#jadon sancho video highlights

[fareedrasool]

Victory through dream goals despite being outnumbered! | SVW - BVB 1-2 | Highlights | MD 25–BL 23/24

VOR 12 STUNDEN

Jadon Sancho benötigte Zeit, um nach seiner Rückkehr zum BVB wieder in Form zu kommen. Nach seinem Tor in Bremen konnte der Engländer nun auch im CL-Achtelfinale gegen Eindhoven treffen, ehe er angeschlagen ausgewechselt wurde. Die Dortmunder hoffen auf sein Mitwirken gegen Frankfurt.

WATCH VIDEO

https://sfl.gl/R5vIL

[deeperglobalism]

What is happening to Jadon Sancho? Lack of consistency or Manchester United...

What is happening to Jadon Sancho? Lack of consistency or Manchester United…

The talented Borussia Dortmund winger, Jadon Sancho, who was trained in the youth teams of Watford and Manchester City, arrived in Germany in 2017 at just 17 years old and for a transfer valued at 10 million euros, this without having a debut with the Man City. A super star in the making, Sancho’s stocks have been falling this season with subpar performances. But why is that? The impact Jadon…

[jadonsancho09]

Review DNP Token Project.

DNP token is a deflationary NFT platform that allows regardless of state or location, to generate liquid passive income.

What is DNP Ecosystem?

DNP is a new NFT ecosystem based on Blockchain technology and distributed via the Binance Smart Chain Public Network where the DNP ecosystem will be a bridge for the traditional digital content market with the NFT Market and provide a place for influencers, artists, content creators, etc. to be able to make transactions and interact with each other. The DNP ecosystem is designed with advanced algorithms and is dedicated to being able to promote the digital transformation of the Digital Content market in a more positive direction by providing a unique place for artists, writers, game developers, influencers, etc. to be able to promote the content they create and offer. on their site. The DNP team designed a sophisticated NFT ecosystem that wanted to combine traditional systems through Blockchain technology and finally their team created a new, more innovative NFT market protocol with unique and diverse use cases and wider range, Users themselves can earn rewards from transaction activities in the ecosystem through passive schemes income and simultaneously collect, in addition to gaining access to various other Features available on the public network of the DNP Ecosystem. Basically Blockchain Technology itself ensures the uniqueness of each NFT with a Unique ID that exists in the ecosystem with a digital and authentic signature that can be seen by all users so that everyone can verify it publicly on their distributed network, This provides a new, more innovative ecosystem.

The DNP team designed a unique, sophisticated and highly innovative NFT Ecosystem based on a new safer working structure based on Blockchain technology so that it provides a place for its users, especially content creators, artists, influencers, writers etc. This ecosystem allows them to produce new unique artworks that are NFT and DNP certified as well as design the platform by providing a place for them to trade and sell content to the public marketplace. The DNP Platform also has a unique new Advantage feature where their Platform has a Blockchain marketplace that provides a Place to sell NFT content with a simple and easy to use UI/UX. Blockchain technology introduces a very innovative new concept and with the NFT Concept which allows existing artwork to be "tokenized" to create digital certificates of ownership that can be bought and sold to each other on their Marketplace without fear of counterfeits because everyone can see where it's coming from. NFT created & originated. DNP strives to be a game changer in the Global Market with a new Blockchain Based Ecosystem system that is very unique and innovative for all its users with various features such as Auction, Marketplace, Charts, Wallet and many others. If you are interested you can take a look at their official whitepaper here; https://dnptoken.com/#whitepaper

Tokenomics

DNP token is a deflationary NFT platform that allows anyone, regardless of state or location, to generate liquid passive income through Binance Chain smart contracts.

This network guarantees superior speed and much lower network transaction costs.

Details

DNP token has a tax on each transaction of 6% which is distributed as follows:

2% is a reward for holders from each transaction - keep it in your wallet and earn

2% will be moved to liquidity to prevent the dump and ensure growth and stability

1% from each transaction will be burned, thus the deflationary mechanism will work

1% from each transaction will be used for marketing costs (listing fees, advertising)

TAX: 6 %

DNP market

DNP Market: It is a marketplace for non-fungible tokens,will provide an opportunity for anyone to put up their NFT token and sell it

NFT Creator

DNP Greater - here the user can create an NFT within 5 minutes by paying for DNP services with tokens on DNP Greater.

NFT Auction

NFT token holders can auction their works (paintings / drawings / Photo / audio / video / Gif / Nicknames and names), start trading from the minimum price, and the NFT owner can also specify the price (If the lot does not reach the reserve price) it will not be implemented.

Total Supply & Distribution

The total supply of DNP tokens is 700 Trillions (700,000,000,000,000) and all have already been minted. No more will ever exist!

The audited token contract is live on the Binance Smart Chain network

Details

What makes DNP different from most other crypto projects is that over 80% of the tokens will be distributed via vested airdrop, presale, public sale, or added to liquidity on Pancakeswap & Uniscrypt.

350,000,000,000,000 DNP (50%) - sold in the public sale on 15st of Jule and a minimum of 60% of earnings will will be evenly added as liquidity into TWO different exchanges: Pancakeswap & Uniscrypt. Any unsold DNP will be burned.

210,000,000,000,000 DNP (30% -) - is locked for the Uniscrypt Liquidity for 1 year to start with.

63 000,000,000,000 (9%) - to the development team, for further development according to the roadmap schedule

70 000,000,000,000 (10%) - for the project team, as well as for marketing campaigns

7 000,000,000,000 (1%) - Fees

Symbol: DNP

Type: BEP20

Roadmap

Project Team

Peter Johansson: Blockchain Entrepreneur

Jozef Shats: Developer

A.Chuntu: Leader of the project

Iren Gudz: Artist NFT

Conclusion

The Non-Fungible-Token (NFT) concept offers a new system that creates a Digital Content market based on Blockchain Technology and creates a new Global Market with a very innovative unique concept, Currently the size of the NFT Market itself will continue to increase over time and it also provides awareness everyone about how powerful Blockchain Technology is, The past few years NFT is growing very fast and all the time because it is implemented in a very innovative way especially in the global content market apart from that the recent Bullish Market factor has also highlighted the concept of NFT to get the spotlight in the market Crypto through the system offered by Social provides an opportunity for everyone, especially Artists, Writers, Influencers, etc. to be able to contribute to marketing and present or sell their work on a transparent marketplace and get NFT certification so that the work they create is safer from duplicates or copyrights. l other. I personally highly recommend the DNP ecosystem because it has great potential which is very innovative and I hope you will be a part of this great project!

I think that's enough for now, dont forget to follow & upvote for more content about new potential projects, I will provide some links related to DNP Ecosystem Below. Thank you very much!

- Website: https://dnptoken.com/

- Join Telegram Channel: https://t.me/DNPOfficial

- Join Telegram Group: https://t.me/DNPtoken_official_chat

- Join Bounty Group: https://t.me/joinchat/FW3fusw15xI0ODk1

- Join Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/zzHTyCDH

- Follow Twitter: https://twitter.com/DNPtoken

- Follow Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dnptoken

- Follow Medium: https://dnptoken.medium.com/

- Join Telegram Group: t.me/cryptomatechat

- Join Telegram Channel: t.me/cryptomatechannel

- Whitepaper: https://dnptoken.com/#whitepaper

Author:

Forum Username: Jadon Sancho

Forum Profile Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2954208

Telegram Username: @Jadonsancho09

BEP-20 Wallet Address: 0xb05fc25bCfa612Eaef1Fa17cEBF05A675a40D5e1

[macybeckham7]

Jadon creating on his instagram a whole highlight of videos and photos of you distracted with the caption "💍" xx

You felt butterflies fill your stomach as you see the new highlight on Jadon’s IG. You click on it and see just loads of memories of the two of you, which showed off your relationship perfectly. Whether it was you days out around Dortmund, and taking in the German culture, or you both dancing and rapping/singing along to your favourite songs. Your moments on holiday, your drinking moments and all of your breakfasts together of you sat on the balcony enjoying the quietness. A few cheesy photos of you in his jerseys and supporting him and the Sancho family.

[dopearena]

Leicester City 0-1 Manchester United Highlight | EPL | 01-09-2022

Manchester United continued their revival with a third consecutive victory after Jadon Sancho struck the only goal to keep winless Leicester bottom of the Premier League.

