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

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sporting event.Qatar has long pushed back on perceptions about the country that it considers inaccurate or at best outdated, attempting to explain that as the physical appearance of the country changed, so have its protections for workers.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

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      Angel City F.C. and the N.W.S.L.’s Ongoing Search for Itself

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      LOS ANGELES — Angel City F.C., one of two new franchises in the National Women’s Soccer League, arrived for its first season equipped with dozens of celebrity investors, sleek branding, copious media coverage and a well-choreographed social media campaign.What it did not have, at least consistently, was a place to play soccer.Early this year, just as Angel City’s players began arriving in Los Angeles for the team’s inaugural season, an agreement the team had made to use the Los Angeles Rams’ practice fields at California Lutheran University was put on hold. The issue? The N.F.L. team was on a Super Bowl run and still using them.Adjusting on the fly, Angel City arranged to spend the first few weeks of its preseason at Pepperdine University. But just as the players were to return to Cal Lutheran, team officials decided the school’s turf football field they had been given wasn’t adequate. They canceled training, and the players were offered a spa day instead.“Every start-up has to adjust and pivot: I’m comfortable with those last-minute changes. Having said that, we have 24 players and a coaching staff of 20, and it’s not as easy for them,” said Julie Uhrman, Angel City’s president and one of its founders, adding, “Sometimes we fall short of delivering for the players, and it’s devastating.”Missteps for a new team aren’t surprising. But to veterans of the N.W.S.L., Angel City’s early problems — not only its field issues, but also the idea that professional athletes would prefer a spa day to a rigorous practice only weeks before their first game — were concerning signs of how far even the league’s best-funded teams still need to go.Katie Johnson of the San Diego Wave, left, and Jasmyne Spencer of Angel City F.C. Both teams are new to the N.W.S.L. this season.Meg Oliphant/Getty Images“That’s exactly what I mean when I talk about operational rigor,” Jessica Berman, the new N.W.S.L. commissioner, said when asked about her immediate priorities. “It is the sort of stuff behind the curtain — how the sausage gets made — that really paves the way for the league’s growth. The commercialization and the revenue will flow from creating an infrastructure within the league that is consistent, professionalized, credible, reliable.”Yet as the league opens its 10th regular season this weekend, Angel City’s stumbles on the basics, after a year in which the N.W.S.L. was rocked by claims of player mistreatment, have many around the league once again asking:What is the N.W.S.L.? And what does it want to be?A player-led push for change“Enough is enough,” one veteran player said of the mind-set that saw N.W.S.L. pros take a more active role in the direction of their league.Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe arrival of Angel City, along with a second new franchise in San Diego, was expected to offer a fresh start for the N.W.S.L. after a very public reckoning last year. In a matter of months, five of the league’s 10 head coaches were fired or resigned for off-field conduct, including one who was accused of coercing a player to have sex with him. (Yet another coach, James Clarkson of the Houston Dash, was suspended on Tuesday over unspecified findings in a continuing review of “current and historic complaints of discrimination, harassment and abuse.”)The scandals were an existential moment for the league. Its commissioner, criticized for mishandling reports of coaches abusing and bullying players, resigned. Team owners faced hard questions about their own failings. Even some of the league’s most devoted fans turned on their teams, demanding answers and accountability.The players took it a step further: For one remarkable week, they refused to play at all.Veteran players said the show of player power was not new. Things had been changing, they said, since the league’s early years, when sponsors came in the form of family-run meatpacking businesses, broadcast deals were next to nonexistent and players were reluctant to ask for more.“Keeping everything quiet, dealing with it, sucking it up because we just need to make progress and we don’t want to do anything that could hurt the league,” Yael Averbuch West, the general manager of Gotham F.C. and a former player, said of the mind-set in the early years of the league. More

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      The Champions League’s Drama Is Worth Savoring, and Saving

