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bligh-lynch · 5 years

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And It Came To Pass In Those Days

23d December 1995, Lynch Mountain, Tempest, West Virginia For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love. _________ Carl Sagan, Contact

Throughout his life, Pappy was known by many names, but it was one Christmas Eve that he truly felt he earned the only one that really counted.

He began as Gustavus Simeon Lynch, but was very soon Gus. His birthname was too grandiose an appellation - it was given to him in gratitude by his father, Simeon, for Gustavus Olafsen, a Minnesotan of Swedish extraction who saved Simeon's life from the debacle onboard the USS San Diego during the Great War. But it proved too highfalutin for the boy who grew into a man.

That boy, Gus, was too often a cutup who disobeyed his Pa and had his hide tanned more times than he could count. He and his delinquent older cousin, Allen, would get drunk on badly-made shine out in the woods - they would play music together under the white oak on the other slope of the low mountain that belonged to their family, and Allen would tell him, hitting his fiddle with his bow gently to make a singular dulcet tone, Gus strumming his banjo to accompany, the old family legend that their ancestor, Patrick Lynch, had planted the great druid as but an acorn to mark his property when he came over from Ireland. Twice, Allen had kissed him passionately when they were both drunk - love, love, careless love - as Sodomites would, making him promise to never tell a soul, and though later in life Gus became concerned with both drink and sin, when he remembered those Summer afternoons underneath the mighty boughs of his family oak with his cousin, his first friend, his first love, all he could do was blush, and sigh, sad for bygone days. Years later, Gus heard that Allen, who married a girl he didn't love and fathered a child who grew up in the family as Cousin Bobby he didn't want, ended up going crazy and ripping out his own teeth, an eerie repeat of Gus' own father losing his teeth at a young age also. Hoping to be better than a backwoods moonshiner who did furtive and sinful things, the boy, Gus, became a man, with a new name to match: Private First Class Gus S. Lynch, Company E, 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. He and his boyhood friend from Quinwood, Ralph Pomeroy, were shipped off during the Korean Conflict, where they stuck together because their fellows mocked their thick accents and yokel way - slights that he, Gus, never forgot or forgave. But, soon enough, there was that hopeless situation at a place that history would remember as Triangle Hill - Gus was one of the key witnesses to Ralph Pomeroy's dauntless actions that led his friend to be awarded, posthumously, the Medal of Honor. Then and there - seeing Ralph E. Pomeroy dedicate himself to something so completely larger than himself - Gus determined that he, too, would dedicate himself to something, and he fell on his knees, beseeching the sky above him, to say that he would devote his life to God. Soon, though he wouldn't care much for it, he became Corporal Gus S. Lynch, Silver Star Medal, but he scarcely remembered those October days in 1952 - his bright blue eyes, remarked on by his superior officers, always blurred by the tears as only men put through that awful fire can understand, blinded by dust and smoke...as though possessed, he dragged what injured he could, the same men who mocked him for being a hillbilly and who would pointedly ask if he was born in a coalmine or if he wore shoes but whom he swore to protect nonetheless, back to the medic tent, again and again and again, no man left behind. There were gruesome spectacles that would make any man doubt the sanity of the world, and still a lesser man repulsed by humans for the rest of his life, but Gus was swallowed in humility by his friend's actions and he wanted to somehow be brave himself - not for himself, but for the spirit he saw Ralph Pomeroy summon. And for these courageous actions - that he never, not once, felt courageous for - he had a Silver Star pinned to his breast by General van Fleet. When he returned home, honorably discharged back to West Virginia and back to the mountains, he wanted to make good on the promise he had made to the Almighty for saving him in Korea, and so he took the G.I. Bill money and crossed the border to Virginia to attend Bluefield College, where he read the Theology he would need to preach the Good Word and save souls for the Lord. In time he graduated, and he took still yet another name: Reverend Gus Lynch - he grew the thick, handsome chinstrap beard he would wear for the rest of his life, and, taking inspiration from the travelling preachers that comprised many of his proud ancestors, he rambled up and down the Appalachians in his big white Surburban, praising Jesus and baptizing the anointed, down to the river to pray, studying on that Good Old Way. Two fateful things happened as he journeyed from place to place, filling the spiritual needs of the wayward. The first was in Pennsylvania and not too long after New York, because they happened so close together. There, the people gave him names too, but this time they were bigoted slurs: redneck and hillbilly and inbred, they mocked his accent and his manners and his earnestness, so that Gus found himself rather like Jonah, wishing that these Yankees, like Nineveh, would perish rather than find salvation. He never forgot how those prejudiced Northerners treated him, treated him different, simply because of who he was and where he was born - he had met kind Negros, strong in the Lord and the love of their families, down in the Carolinas, and he knew they had it far worse than he did, but that made him all the more bitter, how man could treat his fellow man, regardless of how he spoke the English tongue, or even the color of his own skin. This led to the second event: one night at a revival in Summersville, having returned to West Virginia feeling he should go back to put down roots in Tempest - soured forever on the idea of rambling after his experiences up North - he met a beautiful little slip of a girl, dark-headed with soft grey eyes, who had a ready and sarcastic wit. Her name was Iris - Iris McComas, named for where her people had settled in that tiny coal town in McDowell County, many, many years ago. She was the prettiest thing in the room, with the purple-and-gold silk corsage she wore of her namesake, an iris...Gus' eyes followed her everywhere, finally, he got up the nerve, and he asked her to dance, and soon they got to talking. "Ye were in Korea?" asked she.

"I were," answered he. "Served with Ralph Pomeroy."

"Oh my, he was a hero."

"He was."

"If the army had more Pomeroys we'd've won that war."

Gus' expression turned serious. "We did have an army of Pomeroys - but y'only hear bout the famous ones."

"What a sad thing ta say - are ye a sad man, Mr. Lynch?"

"When the occasion calls fer it, my dear."

"My dear?" She gasped, pretending to be offended. "How forward!"

"Well then what would ya like me to call ye?" He gave that famous smirk, a crooked half-smile that many people knew him by. "My doe?" She burst out laughing. "Sly, too! My word, I can scarcely tell what kind o'man y'are - are y'always like this, Mr. Lynch? A man of God but a mystery ta women?"

"When the occasion calls fer it--" The smirk grew. "My dear." It was mid-December and the stars outside shone diamondiferous to join with the lavender half-moonlit snow - the congregation gathered together before they dispersed to sing one more hymn: Go! Tell it on the mountain! Our Jesus Christ is born! And as they stood together to sing, Iris put her hand in his. They took to courting, and soon were married, a fairytale, and they gave each other twenty-four of the happiest years of each others' life - they moved back together to Tempest where Gus became senior pastor of Living Hope Baptist Church. But it did not begin auspiciously. When Gus passed his thirty-fifth year, he was beset with toothaches that would not go away, wracked with pain that no medication or herbs would seem to salve. This went on for a week straight, until - one night - and to his horror, he found his eyeteeth, both of them, were being pushed out by something new in their place...when Iris came into their bedroom she flung her hands to her mouth as he turned to her so that she could see: for in his mouth were two, long, sharpened, canine fangs. Gus had always been aware of the morbid stories, the haints and the phantom creatures and the deep, shadowy weirdness that crawled all over Tempest, all over Adkins County - there were family legends for nearly each of the little clans that called this obscure corner of the Greenbrier Valley home, the Barnes and the Lightfoots and his own family, the Lynches...but he never thought that he would be privy, let alone part, of his own ghost story, his own monster-tale. Now he understood - now he understood the story about Cousin Allen, ripped out his own teeth and had taken to the drink too hard and died pitifully young...now he understood why his own father had a set of ivory chompers rather than what God gave him. Some malign ancestral curse had curdled in his blood and manifested itself as a hideous mutation of the mouth, something that made him look for all the world like a creature of the woods more than what he was - a man adapted for hunting and timber and subsistence living now reabsorbed by the forest he so loved to be a haint, a creature, bewitched and obscene to the world of men. At first Iris tried to help by filing his new additions down, blunting them so people would not notice - but horrible to relate, night after night, the things grew back, sharpened themselves to points as a form of growth. Several times they tried this, panicked husband and supportive wife - several times they were thwarted, right back to where they were. Desperate, and without recourse, they did, together, the only thing they thought left - even though he had not drank in years, Gus procured some fine whiskey from his friend, Ironside Lightfoot, guzzled it down until he was three sheets in the wind, and instructed his wife to take a wrench and do the unthinkable. When she was done, the teeth kept in a small box under his bed to remind him that this was not some kind of hideous vision sent to him from a Hellish delirium, near-feverish with pain and drink, and his mouth full of bloody cotton gauze, he looked on his wife with tears streaming forth from those uniquely blue eyes, begging her to forgive him for whatever sin he had done that had led him to be changed, however momentarily, into a monster. "Oh Iris - woman - what ye must think o'me - what kinda man I am--" "Gustavus Lynch," Iris answered without hesitation, "I know exactly what kinda man y'are." "N'what--" he was scared to finish the question. "What kinda man that be?" She said nothing - she just hugged him tight, and reached for his hand, taking it and squeezing it close to her own heart. They passed this crisis together as husband and wife, and with new teeth, dentures, procured from a dentist down in Roanoke, their life resumed its sunny way. Never did they talk about it, not once, even when Gus was troubled, year after year on the same day ever since, by quare visions of icy blue streams deep underground...when he would awake, dazed and vulnerable in the dead of night when nightmares seem realest, he would feel for his wife's hand, grasping her fingers into his own to feel grounded and unfraid once again. When they built their big house on Simeon Lynch's ancestral lands, on the day they knew their hard work was finished, she put her hand in his and squeezed it - when it became apparent she was with child, and told him the news, she took both of his hands and brought them to her belly... when she was in labor and he prayed over her, his heart full of joy and fear, she squeezed his hand again, as hard as she could - when the infant boy, who they named Gustavus after his father and so went through life as Junior, reached manhood and brought home a kind, mousey girl from Wetzel County to introduce as his fiancée, she squeezed his hand once more. They were blessed to have lived so full and fruitful, all those years together. But it all did not last. After, soon after, Iris contracted cancer of the breast, and she fell very ill very suddenly, she wasted away and was in great pain, such that there was nothing the doctors in Charleston could do. On her deathbed, she put her hand in Gus' one last time, and she said to him: "Oh, I finally know what kinda man y'are, Mr. Lynch." And with his eyes once again blurred with tears as they had been all those years ago in Korea, Gus answered: "N'what kinda man that be - Ms. McComas?" "Why - yer the man who loves me..." Then her hand slackened, it fell away - Gus' hand was empty, and she was gone. Gus knew he would never get over her and indeed he never did, and for years after would regard the day of her death - a clear, azure-skied day in October - as little short of cursed. Every year on her birthday, on the anniversary of their marriage, and to commemorate the day she died, he would pace up the side of his mountain and lay by her graveside, with space for him to be buried beside her when his time came, a bundle of her namesake, amethyst and gold - iris. One night, a year or two after her passing, driving back to the house that he and Iris had built and which now stood lonely and empty without her in it, Gus parked his Jeep that he had gotten by trading in his old Suburban on the side of a dirt road - he got out, and took a look, on a whim, above him, to the Winter stars. He had wrestled and grappled with the questions - theologically, spiritually, even psychologically - and still he had come up empty, empty as the indigo spans that one would have to traverse to get from star to star, how to properly mourn, how to properly grieve. And then he knew. He just - knew, somehow, a revelation, an epiphany, that she was up there...he knew, somehow, that in the crystalline twinkling of the stars, the same stars that twinkled just the same way the night they met, that she was watching. And - that she would not want him to be like this, not after all this time, all this wasted energy trying and wishing and praying for things that could no longer be. So he got back in his car, laid across the steering wheel and wept, one last time, and he let the heavens have her, let her watch over him and never let him go. Even after this the grief he felt never went away, but it was eased some after Junior had his own son, Gus' grandson, born en caul and destined for either second-sight or greatness or both, named Bligh after a distant patrilineal descendant - he had been too afraid to ask his son about his teeth, if it what happened to Gus had happened to Junior, but he was told by Susan Anne he had needed dentistry to fix some kind of abnormal growth...and knew the unspoken truth. Too soon, tragedy roared back into his life, another October day, this time grey and rainy, when Junior and his wife, Susan Anne, died in a car crash - Junior's Eldorado had careened off a sharp turn, killing them both, with little Bligh Allen, who had just turned five, miraculously surviving in the backseat. It was all, all enough for Gus to invoke old Job, and to have his faith, so sure even before his conversion all those years ago, shook so hard he wondered if Hell could hear it: why, why after so many years of faithful service, would God curse him so? Was it not enough to rob from his beloved, for whose touch he pined every day for the rest of his life - now his son, now his daughter-in-law too? And if I am a Christian,