Manchester United continued their revival with a third consecutive victory after Jadon Sancho struck the only goal to keep winless Leicester bottom of the Premier League. STATS Leicester CityTEAM STATSManchester United 10SHOTS92SHOTS ON TARGET254%POSSESSION46%593PASSES51381%PASS ACCURACY78%7FOULS151YELLOW CARDS30RED CARDS00OFFSIDES21CORNERS3GOAL SCORERSJadon Sancho 23′ VIDEO DOWNLOAD HIGHLIGHT

[cisarovna]

Check out the video highlights.  Imagine him serving up the English strike force?

[bvbwatchsblog]

Borussia Dortmund Transfer News & Rumors - Dortmund transfer | Bvb Watch

Borussia Dortmund, frequently referred to as BVB, is considered the team with the highest possible chances of ending Bayern Munich's dominating reign in the Bundesliga. They rose to prominence under the aspiring Jurgen Klopp but are yet to earn an impressive amount of trophies since his departure. In fact, they've only managed to win the DFB Pokal once and the last edition of the DFL-Supercup. 

However, these two successes remain in the shadow as the big event that everyone is waiting for is the end of Bayerns Bundesliga win streak. The team from Munich has consecutively won the last eight seasons.According to reports flocking in Germany, Bundesliga giants Borussia Dortmund transfer could play their 2021-2022 Bundesliga campaign without as many as eight first-team stars. The Black and Yellow could see players like Erling Haaland and Jadon Sancho seek a future away from Signal Iduna Park.

During the years, BVB has been building their dream team in the hopes to dethrone their rivals. It's quite challenging, though, as they often see their biggest talents get picked up by other clubs. Wonderkid Erling Haaland is Dortmund's gem – the most promising young player in Europe right now, and he is to stay with the club. BVB was quick to get a hold of the Polish's signature after spending just two years in Poland's Ekstraklasa

. 

He took a year to settle but quickly racked up his goal-scoring pace. In 2014 Lewandovski became joined Borussia’s bitter rivals Bayern Munich on a free transfer. Although Dortmund didn’t get a single euro from the valued at €50 Million striker, the €4.75 Million spent was well worth the over 100 goals he provided. It's the type of transfer news everyone likes to see.

Find out the Latest Borussia Dortmund transfer news from Bvb Watch, including transfer updates, rumours, results, scores and player interviews.Follow the latest BVB latest news  - includes breaking stories, transfer news, video highlights, latest results, rumours and player interviews.

[debbieqsmith]

Videos | Official Site | Chelsea Football Club

Chelsea vs manchester city video highlights - Extended highlights: Chelsea 2, Manchester City 1 | NBC Sports

You can find us in all stores on different languages as "SofaScore". However, please note that the intellectual property rights to stream such events are usually owned at a country level and therefore, depending on your location, there may be certain events that you source be unable to view due to such restrictions.

Prior to joining U-TV and funding your account in order to view Chelsea Manchester City, or any other particular event via the U-TV live stream, you are strongly advised to check with U-TV if, depending on your place of residence, it is possible to view the live streamed event in question.

Chelsea were beaten away to Leicester in the Premier League by two first-half goals from the Foxes. Highlights of our Premier League match away to Fulham. Fran Kirby scores 4 goals, including a perfect hat-trick, to seal an amazing performance and three points for Chelsea.

Chelsea put in a professional performance to see off Morecambe in the FA Cup third round. Skip to main content. John Stones. Oleksandr Zinchenko. Bernardo Silva. Raheem Shaquille Sterling. Luke Mbete. Fernando Luiz Rosa. Benjamin Mendy. Taylor Harwood-Bellis. Riyad Mahrez. Liam Delap. Off Target 2. Another false nine display that showed great understanding and space awareness in his performance. If they can get Jadon Sancho fit in time, Dortmund will have chances again in the return match.

Josep Guardiola, Man. City coach : "We are going chelsea vs manchester city video highlights Dortmund to win chelsea vs manchester city video highlights game.

Chelsea vs Man City 1-3 Highlights (Download Video)

In the first half tonight, we were not clever with the ball. The second half manchesster much better and we had two or three clear chances to score a second or third when it was To play in the positions we want to, we have to have good build-up play. Kante chased after him all the way to the read review of the area, but Sterling just about stayed manchedter front of him and tried chelsea vs manchester city video highlights go round Mendy.

Mendy did well to scramble across and stop Sterling from shooting, so Sterling turned back inside to look for support and waited what felt like an age to find the right pass. It rebounded to De Bruyne, manchestre had made a yard run to back up the play, just in case.

[your-dietician]

Jack Grealish: England’s Golden Boy

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/soccer/jack-grealish-englands-golden-boy/

Jack Grealish: England’s Golden Boy

The Wembley Stadium crowd was calling for him, yearning for him, long before it had seen him. The second half of England’s game with Germany had reached a deadlock. The English had not troubled Manuel Neuer’s goal for some time; the Germans had mustered a single shot, and then retreated into their shell. Stalemate had set in.

England had a wealth of talent on its bench to break it: Phil Foden, with his Gascoigne-blond hair, Manchester City’s great rising star. Jadon Sancho, coming off a devastating season in the Bundesliga. Manchester United’s spiritual leader, Marcus Rashford. The dynamic and industrious Mason Mount, a Champions League winner only a month ago.

England’s fans, though, wanted someone else. They wanted a player who would not even have been in contention for a place on the roster, let alone the team, had this tournament taken place, as scheduled, last summer. They wanted a player who had, at that point, only nine caps and precisely zero goals for his country.

They wanted a player who had never set foot in the Champions League, or even the Europa League, a player who had never won a cup or a league or a first-rate honor of any sort. They wanted a player whose greatest contribution to his national team to that point was a flick — admittedly, a brilliantly inventive one — in a defeat to Belgium late last year.

But despite all of that, the fans knew exactly whom they wanted. They started to sing his name, to demand that Gareth Southgate, the manager, summon him from the bench and send him into the thick of England’s biggest game since 2018 and its biggest game on home soil in 25 years.

They wanted Jack Grealish, and nobody else.

England has spent a lot of time, over the last year or so, thinking about Grealish. At first, it was in the context of one of those classic English either/or debates, the sort of complex issue boiled down to a simple binary that fills all those quiet hours of radio and litters message boards and allows columnists to fulminate and encourages readers to click, click, click.

Should Southgate call up Grealish — the 25-year-old captain of Aston Villa, his boyhood team — or James Maddison, 24, the Leicester City playmaker with the slicked-back hair?

The answer, obviously, could have been both, or neither, or “well, they’re very different players and so this is a bit like asking whether England should play Harry Kane or a goalkeeper.” But that did not matter. What mattered was the question: Grealish, Maddison, either, or?

Southgate, not especially conveniently, settled that one a few weeks ago, when Grealish made his squad for Euro 2020 and Maddison did not. Smoothly, the debate shifted to acknowledge the updated circumstances. Grealish did not appear at all in England’s opening game against Croatia. Should Southgate be picking him? He was only a substitute against Scotland. Should he be starting? He was on the team against the Czech Republic. Should he not be the centerpiece of the side?

And then, 20 minutes or so into the second half of England’s round of 16 game with Germany on Tuesday, as Wembley was starting to fret about extra time and penalties and we all know how that ends against the Germans, the crowd made its verdict known. Pointedly, it started to chant Grealish’s name. It was not meant only as a paean for the player. It was an urgent, unanimous instruction for Southgate.

The England manager had all of that talent — Premier League winners and Champions League winners and stars from Manchester United and Chelsea and Manchester City — sitting on the bench. And yet it was Grealish, with his nine caps and no goals and no real experience in these situations, who the public had decided was the man for the job.

There is, as they say, a lot to unpack here. On one level, there is a very good reason that England — in the sense of its fans, its prominent cheerleaders and the public as a whole — has fallen so hard for Grealish: He is a very fine footballer, indeed.

In many ways, he is not a particularly English one. Or, rather, he is not the sort of player England has produced for a long time, since the heyday of all of those mercurial schemers in the 1970s. With his long hair and his rolled-down socks, Grealish evokes a player who is the antithesis of an English footballer: the Portuguese playmaker Rui Costa. Regular readers of this newsletter will know that, in these parts, there is no higher praise.

Grealish is graceful and strong and relentlessly inventive, among the most creative players in Europe, in fact. He shows for the ball, and he carries the ball, and he makes things happen. But the fact that the acclaim is not misplaced does not mean its pitch is not slightly unusual.

Grealish is good, but so are Rashford and Foden and Sancho. That, in the eyes of the public, they all now exist in Grealish’s shadow is a strange phenomenon, not one adequately explained by his abilities on the field.

