Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 8

Brazil return to their roots with appointment of Carlo Ancelotti | Jonathan Wilson

Five-time World Cup winners have their first foreign coach but it reconnects them to a tradition that made them great

On Friday, against Ecuador in Guayaquil, Carlo Ancelotti will become the first foreigner to take sole charge of Brazil. For any major country to turn to a foreign coach is always an admission of failure. Apart from England, the only other country to turn to a foreign coach after winning the World Cup is Uruguay, which has a population of 3.5 million, and they didn’t do so for half a century after last lifting the trophy (the Argentinians Daniel Passarella in 1999 until 2001 and Marcelo Bielsa from 2023 to today). But the truth is that Brazilian coaching has been in retreat for some time.

The situation is stark. The Brazilian league is by far the wealthiest in South America. Brazilian sides have won the past six Copas Libertadores, and have beaten other Brazilian sides in four of those six finals. Yet four of the past six Brazilian titles have been won by Portuguese coaches while Otto Glória, who led Benfica to the 1968 European Cup final, remains the only Brazilian to have been successful at elite club level in Europe.

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Aston Villa’s Champions League miss wasn’t just about one bad call | Jonathan Wilson

Unai Emery’s team will have to make do with the Europa League next season but they were culpable for many of the steps that led them there

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A season reduced to a single moment – in Aston Villa’s case, perhaps even more than a season. The Manchester United goalkeeper Altay Bayindir slid out to gather the ball. He fumbled, slightly, allowing Morgan Rogers to poke the ball away from him. The referee Thomas Bramall thought Bayindir had had the ball under control and blew for a free-kick just before Rogers knocked the ball into the empty net. Replays showed decisively that Bayindir never had the ball under control. But because Bramall had stopped the game before Rogers put the ball over the line, the goal could not be given by the video assistant referee.

Three minutes later, Amad Diallo put United ahead, his team went on to win, and Villa finished sixth in the Premier League, meaning they are out of next season’s Champions League. Given how close Villa have pushed the line on Profit & Sustainability Rules (PSR), that could have significant ramifications.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.

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Premier League final-day drama and a Sunderland hangover: Football Weekly - podcast

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson, and Robyn Cowen to unpack the final day of the Premier League season

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On the podcast today: the Premier League wraps with a subdued scramble for fifth, but there’s outrage at Old Trafford as Aston Villa’s disallowed goal prompts a formal complaint to the PGMOL. Despite Emi Martínez’s error and red card, Villa’s Champions League hopes are dashed, while Newcastle, Chelsea, and Manchester City secure their spots.

Elsewhere, Forest fall to Chelsea and slide into the Conference League, Liverpool celebrate Salah’s golden season, and Brighton crush Spurs in a final flourish. There’s love for Aberdeen’s Scottish Cup triumph, Arsenal’s Women’s Champions League glory, and a curtain call for Trent Alexander-Arnold at Anfield. Plus: Will Still’s Saints, Wolves’ Sunday League special, and Football Weekly’s very own end-of-season awards – with a healthy dose of Black Cats joy.


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Premier League finale is far from perfect but buoyant middle class brings the noise | Jonathan Wilson

Six of Sunday’s 10 games potentially have something riding on them – testament to the English elite’s enduring rude health

In a perfect world, what would the final day of the Premier League season look like? You’d have two sides going for the title – perhaps three or even four, all playing teams of similar standard and motivation. You’d have maybe six teams contesting the three relegation slots, possibly playing each other, and also a skirmish for European qualification.

Ideally all 10 games would mean something and there should be times over the course of the afternoon when each side have the set of results they need to achieve their aims. And there should definitely be a moment when it becomes apparent that a harassed television presenter has forgotten or overlooked a goal so viewers can mutter furiously at the screen: “For heavens’ sake, that puts Brentford in ninth.”

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Manchester United face urgent dilemma: ditch Amorim or revamp the squad | Jonathan Wilson

Not many at Old Trafford are suited to the manager’s trusty 3-4-2-1 but replacing them will cost hundreds of millions

Everything always seems clearer in the morning, and in the cold grey light of Thursday, the prognosis for Manchester United is bleak. While Tottenham face an awkward calculation – weighing up whether the delirium of a first European trophy in 41 years offsets their worst league season in terms of proportion of games lost – for Manchester United the equation is far starker.