I am the least of all-- But this was how Gus would soon become Pappy, the name that stuck at first as a tease and thereafter as how he would be known forever after, even amongst folk in Tempest outside of his own family - because his grandson Bligh, started calling him that. Bligh had always been a strange child - the circumstances of his birth alone were the subject of some comment, not just being en caul but having to be delivered in Barnes' veterinary office because of a great and terrible storm that at last blew down that old druid that Gus and Allen would play music under, but this was joined with his oddly quiet nature, as though observing everything around him in a troublingly mature kind of way. He did not speak as other children did - when Archie Lightfoot, the latest scion of that storied family which antedated Gus' own and the son of Gus' friend Ironside had his own son, Andrew, he was, by contrast, a bright and happy child, a chatterbox whose constant babbles exasperated his father...yet Bligh remained uncomfortably quiet. Then, one day, Junior, passing the peculiar newcomer to Gus to hold, murmured in babytalk: "Go see ya Pappy, go see ya Pappy now--" And Bligh burst out, his first words, when he was safe in Gus' arms: "Pa-pee! Pa-pee!" Junior was dumbstruck - but Gus, Pappy, was transported with happiness. He had been his grandson's first word. But...when Bligh came to live with Gus after his parents died, he did not like it, and made it a point, in his own sullen preschool-age way, to let Gus know he did not like him, throwing monstrous tantrums - howling like a wolf, which Gus would shake his head the hardest at - throwing his toys, refusing to come out of his new room in Gus' house, except to hastily eat and then steal back upstairs. It was bad enough that because of this withdrawn, traumatized behavior at school it was recommended he'd be held back a year, but really it seemed like there was no way, no way at all, for Gus to get through to his grandson, damaged in his young existence by being robbed of his parents. Weeks turned into months - Gus tried to cope the best he could, Christmastide drew nearer and he did his yearly rituals, cleaning for Baby Jesus' birthday and putting up a fresh, fragrant pine for a Christmas tree, all while his grandson remained dangerously introverted and reclusive. And then, finally, it occurred to Gus - what had happened to him nearly a decade before, ruminating on how Iris was gone, and what Iris would have wanted, and where Iris still was. Little Bligh would have to somehow see the same thing. So, carrying that little hope in his heart that he could fix things that shone distant but clear like the Star of Bethlehem, with the memory of Pappy as the boy's first word, on the eve of Christmas Eve, Gus came into the boy's room, and instructed him in a firm voice to get on something warm, they were going to go outside. It took some doing - thrice more did he have to be told, and the last time in a loud clear voice that was almost a threat - but eventually little Bligh tumbled down the steps and, his grandfather putting a guiding hand on the small of his back, they came outside. Gus made sure that Bligh followed every step he took, so that he would not get lost - eventually they came down the mountain, a gentle slope that was easy to traverse up and down, and arrived just where Gus needed them to be. The night was a masterpiece of Appalachian Winter - silent, neither sound nor movement, with a light snow dusting the ground that made a faint crunch beneath the feet. The cold was not biting or unpleasant as there was no wind, so that there was only the rejuvenating crispness that enlivened the nerves and thickened the blood. They came to a great, ruined, rotting tree - the big druid that his ancestor had planted, where Gus and his cousin would play music together, and where Gus had his first kiss, all those wistful bygone years before. Gus gently took his grandson's wrist. "Ya seen this tree here, boy?" Bligh shook his head - Gus let go, kneeling to his level, pointing. "This tree here fell the day ye's born...n'yer great-great--" He paused, tittering to himself. "Well let's say a feller ye n'me's both related ta, waaay back when - he planted it!" A spark of something like recognition seemed to wash away the sulky stubbornness that had possessed the boy's face lo these many weeks. "Someone - we related ta?" Bligh asked, his voice quiet to match the night. "S'right," Gus affirmed with a grin. "Our ancestor - our family been here a long, long time, understand." Bligh nodded, slowly, as though absorbing what his grandfather was telling him. "I want ya ta see sumthin else, too--" Using his boot, Pappy kicked part of the hollowed-out trunk of the old druid-tree hard - there, on the inside, was a cluster of phosphorescent vegetation, an unexpected symphony of fulgently radiant light hiding in the tiny cavern of the oaken log. Bligh recoiled - he had never seen anything like it before in his life. "Wha - wha?!" "Walk while ye have the light," Gus pronounced resolutely. "Lest darkness come upon ye - see that there glow?" Bligh nodded, his eyes wide with amazement. "That there's foxfire - it shines right here on the Earth sometimes - like the stars shine up in Heaven." "H-Heaven?" Bligh asked, his voice suddenly hushed. "Like - where Ma and Pa live now?" Now it was Gus' turn to nod. "Yes, boy - yes indeed." He swept up his grandson to lift him up so that he could see the stars shining - Heaven - above them. As he held Bligh up and then set him on his shoulders, he called out in his loud, clear voice that he used at Living Hope:

"Consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the Moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained!"

Right as Bligh grabbed hold of Pappy's head to balance, and just Pappy had finished - he sucked in an amazed breath.

Of course he had seen the stars, and of course he had asked about them, but he had never - so like a little boy - understood, in focus, what infinity meant, what the constellations and asterisms and shapes of the heavens meant, what lay beyond his playroom and the kitchen and the trees and the backyard.

And it was the words of King James that made him understand - the Word of the Lord that Pappy knew and practiced and had a bon mot for, sometimes clever and sometimes poignant, since that terrible day in that faraway place of Korea when he had devoted his life to the Good News.

Bligh's eyes beheld the stars not for the first time, but for the first time that really mattered. "Them stars up ere, boy - lookin down on us - there's ya Ma n'Pa, up ere - there's ya Mamaw Iris, who ye never met, but who - who woulda loved ye all the same..." "They - up there?" "That's right boy - all of em, watchin over us." And then grandson murmured the first true words of coherence in months: "Pappy - I wish they wudn't up yonder - I wish they was here." "Well me too, boy - me too." He sighed, swallowing back a wave of emotion that came with the words. "But we down here, for the time bein - n'we gotta make the best o'what the Lord God gave us." He took a hand to reach up and stroke his grandson's cheek. "So happens - the Lord God gave me a little boy - a little boy named Bligh."

A long silence followed, which Gus gently broke: "Just like em stars bove us shine, boy - n'like the foxfire aneath the log - I'll always shine fer ye. They watch over us up ere - but down here--" He let himself grin, for the first time in he couldn't remember approaching something like inner peace. "Down here - ain't nuthin gonna happen ta ye, long as I'm around - ain't nuthin ever gonna happen ta the boy the Good Lord gave me."

The Winter skies of West Virginia provide intangible proof in their starry voids of the ancient and the impossible, so that on a clear cold evening, with one's head tilted up to behold brumal Orion in the frigid air that turns the breath into the steamy vocabulary of Fafnir, it seems perfectly feasible that - on a night just like this - the Virgin Mary had a baby boy.

Go! Tell it on the mountain! O'er the hills and ev-ry-where!

And there was time enough for Lovecraft's mad spaces, and there was time yet still for Tyson's patient navigations, because there was time enough for little Bligh, already an orphan and doomed to a life against the grains of modernity, to understand the cruelty and the meanness of existence - but now he was wonderstruck, starstruck, at the cosmos that swirled above him in chilled clarity, the very Universe that Pappy's God in wisdom untold had designed and made, and so could he understand that this same cruel, mean place was also, at the very same time, full of kindness and love. "Pappy?" he heard his grandson whisper. "Yeah boy?" "I'm - I - I'm sorry..."

Now Gus - Pappy - felt that the wall that needed to come down had come down, now he knew that he could raise his grandchild and shelter him and protect him and guide him into manhood and carry on the Lynch name with honor and with pride and respect. Now - now Pappy lowered him down so that they were face to face, so that their identical eyes, gelid, frozen-over, but warm in this and all the Winters they would share together, now met. He pointed, down the mountain slope, the trees that twinkled with ice, and he whispered: "G'out with joy." He grinned an encouraging, knowing smile. "Be led forth with peace - the mountains -n'the hills shall break forth before ye into singin, and all the trees o'the field shall clap their hands..." He hugged his little grandson so tight he knew he would never forget. And right then, right that very second - everything was worth it. There had been a road here, there had been a journey undertaken, ever since Iris had blushed to see him watching her across the room at that little church in Summersville - ever since he had clutched Ralph's body in Korea and begged for him, screaming, to get up, to wake up - ever since he would join his cousin's melody on the banjo on those fine Summer days. They were all gone...but Bligh, his grandson, his blood, his flesh, his true legacy, was here. And of all the names, all the titles, all the ways he was or would be looked at - none of them would ever matter as much as the one that this serious, black-haired boy would foist upon him: "Pappy," little Bligh said again, and his eyes glimmered and became overfull with tears. Gus - Gustavus, Pappy - grinned at him, a full and proud smile, and kissed him gently on the cheek. "S'right boy," he whispered, but loud enough that the silent night of the approaching Christmas Eve allowed it to echo across time, space - and names. "I'm yer Pappy."

#Bligh #Pappy #Before Time After

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junker-town · 5 years

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The Premier League has an elite manager drought

Mauricio Pochettino getting fired from Tottenham showed just how few soccer managers are actually any good.

There are few things sadder than a football team that has come unmoored from itself. A collection of players and coaches who once supported and uplifted one another, became something greater than themselves, now strangers, staring accusingly at each other as they crash out of the League Cup.

And so the departure of Mauricio Pochettino from Spurs, like that of Jürgen Klopp from Dortmund before him, comes as something of a relief for everybody, except possibly Arsenal fans. There’s far too much misery in the world as it is, we don’t need Sad Dele Alli hanging around as well.

Still, not unwelcome as it may be, Pochettino’s departure, and the hiring of José Mourinho, says all sorts of interesting things about Tottenham, and about the broader state of the Premier League and elite European football. The most immediately striking fact is that Spurs, as much as they loved Pochettino, haven’t replaced him with the next Pochettino, whoever that might be.

When Pochettino went to Spurs he did so as potentially the Next Big Thing, on the back of impressive spells at Espanyol and then Southampton, who he took to eighth in the Premier League, recording wins over Manchester City, Liverpool, and Chelsea in the process. A club like Spurs — big, but not Big, at that point — was the next point on an obviously upwards curve.

Indeed, in some ways Mourinho is the precise opposite: a huge CV, entirely front-loaded, with a spectacular downward trend in recent years. But then the field for the next Pochettino is pretty thin, at least within the Premier League. The Next Big Things are making muddled progress.

Marco Silva is embattled at Everton; Ralph Hasenhüttl likewise at Southampton. Nuno Espírito Santo’s second Premier League season isn’t going as well as the first. Frank de Boer flamed out at Crystal Palace. Eddie Howe is still Eddie Howe, and Bournemouth are still remarkable, in a quiet way. Maybe Howe gets the job if Mourinho faceplants and Spurs change tack?

No, Brendan Rodgers isn’t the next Pochettino. Don’t be silly. He’s the first and only Brendan Rodgers. And he certainly won’t be dropping 12 places in the league to prove that. Beyond England, Spurs were reportedly interested in Julian Nagelsmann, but apparently a year too late.

In any case, it appears Spurs have decided that now, post-Pochettino, they don’t need a new Pochettino. The club is already a Serious, Title-Contesting, Champions League contender, and it must have a Serious, Title-Contesting, Champions League manager to match. Whether Mourinho counts as one of those any more is, of course, an open question, and the entire country is looking forward to finding out that the answer is: LOL, no. But he certainly talks like one.

Mourinho: “We can’t win the league this season. We can - I’m not saying will - win the league next season.”

— Miguel Delaney (@MiguelDelaney) November 21, 2019

Thinking more broadly, something unusual is happening with England’s Big Six, and it’s not just the fact five of them are below Leicester City, three below Sheffield United, and one is in 12th. City and Liverpool have their excellent managers, managing their excellent teams excellently. But the other dugouts are strange places.

Manchester United and Chelsea are both overseen by men who got the jobs not on the strength of their managerial CVs, but on their playing careers. There is a gamble being made in both cases, even as one seems to be going better than the other.

Arsenal resisted this temptation — Mikel Arteta? No thanks! — and went for Unai Emery, who was experienced, safe, and kind of underwhelming. The result is a manager who isn’t doing particularly well and isn’t particularly liked. And now Spurs have got their own gamble in Mourinho Mk. III, promising old success through new methods and humility.

Among the Premier League’s six (theoretically) elite clubs, that makes just two unarguably elite managers. Solskjaer and Lampard might get there in the end, and Mourinho might get there again. Emery might surprise us all. But as it stands: two from six.

This disparity between the stature of elite clubs and their managers can be found outside the Premier League as well. Real Madrid are back with Zinedine Zidane after Julen Lopetegui flopped. Bayern Munich spent a season pottering along under Niko Kovač, and will likely be in caretaker hands until the end of the season. Barcelona have Ernesto Valverde, and nobody seems particularly happy about that. Thomas Tuchel at PSG, ditto. Maurizio Sarri at Juventus, ditto ditto.

Indeed, with Antonio Conte fresh in at Inter and Diego Simeone still enthroned at Atlético Madrid, the process of hiring a Serious, Title-Contesting, Champions League manager at this precise moment probably runs something like this:

Step 1: Is Max Allegri interested?

Step 2: No? Sure?

Step 3: Right, fine, better give José a call.

Perhaps the top level of football has arrived at a fundamental imbalance: too many Big Clubs, not enough Big Men to go around. The relentless churn probably doesn’t help. Go back to the merry-go-round enough, and eventually you’ll have to start making some interesting choices.

Or perhaps this is just a cyclical thing. Perhaps the next generation of elite coaches — Lampard, Rodgers, Nagelsmann, Erik ten Hag, all the other promising coaches who aren’t yet being hired by the big clubs — will be here soon, and will sort themselves into their rightful dugouts. Or take their current clubs with them. Maybe Leicester are making a permanent charge into the Premier League’s Big [Number To Be Determined].

