Football is Corrupt; Penalty Shootouts RULE

It’s been a moment since we talked about some good old fashioned across the pond futbol, and that’s mostly because it’s the time of year where they play a lot of stupid tournaments that sort of mean nothing. Besides the fact that most of these aren’t on regular TV (Damn u ESPN+ for denying me the glory of watching Liverpool-Chelsea in the Carabao Cup, more on that in a moment), there’s just too much going on to follow, and at the end of the day most of these cups are just something a coach can hold up to say “hey, look, I won a trophy for your team, don’t fire me!”. Today alone there is 5th round action of the FA Cup, a Milan derby in the first leg (Why 2? Dunno!) of the coppa d’italia, a regular Premier League game, a regular la liga game plus some copa del rey shit, and that’s just too much football! We’re going to do our best to recap it all for you, because we’re alllllmost to the part where things get really exciting. Plus: Football got political this week and while this is not a place for politics (lol, as if!) , we’re going to rundown what that means.

In the Champions League… (THE CHAAAAAMPPIOOOONNNNNNNSSSSSSS)

If the UCL theme doesn’t play in your head every time you think of this dumb little league, I pity you, because it is a Level 10 Banger of an anthem. Lucky us we got to hear it again as Champion’s League action RETURNED with the first leg of the quarterfinals (first of two), in which, thanks to a new rule, away goals are not worth more! That means if you score two goals at your opponents stadium, and then in the next game they score two game at your stadium, you have to play extra time. Wild to play extra time in a game where the score is 2-0, but I guess in theory that’s vaguely less confusing than the away goals situation. ANYWAY, PSG won 1-0 at home against Real Madrid, a scoreline that is not enough to assure victory with the second leg yet unplayed, but still an important win. I will give y’all one chance to guess who scored that one goal…here’s a hint he is responsible for all of PAris’ goals right now! More on that in a moment! The other french side still in play, Lille, didn’t do as well, getting a proper thrashing by Chelsea 2-0. Man City also flexed their muscles, beating Sporting Lisbon 5-0 (a scoreline that pretty much DOES assure victory despite the second leg remaining unplayed), and Liverpool notched up a 2-0 win against Inter Milan as well. It’s a good time to be a premier league club in the champion’s league! The rest of the match ups were draws, which sets up a lot of Winner Take All matches for next week- Atletico & Man United, Bayern & RB Salzburg, Ajax & Benefica, and Villareal & Juventus will face off and I hope to GOSH we get some penalty shootouts.

In The Premier League…

Far too much has happened since we last wrote, dear reader. Liverpool is the only team with the potential to challenge Man City to a title race, just 6pts behind with a game in hand. We could have a title race on our hands folks, and according to the Haters, Jurgen Klopp desperately needs one. Headed into the Carabao Cup final against Chelsea, pundits set up this narrative about how Thomas Tuchel has won all these trophies since coming on as manager for the blues, and WHEN was the last time Klopp won ANYTHING?!?!? Which obviously is unfair because Klopp has created in Liverpool one of the most joyful teams in all of sport, a group of players that delivers incredible goals and play ona weekly basis, but GOD FORBID HE DOESNT WIN A MEANINGLESS TROPHY. Clearly haters are his motivators, because Klopp’s squad went on to play an exciting 0-0 draw (sounds like an oxymoronm but in this case it’s not, it was a thriller), push the cup final to extra time, and go on to win in penalties, which btw was 21 penalties (the GOALIES TOOK SHOTS), because, why not! Let’s hope they ride that momentum and take down the hope of Man City. The other main battle is for spots in European play (ain’t that ALWAYS the case), with Chelsea (who have Christian Pulisic playing incredibly well, and Romeli Lukaku playing incredibly on the bench), West Ham, Arsenal (??? literally where did they come from?) and Man United all within five points of third. Man United is in the news every other day because Ralf (their russian temporary coach) keeps having supposed beef with Ronaldo, and the players aren’t happy, and there’s just a lot of gossiping happening, which cannot bode well for the culture of this squad. Wild that a team THAT talented cannot get their shit together, but if they are looking for advice I would tell them to stop letting their aged 36 year old Ronaldo take every damn free kick, he is playing like trash!