Instead, it is hard to avoid the suspicion that part of the affection for Grealish comes not from what he does, but who he is, or what he seems to stand for. First and foremost, he passes the eye test: He looks like a good player. He has something, indeed, of Beckham about him — the on-trend hair; the tattoos; the artful, idiosyncratic style of his socks.

More important, there is the fact that he looks like a player in a way that is recognizable to the fans. A few months ago, a video of four men in their 20s — all from Birmingham, Grealish’s hometown, as it happens — that had been manipulated to make the men look like they were singing a sea shanty (lockdown has been long and weird, hasn’t it?) went viral.

It is not an attempt to pass judgment on their look — musclebound, tattooed, some clothes too baggy, some clothes too tight, unnecessary glasses — to suggest that they were decked out in what is an instantly familiar uniform to anyone who has been out beyond 9 p.m. in a provincial British city in the last five years. It is not an attempt to pass judgment on Grealish to say that he looks like he might be friends with them. He has, in a very 21st century way, an Everyman quality.

That extends below the surface. Grealish plays for Aston Villa, his hometown club. He has had chances to leave but has stayed loyal (so far, at least). He has had missteps and invoked the ire of the tabloids more than once. He has attracted and warranted criticism, but his flaws make him a little more rounded than the image of the devoted, dedicated and ultimately quite boring superathlete that most of his peers cultivate. Fans can see themselves in Grealish. He is not perfect, but he is relatable.

More important than all of that is the simple fact that Grealish, compared with much of the England squad, is fresh. He is, to some extent, a blank slate.

Fans have watched Harry Kane and Rashford and Raheem Sterling for years. What they offer, the things that they can do, the things that make them special, are all well known. But so, too, are the things they cannot do, the flaws in their game. They have all been scrutinized to their very souls. The country knows, or at least thinks it knows, every single one of their shortcomings.

That does not apply to Grealish. Until relatively recently, most fans would only ever have seen him in highlights. Even over the last year, when every game has been televised, the vast majority will not have tuned in religiously to see Aston Villa play. To most, then, Grealish still has a box-fresh air.

That he has not played in the Champions League is, in that sense, an advantage, too. Not only does it mean he is immune to the tribalism that envelops England’s superpowers — fans of Manchester United and Manchester City alike will not feel dirty for wishing an Aston Villa player well — he has not had to cope with the exposure that comes with playing at the very highest level, for the biggest clubs and in the biggest games.

He has not been subjected to microscopic analysis after a disappointing performance against Bayern Munich. He has not endured a rough evening at the hands of Paris St.-Germain. He has not suffered in comparison to Lionel Messi. His limitations have not yet seeped into the national consciousness. England is not yet at the stage where it focuses more on what he can’t do than what he can.

And so, in the middle of England’s biggest game in years, as a country’s whole summer hung on a knife-edge, the Wembley crowd chanted his name, demanded the introduction of its new, unsullied favorite, the player still imbued with that magic of the new.

As he stood up on the substitutes’ bench to put his jersey on, the stadium roared. Here was the golden boy, to save the day. A few minutes later, Grealish slipped the ball into the path of Luke Shaw. He crossed, and Sterling tapped in. Not long after that, Grealish swung a cross onto Kane’s head, no more than 5 yards from goal. When he, too, turned it into the goal, Wembley exulted again.

Neither moment was a spectacular intervention, in truth — a simple pass, an easy cross — but both were taken as proof of the wisdom of the crowd. Grealish makes things happen. Grealish can do anything. Grealish, England’s great summer love affair, is fresh and new and perfect. For now, at least. But for now may be all that matters.

The Copa Curse May Yet Lift

After 1,800 minutes, plus injury time, spread across 20 games and four cities, the Copa América has succeeded in eliminating only Bolivia and Venezuela. Two weeks in, it is possible to feel that a competition that seemed destined not to happen — it was moved from Colombia and then Argentina to Brazil, ravaged by the pandemic — has still not actually started.

Things should, in theory, start to improve from here. The story of the group phase (as is the case every year, and we mean every year, so often do they insist on playing it) has been trying to work out which of Brazil and Argentina is best placed to win it, and which team represents the most likely challenge to that duopoly.

The answers, so far, are a little indistinct. Argentina and Brazil sailed through their groups, dropping points only at the start (Argentina) or at the end (Brazil). The former has Lionel Messi in a determined mood; the latter has the more balanced side, and home-field advantage.

It is, certainly, hard to see Brazil not making the final. Chile, its opponent in a quarterfinal on Friday, started and sputtered in the group phase. The semifinals will bring an encounter with Peru or Paraguay. Argentina’s path is more challenging. A young Ecuador team held Brazil to a draw in its last group game and has a handful of highly promising players scattered throughout its ranks. Uruguay, likely to await in the semifinals, is all gnarled experience.

Messi has suggested he is in the sort of mood that might single-handedly propel his team to the final in Rio de Janeiro on July 10. That should, in theory, bring Brazil into his path, as he tries to end his long wait for an international honor before his time runs out. It has been a long road here. That denouement may just about be worth it.

The Greatest Day of Them All. Maybe.

Unai Simón’s week might have been very different. He might have spent the last five days under the baleful glare of the world’s news media, a target for fury and pity in equal measure, absorbing the blame for Spain’s elimination from Euro 2020. Instead, his quite astonishing error — and the own goal it yielded minutes into his team’s round of 16 meeting with Croatia — had all but been forgotten within a few hours. How fortunate for Simón, really, that he happened to make his mistake right at the start of the most remarkable day of tournament soccer, well, ever.

That was certainly how it felt in the immediate aftermath of France’s defeat to Switzerland on penalties. All tournaments have days when they suddenly catch light, days that sweep you along with them, but as Kylian Mbappé trudged from the field, away from the scene of the greatest disappointment in his young career, it was hard to think of one that had packed in quite so much as this.

Or was that just the shock and emotion and recency bias talking? It is at times like these that Twitter’s hive-mind structure and its willfully contrarian nature come into their own. It is, in effect, a large group of people, all of whom are conditioned to tell you why you are wrong at any given moment.

The alternative suggestions duly flooded in. Most convincingly, Andrew Downie selected two dates from the 1970 World Cup: June 14, the day of all four quarterfinals, including West Germany’s win against England, and June 17, when Brazil beat Uruguay and Italy overcame West Germany in what became known as the Game of the Century.

Mike Martin nominated June 30, 1954 — the semifinals, West Germany beating Austria and Hungary dethroning the reigning champion, Uruguay, with 13 goals spread across two games. Davet Hyland went more modern, pointing to both quarterfinal days in 1994: the one with Brazil beating the Netherlands, 3-2, followed 24 hours later by the one with Bulgaria’s win against Germany.

All valid cases, and all worthy of consideration. I would, though, suggest that the suggestions from 1954 and 1970 fall short for one reason alone: All of those games were played simultaneously. It would not have been possible to watch, and to savor, them both (even, in the case of 1954, on the radio). They may well have been the greatest afternoons in tournament history, but they did not stretch out to occupy most of the day.

Which leaves 1994, and those sweltering, exciting days in Dallas and Foxborough, Mass., and East Rutherford, N.J., and Stanford, Calif. Whether one of those edges it for you over what happened on Monday may well be less to do with the quality of the drama on offer and more to do with how your mind works, whether the freshness of the recent outweighs the power of nostalgia. And that is entirely your call.

Correspondence

Plenty of thoughts on last week’s idea that it may be time for the European Championship to expand. It is fair to say, I think, that it split opinion (both in my inbox and on Twitter), with the balance edging toward a polite but firm no.

Dunstan Kesseler finds it hard to “get behind a tournament in which half of the teams in UEFA would qualify.” Mark Brophy pointed out, quite rightly, that awarding slots to Russia and the Czech Republic based on victories for the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia is problematic. Fayzan Bakhtiar believes that expanding the tournament would only “compound” the issue of players’ daunting workload.

There were plenty, too, who offered alternative ideas. Harry Richards wants to see the abolition of the round-robin format in the groups, instituting instead a hybrid group/knockout system. Stephen Gessner would cut the number of teams that progress from the groups, but then make them play a two-of-three series for qualification. Most convincingly, Tony Culotta thinks things might be improved by a 28-team tournament in which only two of the teams finishing third in their group reach the knockouts.

This is the glory of workshopping, of course. The format, as it exists in my head, has now been refined. There would be no places for historical merit, now; instead, the 16 teams we have seen competing in the first knockout round of this summer’s edition would be given a pass to the finals in 2024. That neatly circumvents the (incorrect) allegation that some countries would “not have to qualify.” They would, it’s just that it would already have happened.

