The Double Pivot: Soccer analysis, analytics, and commentary: Recent Episodes
Mike Goodman and Michael Caley
Huge FIFA news post World Cup as Gianni Infantino attempted to sell off shares in the World Cup in a very dubious deal, saw it collapse amid stern resistance from UEFA, and is suddenly facing a potential vote of no confidence. Is it possible reform is actually coming to FIFA? What does UEFA actually want? What would a new majority coalition look like? We go into the history of Havelange's and Blatter's FIFA, the ways that FIFA has always blended cutthroat capitalism and old-school corruption, the long-running FIFA-UEFA cold war, and the wholly unclear current state of play among the FAs.
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All the big attacking signings are delayed, and we have a charming metaphor to describe it. What would it mean if Real Madrid finalize the Yan Diomande signing, where will he fit in their system, who will he displace, and will this finally get the transfer market moving again? Plus a little bit on Bradley Barcola.
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One more proper World Cup podcast before it's gone. We break down how Spain dominated this match front to the back, the seven minutes where they didn't and how that brief run by Argentina explains what happened in the rest of the match, how often even a great performance like this goes unrewarded, Pedri's game, and more.
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The World Cup semifinals are complete and it's PADDLIN' 2, Our lyin' eyes 0. How Spain controlled the match tactically (and got a little lucky with a penalty), how if at all this makes us reconsider this France side, and then on to Argentina-England. Argentina-England. Hoo boy. The first 60 and final 40 minutes of this match were both journeys, and we break it all down, and ask where we would pinpoint England's and Tuchel's key errors.
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The two best teams at this World Cup -- certainly the two teams that have played the best soccer at this World Cup -- square off. We're worried it's going to be pretty bad.
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The United States came up short in the round of 16, in the sense that they got boatraced by Belgium. We discuss the game, offer Rudi Garcia an apology, talk about what to say about a thoroughly bad game, and discuss the state of the USMNT talent pool and the occasional doubts one hears about player quality.
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The Round of 16 preview extravaganza continues with the big matches on July 6. How Portugal's tactical system continues to try and fail to work around Ronaldo's limitations, what we want to see from Spain in this match, the importance of the Spanish fullbacks, and then of course the USMNT preview. How Pochettino will likely approach this match against an opponent that will seek to control possession, why Jeremy Doku terrifies us and how Belgium's attacking band is supposed to work, and the inexplicable tactical decisions of Rudi Garcia and how they could give the US an advantage.
The other Round of 16 previews, are on the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/doublepivot
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The dynamics of the entire bracket, from Argentina's cakewalk to the interesting but different tests for Brazil and England, to Spain's good path and their fitness and tactical issues, a little model breakdown on Colombia, why the draw for African teams means we shouldn't read too much into the results, and more.
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There's so much football and we are not happy about recognizing FIFA for it. But we've got what's wrong with Portugal (mostly Ronaldo), what's gone right for Ivory Coast (both players and coaching), Caley explains "Spuruguay," and we try to figure out Belgium.
The Henry segment on Ronaldo: https://bsky.app/profile/dreyesceron.bsky.social/post/3moj2hwalms2e
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England won 4-2 over Croatia, dominated the xG, and generally looked like a real football team and a real World Cup contender. We have some slightly different takes on the first half, we get into questions about the PADDLIN' model and England, and of course Marouane Fellaini is discussed in some depth.
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Mike has written a World Cup 2026 update to his classic Grantland piece about how to watch soccer. We discuss expected goals and how to use statistics well and poorly, we talk tactics and "flex back threes" and "five guys" and "rest defense" and how it all goes back to Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich, and a little bit on the economics of the game and why that explains the coaches at the 2026 World Cup.
Read Goodman in 2026: https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/fifa-2026-world-cup-expected-goals-analytics-soccer-nerd/
And see Goodman from 2014: https://grantland.com/features/how-to-watch-the-world-cup-like-a-true-soccer-nerd/
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A big win for the United States Men's National Team (USMNT, pronounced us-mnt) that validated belief in Mauricio Pochettino and the system he built for these players. We get into why the xG isn't quite as impressive as one might expect, the distinctive tactics you could see in action during the game, and just how far out over skis one might reasonably get after this match.
For more on the Double Pivot's PADDLIN' World Cup model, see our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DoublePivotPod
And the Expecting Goals model write-up (with live updating on the way): https://www.expectinggoals.com/p/world-cup-projections-introducing
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There is so much to get to this week, and this will be the first of many podcasts. We cover the Champions League final and why we did not have much of a problem with Arsenal's defensive approach, our plans for building a World Cup model and some of the models out there, and the big plans for where these podcasts are going to be published.
You can check out all the new... video content at: https://www.youtube.com/@DoublePivotPod
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Arsenal won the Premier League. They were also the best team in the Premier League by any analytical measure. But they were an unusual best team in the league, tactically and statistically, and we get into the peculiarities of the style that helped get the Gunners over the line. And we talk about what to expect from Arsenal and PSG in the Champions League final.
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Chelsea will reportedly hire Xabi Alonso as their new manager for next season. We discuss how Chelsea got to this point, what they appear to have promised to Xabi and how this may or may not fit within Chelsea's current sports and business model. We also discuss Xabi's impressive managerial record and how his tactical approach might fit Chelsea's talent.
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Has the moment finally come? With West Ham's disallowed goal in the closing seconds against Arsenal, the football discourse has returned to the question of the new corner kick tactic, which this podcast has somehow managed to name "the meat wall". We discuss what happened in the Arsenal match, but our goal is not to referee the moment over. Our focus is on why this seems likely to drive some degree of change in refereeing standards or even the rules of the game, why we think that an assertive response is necessary, and we walk through several possibilities for how the sport and the leagues might respond.
Read Caley's new newsletter here: https://www.expectinggoals.com/p/the-meat-wall-era-in-the-premier
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There is too much to podcast on and we are giving our subscribers a few bonus podcasts. Talking top four in Germany and Italy, recapping the Bayern - PSG second leg, and of course, all the Real Madrid drama.
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Manchester United have had an undoubtedly successful season, qualifying for the Champions League with underlying numbers perfectly in line with that position. But their results shifted markedly when they sacked Ruben Amorim and brought in Michael Carrick. Was this a major driver of their results or a mirage of finishing?
We discuss the real tactical changes under Carrick and how they show up in the numbers, why Kobbie Mainoo is the key player in this tactical shift, some notable differences in how the team approaches game state, and nonetheless how there is clearly just a ton of variance going on here.
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That was great. We discuss what made the game so exciting, why it was not a game with enormous expected goals totals, and what that tells us about the tactical approach and quality of play. Plus a Vincent Kompany apology form.
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Somehow, here in 2026, a major title race clash in the Premier League lived up to the billing. We discuss how Arsenal's aggressive defensive approach created an open and exciting match for a long stretch, how City's period of possession dominance in the second half nonetheless also produced some of Arsenal's best scoring chances, and why the final ten minutes were so uninspiring compared to the rest of the match, and what it all tells us about who is likely to win the title.