I wish that was it and we could move on but I would be failing you if we didn’t do a quick rundown of the BOTTOM of the table, where it is looking pretty solidly that Norwich & Watford will be heading to Relegation. Currently Burnley sits in the third relegation spot, but Everton (honestly, I think for everyone’s sake Everton should just get relegated and work on themselves for awhile), a team who just fired their once beloved manager Leeds United, and our sweetheart team and new home of Christian Eriksen, The Brentford Bees, all hovering just above the dangerous zone. le stress!

In Ligue Un…

Last weekend marked a return to normalcy after some seriously wacky upsets in Ligue 1 the week before, and while this might be the only league in Europe right now with zero trace of a title race (said that just for the rhyme to be honest with y’all), there’s still a lot of spicy action happening in the ol’ farmers league. PSG went to ASSE (ass ass ass ass), and, if anywhere is a guaranteed confidence booster, it’s St. Etienne! They DID allow an early goal, but Mbappe came back with 2 more and Pereira hopped in for one as well. Bittersweet to watch Mbappe thrive right now, knowing there’s nothing we can do to keep him, but him and Messi are a duo on the field that our past selves could only dream of, so at least we will have these memories in the dark days ahead. That’s right I mentioned Messi, who contributed to the assists to Mbappe’s goals. For the record, I am not going to HEAR any disrespect on Lio’s name, he was at the same club for 17 years so it is going to take time for him to become a big goal scorer here, especially considering he is VERY small (in general, but specifically in the french league) and kinda old! So what if he’s more of a play maker than a goal scorer! I am okay with that! Elsewhere en France, Nice has the best defensive record of the year with a heck ton of shutouts, and they are in a hotly contested race for third with Strasbourg and Lens. Marseille sits right above them but has struggled as of late, losing to Clermont two weeks ago (ah yes, our other favorite team, Clermont foot, definitely something we heard of before this year), and only managing a draw at Troyes. At the bottom of the table, Bordeaux seems destined to go down but they’re fighting tooth and nail not to, and they’re tied at 22pts with Troyes, ASSE, and Metz.

In Serie A…

There are no easy games my friends! This week lacked a lot of goals but made up for it in red cards, and currently we are feeling as if no one wants to win this title this year. Every time we get a contender on a streak, they’ll draw against Genoa (Inter, this past week), or lose to Calgari (Torino, who are actually more midtable, but you get it). For their part, the bottom of the table teams such as Venezia (god forbid this team gets relegated after the incredible kits they put together this year, but they’ve invested in some veterans to help boost their squad), Salernitana (just got a new coach, on a bounce right now), and Spezia are doing everything they can to avoid relegation. The thriller of this past weekend was all about Napoli-Lazio, a classic seven sisters match up that did not disappoint, every goal was incredible, I was shook at the highlights footage, and now Napoli is in first place. Drama!!!

In La Liga…

It is a good season to be a team that keeps it Real my friends. Real Madrid still sits atop the table, surprise contender Real Betis sits in third, Real Society in 6th, and villaReal in 7th. Sevilla is making a solid chase of it for the title however, and their win over Betis this past weekend didn’t hurt. You might be wondering, where are all the teams we know? Well, Barcelona is still a little bit in their flop era (they’re talking about creating their own Crypto….the male equivalent of getting bangs), but they had a GREAT win over Athletic Club this weekend, with goals coming from Memphis Depay, Ousmane Dembele, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyeng, and Luuk de Jong- all of whom have grown into great form recently and two of whom are recent additions so… trust the process! They’re also still in the race for Europa league thanks to a win over Napoli, so things are coming up Barca! Atletico Madrid is less fortunate, not quite in a flop era but definitely going through a bit of an identity crisis. After spending their whole career (life? idk what you call the time a club has been around) in the shadow of Real Madrid, current manager Diego Simeone coached these boys with an underdog mentality straight to their league winning season last year, and now that they’ve reached the top, they just don’t know who they are anymore. They still act like underdogs (they’re scrappy for sure), but they’re a billion dollar enterprise and at some point, that mentality is going to have to change. They beat Celta Vigo this past weekend but the stats from that game tell a different story- low pass accuracy, not a lot of shots on target, very little possession. On top of that, they’re currently are in 5th (outside of the places for European football), so clearly something’s got to give.