We should note that thinking about managers too hard runs the risk of reducing football down to some heroic great man psychodrama: Those Marvellous Men And Their Flying Clipboards. A great team doesn’t necessarily need an already-acknowledged-as-great manager. And a team good enough to win a few trophies here and there definitely doesn’t. More important is the right manager in the right structure. That way the individual brilliance, the squad, and the money all end up pointing in the same direction.

But if you do enjoy indulging in a big of that psychodrama, then Big Coach hiring process has just gotten a little more interesting for every elite club that isn’t Tottenham, since: hooray! Pochettino is available! Although hopefully he takes a little break first. Spends some time with his family. Catches up on his reading. It’s a tough gig, management. And then comes the summer and the job offers.

(Maybe even earlier, if the Solskjaer experiment goes wrong again. You suspect Pochettino would be a fool to go and work for United in their current state, but equally, United would be fools not to see if he could be swayed.)

Perhaps Pochettino’s likely popularity is evidence itself of the imbalanced managerial market. His mantelpiece is empty, bar some Manager of the Month awards, a couple of silver medals, and several Arsène Wenger awards for Champions League qualification.

But in his time at Spurs he made average players good, good players great, and for a couple of years he had them playing aggressive, attacking football of the very highest quality. Everybody wants all of that. And when there isn’t enough proven greatness to go around, the sense of greatness to come will have to do.

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hannobehrens · 7 years

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okay @meggiesobsessions and @enlightenedcat tagged me to post my homescreen and lockscreen, the last song I listened to, and a selfie lmao. my lockscreen is schalke just because, and my homescreen is alessandro schöpf in case you don't know who he is. it's him because he's injured and will be out for 4 months and i'm sad. i don't like telling people what songs i listen to...because...just because okay? i would've posted better selfies but the good ones have already all been posted by me. plus the other ones have other people on it so idk if it's a good idea to post them lmao... and i miss canada. i made such a face because i thought it'd be great to pretend that i was displeased with life. it was actually taken in july. my parents call the background the 'mushroom mountains' i tag @incredybala @diego-simeone @hectorbaberin and @erikdurmfc and anyone who wants to do it! ofc you don't have to if you don't want to lmao. if you don't feel comfortable posting a selfie it's fine as well!

#tag stuff #thank you both of you!#idk lmao if any of you want to reblog (which you won't) please don't! thanks!

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blogsarahjames · 4 years

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Real v Atlético: Picking a Combined XI of El Derbi Madrileño Legends.

Picking an all-time XI for either one of the Madrid sides is hard enough, but picking a combined XI? Near enough impossible.

The list of players who learnt their trade, cemented their status in the football hall of fame, or even finished off their trophy-littered careers in the Spanish capital is endless. So we've done the hard bit for you and narrowed down the shortlist.

GK - Iker Casillas (Real Madrid)

Only one choice for this spot really. Casillas is one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time and his trophy cabinet is absolutely heaving. Debut at 17, Champions League winner by 19 and over 500 appearances over 16 years.

Extraordinary cat-like reflexes and a man-mountain in between the sticks (despite only being 6ft). All hail 'San Iker."

RB - Michel Salgado (Real Madrid)

Former Real Madrid teammate Steve McManaman once described Salgado as "the hardest person in the world...a genuine psychopath, even in training."

If you add that to his decade-long stint at Real, re-defining how a right-back should play and holding aloft four La Liga trophies and two Champions Leagues - he owns the right-back spot.

CB - Diego Godin (Atlético Madrid)

Much of Atlético's resurgence can be filtered back to the steady foundations of Diego Godin. Since his move from Villarreal in 2010, Godin matured into one of the world's best centre-backs.

Simeone's defensive management style is synonymous with Godin's aggressive style of play. Solid in the air, not scared to get stuck in and always has the surprise element of bursting through with the ball.

CB - Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid)

He really is like Marmite, Sergio. The master of the dark-arts, win-at-all-costs, ultimate sh*thouse. But he's Real's beloved sh*thouse.

He's been a force of nature during his time at Madrid and has helped them to a lot of trophies, and when the dust settles, he's pound-for-pound one of the best centre-backs in world football.

LB - Roberto Carlos (Real Madrid)

It's pretty sad that there is a generation of football fans who won't have seen Roberto Carlos don the all-white strip. That left peg must be worth a fortune.

Former Real Madrid coach Vicente del Bosque said "Roberto Carlos can cover the entire [left] wing all on his own," perhaps one of the most attacking-minded full-backs of a generation and boy, he could hit a set piece.

RW - Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)

Does this one need justifying? One of the best footballers of all-time.

Rather than giving the opinion of 'just some guy', here's what George Best had to say about him: "There have been a few players described as the new George Best over the years, but this is the first time it's been a compliment to me."

Adelardo is plausibly Atlético's best ever midfielder, holding the club record for appearances to this day with 551. He enjoyed a 17-year spell in the Spanish capital from 1959 to 1976.

Probably one of the best complete midfielders of his time, combining skill, commitment and a knack for goalscoring.

CM - Zinedine Zidane (Real Madrid)

It's 2002, Zidane's only just balding and he's sporting those gorgeous predators. Oh, when life was simple.

Zidane was a pure joy to watch, his ability to create space when there very clearly was incredible. Them predators were like two silk slippers, carefully moulded to his feet so he could pluck a ball straight from the clouds.

LW - Paulo Futre (Atlético Madrid)

Paulo Futre became a bonafide legend at Atlético where he spent six seasons. His explosive nature, dribbles and little twists and turns was adored by the crowd.

He attained comparisons to Maradona and it was easy to see why. An important generational Portuguese talent late 80s/early 90s.

ST - Ferenc Puskás (Real Madrid)

Ferenc Puskás' career was obviously before most people's time but the fact his legacy still stands is testament to a wonderful player.

Joining Real Madrid in 1957 at the grand old age of 31, Puskás scored four-hat tricks in just his first season. He won La Liga five years in a row from 1961 to 1966, scoring a total of 82 goals over that period. Not surprising the most beautiful goal award is now named after him, ey?

ST - Fernando Torres (Atlético Madrid)

Sometimes in life, things are just meant to be. You know, they just click. Fernando Torres was made for Atlético Madrid and Atlético Madrid was made for Fernando Torres.

Atlético's prodigy, native son and folk hero played a total of 404 times for Los Rojiblancos. A true example of the idea that trophies aren't everything, El Niño only won the Segunda División and the Europa League in Madrid.

#football news

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torentialtribute · 5 years

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LA LIGA PREVIEW: Here is the lowdown on Barcelona, Real Madrid and rest of top-flight teams

The League may have had a problematic time off the field struggling with selling British TV rights and draw up a full list of competitions, but the action after that returns again tonight.

The summer window in Spain has also raised all sorts of bizarre stories and unexpected twists and there are still a few weeks left with a deadline of 2 September.

The main points of discussion were Atletico Madrid and The legal dispute of Barcelona about Antoine The transfer of Griezmann, the final move of Eden Hazard to Real Madrid Nabil Fekir's shock decision to join Real Betis and Valencia and retain their boss Marcelino Garcia Toral after a turbulent summer.

Although the window remained open, the focus now returns to football and it promises to be one of the most intriguing seasons of recent years.

The race for the title is a call for everyone with Athletic and Real who spend a lot of money to close the gap in Barcelona, while the battle for European places could be between six or seven teams.

There are also some familiar faces with the return of Osasuna, Mallorca and Granada, all of whom hope to beat the drop after having experienced several relegations in recent years.

Prior to the season opener on Friday night when Athletic Bilbao hosted the defender of Barcelona, which ITV announced they would broadcast on Thursday in the UK, Sportsmail give you an in-depth understanding of how each of the 20 sides of the top flight is set and everything you need to know prior to the new campaign.

La Liga returns Friday – can Barcelona retain the title of this campaign?

LA LINKS ON TV IN THE UK

ITV4 show competitions from the opening three weeks of the new season, starting on Friday evening :

Athletic Bilbao v Barcelona – 8:00 pm Friday, August 16

Barcelona v Real Betis – 8:00 pm, Sunday, August 25

Villarreal v Real Madrid – 20:00, Sunday 1 September [1945905]

Athletic BILBAO

Head coach: Gaizka Garitano

Transfers in: Peru Nolaskoain (Bilbao Athletic, promotion), Inigo Vicente (Bilbao Athletic, promotion), Asier Villalibre (Bilbao Athletic, promotion), Gaizka Larrazabal (Bilbao Athletic, promotion)

Transfers from: Mikel Rico (Huesca, free), Alex Remiro (Real Sociedad, free), Xabi Ethxieta (Getafe, free), Sabin Merino (Been anes, free), Other Iturraspe (Espanyol, free), Peru Nolaskoain (Deportivo, loan), Andoni Lopez (Elche, free), Inigo Vicente (Mirandes , loan), Markel Susaeta (released)

Last season: 8th

With such restrictions on the transfer market, Athletic Bilbao always faces a tough fight to improve last season's performance.

Inaki Williams was impressed by last season and will repeat this campaign from his repetitions

Gaizka Garitano recently defended the club's policy of only signing Basque players and said: & # 39; It is different if you play not only for money, not just for victory titles, but also for our sweater, for our values, for our families, friends, it is something special in the world. & # 39;

Bilbao has somehow managed to make ends meet and possess a talented team. After capturing the future of Inaki Williams, who was affiliated with Manchester United this summer, Garitano will hope to be able to deliver European football to a club that has starved of it in recent seasons.

Finish was a huge improvement over the previous campaign, almost degrading them and Gartian will strive to keep pushing Bilbao in the right direction.

Key Man: Inaki Williams

The Spaniard Becomes Bilbao's main scoring threat and will try to pursue his form for the final campaign after placing the best 13 La League season goals.

ATLETICO MADRID

Head Coach: Diego Simeone

Transfers in: Hector Herrera (Porto, free), Ivan Saponjic (Benfica B, £ 450k ), Renan Lodi (Club Athletic Paranaense, £ 18m), Felipe (Porto, 18m), Kieran Trippier (£ 20m, Tottenham), Mario Hermoso (Espanyol, £ 22.5m), Marcos Llor (Real Madrid, £ 27 million), Joao Felix (Benfica, £ 114 million)

Transfers from: Antoine Griezmann (Barcelona, £ 108 million), Lucas Hernandez (Bayern Munich £ 72 million), Rodri (Manchester City , £ 63), Gelson Martins (Monaco, £ 27m), Luciano Vietto (Sporting Lisbon, £ 6.75m), Bernard Mensah (Kayserispor, £ 3.25), Felipe Luis (Flemish, free), Diego Godin (Inter Milan , free), Andre Moreira (Belenenses SAD, free), Juanfran (Sao Paulo, free), Hector Hernandez (CF Fuenlabrada, loan), Nehuen Perez (FC Famalicao, loan), Axel Werner (San Luis, loan), Nicolas Ib anez (San Luis, loan)

Last season: 2nd

Diego Simeone has spent a lot of time this summer and expectations will be high. Joao Felix has attracted attention especially in the preseason and Athletic wants him to play a major role in this campaign to fill the void that Antoine Griezmann has left.

Despite bringing in eight new faces, the concern for Athletic will be that they have also lost some experienced members of their team this summer with people like Diego Godin, Juanfran and Felipe Luis leaving free.

Traditionally a well-oiled machine that prides itself on clean sheets, you can expect more from the same from Athletic, which this summer has reinforced more than anywhere else at the back.

£ 114 million man Joao Felix has had a brilliant preseason season and becomes Atleitco & # 39; s most important player this term

They could also welcome an additional addition through the door as James Rodriguez's protracted move from Real Madrid for the deadline of 2 September would have been completed.

Atletico only had the only trophy to celebrate the final installment after he lifted the European Supercup, but the goal this season will undoubtedly win one of the big winning games.

Key Man: Joao Felix

You can't sign for £ 114 million and don't expect you to be the best dog's club.

After Griezmann's departure, the responsibility for the young Portuguese international lies in his shoes. If something is wrong, he should have no problems.

BARCELONA

Head coach: Ernesto Valverde

[1945902] Transfers in: ] Antoine Griezmann (Atletico Madrid, £ 108 m), Frenkie de Jong (Ajax, £ 67 m), Grandson (Valencia, £ 23 m), Junior Firpo (Real Betis, £ 16 m), Emerson (Atletico Mineiro, £ 10 m), Marc Cucurella (Eibar, £ 3 million), Moussa Wague (Barcelona B , free)

Transfers from: Malcolm (Zenit, £ 36m), Jasper Cillessen (Valencia, 31m), Andre Gomes (Everton, £ 22m), Paco Alcacer (Borussia Dortmund, £ 19 m), Denis Suarez (Celtic Vigo, £ 11 m), Emerson (Real Betis, £ 5 m), Marc Cardona (Osasuna, £ 2 m), Segi Palencia (Saint-Etienne, £ 1.8 million), Thomas Vermaelen (Vissel Kobe, free), Douglas (Besiktas, free), Adrian Ortola (Tenerife, free), Marc Cucurella (Getafe, loan)

Last season: 1st

It's fair to say that Barcelona is in front and in the mid den has stood as the co me to the greatest stories of the transfer window this summer. After finally capturing Antoine Griezmann from Atletico Madrid in a £ 108 million controversial deal, the Catalan giants still don't look like they are stopping to end Neymar & # 39; s sensational return to the Nou Camp.

