Hjulmand out

Kasper Hjulmand, who has been manager of the Danish national team for the last three tournaments is a nice guy and a popular manager for Denmark who in 2021 made Danish fans happier for the national team that we had been for many years. That said, it was time for him to leave, and indeed since the disastrous 2022 World Cup he overstayed his job.

While one can argue that over his stay he has achieved good results in terms of qualifying Denmark to two Euros and a World Cup, the problem is less in terms of result and more in terms of style and commitment. There are plenty of excuses about the disaster in Qatar, but in truth there can be few excuses for what was the loss to Australia that eliminated Denmark. Following that, Denmark was shaky in qualification: leads were thrown away and a team with strong players from big clubs appeared to get nervous when subjected to pressure. They were unable to keep their heads cool.

Following a close qualification, expectation were not big in Denmark to these Euros, just a careful optimism (totally different from Qatar), and Danes appeared happy to have made it to the last-16 only to be eliminated by Germany. But in my view there were many troubles; I firmly believe that Denmark could have been much better if they had not played a cowardly defensive style in their first matches against Slovenia and Serbia, when instead they seemed satisfied against sides that were not better than Denmark. In small moments one saw the Denmark that could exist, as against England, but there was too much respect from the Danes about "the big teams". 

Denmark under Hjulmand has followed the trend of many teams: defend and be afraid to win. That only makes football less popular; the teams that are remembered are those who play good football and do not necessarily win, and in Denmark we have many examples of this: 1986, 1998, and even 2021.

I wish Mr. Hjulmand the best, but it is time for new blood and back to better football.

The Aftermaths

The aftermath of both tournaments has started, firstly with Gareth Southgate stepping down as England manager. He is undoubtedly the most successful English Manager having taken England to the 2018 World Cup semifinals, to the 2021 Euro final, and to these 2024 Euro finals.

Yet Gareth Southgate was widely criticized, justly in my view, for his defensive and cautious style, as well as team selection (for instance insisting on Harry Kane this tournament). That said, these results speak for themselves for a country that had hardly achieved anything since 1966, and despite the criticism I think it will be difficult to follow in the footsteps of Mr. Southgate.

Spain's victory in the tournament was well-deserved, and one can hope that the only side that did not focus on only defending will inspire the many other sides who most often chose to defend than to attack. In this regard it was in my view one of the most boring tournaments in history, not helped by a poor refereeing that was just helped along by VAR.

Finally, as so many tournaments, passions were too high, both at the Euro, but certainly at the Copa America, where a shameful organization culminated in a final where the organizers, US and CONMEBOL, seemed on the one hand to not understand what football means for Latin Americans (in case of the North Americans), and on the other hand a CONMEBOL that prioritized making money and having pictures with Shakira.

This dreadful organization is at a country that will host next World Cup....

But otherwise it was also a boring tournament with defensive sides, and an Argentine side that won in majorly on routine and cold-bloodiness, while Colombia played entertaining football, but simply lacked mentality to win (they basically also lacked mentality to lose). The most positive thing about the tournament was sadly Canada who played a good 2-2 match for third place with Uruguay, but ended losing at penalties after Luis Suarez had equalized in the last second of the match.

I say sadly, because it is of course good to have a new strong side in North America, but sad because in terms of football Canada provides nothing new, but plays a defensive, controlled tactical game that is choking the entertainment value of football.

So these tournaments were another step towards the inevitable demise of national team football. At least we still have the club game, in particular the Champions League, for intense and good football, as well as avoiding the horrible specter of nationalism, xenophobia and racism that increasingly seems to be what national team football has going for it.

Football, hate

 Today I was happy.

For a while only. I was happy Spain won. Never supported England, and happy for the many Spanish people I know, even family, would be celebrating.

And then I was watching two countries I deeply love, Colombia and Argentina, face one another in the final of Copa America. I wore my Argentina shirt, but honestly, I would have been happy for anybody to win.

And then I was no longer happy.

All the hate I got for supporting Argentina (absolutely nobody bothers to congratulate), all the fucking problems in Miami where fans can't behave and an organizing committee who is more concerned about seeing second rate washed up pop stars than actually putting on a performance.

Angel Di Maria, Lionel Messi, footballing stars who may have played their last match, and all they got is hate.

I had every reason to be happy, and instead football is just as depressing as ever, and I wonder if I even want to continue watching it. Irony is that I had every reason to be happy, but all people can do is punch you no matter what.

My recommendation for everyone in the final

After my gloomy previous post I want to give a recommendation to fans, players and any supporter of England, Spain, Argentina and Colombia. No matter what happens in the final, no matter the result or the match, it all has a simple solution:

A Death Foretold

 

Marcelo Bielsa is already a legend as a Manager and Football thinker, and his recent reflection on the decay of the football game is as timely as ever as we await the two finals tomorrow of tournaments which seem to confirm the grim future of the game.

Paraphrasing another great Latin American, this is the Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and I agree as I have been watching (and blogging) football for 20 years.

We have increasingly seen in these tournaments that teams are more afraid to lose than with a desire to win, so they largely retreat in a tactically result-oriented style. Some teams try to play more open, but they seem naive as they fight against the tide of boredom; in the meantime you have teams with a great amount of individual talent who treat their players like robots who are not to enjoy or entertain.

And let us face it, players contribute to this decay as well as the gentlemen of the game have all but disappeared: they act, they cry, they protest, they fight, play dirty. It is amazing how VAR has come in and not being used for this, but I also understand it: it seems incredible that we need to treat highly paid grown men as little children.

And VAR... I am not against it per se, but I have said before that it is being used completely wrong. It is being used to justify decisions that will always and have always been subjective, like a penalty, as well as searching with a microscope for faults where they were never seen before and where nobody protests. The blind faith in technology is only creating more doubt and distrust about the game as idiotic conspiracies flourish like never before.

Is it money? Of course it is. The people who can afford to go to a game are not your average income guy. Do you think that people who were in Charlotte for the Colombia-Uruguay match were the bottom of the Latin American income scale? No. And add TV rights, commercial deals and propaganda, and we have the explanation for all the things happening that are undermining the beauty of the game, just as Mr. Bielsa underlines.

Football has totally overtaken religion and politics as "Opium of the People", and as such it has been grasped by those in power as a way of controlling societies. Do these people in power fix matches? Is there a grand conspiracy to make certain teams win? No. But the spread of these conspiracies is useful to take attention away from other of societies' problems. 

We, the fans, are as guilty too. We are puppets. We let them control our primitive tribal instincts to hate other teams and other nations; the worst human instincts. We love being the martyrs, being rightful losers who fought against an evil force, and will never congratulate or thank another fan for a good match. And if we win we will rather insult the losers than recognize that in fact we need two teams trying to win to enjoy a game! (people who say, "I hate them because they defeated us" have in my view not really understood the point that it would be rather boring if they did not try to defeat us....).

There is no such thing as friendly competition in football any longer; it is war and you are judged by who you support - the Political Culture Wars taken to the most primitive level. 

It is a fact that football fans will rather see a team they hate lose than see their own side win. How fucked up is that!?? 

This is an angry rant indeed; but the decay of football is a symbol of the decay of our societies: tribalism, discrimination and hate are the order of the day, and in football we can't even any longer be happy for a beautiful play no matter who does it and a friendly taunt is always seen as an insult.

A sad state of affairs, and I do not have much of expectations of tomorrow's finals, even though I will watch them over beers with my cats and hoping that I get a bit of the happiness that made me fall in love with Football back in the day.