The most convincing element of it, though, is the part that Charles Sutcliffe believes is flawed. The FIFA rankings — the metrics that define who goes into which qualifying group — proved unerringly accurate in predicting which teams would progress to the last 16, he wrote, rather neatly challenging the idea that they don’t work.

My response would be that this is precisely the problem: The countries with higher rankings, according to FIFA, get better qualifying draws, and so they are likely to proceed more comfortably, and therefore they are likely to get better seedings when the groups are drawn, allowing them to get to the round of 16 more easily. Even ignoring how easily the rankings can be gamed, and how they anchor teams to historical performance, it is this that is their greatest problem: They are essentially self-fulfilling. Breaking the spell they cast over international soccer would be the most significant consequence of changing the way the Euros work.

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[tactical-substitution]

The Konundrum of Kai Havertz

One of the principle things that differentiates a footballer from a writer, artist, or philosopher, relates to the significance of questioning and answering. Whereas in the latter examples, the very best ones tend to be characterized by the capacity to create puzzles and contradictions that invite further thought and insight, truly elite footballers are different; their presence on the pitch feels like a certain “this is just the way it is”. It can be surprisingly difficult to tactically analyze the Messis, Xavis, Ronaldos, and Lahms because the best footballers in a given generation excel so completely at their assigned tasks on the pitch that there are few questions left to ask. It is the great-but-problematic footballers who ellicit further reflection. It often ends up being the Sneijders and Goetzes and Balotellis who prompt fans to think and debate about exactly what they were good at, and why this was never enough to be “world class” footballers on a prolonged basis. If the former category could currently be said to consist of players like Kylian Mbappe, Virgil Van Dijk, and Kevin de Bruyne, it is unlikely that most football fans won’t already be thinking of someone who meets the latter criteria – a Romelu Lukaku, say, or a Sergej Milinkovic-Savic. It is obvious when watching some players play that there are things that they are capable of that few others would try, and yet actually fitting these players into the squads of clubs among the five or ten best in the world proves difficult. It is this space between manifest skillfulness and tangible skillset that would allow them to play at the absolute highest level that tends to illustrate what is required of the players for whom no such deficit exists, and creates a basis for scouting and player analysis at the level of potential Champions League winners.

Among younger players, little doubt exists as to the sufficiency of Kylian Mbappe or Jadon Sancho should a European giant wish to sign them – in virtually any tactical circumstances their technical and athletic gifts are enough to wreak havoc on any defense. These are the kinds of players who will set clubs back and arm and a leg, and be worth it. In this transfer window, there is perhaps no better example of a “great-but problematic” player attracting serious transfer interest than 20-year-old German international Kai Havertz, currently at Bayer Leverkusen. The young attacker has been seriously linked with the likes of Liverpool and Bayern Munich for months, though Chelsea have ostensibly lept to the front of the queue, having apparently only started on their spending spree with the acquisitions of Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner. Barcelona, Real Madrid, PSG, Juventus, Man City, and Man United have all been linked at least somewhat credibly with attempts to woo the young German. Whether he moves in this transfer window, and if so where, could come down to any number of factors: Will Bayern prioritize his signature because of his nationality, and will the player feel the same way? Will the desire the work with a celebrity manager like Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp be an incentive to push for a move to a particular club at a crucial point in the young player’s development? Maybe most germanely, who will actually be willing to spend the money should Leverkusen hold out for his buyout clause? In the cases of Sancho or Mbappe, nearly any fee or wage would be rewarded by a signing that is as close to a “sure thing” as exists; with Havertz, the risk seems to be far greater. Knowing why this is the case will be crucial for any signing club if they wish to mitigate that risk, and to not ensure that they have a player widely derided as a “misfit” or “flop” on their hands collecting high wages and attracting negligible transfer interest in two or three years’ time.

What makes Havertz a risky proposition relative to other putatively world-class youngsters is not a matter of talent or lack thereof – go watch a YouTube highlights video if you doubt he’s a marvel – but rather one of style and skillset. Analysts have observed that Havertz’s position could be thought of as a fairly orthodox and old-school number ten, which is a problem given that the clubs interested in him don’t necessarily play with tens. It is not simply that any one club incidentally does not currently play with a playmaker “in the hole”, but rather that the tactical dynamics of modern football have crowded such players out. Just look at the (mis)treatment of Mesut Ozil or Philippe Coutinho by fans compared to the universal adulation given to the likes of Thiago or Marco Verratti for their more “complete” midfield performances. Champions League holders and runaway Premier League leaders Liverpool are generally noted to play with a trio of “workhorse” midfielders supporting their adventurous fullbacks and explosive attackers, and have improved their fortunes dramatically since jettisoning Coutinho to Barcelona, while the player looks like a black sheep wherever he goes in spite of being a much more skilled and “watchable” player than current Liverpool midfielders like Jordan Henderson or Georginio Wijnaldum. Barca themselves were the best club side in living memory on the basis of the genius of midfielders like Xavi and Andres Iniesta on both sides of the ball, and were frankly foolish to regard Coutinho as a “replacement” for all of the things that Iniesta did on the pitch. Top teams attack, defend, and press as an organized unit, and it is hard to see a role for a “free” playmaker who cannot also cover spaces and defend individually in midfield, participate in the buildup of possession, and generally act as a multi-functional cog in a tactical system, or else play as out-and-out forwards stretching play, battling with defenders, and creating and scoring goals. Therein lies the rub for Havertz, who for all of his flashy ability does not really profile as the kind of player who can fill any of the roles in a truly modern football side that looks to dominate with and without the ball, at least without some development on his part, or some shoehorning and accommodating on the part of the team.

What it means to play as a number ten can be variable to different contexts, ranging from deeper-lying playmakers of the ilk of Carlos Valderrama, to creative attackers who would tend to play off of strikers or even as “false nines”, a la Francesco Totti. Havertz is much more in the latter mold, and in fact Totti is a decent comparison to his style of play. What Havertz is truly great at is using his balance, ball control, precise shooting, and passing range to conjure up “moments of magic” – high risk, high reward actions in and around the penalty box that if they work are very likely to lead to a good goal-scoring opportunity. In addition, his height and heading technique make Havertz an aerial threat if the ball is crossed to him. So far, so good – many analysts and pundits regard the scoring of goals as a tactical end worth pursuing. The problem, then, is that Havertz isn’t terribly good at doing much else. His one-on-one defending is nothing to write home about, he lacks the explosive pace to beat all but the slowest and most injured fullbacks if he ends up in a wide position, and he rarely involves himself in buildup play closer to his own goal. It is highly unlikely that he will get much faster, though he may well gain some physical strength and tactical intelligence – nevertheless, simply expecting the player to become a more solid defender or exert a more metronomic influence as he ages is frankly a gamble. If a big club decides to go in for Havertz they should be able to fit him into their plans commensurate to the amount of money they invest in him, and they should be able to do so now rather than in some ill-defined future where his game has become more balanced and less deficient. Accordingly, the thorny task around Havertz is determining whether his game, more or less as it currently exists, could fit into those of any of the superclubs he is linked with.

The most conventional possibilities for Havertz’s future are worth considering, and roughly align with the roles he has played at Leverkusen. He could play as a pseudo-right-winger, though this would necessitate an overlapping fullback or wingback to give width in attack. He is also possibly capable of playing as a withdrawn forward in the mold of Roberto Firmino, chipping in with a non-embarrassing goal tally but also pulling the strings creatively while the goalscoring burden is carried by wingers, a strike partner, or advanced midfielders. Neither of these are totally inconceivable, but unless Havertz irons out kinks in his game and broadens his skillset, they would necessarily pull teammates out of position to fill the gaps he leaves, potentially creating problems elsewhere on the pitch. Top managers quickly notice these kinds of things and are unlikely to be so impressed by his neat touches and controls that they don’t yank him from the starting XI in their quest for tactical impenetrability and balance. Another possibility is that Havertz will play as a “second striker” off of a more traditional number nine for the rest of his career. One system that could facilitate this would be some species of 4-2-4, with midfield areas occupied by a strong double pivot; another would be to position the wingers more conservatively so that the team lines up in more of 4-4-1-1. The former would be pretty absurdly attack-minded, perhaps resembling Pep Guardiola’s 2015-16 Bayern side when Kingsley Coman and Douglas Costa played high and wide, the fullbacks tended to assist the midfielders, and Thomas Muller (a German number ten a decade Havertz’s senior) played off of Robert Lewandowski. When fully functional, that side was mind-melting to watch, and Havertz might strive to emulate Muller’s successful interpretation of the attacking midfield role, with defenders never sure if he had dropping deep to create or darting to meet an aerial cross on his agenda. If Havertz were to play in the latter system, his role might be comparable to that of Antoine Griezmann at Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid, or perhaps a frame of reference would be the function of Juan Mata, Eden Hazard, and Oscar for Chelsea under managers like Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte. The allure of this kind of role would of course be that Havertz is less likely to come across as a defensive liability in a system where virtually everyone is responsible for a great deal of defensive grunt work in one way or another and he is the primary creative outlet, constantly looking to locate himself in a point of weakness in the opposition’s structure, receive the ball, and then make the “magic” happen. Where problems come up is when one remembers how much running around the likes of Griezmann or Oscar always did. Even in a counter-attacking side, even if a player does much more than their fair share of creative passing and danger-creation, they will still inevitably be expected to harass opposition defenders and midfielders out of possession, and Havertz has not yet clearly demonstrated the stamina or the tactical intelligence to be apt to such a role.

