The Most Toxic Clubs in Europe
Morning! It's June 13, and today we're going over USMNT's 1-1 draw with Brazil, and highlight the most toxic football clubs in Europe. We do hope you enjoy!
Modern football certainly feels more toxic to the average fan as season ticket prices soar, pies aren’t cooked through, and supporters start to ask themselves what it is the point of it all?
Competing for promotion or battling for survival in the top flight merely seems to earn you the privilege of being humiliated by teams who suddenly became rather wealthy and mocked by their gloating fans.
But a club doesn’t automatically become toxic because of finances - it merely plays a part, as (dis)honorable mentions Chelsea and Juventus prove.
While money is the root of most soccer evils, there tends to be other things going on in and around the club to make the place as toxic as a Britney Spears banger or an algae bloom in Lake Erie.
Here’s your top five toxic clubs:
5. Bayern Munich
“I’m not the only problem at Bayern Munich.” - Thomas Tuchel on being relieved of his duties, but not quite.
Maybe a club who won the eleven previous Bundesliga titles prior to last season, knocked Arsenal out of the Champions League, and were bizarrely robbed in the UCL semi-final is merely experiencing a blip. It’s only four years since they won the treble under Hansi Flick with the best attacking stats the competition has ever seen.
Teams transition. Dips happen. What doesn’t happen is replacing a proven coach in Tuchel with seventh choice Premier League train wreck Vincent Kompany; and while it can be argued the Belgian is a progressive choice, it appears more symptomatic of the issues at board level. From a couple of head chefs in Uli Hoeness and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge they’re hoping to make do with a sous chef and some line cooks who still need help with the recipes.
How toxic a stew is simmering is yet to be seen. Kompany may turn out to be that inspired, progressive choice and the board transition could be seamless.
They’re certainly not in the dire straits as a few others on this list but there is potential….
4. Everton
There aren’t many untapped sleeping giants left in football, but Everton are one of them; and don’t they just know it. They hold the record for most seasons in the top flight (121), and this places them at the top of the league if you pretend it’s been an ongoing concern since 1888.
It’s the sense of entitlement coupled with the desperation to be back amongst the elite fueled by the fear and disbelief of possible relegation that makes Everton a unique case.
Everything about Everton feels toxic:
The supporters: yes, Goodison Park can be a cauldron, and they can’t half make a racket when they’re winning, but when they aren’t they turn; and turn nasty. The vitriol is most unbecoming of an English Premier League outfit. But it’s better than them singing that damn song with the ‘woos’ in it.
You know the one:
Carlo Ancelotti: at the end of that video after a succession of star players have humiliated themselves, a ghostly apparition of
Obi-Wan-KenobiAncelotti briefly fades in then out, not unlike his tenure with the Toffees. It’s easy to wonder what on earth was everyone thinking, but there’s a tinge of sympathy to be offered that they went all in just as COVID struck. However, let’s not pretend they were winning anything had it been a regular season.Ownership: you know that relative who owes you $25, but never pays you even though they’ve always got something in the pipeline? Yeah, that’s Everton. You only put up with them because their dad was a lovely chap. But, they aren’t without their suitors. Since the 777 Partners deal collapsed, all manner of curious consortiums are throwing their hats into the ring.
New Stadium: Apparently they’ll be in it by the 2025/26 season. If not, it’ll take you round the Caribbean.
Or, in the words of Oasis guitarist and celebrity City fan, Noel Gallagher:
“When I explain it to Sonny, my youngest lad, I think the perfect analogy is: ‘If you want to know what it used to be like, look at Everton’,” he says.
“If City hadn’t been bought by Sheikh Mansour, it would have been takeover after takeover, all sorts of f***wits coming in, failure and broken promises. I look at Everton at the bottom of the league, points deductions, and I think: ‘There but for the grace of God go us’. Because that would have been us, or possibly even worse.’”
Of course, a decent takeover, and a new start in a new stadium could spark a resurgence on the blue half of Merseyside. In all honesty, it has to.
3. Manchester United
Besides the Busby years and the Ferguson era, Manchester United have been comically dire.
Anyone who remembers pre-Fergie Utd will tell you the current state of the club has a welcome air of nostalgia about it - a succession of good managers with an abundance of resources and talent, an enviable global fan base, and an uncanny knack of appearing in domestic cup finals.
They even used to own their ground. Now they can’t even be bothered to fix it.
The first (and arguably worst) of the leveraged football buy-outs, by the Glazer family, is a nearly two-decades long toxic affair. It started badly with the Glazers’ first appearance in 2005 at Old Trafford greeted by fans chanting “Die. Die, Glazers,” and a core of supporters forming their own breakaway club, FC United.
Since Ferguson drifted upstairs in 2014, leaving a squad in dire need of a rebuild, not one of the six subsequent managers has been given the time to do so in their own image. Mourinho having the most success, while the current Ten Hag circus resulted in him keeping his job after Ratcliffe’s ‘performance review’.
Transfer policy has been ‘interesting’: from buying back Pogba to signing geriatric galacticos such as Zlatan, Cavani, Casemiro, and Ronaldo - the former pair proving a better point than the latter pair.
This hasn’t helped the dressing room, which has been subject to more leaks than the Old Trafford roof; and with a British punditry made up of former Ferguson head boys - Roy Keane and Gary Neville - redolent of the kind of criticism that makes sons kill their fathers, the entire United brand is toxic.
They could easily be number one barring their recent INEOS takeover providing something of a potential silver lining. Time will tell.