Who else would be the most important man of Barcelona than the unstoppable Lionel Messi

But as you look past the drama, Ernesto Valverde has quietly enjoyed a good window. The Barcelona boss has added depth to the full back with the addition of Junior Firpo from Real Betis, while Grandson is replacing Jasper Cillessen, as Marc-Andre Stegen & # 39; s understudy has a goal.

So far, Frenkie de Jong looks like he has played his entire career in Barcelona and is seamlessly integrated. However, their preparations for the season took a knock when Lionel Messi sustained a minor injury during training just days after returning, so Valverde will hope and get his talisman back as soon as possible.

Key man: Lionel Messi

Who else?

Even if Neymar returned this summer, Barcelona will continue to rely on the little Argentinian who will ridiculously give you 30-50 goals in all competitions.

CELTA VIGO

Head coach: Fran Scribe

Transfers in: Ivan Villar (Celtic Vigo B, promotion), Jorge Saenz (Valencia, loan), Santi Mina (Valencia, free), Joseph Aidoo (Genk, £ 7.2 million), Denis Suarez (Barcelona, £ 11.6 million)

Transfers from: Dennis Eckert (released), Nemanja Radoja (released), Robert Mazan (CD Tenerife, loan), Gustavo Cabral (Pachucha, free), Facundo Roncaglia (Osasuna, £ 225k), Andrew Hjulsager (KV Oostende, £ 450k), Emre Mor (Galatasaray, loan fee £ 540k), Mathias Jensen (Brentford, £ 3.42 m), Maxi Gomez (Valencia, £ 13 m)

Last season: 17th

Celtic Vigo cam dangerously close to dropping last season and only a disaster averted after an inspiring second half of the season.

They may not be one of the favorites to go down, but Vigo can have a hard time again during this period. Maxi Gomez, who scored 13 important goals in La Liga last season, will be a big miss.

The Uruguayan played an important role in beating the drop but left earlier this summer for only £ 13 million to Valencia. Denis Suarez is a solid asset, but the Spaniard has found it hard to find his best shape and stay fit in recent years.

If he can reach the level he is capable of, there is no doubt that he will be a big player for them. But it is in attack where you fear that Vigo can be exposed. They lack firepower and the pressure will lie on the aging of Iago Aspas to deliver an abundance of goals again this time.

Key Man: Iago Aspas

Yes, he is still around and still popping targets for Celta Vigo. Only the 20 goals for him last season. There is no doubt that Vigo's hope will be on the Spaniard. But at the age of 32 it will become clear whether he can stay fit or not.

Iago Aspas is the go-to man of Celta Vigo, hoping that Denis Suarez can have the real impact

ALAVES

Head Coach: Asier Garitano

Transfers in: Lucas Perez (West Ham, £ 2.07 m, Joselu (Newcastle, £ 2.02 m), Ramon Mierez (Tiger, £ 2.01 m), Luis Rioja (Almeria, £ 1.8 m), Saul Garcia (Deportivo La Coruna, free) ), Tachi (Atletico Madri d B, free), Aleix Vidal (Seville, loan)

Transfers from: Antonio Cristian (Fuenlabrada, free), Carlos Vigaray (Real Zaragoza, free)

Last season: 11th

For a previous season it turned out that Milds would cause a shock by finishing in the top four.

However, a disappointing conclusion of the campaign meant that she ended up at the mid-table, and they now have a new coach at the helm in Asier Garitano, who replaces Abelardo.

Many of Alaves & # 39; s most important campaigns were only on loan to the club, and people like Takashi Inui, Borja Baston and Jonathan Calleri have all left.

Alaves responded by bringing in two attackers who were struggling to make a big impact in the Premier League – Lucas Perez and Joselu. They also loaned Aleix Vidal, previously from Barcelona, to Seville.

It may turn out to be a difficult season for Alaves, with much depending on whether their new strikers can run to the ground.

Key Man: Lucas Perez

Perez collected only four league goals in his spells in England with Arsenal and West Ham.

The 30-year-old, however, will have great expectation to impress Alaves when he returns to La Liga.

During a loan period with Deportivo La Coruna two seasons ago, Perez scored nine times in La Liga, and he will try to improve that number because he wants to play a major role for Alaves.

Lucas Perez struggled a major to make impact for Alaves

EIBAR

Head coach: Jose Luis Mendilibar

Transfers in : Edu Exposito (Deportivo La Coruna, £ 3.6 m), Quique (Deportivo La Coruna, £ 2.97 m), Pedro Bigas (Las Palmas, £ 2.7 m), Roberto Alabe (Atletico Madrid B, £ 2.52 m, Takashi Inui (Real Betis, £ 1.8 million), Esteban Burgos (Alcorcon, free), Roberto Correa (Cadiz, free), Alvaro Tejero (Real Madrid), Asier Benito (Bilbao) Athlet ic, free), Ruben Lobato (Oviedo Vetusta, free)

Transfers from: Joan Jordan (Sevilla, £ 12 m), Ruben Pena (Villarreal, £ 7.2 m), Marc Cucurella (Barcelona, £ 3.6 m), Pablo Hervias (Real Valladolid, £ 900,000), Pere Milla (Elche, free), Unai Elgezabal (Alcorcon, free), Jose Antonio Martinez (Granada, loan), Asier Benito (Ponferradina, loan), Roberto Olabe (Albacete, loan), Nano (Cadiz, loan)

Last season: 12th

Eibar has become somewhat predictable, with last season they returned to the midtable end.

A 12th place followed by 9th place and 10th in the previous two campaigns, with the expectation that they will end up in a similar position again this time.

The departure of midfielder Joan Jordan is a blow, but Edu Exposito, who became a member of Deportivo La Coruna, should be able to tuck in quickly.

Experienced coach Jose Luis Mendilibar remains in charge and his side must be able to easily avoid relegation.

Key Man: Charles

He is perhaps 35 years old, but Charles was very impressive for Eibar last season, as he scored 14 goals in La Liga.

Eibar will hope that the attacker can continue to find the net for at least one more campaign.

]

Charles may not be younger, but he still knows always where the back of the net is

ESPANYOL

Head coach: David Gallego

[1945902] Transfers in: Matias Vargas (Velez Sarsfield), £ 9.45 million), Fernando Calero (Real Valladolid, £ 7.2 million), Other Iturraspe (Athletic Bilbao, free), Andres Prieto (Leganes, free), Bernardo Espinosa (Girona, loan)

Transfers from: Mario Hermoso (Atletico Madrid, £ 22.5 m), Aaron Martin (Mainz, 5.4 m), Hernan Perez (Al Ahli , free), Roberto (West Ham, free), Alvaro Vazquez (Sporting Gijon, free), Oscar Duarte (free)

Last season: 7th

Espanyol did quite well last season because they finished in seventh place in La Liga and earned a place in the Europa League qualifiers.

However, the departments of some important players in the summer can hit the club hard.

Mario Hermoso, for example, joined Atletico Madrid, and as a result Espanyol can be considerably less resilient at the rear.

In addition, if they eventually make progress in the Europa League, this may prove to be a hindrance to their domestic form, with manager David Gallego, who has replaced Ruby, facing a difficult task.

Key Man: Marc Roca

Roca, a product of Espanyol & # 39; s academy, delivered a number of consistent performances last season.

This campaign, with several players going further, the defensive midfielder may have more difficulty taking responsibility if Espanyol appears to be enjoying an impressive campaign.

Roca was connected to Bayern Munich earlier this summer, but chose to stay with Espanyol. If he continues to perform at such a high level, he will certainly not be long before there is more speculation about his future.

Highly regarded midfielder Marc Roca could be a crucial figure for Espanyol this campaign

GETAFE

Head coach: Jose Bordalas

Transfers in: Enric Gallego (Huesca , £ 5.4m, Faycal Fajr (Caen, £ 1.35 million), Jack Harper (Malaga, £ 1.35 million), Raul Garcia (Girona, free), Xabi Etxeita (Athletic Bilbao), Marc Cucurella ( Barcelona, loan), Allan Nyom (West Bromwich Albion), not disclosed

Trans fers from: Roberto Ibanez (Osasuna, £ 1.8 m), Jack Harper (Alcorcon, loan), Gaku Shibasaki (Deportivo La Coruna, free), Alvaro Jimenez (Albacete, loan), Miguel Rubio (Fuenlabrada, loan ), Ignasi Miquel (Girona, loan), Mathieu Flamini (released), Chuli (released)

Last season: 5th

Getafe got a place in the Europa League group stage after being on last season fifth place in La Liga ended

They want to push this campaign even further and have designs to reach the top 4.

Coach Jose Bordalas will have to manage his team carefully so that his most important players do not get too exhausted by the Europa League.

However, Getafe has a talented team and is unlikely to be pushovers when confronted with La Liga & # 39; s leading lights.

Key Man: Jorge Molina

Molina was a key factor behind much of Getafe & # 39; s impressive displays last season, as evidenced by the fact that he scored 14 goals in La Liga.

The sharp shooter managed to achieve 62 percent of his effo rts on goal, because he caused numerous problems for the defense.

Even at the age of 37 he has shown no signs of delay and this campaign will be fruitful again.

The 37-year-old Jorge Molina was impressive last season and will want to be in again catch the eye

GRANADA

Head Coach: Diego Martinez

[1945902] Transfers in: Darwin Machis (Udinese, £ 2.7 million), Domingos Duarte (Sporting Lisbon, £ 2.7 million), Yan Brice (Seville, £ 900,000), Fede Vico (Leganes, £ 225,000), Roberto Soldier (Fenerbahce, free), Neyder Lozano (Elche , free), Yangel Herrera (Manchester City, loan), Jose Antonio Martinez (Eibar, loan)

Transfers from: Adrian Castellano (Numancia, £ 270,000), Sergio Pena (FC Emmen, free), Pablo Vazquez (Badajoz CD, free), Jose Antonio Gonzalez (Cordoba, loan), Alberto Martin (released), Fran Rico (released), Nicolas Aguirre (released), Raul Baena (released)

Last season: 2nd, Second Division

One of the newly promoted games, Grenada returned to La Liga after two seasons.

They hope to get it sooner than their last top flight campaign, when they ended up at the bottom of the table.

In particular, there have not been many large departments from Granada this summer, and coach Diego Martinez has earned a lot of praise.

However, it will still be very difficult for his party to prevent him from leaving immediately.

Key Man: Roberto Soldado

Former Spanish striker soldier accompanied Granada this summer for a free transfer after his departure from Fenerbahce.

With a lot of La Liga experience, the 34-year-old will be trusted this season by Granada.

Last season, Soldaat scored six league goals in 21 games for Fenerbahce, but he hopes he will be able to score more often for Granada.

Roberto Soldier will are excited to impress Granada after joining the club on a free transfer

Leganes [1945904]

Head coach: Mauricio Pellegrino

Transfers in: Martin Braithwaite (Middlesbrough, not disclosed), Juan Soriano (Sevilla, loan), Aitor Ruibal (Real Betis, loan), Aitor Ruibal (Port B, not disclosed), Andre Grandi (Madrid International , free), Sabin Merino (Athletic Bilbao, free), Alex Martin (Real Madrid Castilla, free), Roberto Rosales (Malaga, £ 1.08 million), Juan Munoz (AD Alcorcon, £ 1.35 million), Jonathan Silva (Sporting Lisbon, £ 2.7 million), Kenneth Omeruo (Chelsea, £ 4 Million)

Transfers from: Mamadou Kone (Deportivo de La Coruna, loan), Dani Ojeda (Albacete, loan)), Andres Prieto (Espanyol, free), Ezequiel Munoz ( Lanus, free), Nabil El Zhar (Al Ahli Sports Club, free), Fede Vico (Granada CF, £ 225k), Gerard Gumbau (Girona, £ 450k), Luciano (Gremio, 900k)

Last season: 13th

Now starting their fourth consecutive campaign in La Liga, Leganes wants to build on last season when they finish 13th – their highest position ever.

They made the news in September by beating Barcelona 3-1 and moved permanently to Martin Braithwaite after being impressed during a loan period.

season it would not be surprising if Leganes ended up at the mid-table again. However, they have a difficult start because they host Atletico Madrid.

Keyman: Youssef En-Nesyri

He played a crucial role for Leganes last season and scored nine goals in La Liga.

That led to interest in the Moroccan from a large number of clubs, including Brighton.

Leganes rejected an offer of £ 18 million from the seagulls, leaving En-Nesyri frustrated and whether he remains interesting to see if the commitments of the 22-year-old remain the same.

Youssef En-Nesyri was the subject of interest from Brighton after an impressive season

Levante

Head coach: Paco Lopez

Transfers in: Ruben Vezo (Valencia, £ 4.5 m), Sergio Leon ( Real Betis, £ 3.6 m, Gonzalo Melero (SD Huesca, £ 3.2 m), Carlos Clerc (Osasuna, free), Oscar Duarte (Espanyol, free), Jorge Miramon (SD Huesca, free), Hernani ( Postage free, Borja Mayoral (Real Madrid loan)

Transfers from: Ruben Garcia (Osasuna, £ 2.7m), Chema (Nottingham Forest, 450k), Esteban Saveljich (Rayo Vallecano, £ 270k), Pedro Lopez (SD Huesca, free), Jason (Valencia, free), Pepulu (Tondela, loan), Ivi Lopez (SD Huesca, loan), Raphael Dwamena (Real Zaragoza , loan), Koke (Deportivo, loan)

Last season: 15th

Get up with a jumble of the season, but will bring some confidence in the season after relegating Majorca rivals in their last friendly match have been defeated. It will be important that they start quickly with matches against Real Madrid and Real Betis that come within the first month.

