Everton’s identity crisis – The New York Times

Everton’s identity crisis – The New York Times

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Frank Lampard, at least, can be assured that there will be no lasting damage. There is little reason to believe that it would be a disadvantage to Everton. Falling short of expectations at Everton can happen to anyone at any time.

After all, that didn’t stop Carlo Ancelotti (who took Everton to dizzying heights in the Premier League in his only full season at Goodison Park) from getting a job at Real Madrid. . Less than a year after leaving Merseyside, Ancelotti won his fourth Champions League his trophy (a record) and was one of Europe’s brightest domestic players in all five leagues. He became the first manager in history to win the title.

Ancelotti’s predecessor at Goodison, Marco Silva, has not fared so well, but his Fulham side is now seventh in the Premier League. but then managed the Dutch national team, Barcelona and then the Dutch national team again. Roberto Martinez was in charge of Belgium for eight years. His next job is to take Portugal to the European Championships next summer.

Indeed, of the six recent (permanent) managers who gripped English football’s great poison cup before Lampard, only Sam Allardyce has so far failed to recover, and that’s at least partially Caricature of his existing, especially flattering and mostly self-harming. (Rafa Benitez, whom Lampard replaced a year ago, has yet to return to work.)

it is beneficial. Only one of these managers, Ancelotti, left the club on his terms and on the widespread favor of the fans. The rest drove Goodison Park to gall and hatred, and more than once brought it to the brink of outright rebellion.

That most of these managers have been tainted by the way they have left shows that football as a whole doesn’t feel like a place where Everton can accurately measure a manager’s talent these days. Lampard is four years into his managerial career and there is little evidence that he is up for the job, but like Koeman, Silva and the rest of the world, he will benefit from it. deaf.

Why that is necessary, of course, has been outlined frequently since Lampard was fired.

As pointed out in this newsletter last week, Everton majority owner Farhad Mosir has no idea how the club is, apart from not being in the relegation zone in the Premier League, as a statement said. He has spent over $500 million on players in the six years since he bought Everton, but has indisputably abandoned the team due to poor hiring. made it worse.

He appointed the director of football and then, by most accounts, did not give him the authority to sign anyone. Everton is a patchwork of influences, ideas and policies that are the result of years of failure.

Among both the club’s fanbase and football’s professional commentators, conventional wisdom has it that Everton’s chronic disappointment, the vine of its enduring crisis, rises from there: not the manager. , in the system they are expected to work. Of course it is correct. However, it may not get to the root of the problem at all.

It’s impossible to escape Everton’s history. It adorns the stadium and is among a series of snapshots commemorating the club’s best teams and their greatest achievements, one of his in the club’s pre-match standards, in the words of the ‘Grand Old Team’. This song has been used for a long time. In a statement Lampard issued after leaving office, it was even justified to pay tribute to the club’s “incredible” history.

It is understandable. Everton has a very proud history. 4th most successful team in England’s history, ahead of Manchester City, Chelsea and Tottenham, or 8th, if trophy totals were considered a better measure, depending on the metric of preference The team is one of… Its history is understandably a source of immeasurable pride.

But it’s also a prison. Football’s metastasis over the past two decades has effectively rendered history as a measure of power all but irrelevant. Everton’s nine league titles give more Premier League television than Brentford in the same way AC Milan’s seven European Cups don’t give them more financial firepower than Bournemouth (Champions League title: zero). It doesn’t mean you’re getting more income from your contract.

As the rise of Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain reveal, the old hierarchy is no longer upended and leveled by the flood of money pouring into the game from broadcasters and sponsors, oligarchs and hedge funds. not held. History is no longer a draw. Rather, it is not so much an attraction as wealth, prospects, status, facilities and plans.

That adjusted reality, of course, played into the game’s self-proclaimed superpower. It is as sure as it has influenced the vast majority of clubs, minnows and traditionally mediocre clubs, forced to adapt to narrow horizons and limited ambitions.

