{"id":58183,"date":"2024-05-24T16:58:41","date_gmt":"2024-05-24T16:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/24\/why-we-should-have-nice-things\/"},"modified":"2024-05-24T16:58:41","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T16:58:41","slug":"why-we-should-have-nice-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/24\/why-we-should-have-nice-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Why We Should Have Nice Things"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"549\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/24\/multimedia\/24rory-fans-wgfl\/24rory-fans-wgfl-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,549&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Why We Should Have Nice Things\" title=\"Why We Should Have Nice Things\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">All being well, Bayer Leverkusen will end this season with one record, two trophies and just three haunting, existential questions. They will all trace back to Wednesday, back to Dublin, back to the Europa League final, and they will all take exactly the same, baleful form: What if?<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">What if Exequiel Palacios <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uefa.com\/uefaeuropaleague\/video\/028d-1af3d0f8c6dd-0904872cb478-1000--player-of-the-match-ademola-lookman-highlights\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">had seen Ademola Lookman coming<\/a>? What if Granit Xhaka <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uefa.com\/uefaeuropaleague\/video\/028d-1af3d0f8c6dd-0904872cb478-1000--player-of-the-match-ademola-lookman-highlights\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">had not given the ball away<\/a>? What if Edmond Tapsoba <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uefa.com\/uefaeuropaleague\/video\/028d-1af3d0f8c6dd-0904872cb478-1000--player-of-the-match-ademola-lookman-highlights\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">had stretched out his leg<\/a>? Could the final have been different? Could Leverkusen have rallied to beat Atalanta? Could Leverkusen\u2019s manager, Xabi Alonso, have steered his team to an unbeaten treble?<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It is cruel, of course, that it should be this way. Leverkusen has, after all, illuminated the European season like no other team. It <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/13\/world\/europe\/bayer-leverkuson-bayern-munich-bundesliga.html\" title=\"\">has won its first German championship<\/a>, after 120 years of trying. It should, this weekend, add the German cup to its trophy haul. It has overtaken Benfica as the owner of the longest unbeaten run in European soccer since World War I. And it has done it all, in case nobody has mentioned it, in Alonso\u2019s <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/11\/17\/world\/europe\/xabi-alonso-leverkusen.html\" title=\"\">first full season in management<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That is how its season should be remembered. When Alonso, his players and his fans reflect on this campaign in years to come, they should focus on what the team achieved, not on where it fell short. It has outstripped even the most fanciful of its ambitions. But should is not the same as will. Nothing hurts as much as nearly. Leverkusen will, whether it wants to or not, always wonder.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There is, though, a silver lining. A couple of months ago, as both Liverpool and Bayern Munich began to search for a new coach, Alonso made it clear that he would not welcome an approach from either club. He was, he said, still honing his craft. He had made a long-term commitment to Leverkusen, and he did not intend to break it at the first available opportunity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At the time \u2014 and possibly even more so now \u2014 this felt distinctly countercultural. Soccer is not only conditioned to believe that every wave is there to be ridden, but economically structured so that anything new or bright or promising is immediately acquired by the game\u2019s (often self-appointed) great and good.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Kieran McKenna, for example, has been in senior management for just a little longer than Alonso. He is only 38. In his two campaigns at Ipswich Town, he has guided the club from League One \u2014 English soccer\u2019s third tier \u2014 all the way to the Premier League. Next season, for the first time in two decades, Ipswich will take its place in England\u2019s top flight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Whether McKenna will be there is a different matter. Brighton is eager to appoint him as a replacement for Roberto De Zerbi. Chelsea <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11667\/13142093\/kieran-mckenna-manchester-united-meet-with-representatives-of-ipswich-boss-amid-chelsea-interest\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">wants to offer him the chance to be fired<\/a> around this time next year. Ipswich plans to offer him an improved contract in an attempt to persuade him to stay. But the chance to move on, and move up, may prove too much to resist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The same, most likely, will apply to Crystal Palace. The club\u2019s transformation, in the final two