BEHIND THE PLAY #46

Being wrong is good okay not great but can definitely be beneficial

I read quite a few newsletters. Some out of genuine interest in the topic and some to get ideas around format. It seems that there’s a golden but silent rule around certainty in what you write. I’ve never been a proponent of that. Questioning your decisions, impressions, ideas in retrospect is healthy. Acknowledging mistakes and new positions, for me, makes you more credible than presenting as omniscient and also means you’re open to personal growth.

So here’s some things I’ve been wrong about in the recent and not so recent past as it relates the game.

Jesse Marsch

It wasn’t (just) that he was American though that clearly stood out as a concern. It just felt a bit too much like we were a convenient layover that would allow him to bridge between being released by Leeds and whatever his agent could dig up next for him. I just couldn’t see us being a priority for him. That was clearly not the case and three things made that clear.

The first was that it was clear he had taken the job on the promise that resources would be committed to the team and that was shown by an extensive and expensive preparation for the Copa America in Europe featuring games against Holland and France; teams of a calibre we had never seemed to be able to get friendlies against in the past. He must have made it clear to the CSA that he would only do this if their ambition matched his.

The next was the bronze medal game at the Copa against Uruguay. Keep in mind the CSA was and, I’m told, still is in serious financial straits and the prize money at the Copa was a significant and needed cash injection. The difference between winning and losing the third place game was $1,000,000. Marsch started Dayne St Claire in goal. He hadn’t played a minute in the tournament. He also gave starts to Luc de Fougerolles who hadn’t played and to Ali Ahmed and Tani Oluwaseyi who had seen very limited playing time. With those decisions he showed he was prepared to build relationships with the squad at the expense of building equity with the CSA heirarchy.

The third was when Gregg Berhalter was released after the Copa America. At the earliest opportunity he got in front of the media and said he had zero interest in the position and threw a few digs at the USSF while re-affirming his commitment to the men’s national team. It was smart, necessary, genuine and ballsy.

I was wrong about him and I’m both impressed with what he’s done in a short period of time and glad he’s the one leading the team now.

That the CSA’s National Youth Club License would force clubs to be better

The club I work for got its National Youth Club License in late 2019. It involved meeting 142 criteria in categories like Administrative, Technical, Governance, Financial. It held club’s feet to the fire and there are follow up Action Plans that we have to submit as individual criteria are made more difficult and more are added. The last Action Plan had over 180 criteria.

While it does make clubs better, particularly if they truly commit to it and see it as a guiding tool if the really want to be better, there’s still too much latitude given to those who are content to scrape by and spend more time looking for workarounds than committing to what is actually expected of a License holder. It’s not having the effect that it should and that I thought it would on the youth game and its frustrating.

The Copa America would be boring compared to the Euro

There was nothing wrong with the Euro. It was excellent. But the Copa America was an eye opener that I didn’t see coming. Incredibly entertaining. It was the difference between a punk show at the Rickshaw Theatre and Taylor Swift at BC Place. You felt at any time almost anything could happen at the Copa on or off the field and it often did in wild, primal ways. South America is different. The one South America vs South America game I saw at the 2014 World Cup made that clear. Colombia vs Uruguay at the Maracana was like no atmosphere I’d experienced before or have since. That was the Copa on a daily basis. The fact that we, Canada, were in it and I’d gone to Atlanta to see us play Argentina in the opening game naturally made me more invested in it but it was an incredible spectacle from that first game through to the anarchy of the final with supporters without tickets breaking through security to get in.

Rodri may actually be that good

I’ve had a couple Tweets along those lines. I’m not a fan of the Balon D’or period but Rodri having a moan in 2023 about not being a finalist put me off him a bit. I’ve watched him carefully and while De Bruyne is showing signs of declined augmented by injuries, it was crazy to me that he’d never been in contention and yet Rodri thought he was being passed over.

Hop forward to current times that have seen Manchester City virtually fall apart recently. Yes, it’s true that they went undefeated through August after his ACL injury on September 22 vs Arsenal but look at the opponents: Watford (EFL Cup), Newcastle (draw), Slovan Bratislava (UCL), Fulham, Wolves, Sparta Prague (UCL) and Southampton. But as Manchester legend-fallen-from-grace Morrissey might be saying ‘November spawned a monster’ with City losing five in a row before drawing one across the same three competitions in November and then losing to Liverpool yesterday.

Yes, City have been missing some other players in that time (De Bruyne didn’t start any of them but came on as a sub in the last four) but credit to Rodri he sets the tone for the team in possession and his calming influence is badly missed right now.

I’m not fully convinced that Rodri is the best player in the world but I was wrong about his importance to City and to Spain in the Euro.

Real Madrid, with recent signings, would crush everyone this season and for the next decade

That’s what I thought and had been saying.

It’s not just that they’ve signed almost all of the most talented young players in the world to set themselves up for a dynastic run, it’s because Ancelotti has shown himself to be a master in man-management and setting his side up to be successful despite those great players often coming with even greater egos.

They are of course defending Champions League and La Liga champs but are currently sitting in second behind Barca in the league table and a far more disturbing 24th in the new 36 team Champions League table. 24th is the last spot to advance to the knockout round. They have games against fifth place Atalanta, 11th place Brest and 32nd place Salzburg remaining.

Expectations, including mine, were clearly higher with Mbappe and Endrick being added to the roster this season but it’s not happening yet.

Review: A Team Called Spain - The Road to the 4th Win

It does feel like something was lost in translation with that clunky title but having watched many of these event-driven football documentaries, I’ll tolerate an awkward title for quality content any day and this delivers on that front.

This four part series on Spain’s remarkable success at this summer’s 2024 Euro came out last Friday (November 29) and I binged it all that night. This is not dumbed-down ‘try to appeal to people who don’t normally like soccer stuff’ documentary. It’s a pretty intense look at Spain while at the Euro with an emphasis on team and staff dynamics, considerably more tactical discussion than you’d normally see and all told with no or virtually no narration (in other words I’m not sure but don’t remember any). Player and staff personalities shine through with an emphasis on the friendship between Nico Williams and Lamine Yamal, who were 21 and 16 when the tournament started and both had birthdays just before the Final.

Luis de la Fuente, Spain’s manager, comes across as a subtle genius. His management of the players through a one month tournament is amazing and the willingness to let his staff shine and play significant roles in the team’s success underscores his confidence in both them and himself.

The series sets itself up nicely with quotes from Spanish media at their savage best. Known to be incredibly critical they pan the team’s chances and de la Fuente’s squad picks. Later references to headlines shows that bandwagon-ism is as prevalent in Spain as it is in most countries.

Lots of great footage from the games which also served as a reminder that this must have been one of the most brutal pathways to a major title in the game’s history. Seven games that included Croatia, Italy, host Germany, France and then England in the Final.

Four episodes, all between 30 and 35 minutes. In Spanish with subtitles. Available on Amazon Prime.