One last possibility for Havertz would be to play as a kind of “false midfielder”. He could stand in midfield areas to make up the numbers and aid in a tactical plan to create numerical overloads in central areas, and then when able to get closer to goal, really start to add value. The problem here is that Havertz has not yet shown that he can become a safer, higher-volume passer at even the level of, say, David Silva or Isco. Those midfielders are nowhere near the central midfielders that they are attacking ones, and cannot resolve situations in congested areas through passing combinations at the level of their compatriots Iniesta or Xavi, but they can at least participate in such exchanges without constantly playing catastrophic sideways passes which result in counter-attacking opportunities for the opponent, and thereby justify their presence on the pitch for when they are able to be more useful in the final third. Is Havertz trustworthy enough to do so? If so, he has not yet shown it. With all of these hypotheticals, it is not outside the realm of possibility that the player will simply develop his game through practice, coaching, and the last embers of puberty, and be able to play them satisfactorily, but this seems like too speculative an expectation to ground such a large financial outlay in. Havertz is who he is right now, and should be scouted for his demonstrated skillset rather than based on wishful thinking. If a club is to justify the purchase of Havertz, then they may have to fundamentally rethink the kind of player he is, and re-rationalize how they will fit him into their plans.

What clubs should expect to get should they bid for Havertz, is a kind of very expensive water-carrier. When most football fans hear that phrase they likely do not think of a player of Havertz’s qualities. French attacker Eric Cantona infamously used the epithet to describe his international teammate Didier Deschamps, as a kind of tongue-in-cheek way of belittling his compatriot’s contribution to the collective effort. Other players who tend to come to mind as “water carriers” might be Marcel Desailly or Claude Makelele. What all of these players have in common, besides their nationality, is a particular skillset, which was as narrow as it was well-executed. These midfielders had the match-intelligence to step up and engage opponents at the right times without getting caught out of positions, assisted defenders at risk of being over-burdened, covered for teammates who may have been out of position, were precise in challenges, could effectively mark dangerous opposition players as effectively as a center-back, and were mobile enough to cover ground and arrive at the right time and place to slow down or stop opposition attacks or win the ball back. In possession they were all fairly conservative, prioritizing consolidating possession and passing to teammates in space over attempting any risky passes or skills on the ball. They are greats of the game because they “carried the water” for more flashy teammates who were given more license to improvise and take risks closer to the opposition goal, by performing these kinds of simple actions with great competence and consistency. Clearly this does not sound like the kind of player that Havertz is, and in fact quite the opposite, but what if there is more than one way to carry the water?

If the main impression that most fans have of Cantona’s famous phrase is that it describes the duties of a defensive or holding midfielder, there is perhaps another interpretation of it that should be considered, which has more fidelity to his intentions with the quip: a “water carrier” is a player who performs a narrow range of mechanized actions to support the team, in contrast with teammates whose roles entailed doing more different things, in a greater variety of situations, in order to really unlock games and break down an opposition. In Cantona’s time this was arguably a fairly accurate rendering of the dynamics of how a footballing side functioned – midfielders and defenders tended to keep a compact shape closer to their own goal, and tens, wingers, and center-forwards were given the task of breaking down those compact structures with “moments of magic”. In such a (simplified, admittedly) context Havertz would be an absolute star with his skillset, as he would constantly have the game in front of him, virtually daring him to find a distressed point in an opposition’s defensive structure in which he could dribble, run into, or find a teammate with a through-ball. There is no doubt that defenders and midfielders would find it difficult to deal with Havertz’s clever runs, deft controls, and overall skillfulness for approximately half of a ninety-minute football match, and the onus would be on his “water carrier” teammates rather than him to do much of the serious running and remain positionally alert. Perhaps in such a situation Kai Havertz would truly be living high on the hog. Unfortunately for the young German, he was not even born at the time that that footballing milieu existed, and so must contend with the landscape of 2020.

When one watches the football sides of Guardiola, Klopp, Tuchel, Pochettino, or Sarri, it is pretty abundantly clear that the players are not divided into conservatively-positioned grunts and attacking artists running around at the will of their self-governing genius improvising ways to foil the defensive goons. It is a cliché to describe top-level sides in the modern game as “fluid” or praise their “discipline” and “organization”, but there is a good reason for that. Modern approaches are based on using all ten outfield players, and increasingly the goalkeeper, to circulate and advance the ball into positions of overloaded strength in possession, and stymy and harass opponents out of doing any of that out of possession. The number nine is the first defender, and the goalkeeper the first attacker, and all of that. It is somewhat difficult to see a place for a solitary magician like Kai Havertz in all of that, as modern footballing sides tend to rely on the industry and intelligence of their forwards to keep opposition defenders from building up attacks, and don’t tend to rely quite as heavily on one or two especially flashy players to break down defenses as sides of the past. For a modern superclub, an attack might look something like a left-sided midfielder and left-winger forcing an opposition defender to play an errant long pass by swarming them and giving them little option, a left-back retrieving the ball and playing it to the holding midfielder, who consolidates possession with a quick interchange with the right-back, allowing the right-back to engineer a free path close to the opposition penalty area where they can cross to whichever attackers or midfielders are able to plausibly compete for an aerial ball with the opposition defenders. In scenarios of this kind, Kai Havertz is unlikely to play much of a part, and if he does is unlikely to be doing anything that a less costly player with a different skillset would be unable to. This is before one considers his (relative lack of a) defensive contribution. In these kinds of tactically sophisticated, high-tempo “gegenpressing” encounters, Havertz begins to look like something of a flat-track bully and an anachronism rather than a superstar.

How, then, is Havertz to fit in to a modern footballing side, if at all? In the above scenarios, and indeed in the squads of big clubs like PSG, Juventus, and Bayern, midfielders (and increasingly fullbacks) are expected to have broad skillsets, and to be able to move and progress the ball in a variety of ways and to defend actively and passively, and indeed academies across the world are producing players who can “do it all” without any “master of none” caveats. Take potential Havertz destination Bayern for example: Austrian defender David Alaba, who has spent the bulk of his club career at left-back but was groomed for a kind of hybrid center-back/midfield role by Guardiola, and plays as an attacking midfielder for his country, plays as a center-back playing incisive long and short passes to start attacks, and uses his anticipation and speed to expertly mark opponents. Former right-back Joshua Kimmich has played in central midfield this season, and has arguably been the best player in his position in the entire world. Young Canadian winger Alphonso Davies has deputized at left-back, and, like Alaba and Kimmich, has been a strong candidate for the most effective and complete player in the world or at least the league in his position, despite it not actually being his position, using his lightning pace to monitor an entire side of the pitch, overlapping intelligently in attack and showing excellent reading of the game to make vital defensive clearances and tackles, all while looking frigidly cool in building up possession in conjunction with his more experienced comrades. These are as much the stars of Bayern’s juggernaut team as their vaunted forward players, along with the defensive likes of Niklas Sule, Benjamin Pavard, and Jerome Boateng. Whichever system Bayern choose to play, it is unlikely that Havertz would be their most important player or even particularly close despite playing in a role that would render him the traditional “star player”. What would the young German mark himself out as, then, were the Bavarian club to take a punt on him?

