Jonathan Liew's Blog, page 17

Emery has tools to fix Aston Villa but overloaded Watkins needs support | Jonathan Liew

Hosts’ struggle to break down Juventus showed extent of the burden being shouldered by England forward

So. A football match definitely happened. This much at least we can be sure of. I have a lanyard, a programme and a set of cryogenically frozen fingers to verify that fact. Other people were here too, I think. I can sort of remember noises. Vague rasping noises. Disappointed noises. The noise you make when you’ve paid £97 to watch Federico Gatti make back-passes.

But already the actual memories of the event are beginning to evaporate, like a quick-drying paint, like the last thing you see before you go under general anaesthetic. Did Emiliano Martínez do something? Was Alessandro Del Piero on the pitch at some point? Hang on, it’s going blurry. Can no longer feel legs. Can no longer feel anything. Just floating. Orbs through space. Still floating. So nice here. So nice.

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Khéphren Thuram on father Lilian: ‘It’s a beautiful thing – listening to him makes me grow’

The Juventus midfielder discusses his father’s activism, what Thierry Henry always told him and how Douglas Luiz views the challenge of facing Aston Villa

“I don’t know if it was destiny,” says a beaming Khéphren Thuram over a video call from Turin, but all the same he can glimpse a certain poetry in his journey. Born in Italy, the son of the great Juventus defender Lilian Thuram, now running the midfield in those same black and white stripes. “It’s a beautiful story,” he says. “People outside see the romance in it. But I’m just doing my job.”

On Wednesday his job takes him to Villa Park in the Champions League, the first time the 23‑year‑old will play competitively on English soil. Not that he will be underprepared. His teammate Douglas Luiz has already briefed him on their forthcoming opponents. “We speak about Aston Villa,” Thuram says. “He told me he had a great time over there, that the fans are great. And I watch a lot of Premier League. It’s going to be a good game.”

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Two Lukes lead new darts era both deeply trivial and deathly serious

Luke Littler and world champion Luke Humphries are the stars of an ever-expanding cultural phenomenon

There are plant burgers and arancini on sleek dark plates. There is a beer mat with the face of Brendan Dolan on it. In one corner of the room Michael van Gerwen is being interviewed by Troy Deeney live on TalkSport. In another an influencer called JaackMaate is filming a video for his YouTube channel.

Dave Allen, the press chief at the Professional Darts Corporation, remembers the first time they held a media launch before the world championship. It was 2008, Phil Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld and Sid Waddell dressed as Santa Claus, holding a huge novelty dartboard. A handful of people turned up, a few photos were taken, and then everyone packed up and went home.

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The two Lukes headline new darts era that is both deeply trivial and deathly serious

Luke Littler and world champion Luke Humphries are the stars of an ever-expanding cultural phenomenon

There are plant burgers and arancini on sleek dark plates. There is a beer mat with the face of Brendan Dolan on it. In one corner of the room Michael van Gerwen is being interviewed by Troy Deeney live on TalkSport. In another an influencer called JaackMaate is filming a video for his YouTube channel.

Dave Allen, the press chief at the Professional Darts Corporation, remembers the first time they held a media launch before the world championship. It was 2008, Phil Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld and Sid Waddell dressed as Santa Claus, holding a huge novelty dartboard. A handful of people turned up, a few photos were taken, and then everyone packed up and went home.

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Manchester City obsess over projection while neglecting fundamentals | Jonathan Liew

The champions are increasingly concerned with how things are portrayed and the basics appear to be an afterthought

Still, at least Manchester City can now concentrate on the Ballon d’Or. There was a lavish celebration for the world’s best player before this game: the word RODRI illuminated in giant letters on the pitch like a Vegas cabaret show, City’s injured midfield linchpin holding his trophy aloft as fireworks lit the night sky. The tailoring was immaculate; the audiovisuals impressive; the crowd rapt.

And then came a game of football, in which the champions were beaten 4-0 by a team with Radu Dragusin and Ben Davies at centre-half. It was City’s biggest home defeat in more than two decades: the sort of result that draws small involuntary gasps, that causes spectators to get their phones out and zoom in on the scoreboard, capturing for posterity this curious rip in the space‑time fabric.

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Pep Guardiola enters siege stage after recommitting to Manchester City | Jonathan Liew

Adversity stirs something primal in him, so it is no surprise the manager chose to sign a new contract now

“Come here guys, come here,” shouts Pep Guardiola as the Manchester City players gather in the dressing room of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. It’s 0-0 at half-time, the Premier League title is slipping away and the energy levels are frail, bordering dead.

Kevin De Bruyne dabs sweat from his brow. Erling Haaland urges his teammates to keep going. An unseen staff member asks whether anyone is still in the toilets. It feels somehow fitting that this question does not come from Guardiola. Great orators should not have to corral their audience out of the can in advance.

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Sport may be a blunt tool of social change, but it’s time to take a stand against Israel | Jonathan Liew

As the bombing continues in Gaza, the inaction of bodies such as Fifa and the IOC becomes a glaring, conscious choice

Probably you already know what this is. Probably before you read a word of it, you decided what it was, where you stand on it, how you’re going to feel about it. The headline, there’s your first clue. Maybe you recognised the name of the writer and drew your own conclusions. And of course there’s the Guardian masthead at the top, the world’s leading bat‑signal for wet liberals, so already there’s a self‑selecting audience there.

Or maybe you came via a social media link that already told you what to expect. Necessary, vital, powerful. Great piece by so-and-so. A shocking antisemitic screed by an unashamed Jew-hater. Sides are taken. Feelings are felt. Minds are not changed.

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Amorim arrives as Guardiola extends stay in Manchester – Football Weekly Extra podcast

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Jonathan Liew to preview the Premier League action this weekend

Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.

On the podcast today; Pep Guardiola will stay at Manchester City beyond this season. The panel debate whether it is good for the Premier League and how it will affect the players before their game against Spurs on Saturday.

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‘I’ve stumbled deep into alien territory’: our sportswriters and arts critics swap jobs

What would happen if our arts critics and sports writers swapped roles for a day? How does the English National Opera compare to the Premier League … or the NFL to a West End musical? Our experts found out last week

Plenty unites the Guardian’s sports reporters and cultural critics. Both make a living observing the apex of physicality. They have to make sense of what they’ve seen at lightning speed to meet deadlines. So why not swap gigs for the day? The sports team were delighted to be working in warm venues; the critics unabashed about their disregard for the rules of the game. But more importantly, genuinely striking insights ensued, whether about Elton John’s appearance at Dua Lipa’s gig being the equivalent of Aston Villa making a Hail Mary sub of Jhon Durán, or the rugby ball being like a black hole sucking the players into its orbit. Perhaps we need to open transfer season between desks more often. Laura Snapes

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Marcel Desailly: ‘I don’t know if I was a star, but I’m now a legend’

The World Cup winner has firm grip on the game’s pulse and praises those players taking on the right in his native France

“I love watching the Championship,” Marcel Desailly says. “Usually I don’t watch a full 90 minutes unless I’m working on a game in the studio. But I love to watch 90 minutes of Championship matches. The intensity is just incredible. And technically, they can really play.”

Perhaps this was not what you were expecting to hear from a winner of the Champions League with Marseille and Milan, the World Cup and European Championship with France, an imperious defender who spent most of his career at the very highest levels of the game. But in many ways Desailly has always been an instinctively counterintuitive figure. He left Serie A when it was the best league in the world and moved to Chelsea, who weren’t even the best club in London. He moved to Qatar in the mid-2000s, long before it became a global footballing powerhouse.

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