months of the season, into a sort of cross between Guardiola-era Barcelona and Michael Jordan\u2019s team from Space Jam was inspired not only by the expert work of its new coach, Oliver Glasner, but by the improvisational talent of Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Palace, which at one point this season was at risk of relegation, suddenly seemed unstoppable. Glasner\u2019s team beat Liverpool at Anfield, dispatched Manchester United by 4-0 and then <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JEY0GBRS39o&amp;ab_channel=CrystalPalaceFC\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">dismantled Aston Villa<\/a> on the final day of the season. In the sunshine at Selhurst Park, it must have been tempting to daydream about what this team might achieve next season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But that, of course, is all it is likely to be: a daydream. Tottenham and Manchester City are both tracking Olise. Eze has been linked with offers to join Manchester United and Chelsea. Neither of those moves, in all honesty, is an especially compelling proposition at this point, but it will make little difference. One star, or both, will go, and Crystal Palace will be left with nothing but memories of a magical spring.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">This is the great sorrow of modern soccer: that, for all the sheen and the glamour and the hype and the buzz, its brutal economics leave most fans, and most teams, with nothing but a succession of what ifs. All a vast majority can do is wonder what might have been, had things worked out a little differently.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Leverkusen \u2014 and possibly Leverkusen alone \u2014 has averted that fate, for now. Alonso pledged his loyalty, and a number of the team\u2019s standout players soon did the same. Most significantly, Florian Wirtz, its all-action creative force, plans to stick around for a while, too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The club, in defiance of the remorseless logic of the modern game, may yet have the chance to build something: not permanent, perhaps, but lasting, at least.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The questions from Dublin, though, will linger. Leverkusen came too close to something extraordinary not to have some regret. But it will not have to wonder where this team, under this manager, might have gone next. It will, for one more year, have the chance to find out. It is just a shame, really, that the same will not be true for everyone else.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The working assumption has to be, at this point, that Chelsea is doing it on purpose. For much of the second half of the Premier League season, Stamford Bridge was swaddled in green shoots.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mauricio Pochettino was, at last, beginning to carve something in the vague shape of a team from the haphazard raw materials presented to him by the club\u2019s many owners and sporting directors. By the time the season drew to a close, Chelsea had won five games in a row, and risen as high as sixth in the standings. That strange feeling was promise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">So, naturally, a couple of days later, the club\u2019s executives decided to relieve Pochettino of his duties. (The authorized account of his departure was that he had \u201cagreed to leave\u201d the club. This is, presumably, in the way that you might \u201cagree to leave\u201d a bar when a bouncer grabs you by the arm, marches you to the door and hurls you onto the sidewalk outside.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">I have a hazy recollection of suggesting \u2014 semi-seriously \u2014 last summer that Chelsea\u2019s chaotic recruitment strategy made sense if you operated under the assumption that the team\u2019s owners no longer saw soccer as a sport, in which the ultimate ambition was winning games and prizes, but more as a sort of year-round content mill, in which the primary metric of success was the amount of coverage the club generated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The decision to part ways with Pochettino, just as he was starting to find a signal in all of the noise, suggests that analysis was not quite correct. There is, it would seem, absolutely no need for the qualifier \u201csemi\u201d whatsoever.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-47651982\">The Benefit of (Bad) Experience<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dispiriting news: Bayern Munich has found a manager. The club had, in the past couple of months, alighted on (at least) five candidates to fill the role next season, only to find that none of Xabi Alonso, Julian Nagelsmann, Ralf Rangnick and Oliver Glasner wanted it. Even Thomas Tuchel, the incumbent, made it clear he would rather not stick around.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Now, sadly, Vincent Kompany \u2014 last spotted at the scene of Burnley\u2019s fairly meek relegation from the Premier League \u2014 has said yes, depriving European soccer of one of the few opportunities for general merriment in a business that, as a rule, takes itself intensely seriously.