In the tactical schemes employed by top clubs of the 1990s, elite attacking midfielders of the ilk of Roberto Baggio, Zinedine Zidane, and Michael Laudrup were not only the “stars” of their club and national sides in terms of press attention and shirt sales, but were also typically the players who would quantitatively have a “starring role” in the sense of touching the ball with greater frequency and significance than teammates. Over the last two decades and under the influence of the “positional” approaches of Marcello Bielsa, Louis Van Gaal, and Guardiola, and the “counter-pressing” philosophies employed by Klopp, Roger Schmidt, and Ralf Rangnick, deeper-lying, less directly creative midfielders have emerged as the “protagonists” in matches where the majority of clubs prioritize ball retention in safe areas, and use structured possessional routines to both keep a compact defensive shape and manipulate the ball into dangerous areas. On and off the ball it has been midfielders such as Sergio Busquets and Mousa Dembele and, increasingly, defenders like Trent Alexander-Arnold and David Alaba who have not only spent the most time directly controlling the play of games, but also had to use the widest array of dribbles, passes, tricks, and controls to keep and manoeuvre the ball, and this has been by design. Even many smaller clubs have come to adopt this style of play, but, most relevant to the immediate future of Havertz, every title-chasing club across Europe with whom he has been linked play this way. Gone are the one-dimensional “water carrier” defenders and holding midfielders, and in their place a generation of deeper-positioned players with the skillsets of traditional number tens (many of whom in fact played in that role at youth level or earlier in their playing careers) have emerged. At the tip of the spear pace has been the attribute that most preoccupies top managers, whose obsession has been with using the coordinated movement of attackers to provide passing options and open up spaces for one another and for advancing midfielders and wingbacks or fullbacks. These attackers have found themselves in the role of “water carriers” for their more cultured teammates further back on the pitch, performing simple actions in a relatively mechanized way, but doing so at such a high level that the new breed of holding playmakers are able to use their broader skillsets to move the ball into areas which have been given situational tactical significance and danger by their water-carrying forward comrades.

If the modern “water carriers” are the quick and tricky attackers whose speedy movements create the chaotic conditions which their teammates exploit, then how is a player with little natural pace or explosive acceleration to distinguish themselves? This is the scouting question that lingers over Kai Havertz – his actual skillset looks quite narrow against a frame of reference where playmakers are expected to do their work in more congested and treacherous midfield areas, but if a club side were able to exploit the young German’s demonstrated capacity to pass creatively in and around the penalty area to its fullest extent, it might well be enough in and of itself to justify his presence on the pitch. The problem is that it is not immediately obvious how his skillset and limitations could be accommodated by the tactical schemes employed by the likes of Guardiola, Klopp, and so forth. In the case of a true two-way midfielder or an explosive winger, it requires little imagination to see how they would be “plugged in” to the kinds of tactical systems used by Man City or Liverpool – the dynamics of these systems are calibrated to balance the extensive skillsets of the star players against the intensive skillsets of the water carriers, albeit in a markedly different ways from the suberclubs of the 90s. In the case of Havertz, it is clear that he would end up being a “water carrier” in a limited role were he to wind up at either club, but decidedly murkier whose water he would be carrying, and what kind of intricate tactical scheme of delegating tasks would mediate this balance. Managers, scouts, and pundits understand the scouting question for an old-school defensive midfielder – will this player’s ability to mark opponents and plug gaps carry the water left at that club by its existing, defensively cavalier squad without creating an awkward stylistic disjunction? The same kind of scouting question will have to inform clubs as they contemplate allocating a large chunk of their budget towards Havertz – in what way can the existing or prospective squad play on and off the ball such that Havertz’s superior skillset around the penalty area will free up teammates to do all of the other important work which they are more suited to without having to worry about scoring and assisting goals as much as they might otherwise have to?

Such a question is radically different from the orthodox perspective from which clubs (as well as football journalists, fans, etc.) tend to approach scouting a “star” player like Havertz, but its pertinence is a consequence of the style of modern football. As Casemiro is a guaranteed starter at Real Madrid because his prodigious volume of tackles and interceptions mitigates his pedestrian on-ball skillset and “frees up” his more expansively-passing teammates, big clubs eyeing up Havertz must consider whether the routineness with which his movement, vision, and skillfulness make the difference in the final third can be utilized as a similar kind of mechanized action to Casemiro’s defensive interventions; such a question is not simply a matter of whether or not the scales can be balanced by such and such a teammate who performs an equal number of opposite actions, but a rather more dynamic one of what types of things a team’s midfielders, defenders, and strikers might suddenly be able to do on the pitch if they are safe in the knowledge that Havertz is reliably carrying the water around the penalty area. This is the kind of complex tactical question that elite managers and sporting directors get paid eye-watering wages to attempt to solve, though it may well be intractable to the point where Havertz is virtually fated to wind up at a club like Valencia or Leicester City in five years’ time. It is also a question with a crass quantitative dimension – if Havertz is only creating and scoring a few goals per league season then the truly big clubs needn’t ponder his unbalanced skillset at all, whereas if he’s directly responsible for two goals every game then all other more nuanced questions become moot in a much different way. In reality, Havertz is in double figures for combined expected goals scored and assisted in both of the last two Bundesliga seasons, and has gone one something of a finishing tear that has made him look like a seriously prolific goalscorer, but he is nowhere near the “get him at any price, figure out what to do with him later” levels of Messi or Neymar, or even Eden Hazard in an average season. Havertz is a seriously tidy-looking attacking midfielder whose flashy skills have led to tangible goal contributions which are nothing to shake a stick at, but he has not as of yet demonstrated that he can shoulder an attacking burden commensurate to the defensive one carried by a Casemiro or an N’Golo Kante.

Scouts, managers, and analysts will have to squint hard at the data and footage, and figure out a way in which Havertz’s skillset can be made to carry a little more water than it currently is - his height and precise heading technique, for example, could probably be exploited more than they are currently being. But this kind of conundrum casts a fog of doubt on the notion of splashing a hundred million Euros on the player – sure, he’s nice, but shouldn’t that kind of a cash outlay mean we don’t have to think so hard to figure out what to do with him? You scour a wine store for half an hour looking for an obscure Greek red on a clearance sale and pair it with precisely the right meal to get the most value out of your wine-buying dollar, but if you go and squander your money on a seventy-dollar Barolo you kind of expect that you’ll open it up and it will just be good – otherwise what’s the point? None of this is to say that Kai Havertz clearly isn’t worth whatever fee and wages a club ends up parting with to secure his services – he can do all kinds of exquisite things with the ball at his feet (and head) that look like the kinds of things that players do in the highlights footage from Champions League and World Cup knockout games. He can do, and has routinely done, the kinds of things that decide those kinds of games, sometimes against the kinds of defenders who try and stop a player from doing them. But rather than looking at him as the next Baggio, Totti, or even Muller, big clubs across Europe should consider the sense in which Cantona belittled Deschamps for doing such a narrow range of mundane things, and stick to the mantra that if they end up buying a water carrier, it is the rest of the squad and the manager who will end up carrying him. If Havertz can end up doing as few things as well as Deschamps did, he will turn into a footballing legend like the current France manager, but if he doesn’t turn out to live up to the “as well as” part then he will only ever be the kind of player who fans and pundits describe as “fun to watch, but limited.”

If the phrase “it is the water carrier who is really the one being carried” doesn’t evoke the image of a white-haired Shaolin monk in a Shaw Brothers film or the sound of a bong gurgling in the bedroom of some philosophy undergrad, then maybe a more traditional brain-teasing dialectic will do the trick – “the more that things change, the more that they stay the same.” When one frames Havertz’s skillset as being that of a traditional number ten, he is cast as an anachronism. When football fans of a certain age hear the phrase “number ten” they are likely to think of big 90s Serie A clubs, and the likes of Baggio, Totti, Veron, Zidane, or Riquelme. Footballing reactionaries sick of the ultra-disciplined grimness through which a club like Liverpool can optimize small advantages and secure a string of one-goal victories on a march to domestic and continental glory might well fantasize about a career path wherein Havertz loafs around at the big Milan and Rome clubs and Fiorentina, playing in a way that gets described as “languid”. In this scenario none of these clubs ever hire a “modern” coach or sporting director, or at least nobody more progressive than Sacchi, and the footballing landscape in Italy is fixed to a particularly simplified representation of the league two or three decades ago. He might even be able to show up drunk, as many football writers seem to insinuate that Andrea Pirlo did when they make gratuitous references to his wine connoisseurship as some kind of synecdoche of his “elegant” and “old-world” style of play. All joking aside, there is a credible case to be made that Havertz’s skillset make him something like a genuine anachronism – he’s likely fitter and certainly has more video analysis sessions under his belt than the old school number tens, but this hasn’t ironed a marked stylistic resemblance out of him. Where this begins to look like some kind of big conundrum is when one looks at where he plays, and who he plays for: Havertz has a starring role at an exemplary progressive, data-driven, modern pressing football club, stewarded by a well-regarded “gegenpressing” manager with stylistic roots in the Holland/Ajax “total football” philosophy.

