The Importance of Sport (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Grant]

Watched the Champions League final after discovering I had HBO through Sky (who knew?).

Sad they lost but not really. I can see what you meant by the "hoofing" comments. I get that they had to play defensively but why, when they had the ball, were they so keen to boot it away? They surely didn't teach Arteta to do that at the Barcelona academy.

[Mick Harper]

I wasn't sad they lost, more 'unmoved'. It seemed to me to be a just result i.e. they were the team playing the better football but we gave a good account of ourselves.

The hoofing is clearly under managerial instruction but it is weird because when we were obliged not to, i.e. before we scored and after they had, we showed we could play quite good football, even if it was marginally less good than theirs.

That would be an unbeatable model for the future: an amazingly obdurate defence and a midfield and attack marginally less good than the best team in the world. It's just if Arteta hasn't worked that out yet, I can't see him working it out at all.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Cocklecarrot's Cup

The penalty won by PSG that ultimately delivered them victory was not seriously questioned by either side, by VAR or by the commentariat. It was by me. Ally McCoist had it right

[Grant]

HBO Max carries TNT Sports live coverage, and I've got HBO on my Sky subscription. Sky says it's free but I'm sure I pay for it somehow. Apparently it's all part of the Warner Bros Discovery ecosystem.

Modern telly is very complicated.

[Mick Harper]

Which package had the one showing Arsenal winning the shoot-out?

[Mick Harper]

It occurs to me AI could do this quite easily. It only requires the alteration of a few frames. You might opt for this kind of service or the National Health AI might decide you require it in your condition.

But hope is at hand. My package requires me take Sky Movies if I want TNT Sport and Netflix is thrown in free save for a coupla minutes of ads per film. Those ads are carefully targeted by their AI doodad. I get sanitary pads or top o' the line electric cars over and over.

[Mick Harper]

Suddenly everyone's got a new manager. Liverpool's nabbed their statutory Basque from Bournemouth, Chelsea have got top o' the line Xabi Alonso, City have got supposedly top o' the line Enzo Maresca and United have kept faith with surprise success Michael Carrick. Since we're dealing with the traditional Top Six, Spurs have got new/old wunderkind Roberto De Zerbi.

So where does that leave grizzled veteran been-there-forever Mikel Arteta? Has he got an open goal while his rivals get their feet under the table? Maybe not. It looks like his old rivals were a combination of over-the-hill's and Rolls Canardlies. Is he already a stale one-shot wonder? We must hope not.

One thing does worry me though. You never hear about other clubs 'making enquiries about Arteta', do you? Unless that's a good sign. Oh well, you never know, it may all be down to the players. There's a thought.

[Mick Harper]

Real Madrid are just about to get Konate from Liverpool on a free. Just like they got Trent-Alexander (virtually) free last year. They got Rudiger the same way. Not just defenders either. They got Mbappe for nothing and he was the most expensive footballer in the world! But how do they do it?

It's simple -- if illegal. They have a word with the agent. 'If you let your player run down his contract, we'll pay him top o' the line and here's something for your trouble.'

But why the agent? Why not the player? Well, for a start, footballers blab. Agents don't. Not if they've been back-handered. But it has to be the agent because agents never want their clients to run down their contract.

If they do, the little lamb can go anywhere and it'll either be somewhere he wants to go or whoever offers the most money. There's no transfer fee and there's no 'commission' for the bloke who was in the middle of the frenzy to sign him.

The fact that it is always in the player's interest to run down his contract because there is no transfer fee and therefore what he'll get in wages will reflect that. In other words he gets the transfer fee, not his club.

But why is it only Real Madrid that has hit on this device as a policy? Possibly because they can hide their dealings in and out better than most clubs. They are somewhat privileged in that way. Maybe they're just the most crooked but least afraid of anybody doing anything about it. Or perhaps it is the prospect of playing for Real Madrid that's important.

I'm not entirely sure.

[Mick Harper]

Josh Tongue was back in the England team at Lords yesterday, bowling against the New Zealanders. At one point, the commentator said, "Yes, Tongue's been in the groove, all right." I couldn't tell whether this was deliberate or not. You can deadpan the life out of a joke.

PS It was typical that the test season kicked off in the week after British temperatures had broken all records. They had an early lunch because of rain and finally went off for bad light.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Lord's is the 'home of cricket'. It is the most important cricketing venue in the world. Its most important task is to prepare twenty-two yards of grass upon which a bouncing cricket ball travelling at c 80 mph doesn't either rear up and hit a batsman in the throat or scuttle along the ground and hit his middle-and-off depending whether it pitches in one place or the same place a ball later.

Even I would get 5-37 with my dobbers and my name on the honours board. Unless it's all the bad weather we've been having lately. That can affect pitch preparation. Not where you are--it's been great weather--where they are. It may be what we microclimatologists call a 'microclimate'.

[Mick Harper]

Playing the same country at both cricket and football on the same day, as we did yesterday against New Zealand at Lord's and Tampa respectively is unusual. I venture to say, unique. But for an interestingly AE reason. No country in the world, except England, plays both cricket and football as their major summer and winter game respectively.

And talking of microclimates, I spent all day trying to judge whether I could slip out to do my weekly shop between showers, so I wasn't surprised they didn't get much play in at Lord's.

[Mick Harper]

Why There's A Goal Drought From Open Play

There's only two good ways of beating modern defences and that is by either dribbling your way through or intricately passing your way through. It only takes once or twice in a game to win that game.

Both these skills are on show in other parts of the pitch but, it seems, there are too many foreign bodies in the area to allow it in front of goal. One could urge them to practise it on the training ground but they would be up against defences practising how to prevent it on the training ground.

But it wouldn't be necessary if goals could be scored from outside the box. If they could, defences would have to move up to stop them, thereby creating enough space inside the box for dribbly wall-passing.

[Mick Harper]

They should test it out in the Isthmian League or somesuch. But they won't because I (and now you) are the only people who know.