They comfortably defeated the drop last season, kept floating seven points and will come out to maintain their position in the top flight.

Ze hebben wat opwindend talent, met name aan de bovenkant van het veld en zouden genoeg moeten hebben om de prestatie van vorig seizoen om op te blijven herhalen.

Key man: Roger Marti

13 De competitiedoelen zijn voor iedereen een behoorlijke terugkeer, maar het feit dat Marti zo vaak in een worstelend team de achterkant van het net heeft weten te vinden, maakt het nog indrukwekkender.

Levante genoeg over hen om punten te verzamelen, zelfs Marti schiet niet, maar als de 28-jarige vorm kan vinden zoals vorig seizoen, moeten ze weer veilig zijn.

Roger Marti wordt beschouwd als de belangrijkste speler van Stand-up na zijn overvloed aan doelpunten

RCD Mallorca

Hoofdcoach: Vicente Moreno

Transfers in: Lumor (Sporting Lissabon, lening), Aleksandar Sedlar (Piast Gliwice, gratis), Josep Sene (Leonese Cultural, gratis), Alex Joy (Real Betis, gratis), Aleksandar Trajkovski (Palermo, gratis), Aleix Febas (Real Madrid Castilla, gratis), Pablo Chavarria (Stade Reims, gratis), Igor Zlatanovic (Radnik, £ 1,17 m), Martin Valjent (Chiev o, £ 1,35 m), Ante Budimir (Crotone, £ 1,98 m)

Transfers uit: Carlos Castro (CD Lugo, lening), Sergio Buenacasa (SD Ponferradina, lening), Enzo Lombardo (Racing Santander, lening), Pablo Valcarce (SD Ponferradina, lening), Bryan Reyna (Barakaldo CF, lening), Stoichkov (Alcorcon , lening), Franco Russo (SD Ponferradina, lening), Alex Lopez (Extremadura, lening), Salva Ruiz (Valencia, gratis), Fernando Cano (Lleida Esportiu, gratis), Alvaro Bustos (Pontevedra, gratis), Leandro Montagud (Cultureel Leoness, gratis), Pol Roige (GIF Sundsvall, gratis), Alejandro Faurlin (Marbella FC, gratis)

Vorig seizoen: 5e, tweede divisie

Overal boven de onderste drie wil van Mallorca this season just to restore some normality.

Lago Junior will be La Liga new boys Mallorca's biggest scoring threat

In the last three seasons they have been relegated, then promoted and promoted again.

They came up via the play-offs, but unlike in the Championship, it is far from the richest game in football, so Mallorca have had to operate on a shoestring budget this summer.

It's going to be a real struggle for them, but the fact they lost the first play-off leg 2-0 and won the second leg 3-0 to secure promotion suggests they have the mettle to at least put up a good fight.

Key man: Lago Junior

Any side that has just gone up into a new league has to rely on a striker grabbing them enough goals to win matches.

That responsibility for Mallorca falls firmly on the shoulders of Lago Junior this season. He was their top scorer last term, netting 11 times in the league.

The jump to La Liga is a big one, but Mallorca will hope Junior is up for the test and can come close to his tally last campaign.

Osasuna

Head coach: Jagoba Arrasate

Transfers in: Pervis Estupinan (Watford U23s, loan), Raul Navas (Real Sociedad, loan), Jaume Grau (Real Madrid Castilla, free), Adrian Lopez (FC Porto, free), Facundo Roncaglia (Celta Vigo, £225k), Darko Brasanac (Real Betis, £900k), Brandon (Stade Rennais FC, £1.8m), Robert Ibanez (Getafe, £1.8m), Marc Cardona (Barcelona, £2.25m), Chimy Avila (San Lorenzo, £2.43m), Ruben Garcia (Levante, £2.7m)

Transfers out: David Rodriguez (released), Xisco (released), Miguel Olavide (released), Jaume Grau (CD Lugo, loan), Miguel Diaz (CD Tudelano, free), Carlos Clerc (Levante, free), Imanol Garcia (Cordoba, fr ee)

Last season: 1st, Segunda Division

Osasuna raced away to win the Spanish second division and bounce back to La Liga at the first time of asking.

But this season will be very different. They will not experience the winning feeling as often as they did in the Segunda and they must be prepared for that.

Osasuna have been a yo-yo club since their relegation from the top-flight in the 2013-14 season and will be eager to take this opportunity to re-establish themselves as a La Liga club.

First season, just stay up by any means necessary, that will be the goal.

Chimy Avila has a big role to play for Osasuna after proving himself in La Liga last season

Key man: Chimy Avila

Avila was a very smart buy by the La Liga new boys.

The midfielder scored some eye-catching goals last season during his loan spell at Huesca and his overall play is neat and tidy.

He bagged an impressive 10 goals last time around and will be key to Osasuna's chances of survival.

Real Betis

Head coach: Rubi

Transfers in: Borja Iglesias (Espanyol, £25m), Giovani Lo Celso (PSG, £20m), Nabil Fekir (Lyon, £20m), Juanmi (Real Sociedad, £7m), Emerson (Barcelona, £5m), Dani Martin (Sporting Gijon, £4.5m), Alfonso Pedraza (Villarreal, loan)

Transfers out: Pau Lopez (Roma, £21m), Junior Firpo (Barcelona, £16m), Giovani Lo Celso (Tottenham, loan fee: £14.5m), Sergio Leon (Levante, £3.5m), Ryad Boudebouz (Saint Etienne, £3m), Takashi Inui (Eibar, £2m), Victor Camarasa (Crystal Palace, loan), Darko Brasanac (Osasuna, £900,000), Alin Tosca (Gazisehir, free), Alex Alegria (Mallo rca, free), Aitor Ruibal (Leganes, loan), Julio Gracia (Badajoz, loan), Liberto Beltran (Lleida Esportiu, loan)

Last season: 10th

A side with real potential that at times showed just what they were capable of last season.

Betis had a care-free and attractive style of playing but the core of their side has been cut up this summer.

Pau Lopez, Junior Firpo and Giovani Lo Celso, who was instrumental in midfield last term, have all gone on to bigger and brighter things, but you can't help but wonder had Betis kept hold of them that they could have made a real push to break the top six.

As it happens, that is not the case. Fans will be however be delighted by the capture of Nabil Fekir, who decided to join from Lyon despite seemingly having a number of more appealing offers.

Borja Iglesias was prolific for Espanyol last season too, so his signing will add further firepower to their goalscoring threat. The ambition will be to finish in those European places. Whether they can do it or not is another thing entirely.

Key man: Nabil Fekir

It will be interesting to see how the Frenchman takes to La Liga.

Fekir has only ever played in France, so it will be a challenge for him to adapt to his new surroundings. If he can be even half the player he was at Lyon then Betis have got a gem.

He scored a shed load during his time at Lyon and assisted almost just as much for his team-mates. The 26-year-old is Betis' most talented player and will revel in being the star man and their focal point of attack.

The arrivals of Nabil Fekir (L) and Borja Iglesias (R) adds significant firepower to Betis' attack

Real Madrid

Head coach: Zinedine Zidane

Transfers in: Eden Hazard (Chelsea, £150m), Luka Jovic (F rankfurt, £54m), Eder Militao (Porto, £45m), Ferland Mendy (Lyon, £49m), Rodrygo (Santos, £40m), Alberto Soro (Real Zaragoza, £2m), Luca Zidane (Real Madrid Castilla, free), Javi Sanchez (Real Madrid Castilla, free), Jorge de Frutos (Real Madrid Castilla, free)

Transfers out: Mateo Kovacic (Chelsea, £40m), Marcos Llorente (Atletico Madrid, £27m), Raul de Tomas (Benfica, £18m), Theo Hernandez (AC Milan, £18m), Jesus Vallejo (Wolves, loan), Alberto Soro (Real Zaragoza, loan), Martin Odegaard (Real Sociedad, loan), Dani Ceballos (Arsenal, loan), Borja Mayoral (Levante, loan), Jorge de Frutos (Real Valladolid, loan), Sergio Reguilon (Sevilla, loan), Javi Sanchez (Real Valladolid, loan), Andriy Lunin (Real Valladolid, loan), Luca Zidane (Racing, loan )

Last season: 3rd

It all looked so promising for Real Madrid at the start of the summer window as Zinedine Zidane looked to get all of his transfer business done and dusted ahead of the new campaign. Real brought in Eden Hazard, Luka Jovic and Ferland Mendy in what looked to be the new era of Galaticos.

However, their pre-season came tumbling down in an instant when they were truly humbled by a new-look Atletico Madrid side in America. There were complaints that Hazard had packed on the pounds while Real's aging midfield continued to be a thorn in Zidane's side.

The Frenchman is still desperate to bring in Paul Pogba but Manchester United's valuation of the World Cup winner looks to have killed any potential move.

The Spanish giants have often looked disjointed and out of sorts during pre-season and even Marca have stated that the idea of Real winning a trophy this season is 'farcical'. While keeping that in mind, you'd expect Real to challenge Barcelona and Atletico for the league this season given the amount they've shelled out this summer.

Key man: Eden Hazard

Brought in for a deal worth up to £150million, Hazard will be that go-to player whether he starts out on the left or in the No 10 position behind Benzema. Zidane will need to drum out that 'unselfish' characteristic Hazard possesses if he's going to become a goal-machine for Los Blancos.

Real Madrid will expect a lot from Eden Hazard this season after becoming their record signing

Real Sociedad

Head coach: Imanol Alguacil

Transfers In: Alex Sola (Real Sociedad B, promotion), Robin Le Normand (Real Sociedad B, promotion), Aihen Munoz (Real Sociedad B, promotion), Andoni Zubiaurre (Real Sociedad B, promotion), Ander Barrenetxea (Real Sociedad B, promotion), Ander Guevara (Real Sociedad B, promotion), Martin Odegaard (Real Madrid, loan), Alex Remiro (Athletic Bilbao, free) Modibo Sagnan (Lens, £4.05m), Alexander Isak (Borussia Do rtmund, £5.85m), Portu (Girona, £9m)

Transfers Out: Alex Sola (Numancia, loan), Jon Guridi (Mirandes, loan), Martin Merquelanz (Mirandes, loan), Jon Bautista (KAS Eupen, loan), Hector Moreno (Al Gharafa Sports Club, free), Eneko Capilla (Asteras Tripolis, free), Geronimo Rulli (Montpellier, £1.35m loan fee), Juanmi (Real Betis, £7.2m)

Last season: 9th

There will be a notable change for Sociedad this season, with the renovation of their Anoeta Stadium set to be completed.

A major plus for the club this summer was retaining the services of wingers Mikel Oyarzabal.

However, the departure of defender Hector Moreno, among others, could prove to be problematic.

Key man: Mikel Oyarzabal

There was much speculation about Oyarzabal's future this summer, with Manchester City among the clubs to have been linked with him.

However, the winger ended up staying at Sociedad and will be seeking to build upon a hugely impressive 2018-19 campaign, when he scored 14 goals and provided four assists in La Liga.

This season Sociedad are set to again be heavily reliant upon the 22-year-old.

Mikel Oyarzabal ended up staying at Real Sociedad despite much speculation over his future

Real Valladolid

Head coach: Sergio

Transfers in: Javi Sanchez (Real Madrid, loan), Jorge de Frutos (Real Madrid, loan), Pedro Porro (Manchester City, loan), Sandro Ramirez (Everton, loan), Andriy Lunin (Real Madrid, loan), Federico Barba (Chievo, loan), Pablo Hervias (Eibar, £900k)

Transfers out: Moises Delgado (Racing Santander, loan), Antonio Dominguez (Algeciras CF, free), Fernando Calero (Espanyol, 7.2m)

Last season: 16th

Ronaldo may have splashed out to purchase a majority share in the club last season, but the former Brazil star's wallet has remained firmly shut this summer.

Despite last season's struggles to beat the drop, Pablo Herbvias has been the club's only permanent signing, moving from Eibar for £900k.

The loan signing of Sandro Ramirez however could prove to be a great piece of business. He may have flopped at Everton and failed at Real Sociedad last season, but the Barcelona academy product has proven he can score regularly in La Liga, having netted 14 times for Malaga in the 2016-17 campaign.

Having scored the least amount of goals last season (32), Sandro's acquisition provides Valladolid's attack with the firepower it has so desperately been lacking. Fernando Calero will be a big loss for them though after the talented defender joined Espanyol. Just staying up will be the goal this season.

Key man: Sandro Ramirez

The pressure will fully be on Sandro Ramirez to score goals this season.

His confidence will be at an all-time low after failing to score a single league goal in 24 games at Real Sociedad last season, but if he can recapture his best form, he could have a sole impact on where Vallodolid end up this term.

Sandro Ramirez has struggled for form but can play a big part in Real Vallodolid's survival bid

Sevilla

Head coach: Julen Lopetegui

Transfers in: Rony Lopes (Monaco, £22.5m), Jules Kounde (Bordeaux, £22.5m), Lucas Ocampos (Marseille, £13.5M), Diego Carlos (Nantes, £13.5m), Munas Dabbur (RB Salzburg, (£13.5m), Joan Jordan (Eibar, £12.6m), Luuk de Jong (PSV, £11.25m), Oliver Torres (Porto, £10.8m), Fernando (Galatasaray, £4.05m), Nemanja Gudelj (Evergrande, free), Sergio Reguilon (Real Madrid, loan).