If Havertz were to play as a “traditional” number ten, more or less singlehandedly acting as a creative outlet in an otherwise defensively rigid unit then he would likely end up under a manager like Mourinho or Simeone, playing the central playmaking role in a 4-4-1-1 or 4-2-3-1 system. It is possible that he would wind up in a system with a three-man defensive line and wingbacks behind him were he to play under the likes of Nuno or Antonio Conte, just as the number ten playmakers in football’s bygone era may well have played in both back-three and back-four systems, but like those players he would expect to play a creative role in front of a well-drilled unit that no one would describe as “fluid”. At Bayer Leverkusen, Havertz has played a non-negligible number of minutes as the team’s sole attacking midfield, in a “free eight” role (similar to the “false midfielder” roles of Kevin de Bruyne and the Silvas at Man City) alongside Julian Brandt, as a central striker or false nine, and in a pseudo-right wing role, and has generally looked very good wherever he has played while never having a hugely different role or set of jobs on the pitch or displaying a different skillset more suitable to the position which he is ostensibly playing. He looks like a classy player wherever he plays, but he always looks like Havertz. This positional carousel is operated by manager Peter Bosz, who has set the team up with back-three, back-four, and back-five defensive systems and rotated his midfielders and attackers significantly, giving minutes to all members of Leverkusen’s impressively deep squad. Bosz seems determined to extract serious contributions from his entire diverse cast of players, and has demonstrated a great talent for devising tactical plans that allow basically any combination of them within reason to be on the pitch at the same time and function according to his broader tactical principles. Havertz will be moved around to accommodate this or that attacking partner, but rather than shining by playing the position in an orthodox manner, much credit should go to the manager for setting up the team in such a way that they are collectively able to engineer the kinds of situations in which Havertz is able to do Havertz stuff.

On paper, the fluid and modern tactical schemes employed by Bosz at Leverkusen could hardly resemble the rigid systems that brought success to managers like Lippi, Trapattoni, or Hitzfeld less, but in a very real sense he has simply found much different means to the same end of accommodating his star playmaker. For the number tens at the superclubs of the 90s, positional freedom and the license to move to where they could do the most damage with the ball was a key condition that allowed them the autonomy to control attacks. At Leverkusen, Havertz similarly tends to “go where the action is”, insinuating himself at the center of counter-attacks and picking up pockets of space in which to pick apart deep-lying defensive blocks when his team have established stable possession in the hopes that a teammate will find him so that he can execute the kinds of high-risk manoeuvres which he is so good at. The boy is not going to drag a full-back very far with an off-the-ball run or physically intimidate an opponent into coughing up the ball in a dangerous area, but let him roam around looking for ways to solve attacking problems with the ball at his feet and he’ll eventually figure something out. In previous footballing contexts, players of Havertz’s ilk would accomplish this with the help of a tight-knit lineup behind them playing in, let’s say, two banks of four, with one or two forwards making attacking runs for them to pick out. At Leverkusen, as in hyper-modern Bundesliga-standard football generally, Havertz does not have as fixed a formation supporting him, but his teammates are essentially trying to accomplish the same kind of support structure as were those of Zidane or Veron, but simply doing so in a more sophisticated and convoluted way.

It makes a certain kind of intuitive sense that in a footballing milieu where the significance of pressing and collective actions on and off the ball have been elevated, and successful sides are more thoroughly drilled than ever with the assistance of video analysis and even the literal use of drone footage, the high-level task of having a bunch of unit of outfield players supporting one “star” player would require a more positionally fluid set-up than the traditional formations. In fact, going back to the earlier discussion, it is not difficult to see how the “stars” would become marginalized and the players tasked with the increasingly byzantine task of freeing them up would increasingly take up the mantle of being their teams’ most significant contributors in this context. At any rate, when one watches Leverkusen play, it becomes clear that apart from Havertz’s colleagues in the attacking line playing in such a way as to maximize his options, the contributions of the players behind him on the pitch are absolutely crucial to his capacity to play the way that he does. Leverkusen have traditional defenders and hard-tackling, orthodox midfielders, but no mere “water carriers”. Bosz often plays with three players in the center-back position, but is disinclined to play three out-and-out center-backs, often preferring instead of play full-back Wendell or one of the identical-twin midfielders Lars and Sven Bender in the defensive band – like Bayern manager Hansi Flick, he clearly considers recovery pace and passing ability to be as important as the ability to win headers and make goal-line clearances in his defenders and is willing to play squad members “out of position” to accomplish this. Full-backs or wingers are often played in wide positions as is customary, but Bosz has shown a habit of playing four true central midfielders in his midfield line, giving a clear window into his tactical outlook and into his strategy for getting the best out of Havertz. Julian Baumgartlinger and Charles Aranguiz are the two most defensively-minded of Leverkusen’s midfielders, with Nadiem Amiri and Kariem Demirbay more obviously skillful technicians when they are tasked with making a creative pass or keeping the ball under pressure. All of the club’s primary midfield options, however, are well-rounded in their skillsets, in the same way that the defensive line are expected to be. All of Leverkusen’s midfielders are instructed to press in unison, play passing combinations, drop into the defensive line, and join the attack when the situation calls for it. When seven or eight players can collectively work at a high athletic and technical level to provide structure, make defensive interventions, create adequate spaces in wide and central areas, and so on, it becomes easy to see how a player like Kai Havertz is able to thrive.

Arguably the most analogous current side to Bayer Leverkusen playing at a high level are Atalanta Bergamo, managed by Italian veteran Gian Piero Gasperini. As with Leverkusen, Atalanta focus on attacking far more than they do on defending, and their roaming playmaker-attackers Josip Illicic and Papu Gomez provide reasonable points of stylistic comparison for Havertz. Within Atalanta’s tactical setup, the importance of midfielders Marten de Roen and Remo Freuler being able to undertake a wide variety of unglamorous tasks related to pressing, defending, ball retention and progression, and keeping a collective structural balance through correct positioning cannot be overstated; neither can the significance of the wide-positioned wingbacks, acting as defensive and especially offensive outlets capable of doing the tireless running that the team’s more technically proficient attacking midfielders are unwilling or unable to do. The team must constantly be able to make up the numbers in various areas of the pitch in order to function in passing, defending, attacking the opposition penalty area, and so forth. Illicic and Gomez are reasonably intelligent players, but Illicic in particular is not exactly renowned for his leopard-fast bursts of pace or tremendous workrate. Like Leverkusen, Atalanta play with anachronistic number ten players by screwing with the formula further back on the pitch, and may provide a window into what ought to be done with Havertz in the future. The problem lies in the fact that Atalanta are a “fun” side, but they are far from a “complete” side. The immense ability of Illicic and Gomez has made Atalanta into something of an offensive juggernaut to the point that they are reliable top-four finishers in Serie A despite having far from the fourth-largest budget in the league, but their presence creates a kind of chain of deferred problem that ultimately results in the club’s center-backs frequently chasing back in comical fashion or playing calamitous forward passes because they are isolated from their teammates. Will a team like Man City or Chelsea, whose problems this season have been much more with their defending than going forward, look at Leverkusen and Atalanta and their status as “entertainers” whose matches produce goals at both ends, and decide that Havertz is a prudent signing? It does not seem entirely likely.

Perhaps if a big club is to roll the dice on Kai Havertz, they should look to play with a support structure similar to that employed at Leverkusen, but simply have better midfielders and defenders than Leverkusen. This is probably not the kind of suggestion for which a sporting analyst in a big club’s employ can hope to receive a big promotion, but it may well work. Leverkusen have pretty talented players all over the pitch, but they do not have any one player as truly excellent as PSG’s Marco Verratti, Real Madrid’s Dani Carvajal, or Chelsea’s Jorginho. It is well within the realm of possibility that a club that can afford Havertz can also afford the kinds of players who are so good that they can sufficiently control the aspects of the game that Havertz doesn’t, and allow him to do what he is exceptional at. The issue, given everything previously discussed, is with the proposition of outlaying such a large sum on the player. Why not simply cut out the middleman, sign some midfielders and fullbacks who can collectively do a reasonable amount of goal-creation and goal-scoring without Havertz’s presence on the pitch and be done with it – is there really a high-level system that is truly balanced in which there is really no substitute for a player of his skillset? After all, an industrious and athletic midfielder can create the possibility of a goal with a well-timed run, and a full-back can cross the ball with a meaningful chance of creating a good goal-scoring opportunity.