In the Bundesliga…

Listened to my monthly German football podcast for the first time in a long time, and the breaking news is that baby nothing has gotten better over there. At one point they were like “our mailbag is full of questions about the second tier of German football” and to those people, I am on my KNEES searching for an explanation. How could you care so much about such a boring thing!!!! Anyways there is a bit of drama to unpack, not in the title race, where bayern is 8 points clear ahead and I know better than to get my hopes up about these sorts of things, but in 1) the culture at Dortmund and 2) in the fan bases. Borussia Dortmund has established itself in past years as one of the best training grounds for young players, allowing them to blossom into superstars and then making a shit ton of cash by selling them off (see: Christian Pulisic). However, they’re also the best chance anyone in Germany has to seeing Bayern fall, and their complete lack of interest in building an actual team is starting to grind the gears of everyone outside of their front office. Clearly they’ve got to figure something else out, because their model of play is not sustainable, and their about to lose Haaland (and possibly Gio Reyna) this summer. Currently they’re still in the running for the Europa league title, which honestly is something they definitely should go for, because jesus christ these boys deserve some trophies! The other issue over in Germany is that the new head of the league, Donata Hopfen, who has already established herself as pretty Anti-Fan Ownership and also maybe very pro saudi arabia? Who knows, but in a time when clubs are desperate to get back the revenue of fans attending games, maybe we shouldn’t be talking so much shit about them???

In the latest episode of Football is Corrupt…

In case you missed it, there’s a war going on. And in case you forgot, we live in a pretty connected world with both parties of that conflict, but Europe has much closer ties and a lot more to answer to when it comes to how to treat Russia right now. Never the ones to make a statement, or do anything at all that could take a cent out of their own pockets, FIFA did a bit of a Wait And See tactic last week while Russia was busy committing atrocities in Ukraine. They didn’t say much about it, despite the fact that sports are undeniably intertwined with Russia’s attempt to achieve international dominance: Putin has made it clear, throughout his time in power, that he sees sporting competitions as avenues of prestige and lucrative opportunities for his oligarchic support network. Hence his push for the 2014 Olympics, his triumph of hosting the World Cup (and rigging it in case y’all forgot!), and his VERY close ties with Gianni Infantino, head of FIFA. However, the federation’s hand was forced by people MUCH braver and less corrupt than them: Polish National team members spoke out and officially refused to play in their upcoming world cup qualifier against Russia, other countries followed suit, and FIFA realized they might actually have to do something for once. They took the Champion’s League final away from St. Petersburg, moving it to Paris. They at first were going to let Russians play under a different name (a la the IOC’s deal with this whole Russian Olympic Committee shit), but got too much backlash, and had to ban them completely. Russian officials still sit on a lot of Gianni’s boards though, so not clear how much of a victory any of this really is. Speaking of! The other scandal here is the Chelsea is currently owned by Roman Abramovic, who is Russian if you cannot tell by his name, and a low key bestie of Vlad Putin, and he’s being sanctioned and maybe forced to sell the club. This one’s a very tedious and still developing story, but definitely something to keep an eye on.

Meanwhile, footballers continue to be brave and use their platforms as forces for good: Across the leagues this past weekend many teams & players showed messages of support for Ukraine and spoke out against the war, and reader, I cried every time. John Green often uses the quote “Football is the most important least important thing” and when the world around us is crumbling, it’s nice to take comfort in this stupid little sport.