placing that much expectation on a 24-year-old woman, for exposing her to an intolerable level of pressure. It would be no less valid to suggest that the news media had a role to play in turning Wijnaldum’s contract dispute into a source of consternation among some sections of Liverpool’s support.Wijnaldum, who played his final game for Liverpool in May, noted a stark contrast between how he was treated online versus how he was treated in person. Phil Noble/Agence France-Presse, via Pool/Afp Via Getty ImagesBut to do so would be to ignore a change in the media landscape that, in almost every other context, has been determined to be wholesale and revolutionary. Wijnaldum was keen to stress that there was a difference between how he was treated online and in person; the former turned on him far more quickly, far more vociferously, than the latter ever did.Wijnaldum is not an athlete on the same level as Biles. His journey is not parallel to hers, in a million different ways. Their experiences are wildly different. But like her, his career is played out on social media: his every performance scrutinized and dissected, his every shortcoming highlighted, his every failure pounced upon. He is told what is expected, and he is told, rightly or wrongly, when he does not live up to it.It is easy, when discussing an athlete on social media, to assume that they do not hear: that their feeds are managed by agencies — “post something like” — or to believe, in some way, that the spoils of their success, either the money or the fame, inure them to basic human emotion.But they do hear, and they do see, and they do feel. Those insults cut through. Those demands are noticed. Those expectations — not of the sponsors or the coaches or the journalists alone, but of all of us — have a weight. How much that played a role in Biles’ need to take some time and space only she will know, and she is under no compunction to share, but the swirling maelstrom in which she is expected to live her life does not exert some influence. If Wijnaldum is aware of it, it is hard to believe Biles is not.There has, in the days that followed Biles’ initial decision to withdraw, been what she has described as an “outpouring” of support. Her example will, hopefully, make it easier not only for athletes to discuss their mental well-being, but to know where to draw their own lines.But they are not the only ones who need to heed her lesson. They are not the only ones who need to think about the mental health of the stars we have made, the icons we have cast. It is for all of us, too, to remember that pressure does not just come from within. It is exerted, too, all those thousands of comments building their own gravity, their own force, one that is felt by the good and the great alike.Trading UpDavid Alaba showed he can do it all for Austria’s national team and for Bayern Munich. With Real Madrid, he may be asked to do it all, all by himself. Pool photo by Justin Setterfield/EPA, via ShutterstockDavid Alaba can do pretty much everything. He has, for some time, been one of the world’s finest left backs. In his last couple of seasons at Bayern Munich, he has emerged as one of the best central defenders on the planet, too. That’s some going, given that he would also get a game in midfield for pretty much every team in Europe.All of which will come in useful at Real Madrid, where the current plan appears to be to ask the 29-year-old to play in all three positions simultaneously.That is not quite fair. Real has two left backs, in Ferland Mendy and Marcelo, though the latter is in the (late) autumn of his (illustrious) career. It has a midfield — Casemiro, Luka Modric, Toni Kroos — that is not so much settled as petrified. Alaba would be helpful in both roles, but it is in central defense that the need is greatest, so it is in central defense that he must play.It is a crisis of Real’s own making. First, it forgot to tell Sergio Ramos its contract offer had a best-before date, resulting in him joining Paris St.-Germain on a free transfer. And then this week, it agreed to sell Raphael Varane to Manchester United for $60 million. That pair has been Madrid’s bedrock for a decade. In their absence, Alaba is going to have his work cut out.Quite what lies behind Real’s thinking is difficult to parse — though the only cogent logic is that it is financial — but, either way, it is hard to make the case that the team will be stronger this season than it was last. Barcelona is only in slightly better shape, and that is presuming that Lionel Messi does, in fact, sign a new contract, and the club finds some way to register its four new signings without contravening La Liga’s rules.All of which suggests that, for the first time since the turn of the century, there is a genuine power vacuum at the top of La Liga. Atlético Madrid, the reigning champion, should have a chance to retain its title. And Sevilla, for so long the best of Spain’s rest, may finally scent a once-in-a-generation opportunity.It has had to trade this summer, too, as it does every year: selling the winger Bryan Gil to Tottenham and — though the deal is not yet complete — the defender Jules Koundé to Chelsea. Koundé, in particular, would be a loss: a player of prodigious talent and stratospheric ceiling.But that is more than offset by what Sevilla has been able to wrangle in return. From Spurs, the club elicited not only $24 million, but the playmaker Erik Lamela. Chelsea is, reportedly, prepared to offer cash and the France defender Kurt Zouma to get its hands on Koundé.Neither will be mourned, particularly, by fans of their