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There are just a few Premier League teams left in the Say Something Challenge and one of them is Arsenal. Why they're obviously the title favorites and why, seriously asking why are they playing football like this? Plus we fight our way through to having something to say about Burnley, Wolves, Brighton and Forest.
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Caley wrote a newsletter about the origins of the set piece revolution, whether it's all Mikel Arteta's fault, how teams actually score off throw-ins, and why set pieces didn't take over the game earlier. This pod talks through the newsletter and some of our theories of how the set piece side of the game is interacting with larger open play tactical trends.
Newsletter link: https://www.expectinggoals.com/p/the-origins-of-the-set-piece-revolution
Also newsletter link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/origins-of-set-154510725?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
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We are joined by Sam Greenwood, high-stakes poker player and the writer and publisher of the Punt of the Day newsletter (to which Mike Goodman also contributes), to talk about poker and some questions we've been thinking about in sports and analytics and, well, publishing a podcast and recording a newsletter, about the world of optimizing and making money by clicking buttons on the computer.
And because Sam is not only our Gambling Correspondent but also our Canadian Soccer Correspondent, we also turn to discussing the Canadian Men's National Team and the upcoming World Cup.
Check out Punt of the Day: https://www.puntoftheday.com/2026/
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We take up a challenge from the discord to say something about even the least interesting teams. This podcast series will take us through the international break and begins with Fulham, Crystal Palace, Aston Villa, Everton, Chelsea, Manchester United, and Leeds.
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We are joined by Leif Weatherby, author of Language Machines: Cultural AI and the End of Remainder Humanism, to talk about artificial intelligence: what these new technologies do, but more than that how the fact of their existence can teach us more about how language works. And then we continue down a variety of paths talking sports analytics, optimization, and other topics.
https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517919320/language-machines/
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Why the "Premier League disaster" narrative doesn't really make sense, plus some capsule summaries of the eight matches and why there was not that much to learn from the second legs. City-Real and Chelsea-PSG matches were over too early, Liverpool and Arsenal held serve at home, Bayern continued walking, why would anyone have expected more than this from Tottenham, and Barcelona-Newcastle was a fascinating watch with more to discuss but not necessarily representative of any larger dynamics.
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There is so much football to discuss that this podcast could not contain it all and part two will be a subscriber episode. Here we get to the acknowledgement of Tottenham and a much more in-depth discussion of both PSG - Chelsea and Real Madrid - Man City, two matches that were much more similar than the scores and the ensuing narratives might suggest.
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We discuss the Round of 16 and why it seems like there are fewer and fewer new matchups in the Champions League knockouts and what might have to be done to address this.
And then, it's time for the return of Bible History Corner and, neither a review nor a summary of Jason Staples new book Paul and the Restoration of Israel but a preparation for it with extended background first on the history of Pauline Studies, and second on the history of Ancient Judaism, the Kingdoms of Israel, the Babylonian and Assyrian conquests, and tying all of this back around to Paul so we can talk about the book.
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There have been many dramatic results recently and the title race in the Premier League is indeed on between Arsenal and Manchester City. Nonetheless, the Double Pivot take remains the boring analytics answer that sometimes results happen without new or particularly interesting causes.
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With the Analytics Dead Zone fully underway in league football, we step back, take a question from the mailbag, and play "Squad Player or Star Player?" with James Garner, Joao Pedro and Gabriel Martinelli.
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That's right. For the Winter Olympics we have a whole podcast dedicated to biathlon, joined by Jordan and RJ of the Penalty Loop Podcast to teach us all about how to watch biathlon like an expert, understanding the different events as well as the kinds of data and analysis used in biathlon, the players and teams to watch at the Olympics, and we did not skimp on the biathlon drama either.
Check out the Penalty Loop Podcast: http://penaltyloop.com/penalty-loop-podcast/
And Biathlon Analytics: https://biathlonanalytics.com/
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The Double Pivot has introduced a term into the football vernacular and we talk through the set pieces story, Caley's study, and Jonathan Northcroft's column in the Times. And then we talk transfers including Marc Guehi, Antoine Semenyo and Ademola Lookman, which leads naturally into a discussion of private equity in football.
The Northcroft column: https://www.thetimes.com/sport/football/article/premier-league-goalkeepers-set-pieces-ft66m8hn5
Set pieces study: https://www.expectinggoals.com/p/the-set-piece-revolution
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We had a goofy final day of the Champions League and a few thoughts on Benfica and Real Madrid and the joy of whiparound soccer.
And then we get into Caley's new study on The Set Piece Revolution and the evidence that the game-changing insights here are mostly just chucking it into the mixer and crowding the keeper. We disagree(!) about some likely responses and we discuss what is likely to come next as set piece thought continues to spread.
Read the full study: https://www.expectinggoals.com/p/the-set-piece-revolution
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With seven weeks of the Champions League League Phase complete, it is properly all to play for in the chase for qualification to the knockouts and especially in the chase for top eight and a bye into the round of 16. We go through the table and the impossibility of precisely gaming out all the scenarios.
Also! The Deloitte Money League data is out and it shows both the current financial dominance of the Premier League and the low rate of growth in inflation-adjusted football revenue since 2019.
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The attempt to reform Real Madrid concludes, and it is reported that it probably was never really an attempt to reform Real Madrid in the first place. We discuss the distinct highs and lows of Xabi's tenure in Madrid, why we are (relatively!) down on the club from here, what we learned about Alonso as a manager, and what may be next for him.
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Ruben Amorim actively got himself sacked by Manchester United. We talk about how we ended up here, why nothing about the process looks well-handled, what's next for United and why United's management structure makes it nearly impossible to predict what's next.
On Ratcliffe and Ineos with Ben Walsh: https://www.buzzsprout.com/819853/episodes/16787734-united-ratcliffe-ineos-and-cycling-with-ben-walsh
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The long midtable in the Premier League is exceptionally competitive and just plain good. We talk about the underlying economic and game-structural reasons this has happened, and then we get into (most of) the 6th to 14th place clubs—Manchester United, Spurs, Palace, Brighton, Brentford, Newcastle and more—and their chances at making a run for the Champions League.
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What's going on with Antoine Semenyo's transfer market and what sort of analytics are we using to evaluate him? Has Xabi Alonso saved his job at Real Madrid? And can the boys squeeze three topics into a single podcast? Listen to find out!
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Set pieces are making up an unprecedently large percentage of Premier League goal-scoring. At the same time, open play goal scoring is down significantly. We work through the data on tactical changes in the Premier League and European football since 2010 and the shockingly quick shift in goal-scoring this season.
Is it something that the powers that be will have to intervene to fix in the rules of the game? As always, the Double Pivot answer is "maybe, but we would like a larger sample size."
Set piece goal scoring graph: https://bsky.app/profile/michaelcaley.bsky.social/post/3ma5anvdgr22e
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Mohamed Salah decided to make some news this week. We walk through how and why his unload-the-clip statement on the club and the manager happened and what comes next for Liverpool, for the front office and for the manager and players, who still need to figure out a set of tactics that get the most out of their stars, with or without Salah.
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There has been a lawsuit filed against Tony Bloom and his sports gambling syndicate alleging, well, the lawsuit is actually just asking for money. But it is also about how sports gambling syndicates work and specifically how the one owned and run by the owner of Brighton works, and we wanted to talk about that and about Premier League gambling policy.