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      The Champions League’s late-stage drama is a feature, not a bug. Let’s hope no one messes that up.The nights happen so often now that the possibility they are a coincidence can be safely discounted. They occur with such startling regularity that they do not really count as rare, not anymore. They still possess the texture and the echo of an exception, but by this stage they are better thought of as part of the rule. They are a feature, not a quirk in the code.There have been 26 games so far in the latter stages of this season’s Champions League. A conservative estimate would suggest that seven of those games — just a little over a quarter, if you prefer your information in fractions — qualify for inclusion in the competition’s ever-growing list of classics.They have not all been identical. Villarreal’s dissection of Juventus was thrilling in a wholly different way than Real Madrid’s stirring comeback against Paris St.-Germain. Benfica’s chaotic, innocent draw with Ajax had little in common with the grit and sinew of Manchester City’s elimination of Atlético Madrid. That they have not followed a pattern, though, does not mean they are not part of one.This is, now, what the knockout stages of the Champions League do. It has been that way for at least five years, if not longer: Barcelona’s 6-1 defeat of P.S.G. in 2017 is as viable a candidate as any for the era’s starting point. After that, the caution and the fear that had characterized this competition for most of the first decade of this century was jettisoned, replaced by an apparently unbreakable commitment to abandon and audacity and ambition. Games that had once been cautious, cagey, cynical were now, instead, reliably conducted in a sort of dopamine-soaked reverie.It has reached the stage where it is possible to wonder at what point the Champions League will run out of ways to top itself, when we all become numb to its wonder. And yet, somehow, it keeps mining new seams, discovering new heights. It was hard to envisage how the tournament might improve on that victory by Real Madrid over Lionel Messi and Neymar and Kylian Mbappé — but sure enough, a month or so later, there were the very same Real players, spread-eagled on the turf of the Bernabéu, trying to process how a game could contain two comebacks, one following in the wake of another.It may be the recency bias talking, but it felt like even that paled in comparison with what the first of the semifinals produced. Real Madrid was involved again — that does not, it is fair to say, appear to be a coincidence — in a frenetic, inchoate, wholly baffling meeting with Manchester City. Real lost the game four times, and might have lost it many more times over, and yet escaped with both its reputation and its hopes of returning to the final for the first time since 2018 somehow, despite it all, enhanced.The drama doesn’t always feel great in the moment.Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIt is worth at least attempting to consider what lies at the root of this shift. This is, after all, probably the first era in the seven decades or so of the European Cup where the latter stages have been regularly defined not by an inherent tautness, an anxiety over what might be lost, but by a euphoric, wild excitement about what there is to win.In part, that must be attributable to the sheer quality of stars on display, the fact that so many of the very best players in the world are now clustered together at just half a dozen or so clubs, the ones that have become accustomed to reaching this stage of the competition. Likewise, it seems obvious that the margins between these teams are now so fine that their encounters are inevitably volatile. The slightest shift in momentum or belief, the smallest error, the most imperceptible tactical switch can have seismic consequences, one way or the other.The format helps, too. UEFA, led as ever by the booming voices of its leading clubs, has been considering the idea of abolishing home-and-home semifinals in favor of a single, weeklong “festival of soccer,” held in one city, leaving the semifinals dispensed with in only 90 minutes. By UEFA’s standards, this is not a particularly bad idea. Single-leg semifinals increase jeopardy. That is, broadly, to be encouraged. Collecting all the later drama in one city offers a chance to create a carnival-style event, a miniature tournament within a tournament, a defining climax to the European campaign. On the most basic level, it is hard to deny that it would be exciting.There are logistical complications, of course. Only a handful of cities in Europe could play host to four teams at the same time. (So much for spreading the big occasions around.) It seems an idea designed to be transported outside of the continent: That is less than ideal, too. It would most likely lead to the gouging of fans, based on the incontrovertible logic that everything leads to the gouging of fans. And it would, most damaging of all, remove at a stroke the biggest game that any club can host on its own territory.Villarreal kept the result close in Liverpool, which might have been its aim.Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut the most compelling argument against change is that, of all the things in soccer that could do with a tweak or an upgrade or a wholesale overhaul, the Champions League semifinals are pretty much at the bottom of the list. The knockout stages of the Champions League have consistently caused jaws to drop and breath to be taken for half a decade. The current structure strikes just the right balance between risk and reward, suffering and salvation, and it is all carried out against a succession of fiercely partisan, deliriously raucous backdrops. That is part of its magic, too.Increasingly, though, it is hard to avoid the suspicion that these spectacles represent the natural culmination and sole benefit of the yawning chasm that separates the game’s elite and everyone else. It seems quite likely that they are a product of soccer’s superclub era.In domestic competition, those teams that are staples of the later rounds of the Champions League are so overwhelmingly superior to most of their opponents that whatever threat they face tends to be fleeting and cursory. Teams overmatched for talent and resources pack their defenses and hang on for dear life; that, after all, is all they can do.That is what happens if the power balance is off in the Champions League, too. Consider this week’s other semifinal, Liverpool’s relatively serene defeat of Villarreal. That, certainly, was not a classic. It felt, instead, far more akin to the matches that account for the vast majority of games between the elite and everyone else in Europe’s five major leagues: one team trying to contain and confound, another trying to pick a way through, the only real question being whether the favorite will take its opportunities when they inevitably emerge.But then how could it be anything else, when one of the teams had been constructed on a comparative shoestring? What other choice did Unai Emery, Villarreal’s coach, have? Command his players to try to match Liverpool and watch them lose badly, all in the name of entertainment? To scold Villarreal for failing to deliver a spectacle is to misunderstand what, precisely, the team was there to do, to forget the unbridgeable gap that lies between what we