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Good morning! Seven Super Bowls and 649 touchdown passes – but Tom Brady couldn’t save Birmingham City.
Future :
😬 Brady and Birmingham suck relegation
🕰️ The timeless genius of Carlo Ancelotti
💁 Messi: how can I help?
🆕 Moyes leaving West Ham, Lopetegui agrees to terms
Birmingham down despite help from former NFL star
The flood of box office investors in English football shows no signs of drying up. Over the weekend, news broke that actor Will Ferrell had acquired shares in Leeds United.
Add him to a celebrity circle of minority actors in Leeds that includes Jordan Spieth, Michael Phelps and Russell Crowe. It’s not a bad dinner. These arrangements are suitable for all parties. Celebrities are more eager than ever to get into property ownership. Clubs do not hesitate to replenish their funds or their visibility, especially in the United States where advertising is king.
This is how Tom Brady appeared by chance at Birmingham City as a minority owner last August. Birmingham is a proud club, one of the oldest in England, but its global appeal is limited. In terms of public relations, bringing in the NFL’s most decorated player was an extraordinary catch.
Brady is the winner of the winner, but on Saturday, while watching Formula 1 in Miami, Birmingham dropped the ball. The club was relegated to League One, the third tier of England. Not exactly the stuff of dreams – and certainly not the Premier League.
Steering meat grinder
Birmingham’s main driving force is American financier Tom Wagner. He has majority control and unlike the owners City have been accustomed to over the years, he has money and vision. He just got off to a terrible start.
Brady is said to advise on nutrition and recovery practices – bread and butter for an NFL quarterback – but his presence in Birmingham seems more than a little ceremonial.
Relegation is the consequence of disastrous decision-making. Birmingham have changed coaches so many times that six people – including caretaker coaches – have taken charge of a game this season. The first of these, John Eustace, was sacked in October when they were in a Championship play-off position.
Not a sexy enough name, apparently.
Wayne Rooney was sexier, reputation-wise, but in replacing Eustace he imploded. Then Birmingham had a bit of bad luck. Turning to Tony Mowbray, a pair of safe hands, he fell ill. Gary Rowett attended the last few matches – a manager City sacked in 2016.
Overall, a textbook is a disaster. And the worst ? Eustace kept Blackburn Rovers at the expense of Birmingham on Saturday. Wagner and his colleagues entered this one.
Brady isn’t the only retired NFL star licking his wounds (his weekend took a turn for the worse during his roast). JJ Watt’s first season as an investor at Premier League side Burnley is also set to end in relegation.
Brady attended his first game in Birmingham eight months ago. Turns out that’s what I was there for. Not to be mean, but the area around the club’s St Andrew’s Stadium isn’t exactly St. Tropez and St Andrew’s itself isn’t the New England Patriots’ Gillette Stadium. Brady in town with his designer threads and blue shades was like a mirage.
The first year in England was a very hard lesson for him and Wagner. There has been no equivalent to the Hail Mary touchdown pass.
True domination: Bellingham, midfielders and title celebrations
Real Madrid are La Liga champions. This might not seem as much like a news flash to you.
Just the 36th national title for them and, potentially, a 15th Champions League/European Cup in prospect this month. That’s what they do – but that’s not what they were doing last season. You now forget how far behind Barcelona they were in the league. And how viciously they were dismantled by Manchester City in the Champions League.
Carlo Ancelotti had an escape route. He could have gone to coach Brazil, but he dug in, built a sublime midfield, made Jude Bellingham the best in Europe and quickly overcame Real’s failure to sign Harry Kane.
Winning real trophies is no fairy tale, but in the entire Ancelotti era, this season is not far from his finest hour.
Haaland’s history lesson
Erling Haaland has spent weeks listening to people heralding his finish, so he responded on Saturday with four goals for Manchester City against Wolverhampton Wanderers.
He then bit one of his critics, Roy Keane, who had described Haaland, on Sky Sports, as looking “like a League Two player” and a “spoiled brat” for his ill-fated response to his replacement. “I don’t care much about that man,” Haaland responded. Touch.
There is a story behind it all. When Keane was a Manchester United player, he engaged in a bitter feud with Haaland’s father, former City midfielder Alfie. It ended in notorious revenge on Keane’s part. Young Haaland could take over.
Messi magic: one match, five assists and one goal
On the subject of headlines you’ve already seen, Lionel Messi is making plays in MLS. Except this is different. Inter Miami rinsed the New York Red Bulls, winning 6-2. Messi assisted five of the goals and scored the other. All in 81 minutes.
The group’s choice? Probably Miami’s third goal, where Messi takes four Red Bull players out of the game by passing into the tightest of spaces for Matias Rojas to head home.
That’s the most assists ever in an MLS match and the most assists in a single MLS half, not to mention the most goals in 90 minutes.
Ridiculous… but it’s Messi.
Around Athletic FC
- Everton, despite two points deductions, are safe from relegation. Best work. But their takeover project by 777 Partners, based in Miami, is reaching its limits. You really wonder where this is going.
- Manager’s corner: Ange Postecoglou needs the season to be over, with Tottenham players clashing. Better vibes for Mauricio Pochettino as Chelsea exhausted West Ham United – but Hammers boss David Moyes is running out of road. Julen Lopetegui sits behind him.
- Manchester United’s midfield gap is a cause celebre. Everyone gets involved. Crystal Palace will try this evening in their Premier League match (3 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. UK, USA Network, Sky Sports Main Event).
Quiz answer
On Friday, we asked which two names were missing from this list: Raul, Ruud van Nistelrooy, ???????, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Robert Lewandowski, ???????
Congratulations to the clever clogs who accompanied Thierry Henry and Thomas Muller, completing the list of men who have scored 50 or more goals in the European Cup/Champions League.
(Top photo: Monica Schipper/Getty Images)