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A hot start on points masked underlying problems, but a blowout loss to Arsenal and what should have been a blowout loss to Chelsea have brought focus back to what seems to be wrong at Tottenham. We break it down.
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It's a huge, wild, and complex story. Referees suspended, players implicated, the third and fourth divisions suspended, criminal investigations into Super Lig clubs and referees. We break down what's going on in Turkey and we ask, is this just the first open reporting of risks to sporting competition that are present across professional football and global sports?
Wikipedia and links for the Turkish football story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Turkish_football_betting_scandal
Ankaraspor - Nazillispor: https://en.haberler.com/it-had-been-talked-about-for-days-here-is-the-2157354/
Cleveland Guardians scandal: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/emmanuel-clase-arrested-pleads-not-guilty/
Sports Betting and Players in US Sports: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6807760/2025/11/14/sports-betting-players-nfl-nba-mlb-nhl/
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City won 3-0. The non-penalty xG in the match was dead even. What does that mean, what are the statistics telling us about this match and about Man City and Liverpool?
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We kick off the new Double Pivot Ballon d'Or tracker podcast series with a discussion of why we're going to be doing this, tracking both the players who we think will deserve the award and who is more or less likely to win in, and how we think about those problems. And of course we check in on the obvious leaders right now -- Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappe, Harry Kane -- as well as some players we're watching to see if they can get into consideration.
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We talk to Bill Connelly, ESPN staff writer and author of the book Forward Progress, about the American sport that we all agree has the most uncanny resemblance to European and global soccer, college football. We talk NILs and conferences and the transfer portal, and we talk the super league and the socio model and the Bundesliga. What both college football and European soccer eventually become are two of the most fascinating questions in sports, and understanding one can help you think about the other, too. We even talk a little bit about analytics.
Forward Progress: https://www.triumphbooks.com/forward-progress-products-9781637278703.php
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Caley has built a new projection and team rating model so we talk through what it tells us about the Premier League right now. Arsenal's incredible defense, Newcastle's confusing defense, Liverpool's problem defense, Palace's attack, Spurs not looking entirely terrible, Sunderland looking strong, and more.
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We are joined by two of the Double Pivot's official correspondents -- Salacious Gossip Correspondent Joel Wertheimer and Financial Shenanigans Correspondent Skanda Amarnath -- for the second annual Premier League worst contracts draft.
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It's analytics podcasting time. We are table sorting and talking Arsenal, City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Newcastle and Manchester United.
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We continue to monitor teams and players that are underperforming our expectations, or, perhaps, overperforming and then suddenly dramatically underperforming our expectations in the case of Real Madrid. What went wrong in the Madrid Derby and what does it tell us about Xabi's new-look Madrid? And after Liverpool's underwhelming early season statistics finally translated into dropped points against Crystal Palace, we consider why Florian Wirtz is not producing at his previous level.
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Ignore the intro, it's a lie.
We take up the big Arsenal - Man City match from Sunday and what it tells us about the two clubs and try to intervene in the high-spirited but somewhat misguided discourse that's arisen from the match.
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Villa and Liverpool both have underlying numbers are running well behind expectations after four games, but also their slow starts are reflected very differently in the actual table. We get into what's gone wrong so far on tactical and personnel levels, how much we expect things to bounce back, and how much the real points they've taken affect this analysis.
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Nuno Espirito Santo has been sacked by one of the Premier League's more chaotic owners, we talk about that drama and the added factor that Forest hired Ange Postecoglou to replace him, a manager practically his absolute tactical opposite.
Plus we talked USMNT a bit.
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Most of the headline business on deadline way was as expected, but we found both some unexpected transfers lower down the table to discuss. And we consider what it means that the Premier League, and especially the top of the Premier League, spent so much money this summer.
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Liverpool struggled badly against Newcastle while City lost to Spurs, and both matches captured the current tactical meta in different ways. We walk through the history of where the extreme control tactics of contemporary football came from and how clubs are now responding to control with different versions of chaos, pressing, athleticism and directness. Looking back on Pep, Jose, Klopp, Tuchel and how their ideas shaped the game and what might come next.
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Arsenal got the three points, but their close-fought 1-0 victory over Manchester United felt strange to watch and was a major statistical outlier in a number of ways. We are joined by CBS Sports' James Benge to discuss what he saw from Arsenal in their opening match and what it might mean for the season.
Follow James online: https://bsky.app/profile/jamesbenge.bsky.social
And read his article on the match: https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/arsenal-were-faster-than-ever-in-win-at-manchester-united-but-is-new-style-here-to-stay-or-circumstantial/
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It's that time again! We go through all 20 Premier League teams, draft our favorites, and talk about why we picked them.
Part II of course available at http://patreon.com/doublepivot
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We talk about strategies for staying in the Premier League as a promoted side, how much harder it's gotten, what approaches are being employed by Leeds, Sunderland and Burnley, and why we think this season one of them breaks the streak.
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We are joined by Sophie Lawson to discuss the Women's Euros, which were heading into their semifinals as we were recording. How Spain have established themselves as the best in Europe, why Germany have made the semis but still disappointed so far, how England have shown fight but not yet the quality of ball that they need, and how Italy are just Italy-ing super hard.
Follow Sophie on the various social media sites @lawsonsv including: https://bsky.app/profile/lawsonsv.bsky.social
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Talking about all the agreeable soccer analytics you can listen to if you join at
https://www.patreon.com/c/doublepivot
And if you do, here's how to join the Discord
https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/212052266-Getting-Discord-access
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The deal is still held up in contractual, semi-legal limbo, but we talk about Gibbs-White and analyzing players based on per-90 and per-touch metrics, and whether this is a risk worth taking for Tottenham.
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Summer means transfer talk but also maybe a teensy bit of international football. We discuss Malik Tillman to Bayer Leverkusen as well as Malik Tillman within the context of the USMNT. And we talk about Nico Williams to Barcelona, why it hasn't gone through yet, and what the plan is for him at Barca.
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Chelsea has not yet completed most of the many transactions they're reported to be working on, but certainly it looks like another summer for churn. And our question is, why.
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With Crystal Palace in danger of missing out on Europe due to their ownership situation, and Chelsea being, you know, the way that they are, we felt it was time to talk to an actual expert about what private equity is and what is new about private equity ownership in sports. So we asked George Pearkes, all-around finance knower on social media and professionally Global Macro Strategist for Bespoke Investment Group, to talk to us about it.
George is also the co-host of the Normal Men podcast: https://peark.es/podcast/
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Tottenham are hiring Brentford's manager to replace Ange Postecoglou. Frank has been adaptable in his career with a few consistent tendencies, and we've got some takes.
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Manchester City appear to be moving in the June window, with transfers for Rayan Cherki and Rayan Ait Nouri advancing, rumors around Tijjani Reijnders and Tino Livramento hanging around, and we look at a very strange season and what all of this might mean.
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We're playing team of the season but with a twist. We each have to draft a separate, reasonably coherent XI of the players who were the best and the most productive in the Premier League in the last season. Did we pick your favorite players? Did we terribly disrespect your team? Check it out.