want a game to be and what the players on the field desire. Villarreal had not traveled to Liverpool to make friends.Smile, Étienne Capoue: You and Villarreal aren’t done yet.Christof Stache/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIt is, of course, relatively rare to have a team like Villarreal in the semifinals, or even the quarters. The latest stages are populated more or less exclusively by teams generally used to taking what might be thought of as the active role in games, rather than the reactive. Real Madrid and Bayern Munich and Liverpool and Manchester City and all the rest — right down to Benfica and Ajax, outside the five major leagues — are used to asking questions, not answering them. The only time their mettle is tested is when they encounter a true peer, a fellow oligarch, and the time they do that most often — when it matters, at least — is later on in the Champions League.The fireworks that follow, with gleeful predictability, are a result of those teams being taken — of them taking each other — out of their comfort zones, finding themselves enduring the sort of heat and light they are used to inflicting. That is what fires the spectacle, what has turned these springtime school nights into compulsive viewing, what has made the knockout rounds of the Champions League soccer’s most reliable forge of wonder.Taking FlightNow playing a starring role in Los Angeles: Angel City F.C.Stephen Brashear/USA Today Sports, via ReutersConsidering it has not yet so much as taken to the field for a competitive game, there is a remarkable sense of anticipation surrounding Angel City F.C., one of two expansion teams in the National Women’s Soccer League this year.In part, of course, that is probably connected to the stardust of the club’s ownership consortium, its slick branding, its considerable presence on social media. Few teams have managed to attract so much attention in so little time, the meaning of which is explored in detail in this excellent piece by my colleague Allison McCann.Mostly, though, the success of Angel City’s launch is testament to the appetite for elite women’s soccer in Southern California. Nearly half a million people watched the broadcast of the team’s preseason encounter with the San Diego Wave a few weeks ago. The team already claims six official supporters’ groups. Some 15,000 season tickets have been sold — not bad going for a team that does not yet have a permanent home.It is not to diminish that achievement to say that, from a European perspective, that raises a fascinating question: How do you come to support a team before it exists?It is an article of faith, here, that fandom cannot be instantaneously generated. Fandom is something that is passed down, handed on, somewhere between a religion and a virus: To support a team is to understand its history and its lore, to identify yourself as a member of a longstanding tribe. It is an expression of solidarity with a geographical place, a social demographic, a pre-existing community.Barcelona’s women, relative newcomers at their century-old club, have a built-in base of support.Joan Monfort/Associated PressThat is why, as the women’s game has grown in Europe, the instinct has been to attach women’s clubs to men’s equivalents, partly in the hope that loyalty might be immediately transferred, partly for financial security and brand recognition, and partly because a team called Manchester Spirit, or equivalent, one that played in red and sky-blue stripes, would alienate an entire city before it had even started.And so it is anathema to think that 15,000 people can have such deep-rooted feelings for something that, until March, was entirely theoretical.That is not to doubt the sincerity of that attachment, to assume it is artificial. Rather, the phenomenon calls into question whether fandom works as those of us who live in Europe assume it does. Perhaps it is a more conscious process than we like to tell ourselves. Perhaps it is a choice, rather than a compulsion. After all, more than a century ago, that is precisely what happened here. Teams were conjured into existence, and people went to watch, and to cheer, and to support.(Bumper) CorrespondenceYou may remember, a few weeks ago — back before I skipped a correspondence section in order to have a few days’ unwarranted vacation — we had an email from a reader named Seamus Malin.“I’m curious if he is the former television commentator,” wrote Douglas Goodwin. “The Seamus Malin to whom I refer was the one and only American — albeit with an Irish accent — voice on television my father, my grandfather and I could tolerate. Often we watched games not featuring him with the volume off. Seamus Malin was a gift, and if he is in contact with you, please pass along my heartfelt thanks.”He was not alone in making that inquiry. Not having watched ESPN in my younger days because, well, we did not have ESPN in Britain then, the name did not immediately leap out at me. But it clearly stirred something in many of you, all of whom wanted to pass their thanks along to Seamus. I’m delighted, as ever, to serve as a conduit.Stop us if you’ve seen this photo before.Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters“Your last column was needlessly equivocal about why the Bundesliga is so boring,” S.K. Gupta feels. “There is only one reason and that is the 50+1 rule. By precluding outside investment, no one can challenge the status quo. If the Bundesliga wants to become a genuine sporting competition with some uncertainty about the end result, they must make their clubs attractive to investors who would invest funds to build a competitive team.”There have been times, I will admit, when I have been tempted to come to the same conclusion. The Bundesliga acting as Bayern Munich’s fief is, I think, a problem for German soccer.But I’m not convinced that breaking the bond between team and fans is the solution. I suspect that particular road leads to the Premier League, where, instead of one rich team, you end up with a cartel of four or five or six, monopolizing not only the title but all of the other prizes, too. German fans cherish their culture. Change is necessary, but not at any cost.David Hunter is closer to my way of thinking. “You didn’t mention the obvious solution: a salary cap,” he wrote. “American football has one, and there are rarely routine winners season after season.” This is true, of course, but there is one giant hitch: a salary cap could only work if it was agreed to by clubs in every league in Europe, rather than just one. And that prospect is, unfortunately, an extremely distant one.Finally, let’s go back a couple of weeks. “If we, the fans, decide what matters in football, it’s worth noting that the viewing public and teams’ owners have very different ideas of the concept of risk,” wrote Alex McMillan. “Fans cherish risk: It’s what makes winning anything worth something. The owners of the wealthiest clubs detest it: It threatens their billion-dollar investment.”This is, to me, the crux of the issue over soccer’s future. The game thrives on risk. It is the running of it and the taking of it that makes it appealing. But, yes, that is diametrically opposed to what owners want and — if we are being kind — what sustainable businesses need. Almost every debate about where the game goes, or what it must do, boils down to that tension. How it plays out will define what shape soccer takes. More