Transfers out: Wissam Ben Yedder (Monaco, £36m), Pablo Sarabia (PSG, £16.2m), Quincy Promes (Ajax, £14.13m), Luis Muriel (Atalanta, £13.5m), Yan Brice (Granada, £900k), Gabriel Mercado (Al Rayyan, free), Marc Gual (Girona, loan), Giorgi Aburjania (Twente, loan), Ibrahim Amadou (Norwich, loan), Carlos Fernandez (Granada, loan), Juan Soriano (Leganes, loan), Aleix Vidal (Alaves, loan).

Last season: 6th

Big things are expected at the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan Stadium this season with a new manager in place and £100m spent on new talent.

Sevilla's biggest summer signing Rony Lopes can shine for them in La Liga this season

Returning director Monchi has got straight down to work with 11 new signings to help Julen Lopetegui rebuild his reputation after quitting as Spain manager on the eve of the World Cup for a disastrous spell with Real Madrid.

The Spaniard faces the task of getting the new-look side to gel together as quickly as possible but improving on last year's sixth-placed finish should be achievable.

Key man: Rony Lopes

The attacking midfielder will be desperate to b anish the though ts of last season's nightmare with Monaco and begin a new chapter at Sevilla.

Two years ago, Lopes was linked with just about every major club in Europe after banging in 15 goals. Last season he managed just the four as Monaco narrowly escaped relegation.

Sevilla have clearly seen something in Lopes to splash out £22.5m off the back of such a disappointing campaign and will look to him to be their creative spark this term. A cultured midfielder who is great on the ball, can pick out a pass and has an eye for an goal, he possesses all the attributes to shine in this league.

Valencia

Head coach: Marcelino García Toral

Transfers in: Jasper Cillessen (Barcelona, £31m), Maxi Gomez (Celta Vigo, £13m), Denis Cheryshev (Villarreal, £5m), Manu Vallejo (Cadiz, £5m), Jorge Saenz (Tenerife, £2m), Salva Ruiz (Mallorca, free), Alex Carbonell (Cordoba, free), Jason (Levante, free), Eliaquim Mangala (Manchester City, free), Jaume Costa (Villarreal, loan)

Transfers out: Neto (Barcelona, £23m), Simone Zaza (Torino, £11m), Ruben Vezo (Levante, £4.5m), Jeison Murillo (Sampdoria, loan), Nacho Gil (Ponferradina, free), Aymen Abdennour (Kayserispor, free), Jorge Saenz (Celta Vigo, loan), Santi Mina (Celta Vigo, free), Alex Blanco (Real Zaragoza, loan), Toni Lato (PSV, loan), Uros Racic (Famalicao, l oan), Alex Carbonell (Fortuna Sittard, loan)

Last season: 4th

Valencia survived a turbulent summer which saw the futures of general manager Mateu Alemany and head coach Marcelino Garcia Toral almost leave the club.

Alemany appeared ready to walk away from Valencia and Marcelino vowed he would follow him through the exit doors if he did, but the latter had a change of heart and the two have remained.

Keeping hold of Marcelino was a huge coup for Valencia, considering he led them to a Champions League spot and Copa del Rey glory last term – the club's first trophy since 2008.

Having achieved so much, it will be difficult for Valencia to maintain the high standard, but they have invested well, bringing in the likes of Jasper Cillessen, Maxi Gomez and Denis Cheryshev. A top-four finish will be the expectation.

Keeping hold of their head coach Marcelino was a huge coup for Valencia this summer

Key man: Goncalo Guedes

There's no doubt that Guedes possesses the potential to be a big hitter in La Liga. Since joining Valencia from Paris Saint-Germain in 2017, he has shown glimpses of a world class player but has not performed on a consistent basis.

You can't help but think that this could be the season he finally announces himself as a top player in the league.

There will be less pressure on him to score goals regularly following Gomez's arrival and he is expected to be given a new licence of freedom in an attacking role behind the main striker, which he could really flourish in.

Goncalo Guedes has shown glimpses of class but has not performed on a consistent basis

Villarreal

Head coach: Javier Calleja

Transfers in: Ruben Pena (Eibar, £7.2m), Raul Albiol (Napoli, £4.5m), Moi Gomez (Sporting Gijon, £1.2m), Alberto Moreno (Liverpool, free), Andre Zambo Anguissa (Fulham, loan), Enric Franquesa (Villarreal B, promotion), Xavi Quintilla (Villarreal B, promotion), Simon Moreno (Villarreal B, promotion)

Transfers out: Pablo Fornals (West Ham, £24m), Nicola Sansone (Bologna, £6.75m), Roberto Soriano (Bologna, 6.75m), Denis Cheryshev (Valencia, £5.4m), Ruben Semedo (£4m, Olympiacos), Victor Ruiz (Besiktas, £2.25m), Javi Fuego (Sporting Gijon, free), Juan Ibiza (UD Almeria, free), Alvaro Gonzalez (Marseille, loan), Simon Moreno (UD Almeria, loan), Miguelon (SD Huesca, loan), Enric Franquesa (CD Mirandes, loan), Jaume Costa (Valencia, loan), Alfonso Pedraza (Real Betis, loan), Daniel Raba (SD Huesca, loan)

Last season: 14th

Given the talent in the squad, there can be no arguments that last season fell way below expectations.

Although it could have been much worse with Villarreal staring relegation in the face at one point. A strong finish to the season saw them finish comfortably in 14th in the end.

It will be tall ask for them to better that this time around after losing key players such as Pablo Fornals and Denis Cheryshev in the summer window but it would be foolish to label them as mid-table languishers just yet.

They have some highly-rated prospects in Samuel Chukwueze and Santiago Caseres and will have genuine ambitions to crack the top 10.

Key man: Santi Cazorla

You've seen all the videos on social media, he may be 34-years-old and only recently recovered from an injury that kept him out of action for two years, but Cazorla still has plenty to offer.

He pulled the strings in midfield last season and has retained all the flair and technical skills that made him one of the best exports the Premier League has seen.

He even earned a recall to the Spain squad for his performances last season. Cazorla has that rare ability to pull a big moment out of the bag when needed and with another tough season expected, he will have a significant role to play.

Santi Cazorla is Villarreal's maestro in midfield while Samuel Chukwueze could be important

LA LIGA BETTING ODDS

La Liga winner

Barcelona – 4/9

Real Madrid – 7/4

Atletico Madrid – 12/1

Valencia – 100//1

Sevilla – 150/1

La Liga relegated

Mallorca – 5/7

Granada CF – 5/4

Valladolid – 7/5

Osasuna – 9/5

Alaves – 2/1

Levante – 3/1

La Liga top goalscorer

Lionel Messi: 4/6

Eden Hazard: 9/1

Luis Suarez: 10/1

Antoine Griezmann: 14/1

Karim Benzema: 16/1

*Odds provided by SportNation.bet

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#LA LIGA PREVIEW: Here is the lowdown on Barcelona #Real Madrid and rest of top-flight teams"

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placetobenation · 5 years

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June 17th marks 25 years since the opening ceremony of 1994 FIFA World Cup, a tournament which still holds the record for the being the best attended World Cup in history, with nearly 3.6m people going to see one of the 52 matches on offer. 25 years on, USA ’94 remains one of the most memorable tournaments in the illustrious competition’s history, so let’s take a walk down memory lane and remember the time when the United States was at the center of the footballing universe.

In what would become a staple of the process of choosing a host nation, FIFA selected the United States to host the 1994 edition of its showpiece event under controversial circumstances. By selecting the USA over Morocco and Brazil on Independence Day 1988, FIFA had given the rights to host soccer’s biggest event to a country with no active professional league for the first time ever.

The North American Soccer League had at one point been hugely popular, boasting some of the greatest players in the history of the game amongst their team’s squads, including Johan Cruyff, George Best and, perhaps the most famous of all, Pele. At the league’s peak, NASL teams had amassed a who’s who of world soccer, but it folded in 1984 after a sharp decline in interest in the sport. By the time the FIFA Executive Committee sat down to vote, the USA had had no professional soccer to speak of for four years, and would not have for another eight after that. To give the World Cup to the USA over three time champions Brazil, where football is more of a religion than a sport, would have been unthinkable.

However, over half of the FIFA Executive Committee thought differently and USA 1994 was given the go-ahead, with one caveat – they had to create their own professional football league. This led to the creation of the MLS, which is now a very popular league in its own right, with its matches being broadcast worldwide.

“We’re Coming Out!” – The USA becomes the centre of the FIFA Universe

Fast-forward six years and we are at Soldier Field in Chicago in front of 63,117 fans with millions watching on television around the globe, waiting to see reigning champions Germany take on Bolivia. Before they took the field however, everyone was treated to the traditional pomp and circumstance of the opening ceremony. Hosted by Oprah Winfrey, the show was due to be highlighted by legendary singer Diana Ross scoring the first “goal” of the event, where she would take a penalty into a gimmick goal, which would then split in two.

That’s what was meant to happen anyway. What actually happened was much different, but would actually become quite apt as the tournament drew to a conclusion (more on that later!). Singing I’m Coming Out, which was to signify the US’s new outlook on the Beautiful Game, Ross ran the length of the pitch, and promptly hooked her right-footed spot kick wide by about six feet. Not the worst penalty I have ever seen but not the way you want to have your opening ceremony remembered by.

Thankfully, once the actual soccer began it was not as disastrous. With 24 teams qualified instead of the now standard 32, the teams were split up into 6 groups of 4 with 16 qualifying for the next stage. This meant that four third-place teams would go through, making it harder to be knocked out at this stage than to make it through to the knockout phase.

The USA were one of the beneficiaries of this nuance, as the hosts finished 3rd in Group A behind Romania and Switzerland, knocking out one of the pre-tournament favorites Colombia in the process. This group included the first ever World Cup match to be played indoors when the United States and Switzerland played out a 1-1 draw in front of 73,425 fans in the Pontiac Silverdome.

Tragically, immediately following his return to Colombia with the rest of his teammates, Andres Escobar was shot and killed, purely because his own goal eliminated Colombia. It has been rumoured that Escobar’s own goal had caused high-ranking members of a power drug cartel to lose a significant amount betting on Colombia’s progress at the World Cup. It was also said that Escobar was in the wrong place at the wrong time during an extremely dangerous time in the country. Either way, it is an extremely unfortunate and sad story in relation to USA ’94.

Now, back to the positive stuff. Groups B and C hosted world giants in Brazil, Spain and defending champions Germany, as well as Cameroon, who lit up Italia ’90. While favorites Brazil progressed with minimal fuss, South Korea, who came into the tournament with a World Cup record of a stellar 0 wins, one draw and seven defeats, gave both Spain and Germany a scare. 2-0 down with four minutes to play, South Korea rallied to draw with Spain in Dallas, and almost repeated the feat 10 days later against the Germans in the same venue, ultimately going down to a 3-2 defeat.

Group D was an example of how crazy the 24-team structure could be because, despite winning their first two games by an aggregate score of 6-1 against Greece and Nigeria, Argentina only finished third in the group following a 2-0 defeat to tournament surprise package Bulgaria at the Cotton Bowl. Had this been a 32-team event, Argentina would be heading home after a week!

One member of the Argentina squad who was sent home after a week was the legendary Diego Maradona. Maradona is one of the best players to have ever played the game and won the World Cup in 1986 almost single handedly. To see just how single handedly it was, look no further than the Hand of God goal against England, where a goal was given after Maradona knocked the ball over England ‘keeper Peter Shitlon’s head with his hand. Maradona said after the game that it never hit his hand but that it was the Hand of God and the name of the World Cup’s most infamous goal was coined.

No way that hit his hand….

However, eight years after scoring one of the most infamous goals in World Cup history (and one of the best ever in the same game), Diego Armando Maradona went from national hero to national villain after failing a drug test, testing positive for ephedrine, and was sent home in disgrace, never to play for his country again.

Group E had its own drama as all four teams finished on four points, with a win, loss and draw each. It was such a tight group that all teams had a goal difference of zero (that is, they scored the same amount as they conceded). In the end, three of the four teams were knocked out with Norway missing out on goals scored, having won 1-0, lost 1-0 and drawn 0-0. Now, I know what many of you are probably thinking; “How can anyone find this exciting when there’s almost no goals?” This is one of the nuances of soccer – a game can be exciting without goals, and Ireland’s 1-0 victory over Italy at Giants Stadium is still fondly remembered today, proving that even 1-0s can be exciting in their own ways.

One of the more memorable moments in this group is in the Ireland-Mexico game in Orlando where Ireland’s John Aldridge, for lack of a better term, completely lost it. While the Mexican team were more accustomed to the close to 100-degree heat, Aldridge was melting like the Wicked Witch of the West as he was waiting to be substituted on. It was close to five minutes before he got on, and he had to wait patiently, standing at the side of the pitch unable to escape the heat.

As someone who comes from a part of the world where it struggles to get above 10 degrees and you are delighted when you even catch a glimpse of the sun, I can understand his frustration. However, his frustration soon boiled over and he proceeded to vent his anger at any one who moved, including his manager Jack Charlton, a World Cup winner in 1966.

Yes, 3 pints! Don’t you realise how hot it is?!