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It starts with the fullbacks. It appears very likely that with Trent leaving, Liverpool will sign both Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez. Both good players at good prices, but neither can replace the ball progression and midfield creativity of Alexander-Arnold. So what else will need to happen to make this team competitive at the highest level?
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Real Madrid are reportedly making two major changes, dropping Carlo Ancelotti for Xabi Alonso and bringing in Liverpool's Trent Alexander-Arnold as a right sided defender and ludicrous passer. We discuss how all of this may, or may not, but probably will, but exactly how well will it work out?
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The second leg was somehow even better than the first. We talk the stats and tactics from an incredible match, what we've learned about Hansi Flick and Barcelona this season, sing the praises of Inter Milan and Inzaghi, and talk a bit about the future of Barcelona.
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We take a mailbag question on the math of goal difference, projecting points from goals, and what it tells us about the game of soccer.
This one is for the nerds.
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Four big teams, two big games, Arsenal vs PSG, Barcelona vs Inter, it's a soccer analytics podcast.
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We are joined by Dan Davies, author of the fantastic new book The Unaccountability Machine, to talk about the book and the new ways of thinking about business and capitalism that he introduces, and then to discuss how this model of thinking can help explain why European football is the way it is.
The Unaccountability Machine: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/U/bo252799883.html
Dan Davies' newsletter, Back of Mind: https://backofmind.substack.com/
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We break down Arsenal's big win, Real Madrid's toothlessness, Inter's away result, and why we continue to see PSG and Barcelona as the best remaining teams in the tournament, probably the best teams in the entire world. And that brings us to Lamine Yamal, who is good.
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No football just literature and history.
A Drop of Corruption: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/735559/a-drop-of-corruption-by-robert-jackson-bennett/
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Tactics Tom is in charge for England the results were the same and the football was not scintillating but it was tactically distinct and interesting to discuss. So we had Grace Robertson of graceonfootball.com join us to discuss it.
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We are joined by the Athletic's Adam Crafton to discuss his and his colleagues' reporting on Manchester United, what's happened since Jim Ratcliffe took over, what they claim they're doing and what it means for the club. And then we also discuss the increasingly explicit American political context of the upcoming World Cup and international soccer competitions and his reporting on that topic as well.
Crafton et al on the most recent round of layoffs: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6157358/2025/02/25/manchester-united-job-cuts-details/
And on US VISA policy and the World Cup: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6163959/2025/02/28/2026-world-cup-usa-visa-wait-trump-fifa/
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We are joined by financial journalist (and soccer and cycling fan) Ben Walsh to learn about the great sport of road racing, the background of INEOS as a sports ownership group, and how fans of cycling were well ahead of the curve on what to expect from Ratcliffe at Manchester United.
Check out Ben's newsletter, The Bender: https://bendwalsh.substack.com/
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Big matches in the Serie A title race get their due and then we talk about the team with the best underlying numbers in the Premier League recently, which as you surely all know is Crystal Palace.
Palace: https://bsky.app/profile/scott.cannonstats.com/post/3ljdm73v3wn2o
Ovalle: https://bsky.app/profile/lawsonsv.bsky.social/post/3ljjheamocs26
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Huge six-pointers all around and we take stock of the teams we covered last week (City, Forest, Newcastle, Chelsea, Bournemouth) and ask how much we need to think further about Brighton and Villa after they made up ground.
Simon Tinsley's PL projections: https://analytic-fpl.streamlit.app/
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There are probably right now five teams in a race for three spots. We take a close look at Nottingham Forest, Chelsea, City, Bournemouth and Newcastle and handicap the race. It's a close one!
Simon's projection website: https://analytic-fpl.streamlit.app/
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We wrote an article on financialization and soccer for Bloomberg, and it helped us crystallize our thinking on the state of the business of football. On labor costs and competition, on regulation and financialization, on Covid-era changes in the economic environment, on oligarch and state ownership and what it means for solidarity in the capital class, it's all here.
A whole bunch of links.
Our Bloomberg article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-01-29/how-football-has-become-a-hotbed-of-financial-engineering
Caley's further thoughts: https://www.expectinggoals.com/p/further-thoughts-on-the-business
Interview with Jon Sindreu on Barca's finances: https://www.buzzsprout.com/819853/episodes/14587568-barcelona-finance-with-jon-sindreu
Interview with Jonathan Clegg on the formation of the Premier League: https://www.buzzsprout.com/819853/episodes/2510416
Grace Robertson on the Premier League tv deal: https://www.graceonfootball.com/p/the-premier-league-is-selling-its
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After multiple contradictory developments, Tottenham landed Mathys Tel on loan from Bayern and also signed a deal with Bayern and Tel for an option that remains hard to pin down. We talk about the story here and how it probably went down (we disagree a little on this!) and what kind of player Tel is and what Tottenham can expect.
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Two big matches between teams in the chase for the Champions League places. What we learned from City's new tactical approach, how Chelsea approached this match, and how Bournemouth won big.
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Another weekend, another loss, another tumble further into the bottom half of the table for Tottenham and United. We talk about the problem of what a club should do when things are bad and yet there isn't a lot to be done immediately and they really just need a longer-term strategy or better execution of such.
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Manchester City are adding Omar Marmoush, Abdukodir Khusanov, Vitor Reis in the same window and maybe also Andrea Cambiaso. Will these signings fix the crisis at Man City?
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Usually when things look a little funky in the Premier League table, you can count on an analytics podcast to tell you it's mostly variance. But this season, the wide open race for top four or five really reflects a pile-up of pretty good teams. We walk through these contenders and how they've gotten here.
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A new financial fair play / registration crisis at Barcelona as a judge backs La Liga's determination that they cannot register Dani Olmo under La Liga FFP, setting him up for free agency. But Barcelona's financial situation has changed a lot in the last couple years, and the possible negative effects of this are not as stark as they were potentially in the past.
And we talk a little about how Barca lost their lead in the table.
El Confidential on the court ruling: https://www.elconfidencial.com/deportes/futbol/liga/2024-12-31/dani-olmo-inscripcion-juez-cautelar-laporta-laliga_4034860/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=BotoneraWeb
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It is still the most interesting statistical and tactical story in the Premier League. In world football probably. Pep Guardiola is trying some new tweaks on his system and his team keeps dropping points. We talk through what's changed since the slide began, what happened against Everton, and what to expect in the transfer window.
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Leicester City fired Steve Cooper a few weeks ago, and this weekend the two managers in 19th and 20th place in the Premier League, Gary O'Neil of Wolves and Russell Martin of Southampton, both got the sack. We take a look at the very different stories of these three clubs, what we expect from the relegation race this season, and the trend of defensive possession at the bottom of the table.
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Jim Ratcliffe sacked his Sporting Director Dan Ashworth after a pretty short term. It is not a hopeful moment for the new football system at United. We discuss what we know about how their football operations work and then move from there to talking about new manager Ruben Amorim, his system, and how the players are fitting together.
Adam Crafton and Laurie Whitwell in The Athletic on Ashworth: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5978018/2024/12/08/dan-ashworth-manchester-united-exit-reasons/
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It's a very exciting season in Italy, with multiple teams in touching distance of first place and no obvious favorite yet in December. We walk through Napoli, Atalanta, Inter, Fiorentina, Juventus, Lazio and Milan.