2. Barcelona
If you sell your best players (Neymar), replace them with worse players for silly money (Coutinho), you’re in trouble. If you keep doing it and finance everything like the world is about to get hit by a meteorite, the next thing you know you’re admitting that you’re ‘technically bankrupt’ and not only can you not afford to buy anyone, you’re not sure you can register contract extensions.
Some of the numbers being thrown around in terms of how much is owed would make Todd Boehly queasy.
ESPN has one of the better deep dives.
"The management at Barça has historically been very bad. When PSG signed Neymar for €222m [in 2017], Barça registered €32m in profit. The debt was already monstrous then. In any company, if you receive €222m [still the world record for a transfer fee] and have only €30m in benefits, you get fired.”
- Jaume Rores, former CEO MediaPro
And the man looking to become the next Barca president, Marc Ciria:
"Look, in 2021, we were looking at bankruptcy. That situation was solved, so in 2022-2023 things were better, but now, the financial obligations are bigger, there are fewer assets and therefore, objectively, if this was a company, we would say that Barça are weaker in terms of tackling a crisis now than [they were] in 2021."
While we might have said money wasn’t the primary indicator to toxicity, the financial mismanagement at Barcelona is on another level. Especially for one of the top three clubs in the world.
1. Manchester City
Once of a day City were the little big club that never could. The only thing they had over ‘rivals’ United was that they actually came from Manchester - Maine Road being a 35,000 capacity stadium squeezed tightly amongst the terraced houses of Moss Side:
Not anymore.
It says a lot of the club’s current standing that on winning an unprecedented fourth title in a row, the Premier League hierarchy left the ceremonials to Paul Dickov - who scored the winner against Gillingham nearly 25 years previously in the League Two playoff final - and a community organizer.
When the Premier League avoids you, you’re toxic.
But City are a special kind of toxic, like Chernobyl is a special kind of disaster. Their financial irregularities aren’t just an existential threat to the club - that would be fine.
It’s their ongoing response that threatens the Premier League with its repercussions likely felt across Europe. The whole sorry affair could shape the structure of football similarly to how Pep-ball has shaped the way football is played - irradiating the continent through acolytes like Arteta, Kompany, and Maresca.
Everybody knows they should be stripped of their titles, banned from Europe, and bounced back down to League Two.
But, there’s every chance they’ll just form a new European Super League instead.
It feels inevitable - like a City title charge after Christmas.
Even Liam Gallagher - usually the incorrect sibling of the celebrity City supporting Oasis brothers - gets it:
“I don’t go to the Etihad anymore. It’s like going to watch the f*cking opera. Last time I seen City I got told to be quiet by some donut looking at his menu… he didn’t know whether to have the prawns or the caviar.”
At least there’d be a bit of noise at the opera.
Your Daily Soccer Round-up….
Gregg Berhalter says the USMNT are now ready for Copa America after last night’s 1-1 draw with Brazil. "It's not a huge step, but it's a little step to be able to play against an amazingly talented Brazil team and bend but not break," Berhalter said, relieved to no longer have to talk about Saturday’s 5-1 loss to Colombia.
In truth, this is probably the least ‘amazingly talented Brazil team’ we’ve seen for a long while but let’s not nitpick….it was much better from the USA and if Christian Pulisic had buried a golden chance in the second half, then it might have been even better yet.
The coverage on the broadcast from TNT/Max/TruTV/BR Sports/ was a bit too gushing for our liking though with with commentator Luke Wileman describing the first draw against Brazil as “historic” and Kyle Martino almost North Korean in his seemingly never-ending search for positives.
Henry Bushnell at Yahoo Sports adds a touch of realism to the latest over-reaction.
With the Copa América approaching — it begins June 20; the USMNT's first game is June 23 vs. Bolivia — plenty of concerns remain. Ream and Richards looked vulnerable to pace. The back six were too often caught on the ball in perilous areas. Antonee Robinson, for a second consecutive game, looked somewhere between gassed and absent. Ricardo Pepi, who started at striker, hardly staked his claim to a place in the 11.
But, it was a decent performance and a good result and it means the USMNT don’t go into that Bolivia opener surrounded by negativity. Charles Boehm provides a good summing up of it all here.
Meanwhile, CBS Sports latest sofa-chat was with Eric Wynalda and as you would expect there are plenty of zingers in it. CBS chose to promote the video by focusing on the old story about John Harkes and Wynalda’s ex-wife but there’s also a lot of interesting American soccer history and some characteristically forthright views from the Californian in the full 45 minute chat below.
(As an aside, Kate Abdo’s accent is getting very American, very quickly isn’t it?)
The Euros start tomorrow! UEFA.com have a little preview of the opening game between Germany and Scotland. We’ll have more on that tomorrow.
Edin Terzic, the Dortmund fan-turned coach, who led them on an unexpected journey to the Champions League final, has left by ‘mutual consent’ (The Athletic $). Apparently his style of football was too “businesslike” and he fell out with Matt Hummels….
AC Milan hired Paulo Fonseca as their new coach and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who now has some sort of weird ‘advisor to the investors’ role at the club explained why. (SempreMilan)
Orlando City striker Duncan McGuire could be heading to Serie A’s Torino, according to Tuttosport (via Football Italia) which would be a happy-ending to his transfer torment after the farcical attempt by Blackburn Rovers to sign him in January.
New Bayern Munich manager Vincent Kompany wants to sign Joe Gomez from Liverpool says the Mirror.
Next summer is supposed to see FIFA’s expanded Club World Cup come to the United States with top club teams from Europe doing battle with those from Asia, Africa and the Americas. But there is opposition from plenty in Europe and the players’ union FIFPro, or at least their European chapter, are now taking legal action to effectively stop the tournament.
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