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      British Billionaire Jim Ratcliffe Bids $5.3 Billion for Chelsea F.C.

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      The late offer by Ratcliffe, the chief executive of Ineos, for the Premier League soccer club would be the highest price ever paid for a sports team.Jim Ratcliffe, a billionaire industrialist and one of Britain’s richest men, has made a $5.3 billion offer to buy Premier League soccer team Chelsea F.C., a late and audacious proposal that dwarfs at least three other multibillion-dollar bids for the team.The price, if accepted, would be the highest ever paid for a sports franchise.“We are making this investment as fans of the beautiful game — not as a means to turn a profit,” Ratcliffe said in a statement issued by his petrochemicals business, Ineos, confirming his pursuit of Chelsea. “We do that with our core businesses. The club is rooted in its community and its fans. And it is our intention to invest in Chelsea F.C. for that reason.”Ratcliffe’s enormous offer for the West London club — which arrived on Friday as Chelsea and the bank it had hired the manage the sale were considering at least three other multibillion-dollar offers — caps a tumultuous and dizzying few weeks for Chelsea. Its current owner, Roman Abramovich, was forced to put the team up for sale when he was placed under crippling sanctions by Britain’s government and others for his association with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Under Abramovich, Chelsea has become one of the biggest and most successful teams in global soccer. That has come at a huge cost, though, with the team losing about $1 million a week since Abramovich, then an unknown Russian businessman, took control of the team in 2003.Ratcliffe, whose personal wealth might surpass Abramovich’s fortune, has suggested he would be willing to do the same. His offer will almost certainly be out of reach of the three bidders who were already being considered by the Raine Group, the New York-based merchant bank Chelsea has enlisted to handle the sale. Ratcliffe’s arrival has upended that process, but choosing him could make the sale speedier than it would have been.Any sale would require the approval of both the British government and the Premier League. The British government will need to issue a license, similar to one that allowed Chelsea to keep operating after Abramovich was placed on the sanctions list, and the Premier League must approve all new owners.As part of his offer, Ratcliffe pledged 2.5 billion pounds, or $3.1 billion, to a charitable trust “to support the victims of the war.” That language is similar to that used by Abramovich when he first announced he was putting the club up for sale. It remains unclear how such a charity would work, or how the British government would ensure that none of the proceeds of the sale flowed to Abramovich.Ratcliffe pledged to invest a further $2.1 billion on Chelsea over the next 10 years, a figure that would also include the redevelopment of the club’s aging Stamford Bridge stadium, another of Abramovich’s stipulations.Chelsea’s operations have been upended by the sanctions imposed on its Russian owner, Roman Abramovich.Mike Hewitt/Getty ImagesRatcliffe, a self-described fan of Chelsea’s Premier League rival Manchester United since his school days, is worth $10.6 billion, according to an index of the world’s richest people compiled by Bloomberg. Chelsea would not be Ratcliffe’s first foray into sports investment, or even soccer. He owns the French professional soccer club OGC Nice, located close to his home in Monaco, and also F.C. Lausanne-Sport, a team in Switzerland. But purchasing Chelsea would be of a different magnitude altogether. He has pledged to retain the team’s place among the world’s elite teams.“We believe that London should have a club that reflects the stature of the city,” Ratcliffe said. “One that is held in the same regard as Real Madrid, Barcelona or Bayern Munich. We intend Chelsea to be that club.”His 11th-hour offer will anger the group of American-backed bidders who have spent the last few weeks engaged in an increasingly complicated auction devised by Raine’s co-founder Joe Ravitch, the banker handling the sale. Deadlines for final bids were extended on several occasions, and then late this week the three investment groups remaining in the process were told to increase their offers by a further $600 million.Raine has not commented during the bidding process, beyond an interview in which Ravitch made the startling — and as yet unsubstantiated — claim to The Financial Times that Chelsea and other Premier League teams could be worth $10 billion within five years.At about the same time Ratcliffe went public with his bid, The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, reported that one of the finalists in the bidding, a group led by the Los Angeles Dodgers part-owner Todd Boehly, was set to enter exclusive talks to acquire Chelsea.Boehly’s group had been challenged by a sprawling consortium bankrolled by Josh Harris and David Blitzer, members of the ownership group that controls the Philadelphia 76ers of the N.B.A., who this week added the Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton and the tennis star Serena Williams to their ranks.The third finalist was a group led by Steve Pagliuca, co-owner of the N.B.A.’s Boston Celtics. Pagliuca’s consortium includes Larry Tenenbaum, the chairman of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which owns the N.B.A.’s Toronto Raptors, hockey’s Toronto Maple Leafs and Major League Soccer’s Toronto F.C.The circumstances of the sale have been among the strangest seen in professional sports, creating a beauty pageant that brought together some of the wealthiest people in the world, celebrity athletes and unknown figures that appeared intent on using the sale to raise their own profiles.For Chelsea’s players, staff and fans, a decision cannot come soon enough. The club has been working under highly unusual financial constraints since the sanctions against Abramovich, described by the British government as a close associate of Putin. The special government license that allows the team to operate has left the club holding as many as 10,000 unsold tickets for its home games, and has forced the team to limit its travel budgets and close the team store.The uncertainty over the future has affected the team on the field, too. Chelsea expects to lose two key defenders, Antonio Rüdiger and Andreas Christensen, when their contracts expire at the end of the season. Any talks with potential replacements cannot take place until a new owner replaces Abramovich. More

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      Endgame Nears in Bidding for Chelsea F.C.

