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Winners & Losers of the European Soccer Season
It’s our final soccer post of the 2020-2021 season! We’ve come so far: from not posting about soccer for the first six months of the season because we were talking about the OTHER football, to PSG losing the ligue despite being owned by literal royalty (no spoilers but see below), the season has had a lot of ups and downs. and so, without further ado, we present to you WINNERS AND LOSERS OF THE ‘20-’21 European soccer season:
Winner: LILLE???!!!!!????!!!
Damn y’all. Despite the billions and billions of dollars poured into the PSG squad, despite them having one of the best academies in Europe (you can see their progeny playing all over Serie A, La Liga, etc etc), despite having ostensibly the BEST PLAYER IN LIGUE 1 (mmmmmbappe) and his best Brazilian bro (Nem nem), Lille overcame them and fought tooth! and! nail! to win their first league title in 10 years (btw, I went on their wiki to double check that fact and was delighted to find there’s a section in the history called “Lille Loses Its Way”).
Loser: Thomas Tuchel
Thomas Tuchel ended last season losing the Champion’s League final with Paris, and then led PSG to one of their worst season starts in recent memory. The team was a mess, the players were miserable, and everyone hated Tom. One could argue that the fact that he got a hot new job as Chelsea’s manager so quickly after being sacked makes him a winner, but! He is pretty hated (from what I can gather) by Chelsea fans, and especially by Christian Pulisic. He is playing boring, sit & wait football, and not using any of the attacking weapons he has on his roster. Chelsea ended the season in a 5 game slump, headed into their final with Man City for the Champion’s League title looking dismal. Ok so sure, he pulled off a win which like, all right but…. as we mentioned, he cannot pull off this color blue.
Winner: Luis Suarez
Including him solely to include this tweet:
Also like did they all…go…change into Eurotrash Jeans? Or is that just their away kit?
Loser: Barthelona
With Messi taking the last game of the season off (he got to start vacation early…like how Seniors don’t have to take finals ), their finances in an absolute mess, and their coach potentially leaving, Barca is definitely a loser this season. Despite, as we have pointed out REPEATEDLY, having one of the most stacked sides in Europe (AND THE LITERAL GOAT THERE TO SCORE ALL THEIR GOALS), they said it was a “rebuilding year” from early on and essentially gave up before even starting. Can’t be a loser if you don’t try (insert head tapping meme here) While they are scoring Sergio Aguero (from Man City, in what the world is wondering might be the wildest trade of all time), they lack a cohesive structure and need to reform their mentality- it’ll be a HUGE summer transfer window for them.
Winner: Man City
So, yes, Man City are champions of the Premier League once again, making them literal winners (though they lost the Champion’s league, also making them literal losers), but they are also winners in a broader sense. They had a rough start to the season and overcame all the doubters to turn it around. In september, people were saying Pep Guardiola would be fired any day, now he is celebrating his 3rd title with the team. They also made their first ever UCL final. Cue Champion’s League Theme Song.
Loser: The Glazers
Hahahahaha remember the Super League? With Man U finishing the season in a glorious second place they’ve definitely not emerged losers, but the team and organization are definitely in deep turmoil. They had the Europa league title to vie for , but lost that on a WILD PENALTY SHOOTOUT but fans are deeply unhappy with the ownership and things have to change. They will probably try to sign someone flashy in the summer to make the fans forget that they’re evil, and the right player COULD make them a real contended next year.
Winner: Harry Kane
Prince Harry got what he needed from the royal family and got out when he felt it was time, and it looks like Harry Kane is following in his footsteps. Despite the Spurs having a very tough season, Harry Kane remained looking and playing pretty well, and now that he’s single & ready to mingle, the sky is the limit for him. Sorry to spurs fans (who are definitely a loser this season) (*sadly whispers come on you spurs)
Loser: Napoli
I said last week that I was going to be VERY DISAPPOINTED if Juventus got to be in the Champion’s League and GUESS WHAT. NAPOLI BOOFED IT. They played very well this month and had a much better goal differential but, alas, Juventus won out in the end because in soccer, rich evils always win out in the end. (and also they had an easier schedule, arguably, in the past two months, and they won this week, but, whatever). Sorry Naples, but on the bright side, maybe Ronaldo will leave!
Winner: Milan Twitter
After losing their minds for the majority of this season, AC Milan snuck out with a spot in the Champion’s League!!!!! You did it guys!!!! And I’m sure you could not have done it if your fans didn’t take to twitter to panic and slander the team any time they let a goal in. Bravo!