But the impact will be on the class of club Everton belongs to, a club in the second rung of the game’s long-established and now defunct power structure, a club best regarded as football’s cruiserweight division. most serious to

These teams can be broadly classified into two categories. There are those who have been able to adapt to the current situation and carve out a new definition of success that allows them to find some satisfaction in a hostile environment.

For Benfica and Ajax, for example, it took the form of acquiring continental prominence in exchange for domestic hegemony, secured thanks to a constant stream of young talent. It included embracing a place as a possible starting point, a role as a midwife to greatness.

Valencia, Inter Milan, Marseille, Schalke, Hamburg, West Ham, Aston Villa and of course Everton are those who seem weighed down by the burden of their history. Bet a new location for.

It’s no surprise that these teams have become, for the most part, the most volatile and least satisfied clubs in Europe. Happiness is fleeting in football. Elite sports are not meant for lasting gratification. But these clubs often seem to be the most unhappy, caught in a never-ending identity crisis that wears off, trapped between what was once and what is now.

That is the core of modern Everton. Much like Lampard, even Moshiri can be seen as both a cause and, to some extent, a consequence of the problem. The club was desperate to get back to what it used to be, so they hired famous managers, signed expensive players, and did the best.

And it is something that will continue to undermine Everton until it is resolved, with the teams above them losing momentum and the teams below, traditionally at least the smart and progressive ones, raising their past roars. increase. Everton are willing to abandon the idea that it is more than a stopover, a club-like destination. And when history dictates, it is unimaginable to think small when you believe you are big.


First of all, thanks to the 6 Eagle Eye readers who reached out to let us know that the Magic Kingdom was mixed up: Disney world Whereas by all accounts it is in Florida, Disneyland Located in California. Unfortunately, I have never been to either. This is because of a lifelong fear of giant anthropomorphic mice, and honestly a perfectly logical fear.

On the other hand, the issue of celebration seems to enliven even more people than the theme park misconception. I think Thomas Bodenberg“In 1994, Brazil played Sweden at the Pontiac Silverdome. When Kennett Anderson scored to take a 1–0 lead, he stoically jogged to the goal and waited for the kickoff. It was probably a product of Swedish culture rather than an individual.”

frustrating Alan CulhamOn the other hand, how often the goal scorer “doesn’t recognize the person who set the goal”. Assists are often the most impressive part, but players celebrate them as if they were the result of their efforts alone. “

These days, I feel like a lot of players are choosing “emphasized pointing” as a way to celebrate by singleing out teammates who create chances, but this hits a problem close to my heart. , is what I discussed. A host of current and former players: The cliché claims that scoring goals is the hardest job in football, but scoring goals is infinitely harder. (They hardly agree with me.)

Dan Lachman I am not lacking in ambition. He writes that it is time to “do away with” the tradition/custom/pretense of referring to players by roles that seem to be represented by their number. “Casual fans were like, ‘No. Six’? How about calling it a holding, or a defensive midfielder? It’s time for this to go.

Oddly enough, this is a relatively new phenomenon. 6″ never appeared in the game’s English commentary, even ten years ago. I agree that this is a recent (and perfectly harmless) import and doesn’t really provide the clarity people are assuming. For example, in Spain what the 6th place does is different from what he does in Germany. This is also different from how the Dutch perceive positions.

And an unreasonable request from. Tony De Palma“I want to know what fans are singing in Premier League stadiums,” he wrote. “I love the feel of the spectacle and the sounds around me, but I can’t hear anything but the most famous chants. How can I, an American bystander, know what these British fans are singing? do you?”

Alas, Tony, the first assumption is always that the lyrics, whatever it is, will almost certainly make a gray woman blush. I remember going to see the game. But social conditioning is so powerful that after a few minutes, even she turned to me, in the air of a dismayed line manager doing a performance review, wondering why the fans were badmouthing the opposition team. I asked him if he didn’t say

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