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Five losses in a row, three in the league. And it's not really a five-match thing, the losses are somewhat fluky but performances have been down badly at City ever since Rodri got injured. We break down what's (relatively) wrong with City and why we're skeptical it can be wholly fixed.
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We are joined by official Double Pivot English Correspondent Grace Robertson to discuss the new England manager Thomas Tuchel (who is not actually managing England yet) and what to expect from this team over the coming World Cup cycle.
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(This is a subscriber episode from October, now unlocked for all listeners.)
Poker pro Jonathan Jaffe joins the pod to talk all things stats and the practical ways we think about using probability to make decisions.
See the GTO LAB podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@GTOLAB
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The first manager sacked in the Premier League is Manchester United's Eric Ten Hag. He has not done a particularly good job, but there are few hallmarks of good process in his sacking.
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We talk about Liverpool - Chelsea, City's struggles, Arsenal's, well, you know, and whether there is truly a big three in the Premier League as we expected.
And then on to the real stuff: the Netflix romantic comedy Nobody Wants This, on which we have so many takes.
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We take questions from the Double Pivot discord on these topics, we remember some center backs who scored goals, and we fight the urge to throw out the script and do a pod on Nobody Wants This.
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It's in our wheelhouse.* What exactly did a legal review panel find in relation to the Premier League's "associated party transaction" rules, why are City and the PL spinning this ruling so aggressively, what is an ownership loan anyhow, and what's to come next for the financial regulation of English soccer?
- we also learn the etymology of 'wheelhouse'.
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In the Premier League this season, a number of the most striking team stories appear to be, when you dig into the data, fundamentally tactical stories. This means we're talking about Ten Hag and Ange and how Spurs and United have been playing, but also we look at the major shifts in style of play at Chelsea and Crystal Palace and what Fabian Hurzeler appears to be doing at Brighton. Plus our favorite Klopp story.
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An extremely strange match, and one in which Manchester City's tactical approach to the second half most particularly deserves analysis. But the draw and the injury to Rodri in the first half leave us with a peculiarly wide open Premier League title race. Much to discuss!
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The Premier League has four matchdays done, and that means we have just enough data to be dangerous. What's going on with Liverpool. Nottingham Forest, Southampton, Spurs and Arsenal?
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Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali are fighting over Chelsea. We break down the exact financial relationships here and the context for their fight, and what it tells us about the business of football in the modern era and what might come next for Chelsea.
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Saudi Arabia alter their course but continue to struggle, we end up going deep on PSG's transfer window, and how wages end up getting treated differently from transfer fees in the market. We're still trying to make sense of a bunch of things!
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The US Men's National Team has a new coach. He's a good one. We look back on the trajectory of Pochettino's career, his tactical ideas, and what it might mean for the USMNT.
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The one with Chelsea.
Also Everton and Fulham and the previews of the rest of the league will be available to subscribers on the Patreon.
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All 20 teams in the Premier League and it starts here. We're going in alphabetical order and talking about how it could go right and how it could go wrong for AFC Bournemouth, Arsenal, Aston Villa, Brentford and Brighton.
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We keep waiting for the summer transfer window to shake out and it keeps not. The best example of this is how Victor Osimhen is not only still a Napoli player but does not seem to be particularly close to becoming a player on another big team. We have some theories about what's slammed the breaks on the transfers.
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A reasonably comprehensive 2-1 Spain victory ends the Euros. We break down how Spain got it done and why England never managed to click into gear the whole tournament. And we look to future for the top European sides, what questions do we have heading into the next World Cup for England, Spain, Germany and France?
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Well those were certainly four football matches. Another discussion of what's wrong with England, why the Netherlands struggled with Turkiye and what it might mean for the semifinal, and then there's the other semifinal! Why Portugal-France was so bad, an elegy for Portugal's wasted tournament, the big Mbappe question, how Spain barely survived, why we're both picking Spain for the final... it's a lot of podcast.
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The Copa America is over for the USMNT after just three matches. It was pretty dumb. We consider what we learned, if anything, from this tournament and what the US should do now with limited competitive matches before 2026.
And some bonus Uruguay and Italy takes.
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England and a number of other countries. What's wrong with England and why they're still the favorites, some depressive Italy/Switzerland takes, Netherlands pretty good, and accountability for our Lawnball picks.
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The favorites mostly keep winning, but all the different ways they're winning are worth some discussion. England, Italy, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, and Switzerland, a lot to whip through!
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We've got a full Euros preview for you in three parts. Part 1 covering groups A and B is right here with takes on the highly competitive Group B of Spain, Italy and Croatia, on the enigma that is Germany and Nagelmann's plan to make them even weirder, and I guess Switzerland is there too.
You can read Grace's newsletter at graceonfootball.com.
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The double-correspondent triple-podcast blowout draft commences. We are joined by Salacious Gossip Correspondent Joel Wertheimer (@wertwhile) and Financial Shenanigans Correspondent Skanda Amarnath (@irvingswisher) to draft the very worst contracts in the Premier League.
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Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern and Chelsea appear to have lined up their managers. It's not exactly what we expected. Some takes on how the managerial market has changed in the last few years as well as our skepticism about these choices for most of the clubs involved.
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We talk briefly about the Champions League final and then take a question from the discord about fullback / wingback transfers which segues into a longer discussion about trends in buildup structure and pressing in top level football and the diverse expectations of wide defenders in these systems.
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A mailbag question on what the team of the season is, excluding players on the richest clubs, prompts a discussion of what "non big six" should mean anyhow, and then we get moving on talking about some great striker seasons.
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We are joined by Grace Robertson of www.graceonfootball.com to discuss Liverpool, who have chosen a manager. What do we know about Arne Slot, what's intriguing and what's worrying, and how do we think Liverpool are approaching the current transition?
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We've been doing our Champions League match breakdowns for subscribers, and this week it's the free podcast. Pretty good match!
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A lot is happening right now in the administration of the game of football. There's a proposal for a Premier League salary cap, and we discuss what exactly this means, why it's so very different from PSR, and whether it stands any chance of succeeding. And there's the government regulator, which we have both become convinced will not happen in the UK government has any sense. And there's referee discourse, which has sufficiently annoyed us that we have to talk about it again.
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A big weekend in the title race, Liverpool and then Arsenal lost winnable home matches in succession and it was highly dramatic, but it seems far from obvious to us that we learned much from the drama.
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The club is in an odd spot. They're at risk of relegation, and worse, relegation would probably be a death sentence for Everton Football Club as an operation. But they're also pretty good? With some valuable assets to sell? And a good manager? If it weren't for everything else...
So we discuss how we would approach the problem of running Everton.
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We take questions from the mailbag on how we watch games, on Jeremy Doku and Brennan Johnson, and then we end up building an entire theory of the intersection of player development and modern tactics in the development of really fast guy wingers.
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Part Two of our conversation with official Double Pivot Financial Shenanigans Correspondent Skanda Amarnath (@irvingswisher). And while there are a lot of important details, there's a simple takeaway. Chelsea's PSR crunch is significantly worse than has been generally reported.