Group F was another nervy group which ended in Saudi Arabia shocking Belgium in the last game to finish 2nd in the group thanks to one of the goals of the tournament from Saaed Al-Qwairian. Because of this, Belgium ended up in the same predicament as Argentina where they had won their first two games yet were still reliant on them being one to the best 3rd placed teams to progress. Despite finishing at the bottom and having lost all three games, Morocco did not disgrace themselves in a group that was tighter on the pitch than it was on paper, having lost all three games by just one goal.

The knockout phase started in a dramatic fashion as Argentina, without their disgraced talisman to call on, were knocked out by Romania in front of over 90,000 people in Pasadena. Despite Maradona being sent home they still boasted talented players such as current Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simeone, playmaker Ariel Ortega and Gabriel Batistuta, one of the country’s greatest players of the 90s and early 2000s. However, despite this firepower, they were no match for a Romania side who consistently punched above their weight on the international stage and, as a result, Argentina, who had played in the last two World Cup finals, were eliminated in the Last 16.

Everyone: Who’s to blame for Argentina getting knocked out early? Diego: ……?

Elsewhere, the United States prize for qualifying from their group was an Independence Day showdown with Brazil. The hosts did not disgrace themselves by any manner of means against a Brazil team reaching the peak of their powers, going down 1-0 thanks to a Bebeto goal 20 minutes from the end. An excellent showing from the Americans who did themselves and their country proud with their performances. Other than the Romanian win, there were no more shocks in the Last 16, although Italy survived a scare, needing extra time to be Nigeria 2-1 to progress to the quarter-finals.

The last eight saw yet another shock, as the holders Germany crashed out after a 2-1 defeat to unfancied Bulgaria at Giants Stadium. Haven taken the lead just after halftime thanks to a Lothar Matthaus penalty (who would call this Giants Stadium home a few years later when he joined the MetroStars) but two quick fire goals from the Bulgarians left German hearts broken, as they would no longer have the chance to repeat as world champions.

This stage also saw four giants of international soccer face each other for a spot in the semi-finals and they did not disappoint. Old rivals Italy and Spain started proceedings at Foxboro Stadium in a back and forth match which was settled by a late goal by the Devine Ponytail himself, Roberto Baggio, with a goal on 88 minutes to send the Azzurri through to the next round at the expense of a talented Spanish side.

Divine Ponytail indeed!

Following that came one of the best matches of the tournament however as Brazil and Holland squared off at the Cotton Bowl, which seemed to be *ahem* the Place To Be for all of the memorable matches. In a match that had three changes of the lead, the Brazilians came out on top, eventually defeating the latest golden generation of Dutch soccer 3-2 in a fantastic contest. In the last quarter-final match, Sweden overcame Romania on penalties to reach their second World Cup semi-final

On to the semis we go and it was the end of the line for two of the surprise packages of the tournament as it was relatively straightforward for Brazil as they saw off Sweden 1-0. Similarly, Italy followed the script where others had failed, as they toppled Bulgaria 2-1 to end their hopes of a World Cup final after a spirited run to the last four. So the final two are Brazil and Italy in repeat of the legendary 1970 final, which Brazil won 4-1.

And, in a match between two teams who had scored a combined 19 goals between them in the run up to the final? One on the worst World Cup finals in history of course. Brazil and Italy proceeded to give the 94,194 in attendance at the Rose Bowl a cagey 0-0 in normal time, then exactly the same for the 30 minutes of extra time that those watching had to endure. As a result, the match went to a penalty shootout, the first time this would decide the winners of the World Cup.

Even the penalty shootout didn’t lead to goals straight away as the first man up for both teams missed their kick. On round four of the shootout, when Danielle Massaro missed for the Italians and then Brazil captain Dunga put his away, the pressure was all on one man to keep Italy in with the game. Up steps Roberto Baggio, who had been Italy’s main man through the tournament with the weight and the expectation of a whole country on his shoulders.

Remember what I said about Diana Ross’s penalty kick? Well, in the same way the World Cup started with an awful penalty, it ended in the same manner, as Baggio puts the ball into orbit and hands the World Cup to Brazil for a fourth time. Baggio was in an unenviable position and a lesser man would have shied away from taking that kick completely knowing what it meant to himself, his teammates and his compatriots in the stadium and back home. Pressure can do strange things to people, and it certainly did to Baggio, who if you gave him the ball for a penalty would probably score nine times out of ten. Unfortunately, for Italy, this time was the 10th.

The agony and the ecstasy of a World Cup final

The road to USA ’94 may have started in controversial circumstances but by the time the big show began, all of that was forgotten. This was one of the best remembered World Cups be it for the Bulgarian heroics to get to the semis, the famous Brazilian baby cradle celebration or excellent soccer which was the meat sandwiched into two rubbish penalties.

In the run up to the announcement of the 2018 and 2020 World Cup hosts, my pick for one of them was the United States, and I thought they almost guaranteed on to be one of the hosts. We all know how that went and the nefarious means behind that, so I was delighted to hear that the USA, Canada and Mexico had been successful in their joint bid to host the 2026 edition. If 2026 is anywhere close to this one, then we are definitely onto a winner.

#IFTTT #Place to Be Nation

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bligh-lynch · 5 years

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And It Came To Pass In Those Days

December 23d, 1996, Lynch Mountain, Tempest, West Virginia For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love. _________ Carl Sagan, Contact Throughout his life, Pappy was known by many names, but it was one Christmas Eve that he truly felt he earned the only one that really counted.

He began as Gustavus Simeon Lynch, but was very soon Gus. His birthname was too grandiose an appellation – it was given to him in gratitude by his father, Simeon, for Gustavus Olafsen, a Minnesotan of Swedish extraction who saved Simeon's life from the debacle onboard the USS San Diego during the Great War. But it proved too highfalutin for the boy who grew into a man. That boy, Gus, was too often a cutup who disobeyed his Pa and had his hide tanned more times than he could count. He and his delinquent older cousin, Allen, would get drunk on badly-made shine out in the woods – they would play music together under the white oak on the other slope of the low mountain that belonged to their family, and Allen would tell him, hitting his fiddle with his bow gently to make a singular dulcet tone, Gus strumming his banjo to accompany, the old family legend that their ancestor, Patrick Lynch, had planted the great druid as but an acorn to mark his property when he came over from Ireland. Twice, Allen had kissed him passionately when they were both drunk – love, love, careless love – as Sodomites would, making him promise to never tell a soul, and though later in life Gus became concerned with both drink and sin, when he remembered those Summer afternoons underneath the mighty boughs of his family oak with his cousin, his first friend, his first love, all he could do was blush, and sigh, sad for bygone days. Years later, Gus heard that Allen, who married a girl he didn't love and fathered a child who grew up in the family as Cousin Bobby he didn't want, ended up going crazy and ripping out his own teeth, an eerie repeat of Gus' own father losing his teeth at a young age also. Hoping to be better than a backwoods moonshiner who did furtive and sinful things, the boy, Gus, became a man, with a new name to match: Private First Class Gus S. Lynch, Company E, 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. He and his boyhood friend from Quinwood, Ralph Pomeroy, were shipped off during the Korean Conflict, where they stuck together because their fellows mocked their thick accents and yokel way, slights that he, Gus, never forgot or forgave. But, soon enough, there was that hopeless situation at a place that history would remember as Triangle Hill – Gus was one of the key witnesses to Ralph Pomeroy's dauntless actions that led his friend to be awarded, posthumously, the Medal of Honor. Then and there – seeing Ralph E. Pomeroy dedicate himself to something so completely larger than himself – Gus determined that he, too, would dedicate himself to something, and he fell on his knees, beseeching the sky above him, to say that he would devote his life to God. Soon, though he wouldn't care much for it, he became Private First Class Gus S. Lynch, Silver Star Medal, but he scarcely remembered those awful October days in 1952 – his bright blue eyes, remarked on by his superior officers, always blurred by the tears as only men put through fire can understand, and blinded by fire and dust and smoke…as though possessed, he dragged what injured he could, the same men who mocked him for being a hillbilly and who would pointedly ask if he was born in a coalmine or if he wore shoes but whom he swore to protect nonetheless, back to the medic tent. There were gruesome spectacles that would make any man doubt the sanity of the world, and still a lesser man repulsed by humans for the rest of his life, but Gus was swallowed in humility by his friend's actions and he wanted to somehow be brave himself – not for himself, but for the spirit he saw Ralph Pomeroy summon. And for these courageous actions – that he never, not once, felt courageous for – he had a Silver Star pinned to his breast by General van Fleet. When he returned home, honorably discharged back to West Virginia and back to the mountains, he wanted to make good on the promise he had made to the Almighty for saving him in Korea, and so he took the G.I. Bill money and crossed the border to Virginia to attend Bluefield College, where he read the Theology he would need to preach the Good Word and save souls for the Lord. In time he graduated, and he took still yet another name: Reverend Gus Lynch – he grew the thick, handsome chinstrap beard he would wear for the rest of his life, and, taking inspiration from the travelling preachers that comprised many of his proud ancestors, he rambled up and down the Appalachians in his big white Surburban praising Jesus and baptizing the anointed, down to the river to pray to study on that Good Old Way. Two fateful things happened as he journeyed from place to place, filling the spiritual needs of the wayward. The first was in Pennsylvania and not too long after New York, because they happened so close together. There, the people gave him names too, but this time they were bigoted slurs: redneck and hillbilly and inbred, they mocked his accent and his manners and his earnestness, so that Gus found himself rather like Jonah, wishing that these Yankees, like Nineveh, would perish rather than find salvation. He never forgot how those prejudiced Northerners treated him, treated him different, simply because of who he was and where he was born – he had met kind Negros, strong in the Lord and the love of their families, down in the Carolinas, and he knew they had it far worse than he did, but that made him all the more bitter, how man could treat his fellow man, regardless of how he spoke the English tongue, or even the color of his own skin. This led to the second event: one night at a revival in Summersville, having returned to West Virginia feeling he should go back to put down roots in Tempest – soured forever on the idea of rambling after his experiences up North – he met a beautiful little slip of a girl, dark-headed with soft grey eyes, who had a ready and sarcastic wit. Her name was Iris – Iris Jones, whose family name had been something else afore her great-granddaddy had renamed them from an unpronounceable jumble of Cumbrian letters for a tiny coal town in McDowell County where the family had all settled many, many years ago. She was the prettiest thing in the room, with the purple-and-gold silk corsage she wore of her namesake, an iris…Gus' eyes followed her everywhere, finally, he got up the nerve, and he asked her to dance, and soon they got to talking. "Ye were in Korea?" asked she.

"I were," answered he. "Served with Ralph Pomeroy."

"Oh my, he was a hero."

"He was."

"If the army had more Pomeroys we'd've won that war."

Gus' expression turned serious. "We did have an army of Pomeroys – but y'only hear bout the famous ones."

"What a sad thing ta say – are ye a sad man, Mr. Lynch?"

"When the occasion calls fer it, my dear."

"My dear?" She gasped, pretending to be offended. "How forward!"

"Well then what would ya like me to call ye?" He gave that famous smirk, a crooked half-smile that many people knew him by. "My doe?" She burst out laughing. "Sly, too! My word, I can scarcely tell what kind o'man y'are – are y'always like this, Mr. Lynch? A man of God but a mystery ta women?"

