1
What Moneyball?
Shambolic: that’s surely the only way to describe what has happened to Barcelona, only a decade gone from a peak that ranks alongside any in the annals of world club history (despite the flashes yesterday of Messi being Messi).
The New York Times dives deep into the sorry pieces of the story, including this portrait of a club blasting its own feet off with a shotgun:
2
Regrets
And the story of Barcelona’s missteps hardly ends there. Sid Lowe digs into what may turn out to be one of the most infamous transfers in football history, with Luis Suarez leaving Camp Nou to lead the line - with prolific potency - for Atlético Madrid, now top of La Liga.
Suárez has scored 16 in 17 appearances, averaging a goal every 82 minutes. He has more than any Atlético player last season and is La Liga’s top scorer, three clear. He has scored in 11 matches and has been directly responsible for 12 points, more than anyone in Spain: points that put Atlético five clear at the top with two games in hand. No debutant has had a better start this century.
Not bad for a free transfer who was finished, for a man they were so desperate to get rid of they paid for him to go.
3
SWOS
Look, it’s all very well and good to spend a fortune on licensing and try to perfect virtual recreations down to the last facial muscle twitch. But you’re still not going to create a soccer video game better than Sensible World of Soccer. The Athletic goes deep on the game’s past, present and future.
We’re not talking FIFA, Pro Evolution Soccer or Football Manager here but their forbearer. It was the only sports game, the only game developed in Europe and the youngest (1994) to be included in Stanford University’s digital gaming canon submitted to the USA’s Library of Congress in 2006.
The game? Sensible Soccer — or more accurately, its direct sequel: Sensible World of Soccer. All 27,000 players and 1,500 teams of it. All 1.5 million copies sold and 15 million people to have played it. It’s Hare’s proudest achievement to date. It even appeared on a stamp.
“They considered the move we made in SWOS (Sensible World of Soccer) innovative enough to be alongside Tetris, Super Mario Bros, SimCity, Doom…” Hare tells The Athletic. “Professionally, I was like, ‘Yeah! I can always look back and whatever else happens, we did that’.”
4
Forest City
Keep Portland, Maine, on your watchlist for clubs doing things the right way. This solid interview by Cameron Koubek with the nascent club’s founder, Gabe Hoffman-Johnson, explains more.
Since USL to Portland was announced over a year ago, the movement has been building momentum, gaining supporters, community partners, and more recently, releasing an environmentally-focused clothing collection.
As the prospective USL League One expansion group moves toward bringing professional soccer to Maine, Portland Pro Soccer's founder and president Gabe Hoffman-Johnson has been intensely focused on making sure the process remains authentically Portland.
I sat down with Hoffman-Johnson, himself a former two-time Gatorade high school soccer player of the year and USL player with Saint Louis FC, to get an update on the movement's identity, goals, and next steps.
5
Two steps forward after all?
The leveraged recent takeover of Burnley continues to make waves, but here’s a positive sign from the club: professionalizing and integrating their women’s team.
Major investment, including the creation of a Women’s Academy, is planned to move the women’s team to the next level, following unprecedented back-to-back promotions into the FA Women’s National League Northern Premier Division; the third tier of women’s football.
The team will, in future, share the club’s Barnfield Training Centre facilities with their male counterparts and will seek new partners on an international scale, with the aim of improving every level of Burnley FC Women and its wider operations.
Plans for a Women’s Academy also seek to provide a professional environment for young female players and establish Burnley as a hotbed for future talent in the women’s game.
6
Survival of the best
Phil Foden’s carefully stage-managed development by Manchester City to the first team is interesting to contrast with other talents he played alongside, covered in Pep’s City: The Making of a Superteam, by Pol Ballus and Lu Martin, which digs inside the club’s successful but ruthless academy.
Pep Guardiola: “I saw this generation for the first time when they were just 16. Txiki had told me that we had talented kids coming up and wanted me to watch them in action. That same year we got them training with the first-team during the preseason. Phil, Sancho, Brahim – that was when their talent really showed.”
After the first integrated session, Pep came off the field with a singular focus. He could see the potential in Brahim and Sancho, but he had fallen for Foden. “Did you see that kid in the centre of the field?” he asked his staff.
And yet, these days, of the three bright young stars who so impressed Pep that first summer, only Foden remains at City. In part, this is a consequence of a change in the recruitment strategy of elite clubs, who are now prepared to spend eight-figure sums to acquire teenage players who are yet to make a first-team appearance.
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Gen Z goals
TikTok’s growth has certainly been driven by organic, viral, meme-tastic moments, but compared to the early days of most social networks, it has quickly tied up official partnerships that cement its position strategically. This is likely to be significant in the long term, as these arrangements will surely help TikTok fend off copycats. The company this week announced a new partnership with Euro 2020(21!):
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Mesopotamian dreams
Fake football teams are one thing, entire fake leagues with full kit designs are another (hat tip to Pat Cummings for one of the originals and best here). And digging back to the Mesopotamian-era for inspiration is a pretty brilliant twist.
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Real regrets
Sometimes talent is frittered away through self-abuse from drugs or alcohol, sometimes through tragedy, sometimes through sheer bad luck. Jonathan’s Woodgate’s curious career doesn’t fit neatly into any box, just a long perpetually frustrating feeling of what might have been, as he tells Four Four Two.
"I’d say I was honest and passionate, but the one word which springs to mind more than any other is unfulfilled," Woodgate tells the March issue of FourFourTwo. "It does my head in, because my career could have been so much different but for all the injuries. I sometimes study my playing statistics, then compare them to the players of a similar age who notched up more than 500 appearances. Looking back, a lot of it was my own fault because I always used to rush back from injuries."
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Hot hat alert
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Calcio value
American investment in overseas soccer continues its torrid pace; interestingly, the focus is increasingly on less high profile acquisitions, with growth opportunities targeted that have far, far lower barriers of entry to the top flight financially than Major League Soccer (though obvious with actual risk of relegation). The latest, via Sports Pro:
US investor Robert Platek has completed his takeover of Italian top-flight soccer club Spezia Calcio, who become the sixth Serie A team to fall under American ownership.
The deal will see the club sold outright to the Platek family, with control passing from Gabriele Volpi. Financial terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed but reports in the Italian media peg it at around €25 million (US$30.2 million).