Jonathan Liew's Blog, page 74
March 31, 2022
Wolfsburg’s Jill Roord helps knock former club Arsenal out of WCL
A harsh lesson for Arsenal, perhaps even a reckoning of sorts. Defeat at Hoffenheim could be written off as an aberration and their humbling by Barcelona excused by the sheer class of the opposition. But on a freezing night in Lower Saxony there was no escape from the cold reality that Arsenal – and by extension, the English club game as a whole – is still some way short of where it needs to be.
Jill Roord and an own goal by Leah Williamson put Wolfsburg firmly into the semi-finals of the Champions League. In truth, they dominated without even being at their best. Certainly they will need to raise their game several notches to trouble the brilliant Barcelona Femení in the last four. But their quick, enterprising, hard-running game was more than good enough here, a reinforcement of the old truth that a team with a plan will usually beat a team with none.
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March 30, 2022
‘Everything is at stake’: Arsenal must scale Wolfsburg’s green wall in WCL
Jonas Eidevall has watched back the tapes and crunched the numbers. He reckons 1-1 in the first leg was a fair result. But, crucially, the Arsenal coach also feels they have room for improvement in the second leg on Thursday and in a Champions League quarter-final that may be decided on the finest of margins that could just be enough.
It is nine years since Arsenal graced the semi-finals of the biggest club competition in women’s football. Lotte Wubben-Moy’s 89th-minute equaliser last week has made their task a good deal easier, particularly given away goals will not apply. But standing in their way is the green wall of Wolfsburg, a team in their own rhythm and winning groove, unbeaten in 14 competitive games and gracing Wolfsburg’s main VW Stadium for the first time since 2013.
Continue reading...World Cup qualifiers decided, England win and laser pens – Football Weekly
Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Paul Watson and Jonathan Liew after World Cup qualifiers were decided and England beat Ivory Coast
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On the podcast today; England beat Ivory Coast 3-0 at Wembley – but what can we learn from the game? Especially after Serge Aurier’s red card. The conversation about supporting the England team started by Barney on Monday’s show continues.
Continue reading...March 29, 2022
West Indies deserve better than supporting role in England melodrama | Jonathan Liew
As the finger of blame jabs in all directions, England are hampered above all by a misguided sense of exceptionalism
Nobody ever beats England. England only ever lose of their own accord, by their own hand, from their own failings. This is doubly true if England are playing a team they generally expect to beat and, from the outbreak of ritual bloodletting that has followed the narrow 1-0 defeat in the recent Test series, West Indies certainly seem to have fallen into that category.
Why this might be the case is less easily explained. England have not won a Test series in the Caribbean since 2004. Four members of that touring party were commentating on this series. Three are current members of the backroom setup. Two were recently sacked from that setup. One is now the host of Top Gear.
Continue reading...March 20, 2022
Paris savours a France team worthy of gracing the city of light | Jonathan Liew
Fabien Galthié’s Six Nations grand slam winners have escaped the burdens of predecessors and won the hearts of the public
A little after 11pm at a euphoric sweat-sodden Stade de France, the lights finally went out on this remarkable French side. The stadium was plunged into darkness, fireworks danced across the Paris sky and in the stands 75,000 fans danced with them. Through the pitch-black night, Antoine Dupont and his teammates peered upwards to enjoy the spectacle. The song playing over the speakers was Freed From Desire, and after 12 long years France have finally been freed from theirs.
It was brutal and it was draining and perhaps we should have expected nothing less. France’s grand slam was not just a victory for the 23 men in blue, or even for the nation they represent, a nation that has shed its thick cloak of scepticism and indifference and learned to love this team again. In many ways it was a victory for modern rugby itself, for valour and entertainment, for the idea that a team can be both art and science, discipline and invention, structure and chaos, past and future.
Continue reading...March 18, 2022
Restless, ruthless, obsessive … but Galthié has France reaching new heights | Jonathan Liew
The coach’s abrasive manner has upset many but the team he has built are on the verge of a Six Nations grand slam
Last week the France coach, Fabien Galthié, invited a special guest to address his squad before their trip to Cardiff. And so, into this room of brawny, outsized men steps the author and philosopher Charles Pépin, who proceeds to pepper the players with gnomic rhetorical questions. “What is a beautiful team?” he asks. “What is a real team? Is it ultimately nothing more mysterious than a sum of talents? Or is it something more?”