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      English soccer’s biggest soap opera — the bidding war to own Chelsea F.C. — appears to be entering its endgame.The Raine Group, the New York merchant bank appointed to sell the Premier League soccer club on behalf of Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch whose assets have been frozen by the British government, is poised to name its preferred bidder as soon as this week. It will choose one of three groups backed by American investors, each of which has put forth a multibillion-dollar offer.In picking a winner, the Chelsea board, Abramovich and Raine will inch closer to bringing an end to one of the strangest, and richest, takeovers in modern sports history: a beauty pageant that brought together European soccer and American money; Chelsea legends and foreign poseurs; all part of a galaxy of individuals and groups with designs on a team that Abramovich’s billions have turned into a sporting powerhouse during his nearly two-decade reign.The sale, whenever a deal is finally closed, should yield the highest amount ever paid for a sports team, with estimates suggesting a price tag of about $3 billion. Abramovich is currently not allowed to receive any of the proceeds.One of the early front-runners in the race, a group led by Todd Boehly, a billionaire investor and a part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, remains well placed to prevail. But Boehly and his partners are being challenged by a sprawling consortium bankrolled by Josh Harris and David Blitzer, members of the ownership group that controls the Philadelphia 76ers of the N.B.A., who this week added the Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton and the tennis star Serena Williams to their ranks.The third finalist is led by Steve Pagliuca, co-owner of the N.B.A.’s Boston Celtics, and includes Larry Tenenbaum, the chairman of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which owns the N.B.A.’s Toronto Raptors, hockey’s Toronto Maple Leafs and Major League Soccer’s Toronto F.C.Representatives of all three consortiums, as well as a group of bankers from Raine led by one of the firm’s founders, Joe Ravitch, were summoned to London this week, where each group was to make a final pitch.The surviving bidders navigated a path now littered with failed suitors, some to be taken seriously and others definitely not. A bid by the Ricketts family that owns Chicago Cubs, for example, had deep pockets but was torpedoed after anti-Muslim emails sent by the family patriarch Joe Ricketts — first reported in 2019 — resurfaced.The M.M.A. champion Conor McGregor offered £1.5 billion (about $1.8 billion) for Chelsea on Twitter, then later deleted the post and, presumably, the offer. A mysterious Turkish businessman who claimed to have spoken with Abramovich’s lawyers about a price, and who boasted that “we will fly the Turkish flag in London soon,” later missed the deadline for bids. He claimed his lawyers had sent his offer to the wrong email address.Chelsea’s manager, Thomas Tuchel, has lamented the slow pace of Chelsea’s sale but acknowledged there is little he and his team can do about it. Oscar Del Pozo/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFor Chelsea’s players, staff and fans, a decision cannot come soon enough. The club has been working under highly unusual financial constraints since the sanctions against Abramovich, an ally of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, were announced. A special government license that allows the team to operate has left the club holding as many as 10,000 unsold tickets for its home games, and has forced the team to limit its travel budgets and close the team store.The uncertainty over the future has affected the team on the field, too. Chelsea expects to lose two key defenders, Antonio Rüdiger and Andreas Christensen, when their contracts expire at the end of the season. Any talks with potential replacements cannot take place until a new owner replaces Abramovich.“It would be ideal” to have the situation resolved as soon as possible, Chelsea Manager Thomas Tuchel admitted Sunday after a victory over West Ham. “But you cannot pull grass so it grows faster.”The unique nature of the sale, though, means that whichever group is granted preferred bidder status will have only cleared the first hurdle. The British government must bless the sale in order for it to go through, and it will insist on strict rules to ensure that none of the proceeds go to Abramovich. He has said that any money he is due would be donated to new charitable foundation “for all victims of the war in Ukraine,” but plans for the charity remain vague.The prospective new owners then would have to be vetted and approved by the Premier League. That could raise a thorny complication for Harris and Blitzer: They currently own Chelsea’s London rival, Crystal Palace, and would therefore have to divest their stakes before taking control of another Premier League team.Pagliuca, meanwhile, has an investment in Italy’s Atalanta, a team that has appeared alongside Chelsea in the Champions League in recent years.David Klein/ReutersEmpty seats and a shuttered team store are some of the most obvious consequences of the sanctions imposed on Chelsea’s owner.Neil Hall/EPA, via ShutterstockChelsea fans protested a bid by the Ricketts family after racist comments by the family’s patriarch resurfaced. The group later pulled its offer.Neil Hall/EPA, via ShutterstockAs deadlines for final offers were extended once, and then again, the process became subject to numerous leaks in the news media, leading some bidders to privately express frustration and make claims of unequal treatment. Raine has not commented on the process beyond an interview with the Financial Times in which Ravitch made a startling, and unsupported, claim about Chelsea’s value.“My guess is that Chelsea and all of the top Premier League clubs will probably be worth in excess of $10 billion in five years,” he said, in what was seen as a bid to drive the sales price even higher. “So I think whoever buys Chelsea today at the prices we’re talking about is getting it for a steal.”Chelsea’s record of success under Abramovich — five Premier League titles and two Champions League crowns — has not come cheaply; his outlay in pursuit of those honors has cost him nearly $2 billion from his personal fortune.It is unclear how the new owners will be able to maintain that record of success without deepening those losses, which during Abramovich’s stewardship amounted to more than $1 million a week. Under the terms of the sale, any new owner will also have to commit to redeveloping the team’s stadium, Stamford Bridge. Abramovich once pledged to finance that project, to the tune of $1.3 billion, before shelving the plan in 2018 amid a visa dispute that has kept him out of Britain for years.The team will also need to rebuild its relationships with some of its key partners. Three, a telecoms company, suspended its sponsorship with Chelsea once the ban against Abramovich was announced, and, fearing that it might be drawn into the sanctions dispute, asked that its logo be removed from the team’s jerseys. Several weeks later — to the growing frustration of Three executives — the logo remains, with the club unwilling to use stickers to cover it up or order new shirts without it.Fans have been central in the efforts of would-be buyers of the club, with several rounds of discussions now having taken place between investor groups and influential supporter organizations, and each bidding group has added local representatives in an effort to stress their Chelsea bona fides. Boehly is working with Danny Finkelstein, a former adviser to the ruling Conservative Party. The Harris-Blitzer consortium was assembled by the former British Airways chairman Martin Broughton, and includes the former Olympics official Sebastian Coe. Pagliuca has won the support of the former Chelsea captain John Terry.But the sensitivity of the process has also highlighted how even a single misstep can prove costly.The former player Paul Canoville, Chelsea’s first Black player, revealed this week in a statement of his own that he had met with multiple groups during the bidding process but had found one after another wanting. He described the ownership efforts of Hamilton and Williams, who have claimed to support other teams, as “disrespectful” to Chelsea; credited the since-withdrawn Ricketts bid for its plans to support the Chelsea foundation; and admitted that a plan by one group to offer fans some sort of cryptocurrency technology “went over my head.”Canoville has now publicly backed the Boehly-led bid. More

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      Thiago Alcantara’s Passing Stats Don’t Tell Us Everything About His Game

