Issue 3 - That's Qatar For Now

Has the 2024/25 football season ended? Traditionally with the Champions League final being played out to its conclusion, you would have to say yes but with the FIFA Club World Cup lurking around the corner, who knows where to put the dividing line these days.

State Versus Stars

While there was certainly a dividing line before Saturday’s clash in Munich.

In the blue and red corner, you had a PSG outfit that was still looking to reach the promised land of European football. In the black and blue corner, you had an Inter side looking to go one better than their final disappointment of two years ago.

If there was disappointment at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium just 24 months ago, there was borderline tragedy for the Nerrazuri at the weekend. The biggest ever defeat in a Champions League final, the biggest ever win for Qatari’s state-led PR team.

Once again, Inter are bested by enemies from the state. Abu Dhabi in 2023, Qatar in 2025 and although success for the Italians was viewed by some as a win for football as a whole, it is victory for PSG which is being painted as the fairytale.

One that sees the French giants climb the summit without the likes of Sergio Ramos, Lionel Messi, Neymar or Kylian Mbappe and because the superstar egos have been positioned elsewhere, PSG v2.0 seems somewhat softer on the palette.

Expensive Business Paying Dividend

Of course, this is a fairytale that has cost over €1.9bn since 2011. One way or another, you knew PSG were going to lift a Champions League trophy eventually and now the desire has been met once and for all.

Desires that see the likes of Desire Doue and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia take centre stage and in doing so, this current crop of PSG names - you can add Bradley Barcola and others to the mix seem like a team you almost want to root for.

Especially when their brand of football was so scintilating, they toyed with Inter and then destroyed Inter. A final score that is etched as 5-0 in the history books, one that could really have been 6,7 or 8 if the shooting boots had been polished even more.

PSG polishing off the opposition and joining the true elite in terms of Champions League winners and bar Arsenal and at a push Atletico Madrid, are there any first-time winners of the trophy left to have their name etched on the silverware?

The closed shop feels like its getting tigher - more participants involved but a lesser geographical spread is far from ideal but you would have to say the new format has been largely a success and with tweaks regarding knockout home advantage, it may serve to get better.

Which is the question that will be asked of PSG under Luis Enrique. Can they get better? Is this start of a European dynasty to go alongside domestic domination, it may depend on the next topic.

Le Playoffs

End of season playoffs, they are great if you are neutral. Fascinating if you are involved as a winning outfit and torture if you miss out because of 90 additional minutes of end of season football.

However, the format of playoffs within European football has largely seen promotion as the prize and sometimes relegation as the punishment for defeat. What it does not offer, is outright championship glory.

The concept may be the bedrock of North American sports - none more so than the MLS but such an idea for league honours has always been viewed with an element of distrust and no thank you if you are on the European side of the Atlantic Ocean.

However, that could change on the other side of the English Channel as reports suggest that Ligue 1 are considering whether to add an additional end of season playoff format to the top tier of French Men’s football.

You may be aware that Ligue 1 and the landscape of French football is somewhat in the mud right now. Nobdoy wants to pay top whack or any financial whack really for a one-horse race, without a new slew of TV money, clubs could go to the wall.

Therefore, the idea is to bring an artificial element of drama to procedings in terms of playoffs to decide who wins the league (a concept already in place within the Women’s game in France).

Now if the Premier League adopted this on the premise of the top four, you could see:

Liverpool

Arsenal

Manchester City

Chelsea

All gunning for glory at the end of 38 Premier League matches.

Now if Ligue 1 adopted this on the premise of their top four, you would see:

PSG

Marseille

Monaco

Nice

All looking to reign supreme.

European Advantage

The prospect of those four French teams may get the pulses racing slightly, but ultimately you would imagine the eventual end product to be the same - PSG are crowned champions of France.

All that change for no change. On the one hand, you could say, fair enough for trying to innovate. On the other hand, you could argue that it just gives PSG a huge helping hand in terms of domestic and European success.

With this format, Luis Enrique (or whoever is in charge) would not even need break sweat in terms of securing a top-four finish and entry to the playoffs - the sweat only comes in the finals phase.

While because there is even less perspiration in Ligue 1 than as usual, the now holders of the Champions League would be even fresher for key European heavyweight clashes and ones that are against clubs who still in a round-robin format each season.

It is all conjecture for now but Ligue 1 has to at least try and save itself and although the “product” may get a short-term boost because of PSG’s recent continental success, engineering a playoff system, might not be enough for long-term gain.

United Purse Strings

I do not want to reduce this newsletter to transfer tittle tattle but we are where we are at this stage of the year and although Chelsea’s third season of summer expenditure shows no signs of being smaller than the two before, a trimming of the fat will be needed at Old Trafford.

Outs will lead to ins - a sell to buy era is now in progress at the Theatre of Dreams but before that they have managed to snare one Premier League star with another edging closer to the red half of Manchester.

Cunha Believe It

Matheus Cunha makes the move to Old Trafford from Wolves for £62.5m - a lot of talent but a lot of temper to go with it. Bryan Mbeumo could have walked into a number of clubs offering European football, instead it looks like the Brentford star is a glutton for punishment.

Is this what United really need? If you look at the statistic that measures non-penalty goals minus xG then may be it is. Mbuemo ended up the most profitable player of the campaign with a +7.5 difference, second was Cunha with +6.4.

At the same time, Cunha topped the charts when it came to walking football in the Premier League last season. 77% of all movement was not worthy of even a jog, that lack of movement still saw him score 15 league goals for Wolves.

As before, it seems as Manchester United will resemble Frankenstein’s monster. A bolt of new talent having to be fused together with the incomings from previous eras and usually with an element of brute force.

Brute force that works for a short while and then another managerial incumbent is shown the exit door. I’m sure we have been here before. I’m sure we will be here once again.

Admin

Right, that’s the end of issue 3. Big thanks to the subscribers. 16 in the can already, be great if you could help me get that to 20

Also, feedback is certainly going to help drive this forward. If you want to take the time to tell me what you liked, what you didn’t like and/or what you want to see.

My email for correspondence is

[email protected]

Issue 4 will be out on Friday June 6th

Thanks for reading

Dan