Should He Stay or Should He Go?

Louis van Gaal. The man has coached some of the biggest European clubs in history. The man even received knighthood in Holland, his native country. With that though, the man has also won endless trophies. With those trophies, though, one thing has become clear with van Gaal's teams. It is either his way or the highway. He is known to be ruthless, arrogant, and stubborn. Yet, up until now, the man has always been successful. As such, as we know, in our world today, when you are successful people tend to look the other way. Yet, his season this year, is a perfect example of what happens when performances start to drop, people start to notice the bad things in others. Now this is exactly what is happening at Manchester United currently. United is the equivalent to being the Yankees of English soccer. They have the most championships, they spend a lot of money, and they have an amazing and rich history that goes way back. So let's talk about United, and how they got to van Gaal and why it all is going sour very fast. Here is a video of van Gaal when he was coaching Bayern Munich in Germany. The club is one of the most well known clubs in the world and this is during a parade at the end of their season. Notice how the intoxicated van Gaal makes the show about himself, rather than his team.


Prior to van Gaal Manchester United had a manager named David Moyes, whose tenure lasted less than a year, due to his poor performance. Before Moyes, though, United had Alex Ferguson. Alex Ferguson can be described as the Vince Lombardi of all coaches in soccer. The man won 13 league championships, 5 FA cups, 4 league cups, and 2 champions league trophies. All in all, he won 32 trophies in 27 years. United was a big club prior to his arrival, yet once he left them, it was the biggest English club in the world. But, when Ferguson retired, and Moyes failed, United turned to King Louis to save them and bring them back to their old ways.


Let's now jump to today and this season. United are in 5th in the league. They have spent nearly $350 million dollars on players that he has brought in. Van Gaal has sold some players who are some of the fan favorites, such as Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez, Robin Van Persie, and Danny Welbeck, who are doing extremely well at their new clubs.  Manchester United fans can look past their favorite players being let go, because they understand that it is a business. Yet when the money spent on this current team produces boring and unmotivated performances, boos begin to fill the stands and fans begin to question whether or not van Gaal is the man for United. But, remember earlier when I mentioned that van Gaal is stubborn and arrogant? This is really what pisses off the fans. Van Gaal refuses to change the way the team plays, his tactics remain boring, and most importantly the fail to bring wins to the club. As such, his arrogant interviews claiming that his tactics and attitude will eventually lead to wins is starting to make the situation worse. This is because it almost seems as though the man is delusional. How could he possibly think that things will change? The team consistently fails to put together a performance to be proud of. The team is light-years away from being a top club in the world like it used to be. (Barcelona video to prove this). Now, if you read none of this post, or thought it was awful, at least watch this video to see what it looks like when the three best players in the world play on the same team.

From Rags to Riches: Jamie Vardy

Last week we explored Leicester City's spectacular run. Once in a lifetime type of season. But within this team, within this season, there is a man whose story may be even more surprising. This story is so great it couldn't even come from a movie. Jamie Vardy. Currently the top scorer in the EPL. He has 19 goals in the league through 26 games. This season Vardy has been part of a Leicester team who leads the league. Vardy has broken the record of consecutive games with a goal scored. Which was formerly held by legendary striker Ruud Van Nistelrooy. The record, which once stood at 10 consecutive games was broken by Vardy against Van Nistelrooy's old team, Manchester United. 

But this story doesn't just start with a player on a team that no one thought would ever be this good. The story begins in 2011. Vardy signs with a team called Fleetwood Town. Now I guarentee that no one has ever heard of Fleetwood Town, and would be shocked if anyone even knew what league the club plays in. Fleetwood Town plays in the Conference Premier, the fifth division in England. It wasn't even a fully professional league. A little over four years ago to the day, Vardy scored a goal to tie a game for Fleetwood. Last week, Vardy scored what will go down as the best goal of the season against one of the biggest clubs in England, Liverpool.

This goal is amazing. There is no doubt about that. Vardy's season amazing. That's a fact. Yet the story of a man who is 29-years old, and has bloomed to being the top forward in the EPL is fascinating. Vardy's career seemed over when at the age of 25, he was playing in the 5th division. Yet today, Vardy sits at the top of the scorer's table and the EPL, looking to finish the making of history.