The scouting question returns to the one of whether Havertz’s gratuitously skillful on-ball ability makes him viable as a “water carrier” for world-class teammates who can do more than just create and score a decent volume of chances. If not, then surely it is the players whose skillsets are more well-rounded than Havertz’s who should be attracting the ridiculous fees rather than the young German. A more tantalizing question might be whether it is feasible for Havertz to do everything he has shown himself capable of doing around the penalty area at Leverkusen, do nothing more, and still have the rest of the team do plenty of solid attacking work in addition to that done by him rather than burdening him almost entirely with making the attack hum. All of this is of course contingent on the rest of the squad being capable of, firstly, feeding the ball to Havertz in the areas where he needs it, and secondly, doing the defensive and ball-progression work that are not really his forte. Any team with serious structural issues in their defensive and midfield areas should be looking nowhere near the youngster as his expensive purchase is highly unlikely to indirectly solve any issues in defense or build-up, and could quite possibly exacerbate them.

All of these questions could reasonably be rendered moot if Havertz simply broadens his skillset somewhat. It shouldn’t be presumed to be inevitable, but it’s far from unheard of for young attacking midfielders to pick up the aspects of the game which are more subtle than getting a shot away or looking for the killer pass. Genuinely top-tier central midfielders like Luka Modric and Andrea Pirlo initially profiled as classical number tens, and it is not too much of a leap of imagination to imagine the German’s balance and passing range being transposed to deeper areas on the pitch. A version of Kai Havertz who shows enough composure to regularly drop back and assist midfielders positioned deeper than him while also demonstrating the same skillset that he already has is basically Kevin de Bruyne. Then again, a version of Michel Platini whose body hasn’t gone downhill athletically over the past three and a half decades and whose reputation isn’t tarnished by a series of corruption scandals is basically peak Michel Platini. A disgusting, greasy broken Hollandaise that was instead emulsified properly by someone who knows how to cook is a delicious sauce. If clubs get too tempted by the prospect of the kind of player that Havertz could be if such and such conditions are met and base their decision to buy him on that, then they are buying the conditions along with the player, and the potential for an expensive mistake is very much baked into the structure of such a valuation.

Have the scouts for Europe’s super-elite considered all of this and analyzed it in greater depth and with more technical resources than has been done in this piece? Without question. Will this ensure that their decision to bid or not bid for Kai Havertz is the right one? Not necessarily. But regardless of what happens with the young player, consideration of who he is as a player right now, who he reasonably could be, and what kinds of conditions must be met for him to end up a success has facilitated a level of reflection on the nature of modern football that would not be the case with other higher-end players. What kinds of scouting questions need a club ask about Raphael Varane, say, if he’s unsettled in Madrid? He’s ridiculously quick, his positioning and decision-making are as good as it gets, he wins his aerial duels. There is no question, go all in for him. What about another 20-year-old Bundesliga sensation, Jadon Sancho? His quick feet, strength, and quick change of direction make him one of the most effective dribblers on the planet, and he’s demonstrated plenty of end product over the past two seasons in Dortmund. If you could use an attacking player and have the money, you go for him, little analysis is necessary. But human agency tends to orient itself towards problems, contradictions, and puzzles, and when a player is as manifestly brilliant as Kai Havertz is without necessarily fitting into any of the truly elite European superclubs, the urge to philosophize his situation takes over. It is this urge which will guide how clubs scout Havertz, and every other player under the sun, if they are to grab themselves a future superstar or at least a useful contributor and not another expensive disappointment.

[movahub-blog]

Jadon Sancho was hit by a lighter from the crowd as nine-man Borussia Dortmund lost to local rivals Schalke to leave their title dreams in tatters. #MovaHub #MovaHubTV

[christianrreynolds]

Soccer Highlights | Today's Football/Soccer Highlights Videos From World's Top Leagues

Champions league highlights free - Uefa champions league highlights - Vidéo Dailymotion

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Watch Erling Haaland's double as Dortmund made it into the last eight with a aggregate success. Champions league highlights free the best of the action as a stunning late Ferland Mendy strike gave Real Madrid a first leg advantage against ten-man Atalanta. See how Manchester City got a stranglehold on this round of 16 tie thanks to goals by Bernardo Silva and Gabriel Jesus.

Watch Olivier Giroud's spectacular winner and the best of the rest of the action as Higjlights got a first-leg edge in this round of 16 tie.

See how the holders took command of this round of 16 tie, with Robert Lewandowski and year-old Jamal Musiala amongst the goals. See how Porto gained a first leg advantage in this round of 16 clash thanks to early strikes in both halves. Watch the best of the action from Spain where chanpions Erling Haaland double gave the highliggts a first leg edge.

For the best possible leagud we recommend using ChromeFirefox or Chajpions Edge. Favourite club. Filter by Filter. Tel-Aviv Man.

City Man. An error occurred while playing the video Next Video. Now playing Highlights: Bayern Paris 2 mins. Highlights: Porto Chelsea 2 mins Watch the best of champions league highlights free action as Mason Mount's fine opener set Chelsea on their way to a first-leg advantage in Seville. Now playing Highlights: Porto Chelsea 2 mins. Ciro Immobile, Lazio Have you ever seen a fadeaway goal before?

Well after watching this Immobile highlight, you certainly will be able to say you have now. Even from outside of the box, and his momentum carrying him away from the goal, the Italian description was able to launch the ball into the back of champions league highlights free net.

Jadon Sancho, Borussia Dortmund While Leagud Haaland continued his incredible scoring rampage Tuesday, his goals paled in comparison to his teammate's. Keague free kick curled with such beauty and grace that it was a surprise the keeper chapmions just stop and stare at the shot in awe.

Champions league highlights free Sancho, are you kidding me?! Bruno Fernandes, Manchester United This one was clearly for all the doubters who thought Fernandes could only score from the penalty spot.

This goal came from chamions the box after a deflected corner got the ball right to his feet. Champions league highlights free waited for the right bounce tottenham score today smashed his shot at the perfect spot to fire it past the outstretched arms of Istanbul's keeper. By Gabriel Fernandez. Nov 24, at pm ET 2 min read. Extended highlights Log in.

Full match replays Log in. Goals and best moments Unlikely hero Chilwell bags huge second for Chelsea. It has been coming! Muller equalises for Bayern.

Game on! Choupo-Moting responds for Bayern. Brilliant solo effort from Mount gives Chelsea lead. PSG are flying! Marquinhos makes it two. Mbappe gives PSG dream start in Munich.

[mancitynoise]

Manchester City attacker, Raheem Sterling, is fronting a new hard-hitting anti-racism campaign, coming hot on the heels of the Black Lives Matter movement.

According to the Daily Mirror, Sterling has helped make a video with a powerful message.

In the footage, entitled ‘We Are Tired,’ which has been shot together with the likes of Jadon Sancho, Gary Lineker and Jordan Henderson, Sterling’s assertion that “I will never tire of being black” is aiming to highlight the lack of black people in positions of power in the various different sporting bodies.

“We are tired.”

Raheem Sterling, Kevin De Bruyne, Jadon Sancho and football stars from around Europe have released a powerful video to show their support for the fight against racism and discrimination. pic.twitter.com/eKPugsI3s3

— Sky Sports (@SkySports) June 16, 2020

As the Daily Mirror point out, there are just three black executives at the likes of UK Athletics, the Football Association and the Lawn Tennis Association, despite there being more than 120 positions available.

In an effort to really ram the message home on social media, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Kevin De Bruyne, Lucy Bronze, Vincent Kompany, Gael Clichy and David Alaba also appear, and the Daily Mirror note their reach on social media being in excess of a combined 60m followers.

More Stories / Latest News

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June 16, 2020 21:42

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June 16, 2020 21:28

‘I will never tire of being black’ – Man City’s Raheem Sterling fronting new hard-hitting anti-racism campaign

June 16, 2020 21:23

It seems abundantly clear that players have had enough of the racism which remains a stain on society and in the upper echelons of sport, and Sterling giving another push to keep the conversation going will hopefully see more than lip service paid by the powers that be.

The post ‘I will never tire of being black’ – Man City’s Raheem Sterling fronting new hard-hitting anti-racism campaign appeared first on CaughtOffside.

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