It’s interesting, by way of contrast, to speculate on who might conceivably deliver an equivalent lecture to the England camp. You may remember that a few years ago, the guest speaker invited by Eddie Jones to address his team ahead of the World Cup was the former Manchester United midfielder Roy Keane. And perhaps there is a certain cultural divide at work here. In France, a country that has always had a healthy esteem for public intellectuals, it is sport that can learn lessons from wider society. The very opposite is true in this country: here sporting currency possesses its own insoluble and universal mystique, as evidenced by the fact that one of our most celebrated popular philosophers is a guy who used to play table tennis.
Continue reading...March 16, 2022
Nothing wasted in Jürgen Klopp’s ruthlessly efficient Liverpool | Jonathan Liew
Liverpool withstood everything Arsenal could throw at them and took advantage of fine margins to score their goals
The gap through which Thiago Alcântara threaded his pass to Diogo Jota: a yard, at a generous estimate. The space that Jota found at Aaron Ramsdale’s near post to jam the ball in: maybe a couple of feet. The space in which Roberto Firmino had somehow to divert Andy Robertson’s cross past a goalkeeper literally standing next to him: a matter of inches. These are the margins that are taking Liverpool towards the top of the Premier League, and right now they are managing to find them better than anyone else.
The match in summary: Arsenal were the better side for 50 minutes and did nothing with it. Liverpool were the better side for the next 15 minutes and killed the game comprehensively. As for the rest, who cares? Arsenal ran and rampaged and fumed and fought, just as they had done all night. But there is something heroically dispiriting about giving your best even when you know it is not remotely good enough.
Continue reading...March 15, 2022
Erratic display shines light on Manchester United’s also-ran status | Jonathan Liew
Cristiano Ronaldo had no shots on target and Ralf Rangnick’s changes made no sense against a ruthless Atlético Madrid
Deep into the 94th minute at Old Trafford, Manchester United swarmed forward for one last attack. As the famous red shirts massed ominously in the penalty area, the Stretford End rose as one, shouted as one, dreamed in vivid noise and colour of a classic United comeback. Meanwhile, surging forward with the ball at his feet, the messenger at the gates of glory, was Nemanja Matic.
Well, Matic carried on running. Slowed. Slowed a little more. Took a look up. Panicked. Remembered that he still had a football at his feet. Spotted Marcus Rashford on the right wing: the simplest and least threatening ball, but the only one that would not require him to stop, turn, swivel or twist. The moment passed, and a good deal more quickly than Matic.
Continue reading...Pursuit of happiness: the problem with supporting one of football’s super clubs | Jonathan Liew
Fans of the biggest clubs are angry and it isn’t a lack of trophies but a desire to gain a stake in the future
The hymns were still playing and the sermons were still being read, but the cathedral was in flames. The Parc des Princes, this monument to glory and desire, the place where you go to see your fantasies made flesh, was in revolt. They were watching Paris Saint-Germain, their team, rip Bordeaux to shreds with perhaps the most preposterously dazzling front three in the history of football. And they were furious about it.
Lionel Messi was booed, by many of the same fans who lined the streets to celebrate his arrival in August. Neymar was booed when he scored and cheered when he missed. It was profane and it was shocking and maybe that was the point. “We understand their disappointment, we understand their hatred,” the PSG centre-half Presnel Kimpembe said. “Now we must move forward in order to win Ligue 1.”
Continue reading...March 13, 2022
Sexton on fringes as long goodbye begins with final Twickenham win | Jonathan Liew
The Ireland captain and talisman left his mark eventually despite being a peripheral figure for much of the game
As the final whistle blew on a bruising and barnstorming and brilliant evening’s entertainment, Ireland’s players wreathed each other in hugs: their ordeal finally at an end, their conquest complete. Johnny Sexton, their captain and talisman, was not among them. He had been withdrawn with a few seconds left on the clock, presumably to grant him one last valedictory ovation from a Twickenham crowd that may never see him in action again.
This is the sort of treatment Sexton should probably start getting used to over the coming months. Earlier in the week he finally ended months of speculation by revealing that his latest contract would be his last: a retirement announced 18 months in advance, taking him as far as the next World Cup in France. If the announcement itself was little surprise given that Sexton will be 38 by then and has already been fending off questions about his departure for half a decade, then there was also a certain curiosity to its timing.
Continue reading...Jonathan Liew's Blog
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