Who would have ever thought this was possible? I can tell you that Jamie Vardy certainly didn't. I mean, look at how his value has shot up since July 2012. Talk about return on investment. 

http://www.transfermarkt.com/jamie-vardy/marktwertverlauf/spieler/197838 

Fasten Your Seatbelts, Leicester is Here

Now this video is from two years ago. Leicester City was in England's second division and were in the semi-finals of a four team playoff for the last spot to get promoted to the EPL. At this time, very few people knew who Leicester City was. Let's put the video into context. This is Leicester vs. Watford. Soccer's rules may be confusing but one thing was evident in this game, the next goal to be scored would leave one team going home and the other to the finals. Leicester earned a penalty kick in the last second of regular time, a goal sending them to the finals. The rest was history. Leicester, the team in blue, misses the kick, and within 10 seconds give up a goal to lose the match. This moment began Leicester's unimaginable story.

Leicester City at this point remains in the second division, the league called The English League Championship. But, the next season Leicester City dubbed champions, an automatic promotion to the EPL. Alas, after 10 years in the second division Leicester City is promoted.

Leicester City 2014-15 Graph league positions - Footipedia

The picture above shows Leicester City's position in the standings throughout their first season in the EPL. As you can see, not great. From November 3, 2014 through April 19, 2015 Leicester was in the relegation zone. In the history of the league, 8 teams have had less than 20 points in 29 games in the EPLand all 8 had gotten relegated.  They spent TWENTY TWO straight weeks as the team in last place in the league. Yet, in truly Leicester ways, 4 wins of their first 29, and 7 wins of  the last 9 games. Leicester, as the chart suggests, were able to avoid relegation and stay in the EPL.

Let's fast forward now to this season. Leicester are at 2000/1 odds to win the league. Leicester has hired a new coach, Claudio Ranieri. Ranieri, also known as "the tinkerman", has coached some of the biggest clubs in Europe and like many, expected another battle to stay away from relegation. So much so, that he promised that if the team were to get relegated, he would remain their coach in the second division. Yet, as Leicester seems to do, the season took a turn for the better. Leicester is currently sitting in first place in the EPL. A spot that not even the craziest fan would have ever dreamt of. Leicester is led by a forward who several years ago was playing semi-pro soccer. Jamie Vardy, who is not only breaking scoring records at the age of 29, is also a perfect example of who Leicester are. The club has had a spectacular run, and currently are the favorites to win the league!

 Here's a look at how Leicester's season looks so far. Quite a different picture than the one above.

Lastly, I am not a betting man, but any betting nut that took Leicester's odds at the beginning of the season is waiting for a very large payout!

Transfer Deadline Day Shenanigans

Deadline day. This day can only be compared to the trade deadline in the NBA. Where teams scramble to make last minute moves to either make the final push, or give up on the season. So, much like in the NBA, deadlines spur action. This day usually drives the soccer world into a frenzy, teams all over the world try to land the next player who can make or break the rest of their season.

Now this year was different than others in the past, many teams at the top had remained quite during the month that they had to make moves. This took me by surprise. As a Manchester United fan, a team that has struggled this year despite their huge payroll, the team looked like it needed a spark to meet the team's season expectations. But, United, as well as other clubs at the top of the table all felt that their clubs could go ahead without any mid-season additions.

While the top clubs had practically no action, clubs at the bottom spent big. The clubs at the bottom of the EPL are battling a team's worst nightmare, relegation. Relegation means that these clubs lose out on the millions of dollars that they make from the EPL's huge TV deals globally. So, with that, the race to not get relegated is almost as intense to win the league. With that, you had teams like Newcastle United spending around $42 million. Now a club with so much history does so because they understand the effect of not playing in the EPL. With the moves they made, though, this club is one I am looking forward to watching in the second half of the season. They made some moves that have allowed them to add depth, as well as adding players who have proven to have success in the league.

Lastly, besides the business aspect that goes into Deadline day in the EPL, the day-long coverage around different clubhouses, many fans have taken the opportunity to prank the reporters. These two videos are from prior years of some shenanigans caught on camera across England on the deadline day.

Norwich Fans


Purple Dildo