previous teams. Both have long since faded in English eyes. But to Sevilla, they represent a class of player the club cannot usually attract. Lamela, plagued by injury, managed 35 games for Spurs last season; Zouma featured 36 times for Chelsea.These are not high-risk, high-reward gambles. They are not hidden gems being asked to step up a level. They are seasoned professionals, able to command regular game-time at one of Europe’s biggest teams — and Spurs — and who can be expected to slot straight in to Julen Lopetegui’s side.They will join a squad that already contains Diego Carlos, Papu Gómez, Lucas Ocampos and Ivan Rakitic. For years, victory for Sevilla has been reinventing itself every summer, searching for the next big thing to sell. Now, for the first time in a long time, its team has a very different profile: one built, it would seem, not with an eye on tomorrow but with all of its focus on today.CorrespondenceGood news for those readers who feel this newsletter does not scratch their Major League Soccer itch: you are not alone. Far from it, in fact.William Ireland goes out to bat for Liga MX — “the best North American League, and one of the ten or twelve best leagues in the world” — while Steve Iskra nominates Australia’s A-League. “This is the league that produced the young players that beat Argentina in Tokyo,” he wrote.Joe Klonowski would like to see more on the N.W.S.L., while Ian Roberts completes the acronym soup by throwing the U.S.L. into the mix. “A league of passion among the players and fans, instead of a league bringing in players who are well past their sell by date,” he wrote. And Fernando Gama brings up the Copa Libertadores, now bubbling up nicely as it reaches the quarterfinal stage.I would like to thank all of you for your suggestions, and assure you that they have been taken on board. Bear with me, though. I don’t think The Times will allow me to hire staff to help spread the burden.Fernando’s email provided especially good value this week, because he touched on the issue of (men’s) soccer at the Olympics, too. “The games are typically played in August, when the season is starting, so nobody wants to release their players,” he wrote. “And FIFA does not control the Olympics, and cannot profit from it, so doesn’t feel compelled to enter into a rift with clubs over it.”These are both salient points, highlighted by the reminder from Peter Zwickl that Germany only sent 18 players to Tokyo. “Several players or clubs, of a list of 100 candidates, rejected the invitation by the German coach,” he wrote, which just about encapsulates Olympic soccer’s problem.But let’s leave on a more upbeat note from Rey Mashayekhi. “Five years ago, at the Rio Games, Brazil’s defeat of Germany in the Gold Medal match was a hugely significant, cathartic experience for all invested in the Seleçao, coming as it did two years after the horrors of Belo Horizonte in the 2014 World Cup semifinal.“When Neymar converted Brazil’s fifth and decisive penalty, sunk to his knees and looked to the heavens as the stadium exploded in pandemonium around him, it struck me as a truly great moment with all the emotional release of any triumph in the sport.” There’s a reminder here about one of those easily-forgotten truths in soccer, and in any sport: all of it matters as much as we decide that it matters.That’s all for this week. If you would like to vouch for why I should cover Lithuanian soccer or games in Kyrgyzstan (or anything else, for that matter): askrory@nytimes.com. Twitter might work, too. And if it doesn’t become a newsletter, there’s half a chance it will end up as a Set Piece Menu episode. There is, after all, only so much content.Have a great weekend,Rory More

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      After Stumbling to the Finish Line, Liverpool Clinches Champions League Place

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      A win at Anfield guaranteed the club a place in the Champions League next season, but only a brief respite before it plunges into soccer’s new reality.LIVERPOOL, England — The goals arrived just as the nerves were fraying and the anxiety mounting, just as the 10,000 fans inside Anfield for the first time in a long time were recalling that watching soccer, live and in the flesh, is not how memory might have made it seem. It is not all celebration and carnival and song. Most of the time, it is nothing but stress.In the end, Liverpool’s road on the final day of the Premier League season was a straight one; the twists and turns would come elsewhere. Jürgen Klopp’s team needed to win to clinch a place in next season’s Champions League, and it duly delivered a victory by beating Crystal Palace, 2-0. The fretting and the furrowing would be for Chelsea and Leicester City, the other two teams in the chase.But Anfield did not know that, 20 minutes in, when Leicester took the lead at home against Tottenham and Liverpool was toiling against Palace, the sort of obdurate and organized opponent that had made the club’s winter so bleak, and for a brief moment the table rumbled and Klopp’s team was fifth, out in the cold.Fans had not been here for the six consecutive home defeats that derailed Liverpool’s season: they had all happened in a sterile and silent Anfield, but they had left a scar. And so as the news from Leicester filtered through, the mood seemed to shift. The songs, initially jubilant, felt a little more urgent.It took some time for the fans to set aside their stress and celebrate again.Pool photo by Paul EllisSadio Mané’s opening goal proved a potent antidote, for a while. Chelsea