Poor Liverpool

… tore through the English Premier League this season in pursuit of some amazing feats. Would they join 2003–2004 Arsenal as EPL “invincibles”? Would they repeat as European champions?

They would not.

In the EPL, they lost to Watford.

Then, Atlético de Madrid eliminated them from the Champions League.

Liverpool could have surpassed Manchester City’s EPL points record. But City thumped them as soon as they clinched the title; and today, needing a draw to be able to accumulate 100 points, as City had done two seasons before, Liverpool suffered a lackluster defeat to Arsenal.

I watched on Peacock TV, NBC’s new streaming site, as Liverpool became also-rans in comparison to other champions. The futility was palpable. Jürgen Klopp, Liverpool’s manager, seethed.

This acclaimed team is, ultimately, a less memorable one than the 2015–2016 Leicester team that accumulated just 81 points.

Quarterfinals

In the quarterfinals of the Champions League, a rather poor FC Barcelona team was ousted by Juventus, and Cristiano Ronaldo scored two offside goals to nudge Real Madrid past Bayern Munich. Real’s patsy, Atlético, also made it through, defending fiercely against Leicester.

Of the victors, only the Monacans don’t seem stale. They’ve scored, what, three goals in each of their last four knockout games? (They dispatched Dortmund in their quarterfinal.) They played in the final as recently as 2004, but in 2011–2013 they languished in Ligue 2. An influx of Russian cash restored their loftier standing.

I didn’t watch any of these games.

An ill wife; la sub-20; Premier League strikers; N’Golo Kanté

Karin’s been ill. Today I finally persuaded her to stay at home. She works six days each week, and, during her days off, she goes to church and either counts the offering money or teaches Sunday school.

Right now, she appears to be sleeping comfortably, which makes me happy.

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Ecuador’s sub-20 lads finished second in the continental tourney, two places higher than they needed to. The Uruguayans finished first. Their team easily was the best.

The Brazilians, runners-up two years ago in the under-20 World Cup, finished fifth in South America and failed to qualify for this year’s global tourney. In the matches that I watched, they looked simply awful.

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I wonder how the Brazilians would’ve fared if they’d called up their latest national hope, the 19-year-old striker, Gabriel Jesus, who’s been starting for Man City. This young man is quite the sensation. After just a few of his performances in the Premier League, the soap opera has become: What’ll happen to Sergio Agüero? (Agüero is the team’s established goalscorer. For several years, he’s been quite deadly with Man City, though not so much with Argentina.)

Ship him out, says one Yahoo! columnist. Maybe swap him for Alexis Sánchez.

Such drama. In this league, it appears that any given striker is disposable. (Luis Suárez was the last striker who definitely wasn’t.)

There was talk earlier this season of the transcendence of Diego Costa. Then he pouted and got benched a little, and his team performed just as well without him.

Now people are talking about his teammate, Eden Hazard. Hazard is good, but if he were to play for Leicester City, he’d be a shadow of his precocious self (as, last season, he was a shadow; as, this season, all the Leicester players are mere shadows).

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Meanwhile, N’Golo Kanté makes a humble living chewing up the league. He’s like a buzzsaw perched upon a Roomba. Last season, Sir Alex Ferguson said that Kanté was the league’s best player by far. But Kanté’s goalscoring teammates got the accolades.

This season, playing with even more illustrious teammates, Kanté might be named the Player of the Year.

Kanté’s is an up-close style. His long passing is not remarkable. His best passes are like dribbles: they’re short touches. His specialty is arriving early to where the ball is traveling and then shoving himself between the ball and the opponent carrying it.

He excels at this because he’s tiny. He’ll run into a thicket of players and come out with the ball. He likes thickets; he seeks them out; he foresees better than the other players how the ball will carom off the others’ legs.

(Today I added a footnote about N’Golo Kanté to my dissertation.)

A brave couple of games

South Bend is powdery now. Jasper, who used to run out into the yard every time he could, has been staying well away from the front door. Karin & I’ve been doing seasonal errands – retrieving my coats from Martin’s & Mary’s house; buying salt for the outdoor staircase.

Yesterday, I walked to Bethel in the snow. It wasn’t a difficult walk, but in the classroom the melted snow dripped down from my curly, long locks.

I’m on Cloud Six or Seven because all of my course prepping is done. What remains is to give exams and to grade.

Today, I allowed myself a break and watched two soccer games. In the first one, Leicester City demolished Manchester City with some fine counter-attacking and less than thirty percent of the total possession. The British announcers enjoyed skewering Pep Guardiola, the possession guru, manager of Man City. “He won’t win the League this way,” they said. It was a proud moment for British soccer. And, truth be told, on the counter, Leicester looked lovelier than Man City ever did.

Then I went to Stephen’s and we watched B.S.C. play the last game of the season – the “victory lap” game (the championship had been clinched the week before). Though I’d watched plenty of games this year, I’d yet to see Barcelona take the lead in a game and win. In the first half, our lead was 3 to 0. Even our goalie, the brave Máximo Banguera, scored. Then, in the second half, the game fell apart. An offside goal was wrongly given, our opponents scored twice more, and I had to settle for watching a draw.

Karin has just come into the house. When she opened the door, both kitties rushed out onto the snowy porch. The goose-brains (Karin calls them).

The final, leg 1 (Estadio Atahualpa)

For a long time last night I thought IDV would lose. Atlético Nacional were leading; they were imposing their rhythm; they seemed the better team. Very late, though, Arturo Mina poked a rebounded ball into the goal, and the game ended 1 to 1. Because the away-goals rule is disregarded in the final, the slate is clean for the decisive leg in Medellín.

The global press at last has caught on to IDV.

Goal.com says: “Move over Leicester and Iceland: Libertadores hopeful Independiente del Valle is true fairy tale of 2016.”

And here are some nice photos from Britain’s Daily Mail.