"When the occasion calls fer it—" The smirk grew. "My dear." It was mid-December and the stars outside shone diamondiferous to join with the lavender half-moonlit snow – the congregation gathered together before they dispersed to sing one more hymn: Go! Tell it on the mountain! Our Jesus Christ is born! And as they stood together to sing, Iris put her hand in his. They took to courting, and soon were married, a fairytale, and they gave each other twenty-four of the happiest years of each others' life – they moved back together to Tempest where Gus became senior pastor of Living Hope Baptist Church. But it did not begin auspiciously. When Gus passed his thirty-fifth year, he was beset with toothaches that would not go away, wracked with pain that no medication or herbs would seem to salve. This went on for a week straight, until – one night – and to his horror, he found his eyeteeth, both of them, were being pushed out by something new in their place…when Iris came into their bedroom she flung her hands to her mouth as he turned to her so that she could see: for in his mouth were two, long, sharpened, canine fangs. Gus had always been aware of the morbid stories, the haints and the phantom creatures and the deep, shadowy weirdness that crawled all over Tempest, all over Adkins County – there were family legends for nearly each of the little clans that called this obscure corner of the Greenbrier Valley home, the Barnes and the Lightfoots and his own family, the Lynches…but he never thought that he would be privy, let alone part, of his own ghost story, his own monster-tale. Now he understood – now he understood the story about Cousin Allen, ripped out his own teeth and had taken to the drink too hard and died pitifully young…now he understood why his own father had a set of ivory chompers rather than what God gave him. Some malign ancestral curse had curdled in his blood and manifested itself as a hideous mutation of the mouth, something that made him look for all the world like a creature of the woods more than what he was – a man adapted for hunting and timber and subsistence living now reabsorbed by the forest he so loved to be a haint, a creature, bewitched and obscene to the world of men. At first Iris tried to help by filing his new additions down, blunting them so people would not notice – but horrible to relate, night after night, the things grew back, sharpened themselves to points as a form of growth. Several times they tried this, panicked husband and supportive wife – several times they were thwarted, right back to where they were. Desperate, and without recourse, they did, together, the only thing they thought left – even though he had not drank in years, Gus procured some fine whiskey from his friend, Ironside Lightfoot, guzzled it down until he was three sheets in the wind, and instructed his wife to take a wrench and do the unthinkable. When she was done, the teeth kept in a small box under his bed to remind him that this was not some kind of hideous vision sent to him from a Hellish delirium, near-feverish with pain and drink, and his mouth full of bloody cotton gauze, he looked on his wife with tears streaming forth from those uniquely blue eyes, begging her to forgive him for whatever sin he had done that had led him to be changed, however momentarily, into a monster. "Oh Iris – woman – what ye must think o'me – what kinda man I am—" "Gustavus Lynch," Iris answered without hesitation, "I know exactly what kinda man y'are." "N'what—" he was scared to finish the question. "What kinda man that be?" She said nothing – she just hugged him tight, and reached for his hand, taking it and squeezing it close to her own heart. They passed this crisis together as husband and wife, and with new teeth, dentures, procured from a dentist down in Roanoke, their life resumed its sunny way. Never did they talk about it, not once, even when Gus was troubled, year after year on the same day ever since, by quare visions of icy blue streams deep underground…when he would awake, dazed and vulnerable in the dead of night when nightmares seem realest, he would feel for his wife's hand, grasping her fingers into his own to feel grounded and unfraid once again. When they built their big house on Simeon Lynch's ancestral lands, on the day they knew their hard work was finished, she put her hand in his and squeezed it – when it became apparent she was with child, and told him the news, she took both of his hands and brought them to her belly… when she was in labor and he prayed over her, his heart full of joy and fear, she squeezed his hand again, as hard as she could – when the infant boy, who they named Gustavus after his father and so went through life as Junior, reached manhood and brought home a kind, mousey girl from Wetzel County to introduce as his fiancée, she squeezed his hand once more. They were blessed to have lived so full and fruitful, all those years together. But it all did not last. After, soon after, Iris contracted cancer of the breast, and she fell very ill very suddenly, she wasted away and was in great pain, such that there was nothing the doctors in Charleston could do. On her deathbed, she put her hand in Gus' one last time, and she said to him: "Oh, I finally know what kinda man y'are, Mr. Lynch." And with his eyes once again blurred with tears as they had been all those years ago in Korea, Gus answered: "N'what kinda man that be – Ms. McComas?" "Why – yer the man who loves me…" Then her hand slackened, it fell away – Gus' hand was empty, and she was gone. Gus knew he would never get over her and indeed he never did, and for years after would regard the day of her death – a clear, azure-skied day in October – as little short of cursed. Every year on her birthday, on the anniversary of their marriage, and to commemorate the day she died, he would pace up the side of his mountain and lay by her graveside, with space for him to be buried beside her when his time came, a bundle of her namesake, amethyst and gold – iris. One night, a year or two after her passing, driving back to the house that he and Iris had built and which now stood lonely and empty without her in it, Gus parked his Jeep that he had gotten by trading in his old Suburban on the side of a dirt road – he got out, and took a look, on a whim, above him, to the Winter stars. He had wrestled and grappled with the questions – theologically, spiritually, even psychologically – and still he had come up empty, empty as the indigo spans that one would have to traverse to get from star to star, how to properly mourn, how to properly grieve. And then he knew. He just – knew, somehow, a revelation, an epiphany, that she was up there…he knew, somehow, that in the crystalline twinkling of the stars, the same stars that twinkled just the same way the night they met, that she was watching. And – that she would not want him to be like this, not after all this time, all this wasted energy trying and wishing and praying for things that could no longer be. So he got back in his car, laid across the steering wheel and wept, one last time, and he let the heavens have her, let her watch over him and never let him go. Even after this the grief he felt never went away, but it was eased some after Junior had his own son, Gus' grandson, born en caul and destined for either second-sight or greatness or both, named Bligh after a distant patrilineal descendant – he had been too afraid to ask his son about his teeth, if it what happened to Gus had happened to Junior, but he was told by Susan Anne he had needed dentistry to fix some kind of abnormal growth…and knew the unspoken truth. Too soon, tragedy roared back into his life, another October day, this time grey and rainy, when Junior and his wife, Susan Anne, died in a car crash – Junior's Eldorado had careened off a sharp turn, killing them both, with little Bligh Allen, who had just turned five, miraculously surviving in the backseat. It was all, all enough for Gus to invoke old Job, and to have his faith, so sure even before his conversion all those years ago, shook so hard he wondered if Hell could hear it: why, why after so many years of faithful service, would God curse him so? Was it not enough to rob from his beloved, for whose touch he pined every day for the rest of his life – now his son, now his daughter-in-law too? And if I am a Christian,

I am the least of all— But this was how Gus would soon become Pappy, the name that stuck at first as a tease and thereafter as how he would be known forever after, even amongst folk in Tempest outside of his own family. his grandson Bligh, started calling him that. Bligh had always been a strange child – the circumstances of his birth alone were the subject of some comment, not just en caul but having to be delivered in Barnes' veterinary office because of a great and terrible storm that at last blew down that old druid that Gus and Allen would play music under, but this was joined with his oddly quiet nature, as though observing everything around him in a troublingly mature kind of way. He did not speak as other children did – when Archie Lightfoot, the latest scion of that storied family which antedated Gus' own and the son of Gus' friend Ironside had his own son, Andrew, he was, by contrast, a bright and happy child, a chatterbox whose constant babbles exasperated his father…yet Bligh remained uncomfortably quiet. Then, one day, Junior, passing the peculiar newcomer to Gus to hold, murmured in babytalk: "Go see ya Pappy, go see ya Pappy now—" And Bligh burst out, his first words, when he was safe in Gus' arms: "Pa-pee! Pa-pee!" Junior was dumbstruck – but Gus, Pappy, was transported with happiness. He had been his grandson's first word. But…when Bligh came to live with Gus after his parents died, he did not like it, and made it a point, in his own sullen preschool-age way, to let Gus know he did not like him, throwing monstrous tantrums – howling like a wolf, which Gus would shake his head the hardest at – throwing his toys, refusing to come out of his new room in Gus' house, except to hastily eat and then steal back upstairs. It was bad enough that because of this withdrawn, traumatized behavior at school it was recommended he'd be held back a year, but really it seemed like there was no way, no way at all, for Gus to get through to his grandson, damaged in his young existence by being robbed of his parents. Weeks turned into months – Gus tried to cope the best he could, Christmastide drew nearer and he did his yearly rituals, cleaning for Baby Jesus' birthday and putting up a fresh, fragrant pine for a Christmas tree, all while his grandson remained dangerously introverted and reclusive. And then, finally, it occurred to Gus – what had happened to him nearly a decade before, ruminating on how Iris was gone, and what Iris would have wanted, and where Iris still was. Little Bligh would have to somehow see the same thing. So, carrying that little hope in his heart that he could fix things that shone distant but clear like the Star of Bethlehem, with the memory of Pappy as the boy's first word, on the eve of Christmas Eve, Gus came into the boy's room, and instructed him in a firm voice to get on something warm, they were going to go outside. It took some doing – thrice more did he have to be told, and the last time in a loud clear voice that was almost a threat – but eventually little Bligh tumbled down the steps and, his grandfather putting a guiding hand on the small of his back, they came outside. Gus made sure that Bligh followed every step he took, so that he would not get lost – eventually they came down the mountain, a gentle slope that was easy to traverse up and down, and arrived just where Gus needed them to be. The night was a masterpiece of Appalachian Winter – silent, neither sound nor movement, with a light snow dusting the ground that made a faint crunch beneath the feet. The cold was not biting or unpleasant as there was no wind, so that there was only the rejuvenating crispness that enlivened the nerves and thickened the blood. They came to a great, ruined, rotting tree – the big druid that his ancestor had planted, where Gus and his cousin would play music together, and where Gus had his first kiss, all those wistful bygone years before. Gus gently took his grandson's wrist. "Ya seen this tree here, boy?" Bligh shook his head – Gus let go, kneeling to his level, pointing. "This tree here fell the day ye's born…n'yer great-great—" He paused, tittering to himself. "Well let's say a feller ye n'me's both related ta, waaay back when – he planted it!" A spark of something like recognition seemed to wash away the sulky stubbornness that had possessed the boy's face lo these many weeks. "Someone – we related ta?" Bligh asked, his voice quiet to match the night. "S'right," Gus affirmed with a grin. "Our ancestor – our family been here a long, long time, understand." Bligh nodded, slowly, as though absorbing what his grandfather was telling him. "I want ya ta see sumthin else, too—" Using his boot, Pappy kicked part of the hollowed-out trunk of the old druid-tree hard – there, on the inside, as a cluster of phosphorescent vegetation, an unexpected symphony of fulgently radiant light hiding in the tiny cavern of the oaken log. Bligh recoiled – he had never seen anything like it before in his life. "Wha – wha?!" "Walk while ye have the light," Gus pronounced resolutely. "Lest darkness come upon ye – see that there glow?" Bligh nodded, his eyes wide with amazement. "That there's foxfire – it shines right here on the Earth sometimes – like the stars shine up in Heaven?" "H-Heaven?" Bligh asked, his voice suddenly hushed. "Like – where Ma and Pa live now?" Now it was Gus' turn to nod. "Yes, boy – yes indeed." He swept up his grandson to lift him up so that he could see the stars shining – Heaven – above them. As he held Bligh up and then set him on his shoulders, he called out in his loud, clear voice that he used at Living Hope:

"Consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the Moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained!"

Right as Bligh grabbed hold of Pappy's head to balance, and just Pappy had finished – he sucked in an amazed breath.

Of course he had seen the stars, and of course he had asked about them, but he had never – so like a little boy – understood, in focus, what infinity meant, what the constellations and asterisms and shapes of the heavens meant, what lay beyond the playroom and the kitchen and the trees and the backyard.

And it was the words of King James that made him understand – the Word of the Lord that Pappy knew and practiced and had a bon mot for, sometimes clever and sometimes poignant, since that terrible day in that faraway place of Korea when he had devoted his life to the Good News.

Bligh's eyes beheld the stars not for the first time, but for the first time that really mattered. "Them stars up ere, boy – lookin down on us – there's ya Ma n'Pa, up ere – there's ya Grandmamma Iris, who ye never met, but who – who woulda loved ye all the same…" "They – up there?" "That's right boy – all of em, watchin over us." And then grandson murmured the first true words of coherence in months: "Pappy – I wish they wudn't up yonder – I wish they were here." "Well me too, boy – me too." He sighed, swallowing back a wave of emotion that came with the words. "But we down here, for the time bein – n'we gotta make the best o'what the Lord God gives us." He took a hand to reach up and stroke his grandson's cheek. "So happens – the Lord God gave me a little boy – a little boy named Bligh."

A long silence followed, which Gus gently broke: "Just like em stars bove us shine, boy – n'like the foxfire aneath the log – I'll always shine fer ye. They watch over us up ere – but down here—" He let himself grin, for the first time in he couldn't remember approaching something like inner peace. "Down here – ain't nuthin gonna happen ta ye, long as I'm around – ain't nuthin ever gonna happen ta the boy the Good Lord gave me."

The Winter skies of West Virginia provide intangible proof in their starry voids of the ancient and the impossible, so that on a clear brumal evening, with one's head tilted up to behold cold Orion in the frigid air that turns the breath into the steamy vocabulary of Fafnir, it seems perfectly feasible that – on a night just like this – the Virgin Mary had a baby boy.

Go! Tell it on the mountain! O'er the hills and ev-ry-where!

And there was time enough for Lovecraft's mad spaces, and there was time yet still for Tyson's patient navigations, because there was time enough for little Bligh, already an orphan and doomed to a life against the grains of modernity, to understand the cruelty and the meanness of existence – but now he was wonderstruck, starstruck, at the cosmos that swirled above him in chilled clarity, the very Universe that Pappy's god in wisdom untold had designed and made, and so could he understand that this same cruel, mean place was also, at the very same time, full of kindness and love. "Pappy?" he heard his grandson whisper. "Yeah boy?" "I'm – I – I'm sorry…"

Now Gus – Pappy – felt that the wall that needed to come down had come down, now he knew that he could raise his grandchild and shelter him and protect him and guide him into manhood and carry on the Lynch name with honor and with pride and respect.

Now – now Pappy lowered him down so that they were face to face, so that their identical eyes, gelid, frozen-over, but warm in this and all the Winters they would share together, now met.

He pointed, down the mountain slope, the trees that twinkled with ice, and he whispered: "G'out with joy." He grinned an encouraging, knowing smile. "Be led forth with peace – the mountains –n'the hills shall break forth before ye into singin, and all the trees o'the field shall clap their hands…"

He hugged his little grandson so tight he knew he would never forget.

And right then, right that very second – everything was worth it.

There had been a road here, there had been a journey undertaken, ever since Iris had blushed to see him watching her across the room at that little church in Summersville – ever since he had clutched Ralph's body in Korea and begged for him, screaming, to get up, to wake up – ever since he would join his cousin's melody on the banjo on those fine Summer days.

They were all gone…but Bligh, his grandson, his blood, his flesh, his true legacy, was here.

And of all the names, all the titles, all the ways he was or would be looked at – none of them would ever matter as much as the one that this serious, black-haired boy would foist upon him:

"Pappy," little Bligh said again, and his eyes glimmered and became overfull with tears.

Gus – Gustavus, Pappy – grinned at him, a full and proud smile, and kissed him gently on the cheek.

"S'right boy," he whispered, but loud enough that the silent night of the approaching Christmas Eve allowed it to echo across time, space – and names. "I'm yer Pappy."

#Bligh #Pappy

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