was losing at Aston Villa, Leicester winning. But as the clock ticked, the specter of the worst-case scenario appeared. Liverpool’s margins were fine. One mistake and a goal elsewhere and there would, at the last, be a sting in the tail.Anfield seemed on edge once more. The songs had stopped. In their stead came impatient rumblings whenever danger seemed to bubble, disappointed groans when an attack broke down. It is not only fans who might have romanticized the reality of being at a game, of the presence of a crowd. It can inject energy and vim and zest into players. But its demands can also cow and daunt and unnerve them.It was at that point, with the game and the day and the season entering its final few minutes, that Mané scored again. Anfield exhaled. The news elsewhere was good: Chelsea was losing, and so, too, was Leicester, kicking away the reprieve it had been offered. Liverpool had left it late to be sure, but it was safe.The songs could start again; the final odds and ends could be tied up. The departing Georginio Wijnaldum was afforded a rapturous ovation by the fans, and a guard of honor by his teammates. There was a lap of appreciation. Coming back to Anfield would bring a happy return.Liverpool didn’t need it in the end, but Gareth Bale and Tottenham provided some late — and vital — assistance at Leicester.Pool photo by Shaun BotterillBy Liverpool’s recent standards, of course, this season still goes down as a disappointment. In 2019, the club’s last game was a victory in the Champions League final. Last year, belatedly, its final appearance at Anfield was to lift the Premier League trophy. Merely securing a seat at Europe’s top table is not what Klopp and his players aimed to do this year.But all achievements are relative. Liverpool is not alone in having suffered a spree of injuries this season, but it is not easy to come up with another team — perhaps Leicester aside — that has been quite so hard hit. Klopp has been without his first-choice central defense since November. He lost his only specialist backup in January.The two midfielders Klopp deputized as back-line cover missed considerable spells, too (one, the captain Jordan Henderson, only returned to the substitutes’ ranks on Sunday). When he said, on the eve of this game, that Manchester City would not have been crowned champion if it had suffered similarly, particularly in the condensed schedule of the pandemic, it was treated as a barb, an unbecoming serving of sour grapes. He did have a point, though.Claiming third place, in those circumstances, may not represent a great triumph, but it still ranks as a considerable achievement. As recently as March, Liverpool was in free fall, risking compounding the hundreds of millions of dollars lost as a result of the pandemic by missing out on the riches of the Champions League.Klopp, though, has forged an impressive unanimity of purpose since then. Liverpool’s last 10 games have brought eight wins, and no defeats. It has been the in-form team in English soccer for the last two months. It is understandable that Klopp’s vision of the future is bullish, centered on the belief that when his squad is restored to fitness, Liverpool will be “the team nobody wants to play” once more.It is not, though, quite so straightforward. The pandemic might have had a more direct impact on teams like Arsenal and Tottenham, but its effect on Liverpool should not be underestimated.The club has won no little acclaim in recent years for its astute use of the transfer market: spending big when necessary — on the likes of Alisson and Virgil van Dijk — but also on its ability to snuffle out comparative bargains: Andy Robertson, Wijnaldum and even, to some extent, Mohamed Salah.Such liberal spending may not be possible as the club wrestles with the financial black hole opened by the pandemic. It will not be alone in that, of course. For Liverpool, though, just as worrying is the fact that it has only been able to spend that money because of its almost unrivaled ability to sell players.For Jürgen Klopp and James Milner, merely salvaging a Champions League place from this season was worth celebrating. Next year, the team and its fans will expect more.Pool photo by Paul EllisLiverpool has sold better than anyone in recent years, both in gleaning vast sums for its stars — the $170 million or so banked from Barcelona for Philippe Coutinho — and in haggling premium amounts for unwanted assets.It sold Dominic Solanke to Bournemouth for $22 million or so, and the backup goalkeeper Danny Ward to Leicester for $15 million. Danny Ings, Ryan Kent and Rafa Camacho — Ings aside, names hardly recalled at Anfield — raised about $50 million between them.Those are prices, though, that belong to another world, one of boundless money and limited thought. Liverpool will not be able to raise such eye-watering sums for Divock Origi and Xherdan Shaqiri and Marko Grujic and the rest this summer. If it harbored hopes of selling either Mané or Salah for a premium fee in order to finance the team’s next transformation, it is likely to be disappointed, too. For players of their age, the luxury market has stalled as well.Liverpool’s late run to the Champions League has, perhaps, drawn a little of the sting, given the club a little more elastic to play with as seeks to avoid such a narrow escape next year. With his injured stalwarts returning, Klopp is right to expect brighter things. But the road is not always as straight as it turned out to be at the end of a fraught and troubled campaign. There are still twists and turns, chicanes and hairpins, to negotiate. More