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There has been a lot of news about the Premier League's PSR with the Everton points deduction, reports of violations at Nottingham Forest, and all the stories about how clubs are seeking to get into compliance with these regulations. But we think the actual news here has not been well explained in much football media. So we called in an actual finance expert, the Double Pivot's Financial Shenanigans Correspondent, Skanda Amarnath (@IrvingSwisher) to walk us through what has actually changed -- it's not the rules -- and why a PSR system with teeth is in some crucial ways not only different from North American salary caps but the opposite of a salary cap.
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We finally have the guest who can help us do the Barcelona finance pod we needed. Jon Sindreu of the Wall Street Journal (@jonsindreu) helps explain the books, the league rules, the levers, and even what the heck Barca Vision is. Plus we talk about the Barcelona football team a little bit even.
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Solidly beaten by Leverkusen in the top of the table clash at the weekend and then a shocking loss away to Lazio in the first leg of their Champions League knockout. So what's wrong? And separately, how impressive were Leverkusen?
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The Champions League will kick back off in a week, and we take a look through the top teams remaining and whether anything has changed since we last considered them. And at the same time, two of these teams are playing potentially title-deciding six pointers (Bayern against Bayer Leverkusen, Real Madrid against Girona) and we preview those matches as well.
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It's another Trivote episode as Grace from the Grace on Football newsletter joins us to discuss Klopp leaving Liverpool, how we expect the search to proceed from here, and why this situation resembles the period leading to Brendan Rodgers' hiring. We've also got Goodman and Grace taking on the question of Thomas Frank.
Subscribe for Grace's takes at https://www.graceonfootball.com/
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We take your questions on Andre Onana and Mark Flekken, goalkeeper stats, why financial regulation has come so late to European soccer, and expected goals modeling. And because the questions came from the Double Pivot discord, many of the questions have already been answered so we also discuss some answers.
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Jordan Henderson has found his way out of the Saudi Pro League and Karim Benzema is hunkered down in Mauritius searching for his own escape. What's gone wrong with the Saudi Pro League? And how is it implicated in much larger economic and geopolitical dynamics and the broad political outlook of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
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There is not much hopeful that can be said about the present Manchester United side. But the club is still massively wealthy, a nearly unparalleled cash generator, and they have a new part-owner in Jim Ratcliffe who will now control football operations. What do we think is coming next for United?
Subscribe to Grace's newsletter: https://www.graceonfootball.com/
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The big bets of Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali on their new and innovative methods of running a football team have been tested by another half-season of Premier League football. Where do they stand? What do we think they should do in the January window?
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For the holiday, an unlocked premium episode on the European Court of Justice, the Super League, and the future of the business of European soccer.
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City keep dropping points. Liverpool also dropped points against United in one of the most tactically bizarre matches of the season. Arsenal did not drop points. But now they're both ahead of City, and we take a look at the three teams most likely to win the Premier League.
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The launch of fbref.com has changed public soccer analytics, and we sat down to interview Sean Forman, the president of Sports Reference, about the website, how it came to be, what he learned about soccer analytics from building it, and about their new Stathead feature (stathead.com).
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The Premier League is holding serve so we're talking about a more general subject. Where do you go if you want to progress up the table as a manager? Thomas Frank has done an excellent job at Brentford, but exactly where does he go next and what is likely to be open to him? Why and how has the managerial market changed in the past decade?
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The relegation race, such as it is, is defined by the historic weakness of the promoted teams and the 10-point deduction taken by Everton. We put the weakness of Sheffield United, Luton Town and Burnley in recent historical context and talk about how we remain relatively unconcerned about Fulham, Bournemouth and even Everton despite those teams being in situations that would make them serious relegation fodder in a normal season.
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We are joined by Semafor's Liz Hoffman, who has broken all the big 777 Partners news in the last week, to talk about what she discovered, what her business and finance reporting means for Everton Football Club and what we still have to learn.
Read Liz's reporting (and sign up for her newsletter) here: https://www.semafor.com/newsletter/11/15/2023/777-partners-bought-sports-teams-with-insurance-customers-cash
And check out her book too: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/669739/crash-landing-by-liz-hoffman/
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Roman Abramovich hasn't been owner of Chelsea for a while but he's back in the news with a big leak of documents from Cypriot banks where he did his shady banking. We take stock of what these stories actually mean, what they tell us about how oligarch football team ownership functioned, and whether there will be any consequences for Chelsea.
On the Video International "trade": https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67300638
And the football payouts: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/15/chelsea-fc-face-new-questions-over-how-roman-abramovich-funded-success
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Everton, Brentford, Arsenal, United, Bournemouth, West Ham, Brighton, Liverpool and more.
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The Derby gives us the opportunity to do the United pod that's been needed. An impressive win for City (who attacked!) but the real story coming out of it is how bad United were and how fully in line with their performance this season that is. Why is it so bad and can it get better?
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Their numbers are so good. Drill down a little and their numbers are so weird. And this was true last season too except they were weird in a completely different way! What are we to make of this?
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We asked for your galaxy-brain ideas to fix the game of football and you delivered. We discuss proposals to fix video review and the offside rule, as well as the multi-ref system.
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The best team in the world lost again. Does it mean anything? We talk about how City and Arsenal approach their weekend clash, what we can glean from the data about City's attack not quite clicking, and how we think it could get fixed.
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They got a big call wrong in an unusually straightforward way in Spurs - Liverpool. So what's to be done? We talk about what this means about refereeing and VAR, the prospects for positive change and the profound structural limits on organizing toward it.
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Spurs and Arsenal played to a more or less fair draw, but given our priors this leads to different kinds of questions about Spurs and Arsenal. Why isn't Arsenal's attack quite clicking? Can Spurs keep taking these risks in possession? And we talk about the tactics of the game and stuff.
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Caley did an analytics. Talking about Chelsea, Newcastle, Brentford, Brighton, Forest and the bottom of the PL table in terms of their schedule-adjusted numbers. And stick around for the appendices.
For reference, Caley's xG table: https://twitter.com/MC_of_A/status/1703908497543356705
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There's some interesting stuff going on under the hood at a few Premier League teams. Have Crystal Palace's young attackers taken the leap? Can Man City really be this conservative? Have you seen Brentford's xG difference? And is Ange Postecoglu magic?
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Looking back on the window that was. How PSG ended up doing reasonable business, the disaster at Fulham, and all the maybe / maybe not business at the top of the Premier League including Liverpool. Arsenal, United and Spurs.
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It's just three weeks in and there are too many takes about the Premier League. We walk through most of the top teams in the Premier League, look at some numbers, and consider whether there's anything here to be learned just yet.
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We're only two matches into the Premier League season but it's already clear that the new midfield/fullback tactics are creating some wild, Bundesliga-esque matches. What's going on, and is this why midfielders have gotten so incredibly expensive?
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Arielle Dror is joined by Kieran Doyle to talk through all the questions before the final. Have Spain been as good as their stats suggest? How many questions do we have about England's path to the final? How will the two defenses hold up under very different kinds of pressure? And how much violence might there be on Sunday? All the analytics you need to get ready for the World Cup final, plus Arielle talks about what it's been like to watch in Australia.
