The Champions League returns this week, with two Barclays Premier League clubs at risk of elimination.
Liverpool need to beat Basel at Anfield on Tuesday to go through to the last 16. Any other result and they're out. Manchester City advance if they win away to Roma on Wednesday, provided CSKA don't beat Bayern in Munich (the latter possibility, truth be told, does seem far-fetched). A score draw will also suffice, as long as the men from Moscow don't also draw with Pep Guardiola's side.
Liverpool control their destiny, City pretty much do so as well (barring divine intervention, which is probably the only way CSKA would win in Munich). Yet there's also reason to be fearful, for both. Brendan Rodgers' team lost to Basel in October. And in the past three months they've won just three of eight home games: against Ludogorets, West Brom and Stoke.
City face a Roma team who held them to a draw at the Etihad and face them without the suspended Yaya Toure and with a number of players who are either doubtful or will be just returning from injury (Vincent Kompany, David Silva, Edin Dzeko, Aleksandar Kolarov).
You're always reluctant to draw broader conclusions from Champions League performances, but should both City and Liverpool fail to progress it would be the third time in four years that two of the Premier League's four representatives have bowed out after the group stage. To put that in context, between 2000/01 and 2010/11 England always sent a minimum of three clubs past the first group stage. And in seven of those 11 seasons every English side advanced.
It does appear to be a little more than a statistical quirk, but in the grand scheme of Uefa coefficients it's not that relevant. England are ranked second right now, but the gap with the Bundesliga is small and it's entirely possible they'll slip to third next year (rankings are calculated on a rolling five-year basis).
However, it would take a sustained period of mediocrity for England to slip to fourth which is where it would really make a difference: one less Champions League slot. Still, what does seem obvious is the role of the Europa League. In the last four years, the Premier League has sent seven clubs into the Round of 16 (compared to 12 from the Champions League) and just one has advanced to the quarter-final and beyond (compared to six in the Champions League).
Uefa don't have separate rankings for the two competitions and the truth is that if England and Germany are neck and neck, much of it has to do with the latter's more positive attitude to Europe's junior competition.
So much for Chelsea's run at invincibility. Jose Mourinho, perhaps with some eerie foreshadowing, noted on Friday how Newcastle seem to transform themselves when playing Chelsea at St James' Park.
Indeed, he hadn't won there in four attempts, collecting two draws and two defeats - although whatever mystical Geordie-empowering force he was describing obviously didn't affect some of his predecessors. Chelsea's defeat on Tyneside is a reminder of just how improbable an unbeaten season really is. Before yesterday, Mourinho's men had not lost since April when Atletico Madrid won at Stamford Bridge.
There's reason to believe it's a blip and that Chelsea can go another five and a half months undefeated in all competitions. But, equally, you wonder if chickens aren't going to come home to roost.
Mourinho has been blessed thus far with an almost entirely injury-free campaign - apart from Diego Costa's hamstring niggles - and he has responded by fielding the same team in virtually every game. The manager himself hinted that wear and tear and the need for freshness may soon force him to rotate and use his squad players more. And not a moment too soon, judging from the performance at Newcastle.
Mario Balotelli being charged by the Football Association for his Instagram post tells us several things about him and one important fact about the FA. What did we learn about Mario? He's a bit dated - that Super Mario meme he reposted has been around for a decade - and he has incredibly poor judgment: even a child would have realised that in the current climate (both league-wide and, specifically, with anything he does), it was bound to cause controversy.
But we also learned the FA need to stop being the Twitter police. And they need to shed this whole "we need to be seen to be doing something" attitude. Because frankly while they may have the authority to do what they do - and even that is under dispute, or, at least it should be - they clearly have neither the resources nor the nous to do it properly.
Even an idiot could have seen that Balotelli's message - and that whole Super Mario meme - is, at its core, an anti-racist message. Or it is intended to be. It's inappropriate because it perpetuates stereotypes about Jewish people and black people. (And, no, Mario, at least in England, the fact that you're black and have been a victim of racism, that your mother was born Jewish and that your grandmother was a Holocaust survivor does not make it OK.)
But it can't be treated the same way a derogatory message would be. Particularly not when it was taken down almost immediately and was followed by a full apology.
The fact that all this stems from the "bringing game into disrepute" charge only adds to the farce. There is a better way around this. One that does not involve trying to police every tweet or social media interaction from every single registered footballer (not just professional) in England.
Simply hold the clubs responsible for dealing with such matters. Whenever a contentious issue of this nature arises, demand that clubs investigate and provide an account of how they dealt with it. If you're satisfied, that's it. If not, you can fine the club, dock points, ban players, whatever.
It would save the FA's already stretched resources for more important matters than investigating every single case, just so they can look like they're "doing something".
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