Ruben Amorim will only play in one way. He is committed absolutely, uncompromisingly, irrevocably to the 3-4-2-1. Liverpool considered him, looked at their squad, realised the two things did not go together, appointed Arne Slot and won the league. Manchester United looked at their squad, flinched at the horror, and seem to have reasoned it was such a mess that it was impossible to find a manager whose philosophy would fit. There was a dissenting voice, Dan Ashworth, but at the court of Sir Jim Ratcliffe, reasoned doubts are as unwelcome as a free lunch.

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Spurs prevail with Mourinho blueprint and ultra pragmatism in baffling final | Jonathan Wilson

Ange Postecoglou moved away from his attacking style while Brennan Johnson earned the sweetest vindication

Finals are not for the playing; they’re for the winning. Who cares about the spectacle? Who cares about the quality? At some level football is always more about the narrative and the drama than technical mastery. Tottenham certainly will cheerily ignore what a shambolic game of football this was as they bask in their first trophy since 2008, their first in European competition in 40 years. Glory comes in many forms, and just because this might not be how Danny Blanchflower sanctioned it, does not mean this was not, in its own way, glorious.

But it was a baffling game. For the third round in a row, Tottenham prevailed with a sort of ultra pragmatism. Ange Postecoglou always wins a trophy in his second season, a fact of which he has delighted in reminding everybody. It just seems odd that it took him that long to move away from his characteristic attacking, high-pressing style to a blueprint José Mourinho might have left behind in a drawer. Ange stared into the Barclays, but the Barclays stared back far harder into him.

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Europa League final lineup has been roundly mocked but it still matters

The struggles of Tottenham and Manchester United in the league leave this game meaning nothing and everything

Gatwick on Tuesday morning was full of Spurs fans. They were in the Pret a Manger, they were in the Pizza Express, they were in the Wagamama, but mostly they were standing gawping at the destination board, which featured a baffling number of Vueling flights to Bilbao, a squeezing of the schedule that led to inevitable delays and confusion.

The queue for the three open booths at passport control in Bilbao was a vast python of white shirts, speckled with the occasional tree green or purple. The bus into town was almost entirely Spurs, with a handful of businessmen and a bewildered older couple returning from their holidays, who admitted they had no idea their city was hosting a major European final.

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Soccer still has the power to leave us in tears. I should know

Whether fans were celebrating, saying goodbye to an old home or remembering those no longer with us, the game’s power was on show this weekend

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What was striking on Saturday, after Crystal Palace had beaten Manchester City to win the FA Cup, was how many people were in tears. The camera roamed the stands, capturing the images of Palace fans in disbelief after winning their first ever major trophy. Some were hugging those next to them, some waved their arms incoherently and others just stared, overcome. But a significant proportion were sobbing. Soccer can often seem an angry game, with crowds fuelled by rage; this was something very different, very hard to explain.

Palace’s pre-match tifo had shown an image of a father hugging his two sons in the stand at Old Trafford after Darren Ambrose had scored a 35-yard drive there for Palace in a League Cup quarter-final in 2011-12. It turned out the two lads were among the Palace fans at Wembley and that their father had passed away in the intervening 13 years. They were, needless to say, also in tears.

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The bin fire strikes back: United and Spurs’ song for Europe is a bit of tasteless fun | Jonathan Wilson

Wednesday’s all-English Europa League final in Bilbao is a huge game that shows football still has a sense of humour

The best thing about football is what a silly, mercurial game it is. You can have all the money or political clout in the world. You can put in place meticulously thought-out projects. You can think and prepare and invest and plan, and football will still spit out a Europa League final between Tottenham and Manchester United. Strategise that.

Thousands will travel to Bilbao without tickets, many will end up sleeping rough, the phone network may collapse. It will be chaotic and anarchic and at its heart will be a game between two teams desperate for victory, whose presence in the final is utterly bewildering. And in that bonkersness may lie brilliance.

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Guardiola pays for overthinking again as striking decisions cost City FA Cup | Jonathan Wilson

Manchester City manager lost the mind games battle with Oliver Glasner and made odd tactical choices at Wembley

A vintage FA Cup season had its vintage ending. Perhaps a second half that didn’t live up to the extraordinary drama of the first meant that this wasn’t quite a classic final, but it was one packed with incident and storyline, from Jean-Philippe Mateta’s glorious return after his horror injury at Millwall, to a missed penalty, a heroic goalkeeper inspired by the memory of his late father and a debutant substitute.

And at its heart, well as Crystal Palace played, was Pep Guardiola making a series of decisions so striking they could not but raise the familiar spectre of overthinking.

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