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      Statistics have come to favor Thiago, and they did again in Liverpool’s win over Villarreal in the Champions League. But his passing is best measured in how it swung the complexion of the game.LIVERPOOL, England — With no more daring option immediately apparent, Diogo Jota decided to turn around and start again. There were about a dozen minutes remaining, and Liverpool had long ago entered energy-conservation mode. Jürgen Klopp’s team had, in the blink of an eye, established a two-goal lead over Villarreal in the first leg of their Champions League semifinal, and it had no intention of surrendering it.So Jota, as he picked up the ball on the left wing and saw his path was blocked by two defenders, took the safety-first choice. He slipped a pass back across the halfway line. Virgil van Dijk took possession, and play moved off toward the other side of the field. At that point, Thiago Alcantara decided to offer his teammate some instant feedback on his decision.He explained — or, at least, seemed to be explaining — to Jota that while van Dijk was a fine selection, he had been open and available, too, and technically, if he was being picky, in a better position. The correct choice, in that situation, would have been passing to Thiago. This is because the correct choice, in pretty much every situation, is passing to Thiago.It is hard to be certain what, exactly, lies at the root of soccer’s relatively recent but now all-consuming obsession with yield. The game has, in the last decade or so, developed an apparently devout belief that if something cannot be measured that it cannot matter; a player’s worth can be accurately gauged by boiling down their output into something concrete, something definite, some number or percentage that offers the illusion of proof.The temptation is, of course, to connect that tendency to the sport’s growing interest in and reliance on analytics — this is soccer, as the nerds wanted it — or even to the game’s continuing infiltration by people who can only be described as Americans. That may, though, offer only a partial explanation.Just as relevant, perhaps, is the game’s talking-point culture, its entrenched tribalism and endless squabbling for supremacy, its thirst for virality, attention and clout. Cold, hard numbers carry more weight in 280 characters, after all, than such outdated concepts as metaphor, or allusion.Whatever the cause, few have been boiled down to a succession of numbers quite so much as Thiago. In his first season and a half in England, it was generally a convenient stick with which to beat him: His goal and assist tallies, after all, hardly indicated that he was a valuable component of Liverpool, let alone an outstanding performer.Belatedly, in the last few weeks, the dynamic has changed. Thiago had a pass completion rate of 92 percent in the F.A. Cup semifinal victory against Manchester City. He played 129 passes in the most recent humbling of Manchester United, and 123 of them found their intended target.A few days ago, he made more successful passes against Everton than all of his opponents combined. And then, against Villarreal, he turned in 119 touches, 103 passes played, 99 passes completed, 100 percent of tackles won, five interceptions, nine long balls completed and one earnest feedback session with a slightly unwilling Diogo Jota.The problem, of course, is that none of those metrics capture what makes Thiago such an integral part of this version of Klopp’s Liverpool. It is not just that they do not take into account his habit of urging the crowd to maintain its energy, or the way he walks his teammates through a game, or his ability to change something as ethereal and intangible as the feel of an occasion with something as simple as a tackle.Sadio Mane, right, gave Liverpool a 2-0 advantage in the tie entering the second leg.Peter Powell/EPA, via ShutterstockIt is that they do not tell you what any of those passes did. They do not distinguish between the ones played with the inside of his foot and the ones curled from the outside, the ones that keep things ticking over and the ones that slice through a defensive line, the ones that sweep and boom over vast distances, landing unerringly on some grateful recipient’s foot, and the ones that fizz low, at unexpected speed, suddenly launching Liverpool into another attack.They do not advertise which ones start with that quick shimmy of the hips, the one that begins with Thiago facing one direction and ends with him scampering in the other, at least two defenders trailing in his wake, still processing what has happened. They do not capture how unfazed he is by even the most intense pressure, or how flawless his technique is, and they do not begin to touch on the art with which he accomplishes his craft.Nor, of course, do they tell the story of how Thiago has come to encapsulate the growth and the maturation of Klopp’s Liverpool. The first team that Klopp took to the Champions League final, the one that suffered that heart-aching defeat to Real Madrid in 2018, was one that embraced chaos; it had still not, quite, cast off that misleading cliché about its manager and his percussive, heavy metal soccer.The second, the one that returned to the final the following year and left with substantially happier memories, did so by harnessing that chaos; a team of crest and surge, it could pick and choose its moments, unleashing the power and energy that it had once allowed to run uncontrolled in deliberate, irresistible bursts.This iteration should become the third Liverpool team in five years to reach the Champions League final — all it has to do, after all, is not lose by two goals next week — but it is conceptually distinct from both its predecessors. This Liverpool is defined more by control than by chaos, more by patience than percussion.It needed those virtues against Villarreal, a team whose romantic adventure to this stage should not, by any means, be confused with a desire to make friends now that it is here. Liverpool had to wait. It had to think. It had to adapt. It had to get a fortuitous deflection on a Jordan Henderson cross to break the dam, and then it had to strike again, almost instantaneously, before Unai Emery had a chance to repair the leak.There are few midfielders in Europe better suited to that task than Thiago. Every single one of those passes did something: They changed the angle of attack or relieved the pressure or switched gear or altered speed. To reduce them to mere numbers is to miss their point. They are better read, instead, as brushstrokes on a canvas, each one making the image a little clearer, each one signed by a master at work. More

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      The Numbers Tell Only Part of the Story