Winner: Erik Lamela’s Rabona
Best goal of the season, prove me wrong. Also I got to learn what a Rabona is!
Loser: Schalke
In case you missed it, because we stopped talking about it in March due to it being a BIG OL DOWNER, but Schalke was relegated from the Bundesliga after being the losingest team ACROSS ALL THE LEAGUES (that’s a fact I am just generally surmising from the fact that they had like 16 points at the end of the season, a point total that is WILDLY LOW). The team has been in the Bundesliga since 1991 (after a tumultuous 3 relegations in the 80s). In the 2010s, Schalke frequently finished second or third in the league (all this info is from their website’s milestones page, which ends abruptly in 2012). Anyways this year they finished, you guessed it, DEAD LAST after winning only THREE GAMES. THREE!!!!!! RIP to a real one good luck in the secondary bundesliga which is of course just called the 2.bundesliga, because, Germany.
Winner: Lewandowski
As we have been prepping you for in the past few soccer posts (which I am sure you all diligently read) Lewandowski BROKE MUELLER’S GOAL SCORING RECORD!!!!!!! This past weekend, in the 90th minute of a game against mid-table Augsburg, Robert Lewandowski scored his 41st goal of the season, breaking Gerd Mueller’s record from 49 YEARS AGO. Lewandowski was not even alive!!!! More on this here.
Loser: Lewandowski
Despite being a record breaking rock star on the greatest German team to ever exist past and present, the fans voted Haaland as their favorite & best player of the season. Fucking BRUTAL. Now he’s off to POLAND (rough) for the summer, to spend time as the Least Appreciated Player. As a Pole, he is used to sadness and gray skies though, so I’m sure he’ll be ok.
Loser: Racial Equality
This season was full of ups and downs (when AREN’T they!) and a big down was all the racially charged hate received by players on social media. Despite us thinking we had defeated racism last year when all the teams had their black armbands and BLM jerseys, turns out, racism is pretty entrenched !! From Wilfried Zaha & Marcus Rashford in the Premier league to Neymar, Valencia, and the shitshow that is Serie A, players were harassed consistently throughout the season and it’s…not great! This even led to a social media blackout by teams to raise awareness, but overall, not a great sign for racial equality. Wish I had a funny take here but it’s just a grim reality!
Winner: VACCINES
Though Europe is behind the U.S in vaccine rollout, it is HAPPENING and because of that fans got to RETURN TO MATCHES in several leagues over the last weekend of play. It also means that fans are returning to games here in the U.S which is GREAT NEWS for me and Katrina because now we can go cheer on our Gotham FC gals, and NYCFC (who we don’t actually like but it’s fun to watch a game of soccer on a baseball field)l, and Hartford FC. In fact, we are going to see Gotham FC vs OL Reign (yes the one WITH MEGAN RAPINOE) this weekend!!! If you can, get vaxxed, it’s worth it!!!!! Mbappe is doing it!!!!! (Brb bragging to everyone I know that I am fully vaccinated before this incredibly successful soccer player).
Loser: COVID
Last year, when all sports stopped, and we were stuck in our homes as a pandemic raged on outside, I think we all felt a little hopeless. Obviously, the impact of COVID 19 is much more serious and devastating than missing the end of a soccer season, and also, I know y’all are here for the hot takes and the hilarious bits, but honestly, sports are one of those things that really inspire hope. They put you on a rollercoaster of emotions, they’ll have you shouting at the TV at 7am on a Saturday morning, they’ll have plenty of fans in tears on any given day, but they give people something to believe in. Overcoming the limitations of COVID and getting through an 8 month season across the European leagues is nothing to scoff at, especially considering how hard hit most of these nations were. It was asking a lot of the players, the coaches, and the many other staff members involved in these leagues to put on a season, and they did it FOR THE FANS (who weren’t even there in person to encourage them/experience it) (well, and alos the money but!) and DESPITE THE COVID. So COVID loses, soccer wins, end of story, sorry for getting EMOTIONAL but this is essentially me signing the yearbook of a 2020-2021 season so, it comes with the territory.
Winners: Readers of THIS HERE BLOG
That’s right, YOU are all winners because you chose to challenge yourselves and learn more about the beautiful game. As Pope John Paul II was once (dubiously) quoted as saying: Football is the most important unimportant thing. (mad respect for my spiritual father!! Rip to a real one).Thanks for taking the journey with us through (half) of a season of a sport we actually like. Maybe, just maybe, the real champions of european soccer are the friends we made along the way.
Jk, the real champions will be crowned THIS SUMMER AT THE EUROS and we will be back to run that down for you before you know it. Until then, HAGS!!!
