Man, I love the Olympics.
No questions this week, folks—it’s just a statement of fact. The Olympics are awesome.
And of course, when they come to a city, the immense expenditure is insane and we have countless examples of cities that are just completely unprepared to host an event of this magnitude. And the demands result in these cities going into debt or going bankrupt or having huge useless things for years to come. In many ways, that money would be better spent on social causes than on a sports festival with multi-million dollar opening and closing ceremonies.
Then again… the Olympics are so damn fun, man. What other event inspires the most raw, unfiltered nationalism for obscure sports in the world? And it’s even good nationalism! Not many things can do that.
A big part of sport is developing an irrational attachment to the teams or people you support. Most of the time, that attachment doesn’t develop instantly; you have to spend months or even years following something closely to feel that level of interest in a sporting event. The Olympics have the power to bypass all of that and create a heart-pounding, sweat-inducing, anxiety-inducing level of interest in something you wouldn’t have cared about at all just a few hours earlier.
I’ve spent hours watching surfing events, rooting for Alan Cleland Jr., a Mexican surfer who captured the nation’s attention for a few days by dominating the competition in the preliminaries before suffering a crushing loss to a French surfer. Surfing is a sport that is apparently judged – like gymnastics – so it’s safe to assume that everyone had strong opinions about the fairness – or lack thereof – of the scores given to Cleland Jr.
(Surfing is a pretty boring sport to watch. There are loads of guys sitting on their boards waiting for the right wave. It’s also insane that the winner is decided in a single elimination tournament. Cleland Jr. literally had the second best overall score in the round, but because he had to compete against the Frenchman who taught him something of his own, he got kicked out? Yeah, I’m still mad about that.)
Colleagues with whom I had previously exchanged barely more than 20 words became best friends for a moment as we cheered on a tiny laptop screen for Prisca Awiti to win the silver medal in judo. I was baffled by the way Olympic boxing is scored, but that became less and less of an issue as Marco Verde fought his way through the field to the gold medal match, looking to be the first Mexican to win gold in boxing in 56 years.
I’ve been asking around about where I can take fencing and archery lessons. I’ll probably never actually try these sports, but I asked!
Sometimes, when our beloved football loses some of its more romantic aspects, we tend to grow weary of the sport. But one only has to watch one day of Olympic action to be reminded that sport – at its core – is a futile but worthwhile endeavour to strive for perfection in any field. And to see thousands upon thousands of people who have dedicated their lives to that pursuit, regardless of their discipline, is simply incredible.
Negotiation 101
On the one hand, as a fan, I really appreciated Thiago Motta’s openness towards surplus players. On the other hand, I think it’s pretty stupid to shout in all directions that we’re having a sale and everything has to go at a discount.
Whether or not you want Federico Chiesa to stay at Juventus next season, he’s a player who, strictly speaking, should still have good value on the market. Sure, his contract expires next summer, so that would reduce his transfer fee, but giving him a big discount doesn’t help matters.
Wouldn’t it be best to give interested teams at least some doubts about Chiesa? If they don’t strike while the iron is hot and raise the offer now, maybe Chiesa will play for Juventus this year and then who knows? Maybe he will have a great season and the win will heal everything and he will re-sign with the club?
But given the way the club treats some of their departing players, you get the feeling they don’t even challenge them to call their bluff. Why negotiate now when I can just wait until this bitter divorce happens next season and get Chiesa for free?
(Or Weston McKennie, for that matter. His case is a little different, but they also did everything in their power to make it clear that the guy has no future on this team.)
Cristiano Giuntoli’s regime has done a lot of great things so far, but the way some of the transfers are being handled is probably not the best principle to use in negotiations.
Drama, bloody drama
The transfer saga surrounding Teun Koopmeiners recently took a wild turn.
We’ve heard pretty much the same story over and over again about the Dutch international. He wants to come, but Atalanta don’t want to let him go so easily. Basically, it was either you pay us the big money or we’re happy to hold on to our super valuable player and try to have a great European season and maybe pull off a surprise in the UEFA Super Cup.
It felt like it would continue in this direction until Juve either scraped together the necessary money or turned their attention to another target. That was until the latest development, when Koopmeiners used his influence, according to Atalanta manager Gian Piero Gasperini:
“Until last week, things were going very well with Koopmeiners, then the player decided to go to Juventus. He already has an agreement, he feels stressed and has decided not to play or train with us anymore. And with this attitude, he can’t be of any use to us. The club, in turn, has taken a very tough stance because it feels blackmailed by this situation. This is different from other cases where Atalanta has sold some valuable players.”
Will Koopmeiner’s refusal to train help the transfer in any way? Will Atalanta call his bluff and rule him out if a transfer doesn’t happen? Much is still uncertain, but this is an interesting twist on a transfer that would undoubtedly make this Juventus team a lot better.