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Arielle is joined by her colleague Casey Thayer, a former collegiate goalkeeper, to break down the World Cup quarters -- in which there was more than a full share of goalkeeping drama. How Sweden keep rolling, the vibes watching Australia, can Spain play their style and win, England's slow and steady success, and more insight on shootout strategy. It's all here!
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The every team Double Pivot Premier League preview is back and we are working alphabetically so that means Arsenal through Fulham make up part 1 -- the Premier League is quite profoundly alphabetically unbalanced.
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We expect a close race in La Liga this season between the two Spanish megaclubs, but in the medium term one trajectory is angled down the other, way up.
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Double Pivot women's soccer correspondent Arielle Dror has the reins of the pod from Australia to talk about the first round of group games. She is joined by Arianna Cascone (@casconearianna) and Kieran Doyle (@KierDoyle) to break it all down. A solid US performance but what did we learn for the upcoming matches? Concerns about Canada, Australia, England and France. Sadness for Zambia. And more players and matches to watch.
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We are joined not only this week by Double Pivot Women's Soccer Correspondent Arielle Dror for a World Cup preview but Arielle will also be providing regular coverage on the ground in Australia and New Zealand for Double Pivot listeners throughout the tournament.
We cover the very in-flux state of the US and of most of their top competitors and suggest a few underdogs to watch as well.
Follow Arielle on twitter at @arielle_dror.
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Brighton and Aston Villa will be competing in Europe next season despite revenues clearly outside the big six (or financial backing outside the big seven) clubs. We break down the traditional Villa approach, the more modern Brighton approach, and the very projectible young attackers that Brighton will be featuring.
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Szoboszlai to Liverpool, Havertz to Arsenal, Mount to United -- we're seeing a clear trend of top Premier League teams looking to move to systems with more attacking eights. What's going on? We take a little tactical and statistical tour of recent developments in football and explain why this is really all about fullback tactics.
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After a lot of worries about how they might plug the ffp gap, Chelsea found buyers for Kovacic and Havertz in the Premier League and for a bunch of their excess salary in Saudi Arabia. How did this happen, was it a conspiracy, and wait who are Chelsea's good players now?
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The best player in the world, question mark, is one year from being out of contract at PSG and we've got drama. Where might he go, how might he fit, and just how good in Mbappe right now?
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Big day! Lionel Messi rejects both Barcelona and Saudi Arabia to go to MLS. We offer context -- why couldn't Barcelona afford him? why couldn't Saudi Arabia land him with an impossibly large salary, and what does that tell us about the KSA sporting project? And what's going on with the MLS offer?
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Barcelona's bond offering, Saudi Arabia's current account balance -- we talk about the global financial and political context of European football, and why these contexts weigh harder on the game than they do in American sports.
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Drama! Bayern's Bundesliga title streak could end on Saturday. We talk about the frankly bizarre Dortmund team that has a chance to do what no one predicted this summer, and what's gone wrong from Bayern over the season and recently under Tuchel to land them here.
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The Champions League semifinals were a dreadful anti-climax. But it's interesting why they were such. And can anyone stop City? Like, ever?
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Mike Goodman is joined by CBS soccer correspondent James Benge (@jamesbenge) to talk about all things media, analytics and yeah a little bit of Arsenal.
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We got one really live race going but it's a good one. Leeds collapse, Forest bad, Everton bad, Leicester also in trouble, we talk through the teams at the bottom.
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Bad game by Spurs. We break down the set of bad decisions that brought them to this point.
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The 6th and 7th place teams in the Premier League have, otherwise, quite distinct profiles. We break it down.
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Lots of small takes on Premier League teams. Spurs, Everton, United, Leeds, Villa, Liverpool and on.
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Chelsea sacked their manager. He didn't do a very good job! But is replacing the manager the thing that will set this project on the right path, and is continuing at full speed with this project the right thing for Chelsea? We remain skeptical.
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It's the hottest thing in owning soccer teams: owning lots of soccer teams. But why is it happening, what risks does it pose to the current state of football, and what do we expect to see in the near future?
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At a certain level not all that much has changed but there's drama and we're here to cover it for you.
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What's going on with non-state soccer owners trying to sell their teams? What's going on with the aggressive non-state money coming in to soccer? What, for real, is going on with Chelsea and Clearlake? We talk to Skanda Amarnath (@irvingswisher) about the baseline state of play in the sports business.
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Manchester United are up for sale and the apparent favorite is a debt-free bid by a Qatari businessperson (and royal family member) Sheikh Jassim. We talk about what we expect from the Premier League, the hole they seem to be digging for themselves, and why the source of Jassim's wealth is such a crucial issue here.
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No, not really. But a lot of interesting questions about exactly how to understand their recent slump, what to expect from this team over the rest of the season, and the kind of fascinating tactical periodization of the City match.
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We all knew Manchester City have been cheating on their financial disclosures. But the news this week is that they might face actual consequences for those acts, which no one saw coming. So exactly what's going on, why is it happening, and what might it lead to?
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Yes, Chelsea has a plan! But is it a good plan? We are very skeptical.
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Multiple frauds! Very poorly executed! We walk through the scandal unfolding in Italy, why it happened, what it means, and some light critiques of their fraud processes.
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A walk through the entire table besides the top two. Starting with top four, Newcastle and United have run hot long enough to look very good, Spurs and... Brighton are their top competition? It could get settled pretty quick.
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There's a title race! And if there isn't a title race it's because Arsenal are going to go and win it. Wild stuff, no one predicted it, we talk about how we got here and what to expect from the top of the table in the second half.
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With the transfer window open and big money ready to move, we have been recording player profiles for subscribers, and this is a little teaser of what that's covered. You can subscribe at patreon.com/doublepivot
Our Premier League back to speed podcasts coming later this week.
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Argentina won the World Cup! And the match, while it developed into a pure vibes Rocky-style haymaker fest at the end, was actually a really interesting tactical battle before that with Argentina coming out very much on top. We have a lot to dig into!
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The first half of our quarterfinals review, semifinals preview podcast. Brazil were great and football occurred, Croatia executed their strategy and got lucky, Argentina remain a big step more boring than you'd hope and that's a pretty good semifinals preview right there.
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We've got the Netherlands, Argentina, Croatia and Brazil through to the quarters. How they did it, how Brazil got so good with a broken team, what might be some ways for Van Gaal to approach Argentina, were we unfair to Scaloni, a lot going on here.
(Part 2 at patreon.com/doublepivot)
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The USMNT won and go through to the knockouts. It was another good game in a good tournament for the USA and so we figured we'd talk about it.
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A scoreless draw, but one that said a number of interesting things about both teams. We talk about the many things the US did well and how this... doesn't change our evaluation of England at all.
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Argentina lost! To Saudi Arabia! And Germany lost to Japan! Both upsets involved a whole bunch of stuff that an expected goals approach would ask you to doubt. So what did they really mean?
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The risk-taking and aggression of Qatar has been on surprising display in the last week from the beer ban to Infantino's press conference performance. We attempt an explanation by way of regional and ideological conflict in the Gulf, the different positions of oil and gas in the energy transition, and, of course, the Muslim Brotherhood.