      by

      Statistics have come to favor Thiago, and they did again in Liverpool’s win over Villarreal in the Champions League. But his passing is best measured in how it swung the complexion of the game.LIVERPOOL, England — With no more daring option immediately apparent, Diogo Jota decided to turn around and start again. There were about a dozen minutes remaining, and Liverpool had long ago entered energy-conservation mode. Jürgen Klopp’s team had, in the blink of an eye, established a two-goal lead over Villarreal in the first leg of their Champions League semifinal, and it had no intention of surrendering it.So Jota, as he picked up the ball on the left wing and saw his path was blocked by two defenders, took the safety-first choice. He slipped a pass back across the halfway line. Virgil van Dijk took possession, and play moved off toward the other side of the field. At that point, Thiago Alcantara decided to offer his teammate some instant feedback on his decision.He explained — or, at least, seemed to be explaining — to Jota that while van Dijk was a fine selection, he had been open and available, too, and technically, if he was being picky, in a better position. The correct choice, in that situation, would have been passing to Thiago. This is because the correct choice, in pretty much every situation, is passing to Thiago.It is hard to be certain what, exactly, lies at the root of soccer’s relatively recent but now all-consuming obsession with yield. The game has, in the last decade or so, developed an apparently devout belief that if something cannot be measured that it cannot matter; a player’s worth can be accurately gauged by boiling down their output into something concrete, something definite, some number or percentage that offers the illusion of proof.The temptation is, of course, to connect that tendency to the sport’s growing interest in and reliance on analytics — this is soccer, as the nerds wanted it — or even to the game’s continuing infiltration by people who can only be described as Americans. That may, though, offer only a partial explanation.Just as relevant, perhaps, is the game’s talking-point culture, its entrenched tribalism and endless squabbling for supremacy, its thirst for virality, attention and clout. Cold, hard numbers carry more weight in 280 characters, after all, than such outdated concepts as metaphor, or allusion.Whatever the cause, few have been boiled down to a succession of numbers quite so much as Thiago. In his first season and a half in England, it was generally a convenient stick with which to beat him: His goal and assist tallies, after all, hardly indicated that he was a valuable component of Liverpool, let alone an outstanding performer.Belatedly, in the last few weeks, the dynamic has changed. Thiago had a pass completion rate of 92 percent in the F.A. Cup semifinal victory against Manchester City. He played 129 passes in the most recent humbling of Manchester United, and 123 of them found their intended target.A few days ago, he made more successful passes against Everton than all of his opponents combined. And then, against Villarreal, he turned in 119 touches, 103 passes played, 99 passes completed, 100 percent of tackles won, five interceptions, nine long balls completed and one earnest feedback session with a slightly unwilling Diogo Jota.The problem, of course, is that none of those metrics capture what makes Thiago such an integral part of this version of Klopp’s Liverpool. It is not just that they do not take into account his habit of urging the crowd to maintain its energy, or the way he walks his teammates through a game, or his ability to change something as ethereal and intangible as the feel of an occasion with something as simple as a tackle.Sadio Mane, right, gave Liverpool a 2-0 advantage in the tie entering the second leg.Peter Powell/EPA, via ShutterstockIt is that they do not tell you what any of those passes did. They do not distinguish between the ones played with the inside of his foot and the ones curled from the outside, the ones that keep things ticking over and the ones that slice through a defensive line, the ones that sweep and boom over vast distances, landing unerringly on some grateful recipient’s foot, and the ones that fizz low, at unexpected speed, suddenly launching Liverpool into another attack.They do not advertise which ones start with that quick shimmy of the hips, the one that begins with Thiago facing one direction and ends with him scampering in the other, at least two defenders trailing in his wake, still processing what has happened. They do not capture how unfazed he is by even the most intense pressure, or how flawless his technique is, and they do not begin to touch on the art with which he accomplishes his craft.Nor, of course, do they tell the story of how Thiago has come to encapsulate the growth and the maturation of Klopp’s Liverpool. The first team that Klopp took to the Champions League final, the one that suffered that heart-aching defeat to Real Madrid in 2018, was one that embraced chaos; it had still not, quite, cast off that misleading cliché about its manager and his percussive, heavy metal soccer.The second, the one that returned to the final the following year and left with substantially happier memories, did so by harnessing that chaos; a team of crest and surge, it could pick and choose its moments, unleashing the power and energy that it had once allowed to run uncontrolled in deliberate, irresistible bursts.This iteration should become the third Liverpool team in five years to reach the Champions League final — all it has to do, after all, is not lose by two goals next week — but it is conceptually distinct from both its predecessors. This Liverpool is defined more by control than by chaos, more by patience than percussion.It needed those virtues against Villarreal, a team whose romantic adventure to this stage should not, by any means, be confused with a desire to make friends now that it is here. Liverpool had to wait. It had to think. It had to adapt. It had to get a fortuitous deflection on a Jordan Henderson cross to break the dam, and then it had to strike again, almost instantaneously, before Unai Emery had a chance to repair the leak.There are few midfielders in Europe better suited to that task than Thiago. Every single one of those passes did something: They changed the angle of attack or relieved the pressure or switched gear or altered speed. To reduce them to mere numbers is to miss their point. They are better read, instead, as brushstrokes on a canvas, each one making the image a little clearer, each one signed by a master at work. More

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      How Villarreal’s Eye for Value Cracked the Champions League Code

