What you missed during Women's World Cup, Gold Cup and Copa America
Previously on … Soccer That Wasn’t the Women’s World Cup or the Gold Cup or Copa America …
Remember a time before three major summer tournaments collided violently, gobbling up all our time and attention? Manchester City won the Premier League in a scintillating title race with Liverpool. But the Reds did win the Champions League over Tottenham Hotspur. FC Barcelona won La Liga… again. FC Bayern Munich won the Bundesliga… again. Paris Saint-Germain won Ligue 1… again. Juventus won Serie A, well, you get the idea.
But lots has happened while our attention was turned to the international tournaments.
The transfer market has been hopping. In a coup, Atletico Madrid landed forward Joao Felix from Benfica for an eye-watering $143 million. But then that was likely in anticipation of Antoine Griezmann bolting for Barca, even though that whole deal has gotten ugly as Atleti accused the champions of wrapping up a contract months ago but sitting on it until the Frenchman’s buyout clause dropped by a few million. And Atleti has also lost holding midfield stud Rodri to City, finally giving Pep Guardiola cover for the aging Fernandinho, who would really like to stop taking all his meals in the cryogenic chamber.
And, stop the presses, Spurs actually made two signings, the more interesting of which was Tanguy Ndombele from Olympique Lyon for a massive $68 million. The midfielder represents the team’s first major upgrade in a year and a half, but then he might be expected to fill the void left behind by Christian Eriksen, after the Danish playmaker made clear that, like his hairline, he’s moving on.
Manchester United, meanwhile, made its first splash of the summer by signing 21-year-old right back Aaron Wan-Bissaka from Crystal Palace for some $62 million. The move underscores United’s new approach of rebuilding through young domestic talent, but it still doesn’t resolve what will happen to record signing Paul Pogba, its tortured superstar who has indicated that he’s done being all #Pogback and will be #Pogbye.
#Pogone?
#Pog-codus?
And that is where things really stand in this market: a holding pattern.
Real Madrid has already scooped up Chelsea star Eden Hazard and a raft of promising young players. But what it does on Pogba or Eriksen – surely signing only one of them – will likely dictate what happens elsewhere in the market. In a sense, that first big domino hasn’t been knocked over yet.
Just as Barca has made several big signings, including Ajax’s playmaking prodigy Frenkie de Jong. But Griezmann remains unsigned. And now that Neymar has signaled that he’s unhappy in Paris, two years after defecting from Barca for PSG, word is Lionel Messi would like him back. And what Messi wants from Barca, he tends to get. And now Griezmann is just waiting for Barca to finally return his text, seeing the gray bubbles bouncing but never actually getting an answer.
De Jong’s bestie, Matthijs de Ligt, the most coveted defender in the world, still hasn’t landed anywhere either, with Barca and PSG apparently lagging behind Juventus in the race to sign him, with Cristiano Ronaldo playing a significant role in the recruitment. Wilfried Zaha, meanwhile, who carried Palace the last few seasons, appears headed to Arsenal. But until that transfer is consummated, several other deals seem on hold as well.
Once Real lands either Pogba or Eriksen, for instance, the other will need to find an alternative solution to his desire to leave his club. And Real will have to unload, at long last, either James Rodriguez or Gareth Bale or maybe both. Either way, its squad will get significantly uglier on average.
There are still a lot of open seats in the game of musical chairs.
That’s not so in the managerial market, where there’s been relatively little churn this summer. Maurizio Sarri was granted his release from Chelsea after just one season and joined up with Juventus. It might be a weird match on its face, given the potential friction between his tactical fussiness and Juve’s band of veteran superstars who don’t seem to enjoy complicated things anymore at their age – can’t everything just stay the same?
At any rate, this move opened up a spot on Chelsea’s bench for Frank Lampard to make his return to the club after a single season with Derby County. It’s a risky one for the former New York City FC trainer’s table staple, beause Chelsea is banned from signing players until next summer. But then it’s awash in young prospects – like American Christian Pulisic! – and there might finally be some tolerance for growing pains in an overdue rebuild.
Stateside, meanwhile, Major League Soccer and the National Women’s Soccer League took a short break and then merrily played on while the Gold Cup and Women’s World Cup robbed them of their star players.
Bruce Arena’s New England Revolution haven’t lost since the old war horse was lured back into management, after the national team debacle, and are in real peril of putting themselves in a playoff position if they keep this up.
In the other conference, the LAFC steamroller rumbles on. But wait! Bob Bradley’s men lost a game! Their second of the season at Colorado. And then they won the next two by a combined score of 11-2. So … yeah.
The Galaxy, reborn after a bad year, are back on track. Following four straight losses, they have won four of six and have settled back into second place, snuggly nestled nine points behind their cross-town rivals.
In the NWSL, the Reign, Courage and Thorns managed just fine without their national teamers, remaining in first, second and third place, respectively. But the big story was that Sky Blue won! A game of soccer! Against another sentient soccer team! They beat the Red Stars 2-1! It only took 10 games! Wild!
And here you were all distracted by that sweet, sweet national team action.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is a Yahoo Sports soccer columnist and a sports communication lecturer at Marist College. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.
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