International football in its flop era

There’s no men’s club football this weekend due to the international break, something that fans and players alike seem pretty unhappy with. Rodri was the first big name player to declare players were close to striking over fixture congestion, before promptly tearing his ACL.

We are supposedly running players through a meat grinder in the name of generating more money. That money comes from a combination of media rights sales, sponsorship sales and ticket prices, which are all predicated on significant fan interest. But uhh… is anyone terribly interested?

Previously, we shared a piece from Grace Robertson about a general lack of media rights interest in the Club World Cup. I cannot imagine anyone’s looking at the numbers on UEFA or CONCACAF Nations League and concluding that these are growing properties, generating massive fan interest and creative positive brand associations. There’s no reason for line to go up on this particular graph.

The games yesterday mostly sucked. The games today and this weekend mostly suck. It is a significantly lower quality of football than we see on a weekly basis in the club game, and there are no stakes to offset that problem.

I’m going to go outside this weekend instead of watching football. I think you should too. That might sound like I have become cynical or fallen out of love with the sport, but that’s not true at all; I love watching club football all weekend and writing this newsletter. I thought the Euros and Copa America were a blast this summer. I just dislike whatever this shit is, and deeply resent that it takes us away from the good stuff.

Games a person could watch if they wanted to

Some of you are sickos who cannot go a weekend without watching football no matter what, and we’d still like to be of service to you. Here are 5 games that might be worth your time, and 3 are women’s club games because the international slate really is awful.

Times and listings for your region at LiveSoccerTV.

Spain vs. Denmark — The closest thing to an interesting Nations League game this weekend, with both teams being in good form and a threat to win the whole competition.

USA vs. Panama — Mauricio Pochettino picks his first lineup, can’t wait for the Gregg Berhalter haters to lose their minds when it’s literally the exact same dudes.

Arsenal vs. Chelsea women — Head over to the Emirates Stadium for the funeral of Jonas Eidevall. It’ll pretty definitively be time to move on if Arsenal lose this one.

Wolfsburg vs. Bayern Munich women — I think we might have crossed into the timeline where Bayern is just the definitively better team forever, but maybe Wolfsburg can prove me wrong.

Juventus vs. AS Roma women — Huge Champions League win for Roma midweek against the aforementioned Wolfsburg, they’re fun. Juve haven’t won the league in 2 years and I didn’t like their summer, they seem like a club that needs a serious overhaul.

What is this lineup??

Yesterday I asked folks to send in their club’s worst Struggle Era lineup and I got a couple of great responses. I’m still looking for more for a post, send them to kim@varianceincorporated.com or tweet them @TheTransferFlow or @kimischilling.

Lee Carsley apparently read the post because he decided it was time for England’s. 4-4-2 with no striker and Cole Palmer in a double pivot? Yuck.

England lost 2-1 to Greece at Wembley and finished the game with 0.84 xG. Hey, has anyone noticed that Lampard and Gerrard don’t really play well together?

Stuff we’re reading

You can find a much more nuanced take on the England game from Kyle Boas at Tactics Journal.

Ryan O’Hanlon at ESPN digs a bit deeper into the idea that Brentford have solved kickoff tactics.

Ralphael Adelugba at The Cutback wrote about how Manchester City women defeated current holders Barcelona in Champions League.

Diana Moskovitz and Lesley Ryder at Defector have a story about former employees of San Diego Wave suing the club for allegedly fostering an abusive work environment.

Joshua Kloke at The Athletic takes a look at how Montreal became Canada’s biggest talent hotbed.

Scott Willis at Cannon Stats says Arsenal shouldn’t offer Thomas Partey a contract extension (for purely on-pitch reasons).

Josh Williams at Distance Covered breaks down how Liverpool dominated Crystal Palace.

Jonas Bartsch at Total Football Analysis explains how FC Porto’s midfield has changed under new manager Vitor Bruno.

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