Another European Season in the Books

With the Europa League final on Friday and Champions League final on Sunday, the longest European season in history is finally concluded.  Given how things looked back in March, we should be impressed at what they accomplished.  The EFL regular season was complete and unabridged.  The two club competitions did have to drop two-legged ties for single elimination in the late stages but otherwise were mostly uncompromised by the pandemic.  For the fan, it's meant non-stop action for almost two months.  The good news is we start all over again in less than three weeks.

Not that everything is peachy.  The Union put up another lackluster performance and the transfer news and early projections ain't so hot for Newcastle and Aston Villa.  We'll also take a look at a few changes to the English domestic cup competitions.


Champions League Snoozer

I blame the CBSSports pundits.  In the pre-game show, they outlined for us in detail why PSG might be able to exploit Bayern's defensive liabilities for a pile of goals.  Bayern themselves came in with 42 goals in their 10 matches so we had some hopes for a wide open contest.  Didn't happen.  PSG had some okay first half chances that Neuer had to deal with.  Second half was a little more Bayern.  The good news is that it wasn't a mistake or PK that led to the winning goal.  Check out the proper heading technique from Kingsley Coman on the game's only score, this week's   YouTubeableMoment.  Two things to note.  First, the mantra I learned was head down to score, head up to clear; you can see Coman's focus on making sure the ball goes down.  Second, always helpful to head it back in the opposite direction from whence it come; much harder to stop.

Certainly Bayern have earned this one.  Sure, Liverpool ran away with the Premier League title but Bayern were probably the best European club team.  They were hardly pressed in winning the Bundesliga, won their domestic cup and now have the Champions League title too, winning all 11 matches and outscoring opponents 43-8.


Europa League

The Premier League's last representative in European competition - Man United - looked good on paper and on the stat sheet but Sevilla had the 3-1 semi-final win.  The Red Devils already had a Champions League ticket (actually so did Sevilla) but I'm guessing they thought they had a good shot at this cup.  Speaking of devils, Harry Maguire went to Greece to drown his sorrows, allegedly spent £63,000 on lobster and booze, got into a brawl, and ended up getting arrested for assaulting a police officer. Will it enhance his reputation that reportedly five officers were needed to wrestle him to the ground?  Not excusing his behavior but the reports also say he was being taunted by fans of other clubs and his sister was cut with a knife.  BFS has obtained footage of the incident.

Wait, where was I? Right, Sevilla's win set up a very attractive final with Inter Milan and this one lived up to the billing.  This was very much a thrust and parry affair, with each team responding well to the other's tallies.  Lukaku's PK was answered quickly by a header from Luuk de Jong.  Diego Godin leveled things just two minutes after De Jong's second header goal had put Sevilla up 2-1.  Hold the phone.  Is that the same Luuk de Jong who appeared in 12 matches for Newcastle on loan back in 2014 with nary a goal or an assist?  Well, yes and no.  It's the same person but doesn't look like the same player. 

The quintessential thrill of victory/agony of defeat;
Sevilla's Carlos (#20) is thrilled, Lukaku agonizes
Photograph: Lars Baron/Getty Images

The sides couldn't really be expected to keep up that pace and they didn't.  Things got much tighter.  Unfortunately this one came down to an lucky/unlucky break.  Diego Carlos, playing with a heavily taped leg (not Kirk Gibson level but he was definitely hurting) did a bicycle kick that deflected off Lukaku for the game winner in the 74th minute.

So what do we make of this being Sevilla's sixth Europa League title, with three coming in the last six years? Are you a glass half full or half empty person?  Participation in this competition almost always means you didn't finish in the top four in your domestic league; it's definitely a consolation tournament.  So, winning many Europa titles might be on par with, say, the minor league home run record of the fictional Crash Davis.  Before Bob K goes apoplectic, we note that because the Champions League limits the number of clubs from each domestic league to allow broader participation across the continent, there are top quality teams in Europa League.  It's a grueling competition that generally requires Thursday evening games in exotic European venues, which also leads to many Sunday matches in your domestic league.  Plus, at BFS, we think hardware is hardware.


The Coming Season

Well this, while not surprising, is not encouraging.  As we argued last week, Newcastle are not a mid-table side and the projection of 17th doesn't seem silly to me.  Aston Villa miraculously stayed up but the prediction for 18th seems right too.

Fortunately, both are working hard in this transfer window.  Right.  Newcastle have added GK Mark Gillespie from the Scottish club Motherwell.  Hard to see this as meaningful as Martin Dubravka has been excellent in goal plus they have Karl Darlow and Freddie Woodman in reserve.  GenieScout, the data base I use in conjunction with Football Manager, doesn't project Gillespie, already 28, to be better than Woodman.   Newcastle have also added former Burnley mid-fielder Jeff Hendrick. He's not bad but he's also not an improvement over Sean Longstaff, Isaac Hayden, or Jonjo Shelvey.  At 28, there's not much upside potential.  So far, this is the proverbial rearrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic.

Things look a little brighter in Birmingham.  However, Dennis reminds us that this is the club that got Adama Traore for $11 million but let him go for $9 million a year later.  Two years after that, Wolves got him for $22 million and now see him worth well north of $50 million.  This made Dennis sad angry react like this.  Worse, there is still talk of Grealish going to Man United for £50 m plus keeper Sergio Romero; yeah that makes sense.  But there is better news.  They have a good shot at Celtic's Odsonne Edouard, who would be a massive improvement over Mbwana "What" Samatta at striker.  Also hear they might be interested in Chelsea's Conor Gallagher, who could bolster the midfield and at 20 has huge upside potential.

A full list of transfers in and out is available here.  Some of the more notable moves include Willian from Chelsea to Arsenal and Hojbjerg from Southampton to Spurs.  The window is open until October 5 so there's a long way to go.


Cup Changes

Because more has to be crammed into less time, there will be no replays for FA Cup matches.  Bad news for lower division clubs that sometimes eke out a draw with a Premier League side at home, then get a big payday with the replay at the bigger club's venue.  The Carabao Cup will scrap two-legged semi-finals for a single elimination match, for basically the same reason.  Early round matches will be held in consecutive weeks in September, presumably allowing for some continuity of interest but making for a crowded month.

EPL fixtures were announced.  Yep, you still play everybody twice, once at your place, once theirs.


Union Muddle Through

The good news is that the Union, despite the absence of any consistent form, still only have one loss.  The bad news is that they don't look very good.  The 0-0 draw with New England was ugly, truly a match worthy of the Gillette Stadium venue.  Neither side looked capable of scoring.  A bright spot for the U was that Matt "Get" Real subbed for the injured Kai Wagner and looked pretty good.  The team sits in 5th but it's so early, there's not much spread across the table.

They have five matches on the schedule - Red Bulls (home on 8/25), DC United (home on 8/29), Columbus (away on 9/2), Red Bulls (away on 9/6) and New England (home on 9/12).  Presumably, there will be more matches announced soon.


Gone Fishin'

Going to take a couple weeks off.