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There has been a tendency to see the (impending) appointment of Kompany as a sign of Bayern\u2019s desperation. It is surely a measure of how the mighty have fallen that Bayern \u2014 with its annual ambitions of winning the Champions League \u2014 has been forced to tie its fate to a man whose team won only five of its 38 Premier League games this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And yet: Last summer, in the aftermath of Burnley\u2019s stylish promotion, Kompany was considered sufficiently promising that he was discussed as a potential hire by both Tottenham and Chelsea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His experiences since have, obviously, been arduous and bitter, but they will also have made him a vastly better manager. His underlying talent has not disappeared; instead, it is likely to have been buttressed by the sort of knowledge gleaned in adversity. Bayern\u2019s willingness to look beyond Kompany\u2019s results is less a punchline, and more a sign of progress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-4537b71d\">Correspondence<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In what can only be described as both a minor miracle and a small personal triumph, I have remembered that <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/17\/world\/europe\/premier-league-arsenal-man-city.html\" title=\"\">last week\u2019s correspondence section<\/a> omitted two emails that \u2014 had <strong class=\"css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10\">Attila Yaman <\/strong>not come up with the sort of convoluted metaphor I am powerless to resist \u2014 would normally have featured.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And so, with due apologies for the delay, we come to <strong class=\"css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10\">David Nolan<\/strong>. \u201cYour call for a \u2018Rookie of the Year\u2019 award is an excellent one,\u201d he wrote, correctly. \u201cBut it seems to fly in the face of your overarching disapproval \u2014 or perhaps feigned ignorance about \u2014 many American sporting foibles. Whatever next? Begrudging acknowledgment of the merits of rugby union?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">I wish to reassure both David and the United States of America as a whole that I do not disapprove of American sports. Is the atmosphere sometimes a little flat? Sure. Is three hours far too long for a sporting event? Obviously. Do teams for adults need to be called things like the Tuscaloosa Longhorns? Don\u2019t be absurd. But are they so bad that they should be compared to the lesser form of rugby? No, never.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\"><strong class=\"css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10\">Courtney Lynch <\/strong>is also American, but wants us to know that is not why she is asking her question. \u201cI\u2019m not as America-centric in my view of the world as this suggests, but it is a thought I can\u2019t escape,\u201d she wrote, phrasing the question with so many caveats that she sounds quite British. \u201cBut isn\u2019t it just a matter of time until M.L.S. becomes the best, most competitive league in the world?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Courtney\u2019s logic is this: Major League Soccer has made huge strides over the past 30 years. More and more American kids see soccer as their preferred sport. Given the commercial advantages the United States has, does that process end, in a few decades\u2019 time, with M.L.S. as the pinnacle of the world game?<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And \u2014 though very few Europeans would agree with me \u2014 I think that general trajectory is not unreasonable. Not least, as it happens, because of a point made by <strong class=\"css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10\">Matt Dishongh<\/strong>. When it comes to title races, he wrote, M.L.S. is everything Europe\u2019s leagues are not \u2014 \u201calways competitive and unpredictable. This is a distinct advantage for M.L.S., and one it should be heavily marketing to the U.S. fans of these other leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There are caveats to this idea \u2014 ones that feature phrases like \u201cChampions League,\u201d \u201crevamped Club World Cup\u201d and \u201cglacial generational shift\u201d \u2014 but I wonder if the subject requires rather fuller exploration than the last paragraph of the correspondence section allows. With due apologies for another cliffhanger, let\u2019s return to this over the summer, when the newsletter material is, well, a little thinner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/24\/world\/europe\/bayer-leverkusen-xabi-alonso.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All being well, Bayer Leverkusen will end this season with one record, two trophies and just three haunting, existential questions. They will all trace back to Wednesday, back to Dublin, back to the Europa League final, and they will all take exactly the same, baleful form: What if? What if Exequiel Palacios had seen Ademola [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/24\/multimedia\/24rory-fans-wgfl\/24rory-fans-wgfl-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9532],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58183"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58185,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58183\/revisions\/58185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}