      by

      A Spanish team’s run to a semifinal against Liverpool offers a template for how European teams can turn the impatience of the continent’s richest clubs against them.A great way to understand how it is that Villarreal — a soccer team from a town of only 50,000 souls, playing in a stadium that can hold a little less than half of them — finds itself in the semifinals of the Champions League is to consider the cleaning products aisle of Spain’s leading supermarket.The supermarket, Mercadona, and the soccer club are corporate cousins. Fernando Roig, Villarreal’s president and benefactor, has a minority stake in Mercadona, Spain’s largest retail chain, but it is his brother, Juan, the majority shareholder, who is credited with turning the latter into a staple case study for business schools around the world.Central to that approach is the idea that the customers are ultimately in charge. They are the ones, after all, who determine what their stores should stock. To ensure the company is meeting their needs, Mercadona, every so often, invites a selection of its most reliable customers to take part in a testing laboratory.These are held at 10 stores around Spain, and each is devoted to a particular strand of the business: pet care, for example, or snacks or personal hygiene. Customers are asked not only to offer feedback on various products — the packaging, the pricing, the taste, the smell — but to advise Mercadona’s staff on how they use them.That was how Mercadona discovered that while a lot of people were buying white wine vinegar as a condiment, they were also using it as a stain remover. “So they created a cleaning product made with vinegar,” Miguel Blanco, a business economics professor at King Juan Carlos University, once told a business journal from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Mercadona, like Villarreal, understands that the appeal of a product depends on how it is used.Villarreal does not, at first glance, follow the blueprint laid down by the handful of teams from outside the exclusive cabal of fabulously wealthy clubs who have gate-crashed the Champions League semifinals in recent years.Francis Coquelin and Villarreal, who will face Liverpool twice over the next week, are 180 minutes from the Champions League final.David Ramos/Getty ImagesMonaco in 2017 and Ajax in 2019 felt a little like glimpses into soccer’s near future. It was in Monaco’s run past Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund that Kylian Mbappé, Bernardo Silva and Fabinho first pierced the sport’s broader consciousness. Ajax’s defeats of Real Madrid and Juventus on its way to the semifinals two years later helped turn Frenkie de Jong and Matthijs de Ligt into stars.RB Leipzig, which made the final four in that strange, ghostly pandemic tournament in 2020, seemed like a team from the cutting edge, too. It featured the likes of Dayot Upamecano and Christopher Nkunku, and was guided by Julian Nagelsmann, the standard-bearer for coaching’s first post-Pep Guardiola generation.Villarreal, on the other hand, does not feel like a vision of what is to come. The core of Unai Emery’s team is homegrown, with the rise of Gerard Moreno, Yeremi Pino, Alfonso Pedraza and, in particular, Pau Torres testament to the outstanding work of the club’s widely admired academy.Apart from Pino, 19, though, none are especially young, not in soccer terms. Even Torres, the club’s locally sourced jewel, is 25, meaning he is unlikely to inspire the sort of feeding frenzy among the transfer market’s apex predators that de Ligt generated in 2019.Instead, around that cadre of graduates, Villarreal gives the impression of being something of a Premier League vintage store, its team stocked with faces vaguely familiar to cursory followers of English soccer. There is Vicente Iborra, a 34-year-old midfielder who struggled to make an impact at Leicester City, and Pervis Estupiñán, the young Ecuadorean left back who noodled around the great Watford loan factory for a while.Like many of his players, Manager Unai Emery has a stint in England on his résumé.Lukas Barth/ReutersÉtienne Capoue, 33, spent six years at Vicarage Road, establishing himself as a rare constant on a Watford team defined by permanent change. Alberto Moreno was released on a free transfer by Liverpool. Francis Coquelin first emerged at Arsenal. Dani Parejo had a short spell at Queens Park Rangers. Arnaut Danjuma had flickered and sputtered at Bournemouth.And then there is the Tottenham contingent: Juan Foyth, a defender who had lost his way; Serge Aurier, ditto; and Giovani Lo Celso, an extravagantly gifted midfielder who found himself out in the cold upon Antonio Conte’s arrival as manager at Spurs late last year.Even Emery, of course, returned to Spain after being given the somewhat daunting task of replacing Arsène Wenger at Arsenal. His team at Villarreal, the one that eliminated Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals, the one that blocks Liverpool’s path to a third Champions League final in five years, has been constructed on the Premier League’s waifs and strays.Those familiar with Villarreal’s strategy say that is not a deliberate policy. Miguel Ángel Tena, the club’s sporting director, and Fernando Roig Negueroles, its chief executive — and the son of the president — have not set out to sift through those cast aside by the Premier League’s wanton, wasteful consumerism.Villarreal’s finances pale in comparison to its Champions League rivals.Biel Alino/EPA, via ShutterstockThere has, instead, been a degree of opportunism. When, halfway through last season, Emery needed a physically imposing, technically adroit central midfielder, he remembered being impressed by Capoue while he was in England. Capoue, who has admitted that he does not watch soccer, did not even know where Villarreal was when the offer came; he was just touched by Emery’s faith in him.Danjuma was another signing recommended by the manager: Villarreal’s analysts had never watched him when Emery suggested, in the aftermath of Villarreal’s winning the Europa League last season, that the team should pay $20 million or so for a player who had just been relegated with Bournemouth. The club, though, paid the fee. Villarreal now believes Danjuma, its breakout star, could one day fetch $100 million.Others have benefited from the club’s eidetic memory. Villarreal has long nurtured connections in South America in general and in Argentina in particular: When it last reached a Champions League semifinal, in 2006, it was with a team stocked with Boca Juniors alumni. Its scouting network picked out Foyth and Lo Celso long ago.Villarreal could not compete with the money on offer from England — or Paris St.-Germain, in Lo Celso’s case — when they first came to Europe, but the club knows well enough that soccer can always bring a second chance, particularly given how quickly English clubs, in particular, discard players.It is that insight that has allowed Emery not only to deliver the first major honor in Villarreal’s history — last year’s Europa League — but to sweep the team to within 180 minutes of the biggest game of them all: the knowledge that a product can have an alternative purpose, a more significant role, than the one stated on the packaging.Villarreal scooped up Arnaut Danjuma when Bournemouth was relegated from the Premier League.Alessandro Di Marco/EPA, via ShutterstockGiovani Lo Celso is one of three former Tottenham players on Emery’s team.Christof Stache/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAnd it is that approach that, while it may not make Villarreal as compelling or as exciting as Monaco or Ajax, perhaps it makes its story a little more imitable, a little more inspiring in an age dominated both by the superclubs and increasingly by the financial might of the Premier League.Monaco’s success was built, in large part, on the unparalleled eye for talent of its chief scout, Luis Campos. Ajax’s was a tribute to the club’s unmatched gift for nurturing and fostering promise. But both contained trace elements of lightning strikes, too: difficult — if not impossible — to repeat or replicate.Villarreal, though, offers a template that might be followed, a vision for how clubs without the finances of the Premier League or the weight of the giants of continental Europe might be able to thrive. It demonstrates that it is possible to grow strong on the scraps from the feast, to thrive in soccer’s increasingly Anglocentric ecosystem, by remembering that the appeal of a product depends on its use. More