A friend was at at the Canada game last night. Said it was as fun as any sporting event he's ever been to, despite the horror injury to Kone. They've put themselves in an excellent position to advance and looked a lot more fluid than they did against a big and organised Bosnia. Just need a draw against Switzerland to win the group, which would be huge as it gets them a home game in Vancouver and a 3rd place finisher rather than Czechia or South Korea in LA.
The biggest worry for me is that I don’t see how you beat a team like PSG easily. Arsenal showed you can smother them if you have practically no ambition to score a goal of your own. Bayern showed that you can get pretty close if you just attack them constantly. They are pretty much the perfect team in my book aside from one thing, physicality and that’s negated by the refereeing these days.
Add that any Premier League side is going to be a a massive disadvantage against PSG/Bayern/Madrid with a league that won't let them play open football and is hyper-competitive every week. I think the key will be them getting a tough draw and going out early.
My worry is Iraolo going to be just like a Graham Potter reincarnation? It's one thing to manager a small team like Brighton or Bournemouth, the to take over at highest level where everywhere move will be analayzed to the finest detail. Very similiar to the pressure with managing the Maple laughs.
The problem for Liverpool, and everyone else, is there are no Klopp's available. Only Luis Enrique has pedigree, and he sure as heck isn't leaving PSG for Liverpool anytime soon. Five of the 'big six' have new head coaches, and all have huge question marks next to their name. At least Iraola will have them running and intense. One of the things I found most unbearable about last season was how limp the team looked, how easily they could be bypassed. I have a feeling the beginning will be rough (Bournemouth didn't win with him for 9 games) but once they get their legs and figure out the system, they will at least be difficult to play against.
My bigger fear is he won't get the depth he needs with so much running. This management brain trust has proven to be perfectly happy to leave key positions incredibly thin, which has cost the club two or three terrible seasons recently. They 'hijacked' (gotta love transfer reporting language, along with 'swooped' and 'monitoring') a deal from Newcastle for Victor Munoz off of Osasuna (formerly Barcelona and Madrid) who is a young winger already on the Spanish national team.
I hope they don't mess around too long chasing Diomande for big money off of Leipzig and end up leaving the side short yet again. I think they still need two more forwards (three if the Gakpo sale rumours come true), one midfielder plus a replacement for whichever of Mac Allister or Jones they sell, a right back and an experienced centre back. That's a lot of business, especially if you bring in either Barcola or Diomande for over a hundred million. They especially need cover at CB. Big Virg can't play every minute of every game anymore. Running him into the ground is such a waste of his talent.
Sad news about Kevin Keegan, forgotten by most that he was a back to back Ballon d'or winner.
Very sad news, followed shortly by a similar announcement that King Kenny also has cancer.
Incidentally, there's a great documentary I watched on Kenny (called Kenny Dalglish, natch) on UK Amazon Prime made by Asif Kapadia (who did similar ones for Senna and Maradona). It's well worth figuring out how to watch. I've always considered Dalglish to be the greatest footballing sportsman in British history, mostly because nobody else has come even close to achieving what he has as a player, manager, and community spokesman. I've followed LFC long enough to know all the stories, but seeing the footage of him near single-handedly carrying the weight of the Hillsborough disaster on his shoulders for the entire city of Liverpool was simultaneously awe-inspiring and hearbreaking. His humility and care for those around him comes through in so many ways.