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Mike thinks England are going to win the World Cup. Michael thinks Alvaro Morata could score lots of goals. We're coming in hot.
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It's been reported that FSG are looking to sell Liverpool. We take a look at what this means: why would FSG sell now, and what does that tell us about the state of elite European football?
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Is it secretly another Leeds episode? Well sort of. What does pressing look like in contemporary football, how are Leeds a throwback and what exactly are Newcastle doing that is just so good?
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Leeds are in the relegation places and on a four-match losing streak. Their underlying numbers are still more or less fine. What comes next?
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United beat Spurs soundly. What's going on at both United and Spurs that this was not exactly a shocking result? And [pokes Chelsea with a stick]
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Our priors, updating in real time. Arsenal were really good, Liverpool were pretty bad, how far are we willing to go in adjusting our evaluations of these two clubs after another game in line with their performances over the full season?
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Arsenal won a messy North London Derby and we talk about what single-match xG means and can tell us about this game, while City won a pretty silly Manchester Derby and we talk about just how good they might be.
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A lot of great questions! Juventus, Leicester, Fulham, Odegaard, Kulusevski and the North London Derby.
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Potterball begins, Everton are not particularly bad, and we take on the greatest of all soccer questions: what if America's best athletes played soccer?
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Well that was sure something. Thomas Tuchel already sacked, Graham Potter already hired. We talk about the process here (bad!) and the result (interesting, possibly not bad!) and what we are watching to see with Potter at the new club.
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It's been four games, are we rethinking anything? On Aston Villa, West Ham, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal and Brighton.
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As Beveridge's Law demands, the answer is mostly "no". But we walk through the game and why it suggests a clear floor under United and the bits and pieces of Liverpool concern that it excavated.
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A game that had everything -- fascinating tactical matchups, dramatic goals, terrible refereeing and manager fights. We mostly talk about the tactical stuff tbh.
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The analytics pod leans hard into tactics and description in the early part of the season. We begin with a discussion of Arsenal's win over Crystal Palace and their underwhelming xG, and Liverpool's draw with Fulham and their rather more whelming shot numbers.
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Part I of our all-twenty-teams Premier League preview and draft extravaganza. Spurs and City, Liverpool and Newcastle, Brentford and Leeds and more, let's do this.
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Lots of questions! The relegation picture and the promoted sides, our Southampton worries, how to watch preseason football, and Darwin, Vieira and the Primeira Liga transfers.
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They are doing some weird, weird stuff at the Camp Nou. Even if you ignore all the financial questions, the football side of this is a big mess. And they're doing it while the team is still in the midst of an ongoing, if evolving financial crisis. We've got a lot to get into.
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Chelsea are doing more confusing things and we try to piece them all apart. Sterling more or less makes sense but is expensive, and all the rest of it makes somewhat less sense and we still have a lot of midfield questions.
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We dig down into what modern wide attackers are, statistically and tactically, by looking at a variety of players currently on the transfer market. Gabriel Jesus, Richarlison, Raphinha, Raheem Sterling, Ousmane Dembele, and a touch of Christian Pulisic at the end.
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Fabio Carvalho, Marc Cucurella and Yves Bissouma are all at different stages in the transfer rumor to actual transfer process, all generally look like good players that good teams are right to target, but all are complicated to evaluate analytically because of the different tactical contexts in which they have produced.
(We also talk about Bissouma's sexual assault arrest and how we think about a less cut-and-dried but still troubling story.)
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Official Double Pivot NWSL Correspondent Arielle Dror (@arielle_dror) joins us for what is not really a preview of the NWSL season because it's been going on for a little while now, but we take a look at what's going on so far in the league, why San Diego is so good, what's holding back the Reign, why Caley's beloved Gotham are probably not going to give him much joy this year, and more.
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City won the league but are making some big changes in their forward line. Liverpool came close but likewise are looking at some retooling. We also take closer looks at how it all went so wrong for United and what West Ham might do to mount another competitive season.
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There has been a whole lot of Premier League drama and we've got you covered with all the analytics takes on it.
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The PL is giving us everything right now -- stakes at the top and the bottom and dramatic reversals and the best teams playing great. We start with Everton at the bottom and work our way up to the title and top four races with a brief detour through Aston Villa on the way.
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The world's most agreeable Everton podcast is back and we are worried about our beloved Toffees.
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Manchester City are going to sign Erling Haaland, for a lot of money. We break down the signing, from the striking division of wages and fees to what kind of player Haaland is and could be, to our questions about his fitness and the way he'll fit in at Manchester City.
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Big game, big pod -- we discuss the tactical narrative of the match, what it tells us about Liverpool and Man City, how Pep got the drop on Liverpool, as well as the unusual initial expected goals numbers and how to read the statistical profile of this match.
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It's that time again! We have a nearly dead-even top four race between Arsenal and Tottenham. It's time to talk about Antonio Conte's high-variance Tottenham and how they got good and what makes them different from the strangely high-variance Arsenal of early this season. And we return to the well-trod ground of, huh, Arsenal are good now, plus some bonus Declan Rice coverage.
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Mike's fave episode in a while! We break down the race to survive -- what's gone wrong for Burnley and Everton, what went right for Newcastle, where do we stand on Leeds' recent turnaround?
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Staff Writer at the Atlantic Adam Serwer (@AdamSerwer) joins the pod for a wide-ranging discussion of his love of Italian football, Roma and Jose Mourinho, racism and fan culture, the politics of sports and more.
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On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, we remain earnestly confused by what Arsenal have done over the last five months despite having no particular questions about the real quality of the underlying performances. Plus a little more Chelsea/sanctions coverage.
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We've been talking about it for a long time and it has happened. Chelsea are now a frozen asset under sanctions and we are here to talk it through, what it means now and in the medium term, what is still left in the air (most things!), how it could be resolved, what it means for football generally, let's go.
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Russia invaded Ukraine and it has a lot of football implications. We still really do not know what those implications will in many ways be but we try to provide some context to help you understand what may come next.
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Marcelo Bielsa is out at Leeds in the most Marcelo Bielsa of ways, somehow both on his own terms and against the wishes of the universe. What did he accomplish at Leeds, what went wrong, and what do we think of the hiring of Jesse Marsch to replace him?
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Title race! Top four race! Spurs beat City and now they're both interesting! We break down Spurs-City for a bit and then consider what this means for the title race (mostly that it exists) and what it means for the top four race, which is a lot harder to sort out.
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The Champions League has returned, and both Mike and Other Mike have returned to sufficiently stable living conditions to "watch" the "games" so it's time to talk about Liverpool, Inter, Real Madrid, PSG, Bayern and Salzburg.
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Covering the biggest movers at the deadline: Liverpool, Spurs and Juventus.
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Tanguy Ndombele is out at Tottenham. Giovani Lo Celso appears likely to follow. We look back on a number of midfielders that we've raved over before, including the two from Tottenham and Naby Keita, Adrien Rabiot, and Paul Pogba, and ask what happened with them and do we take any new conclusions from these results?
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What is win probability? Does it "work"? What do we learn from a win probability chart about the game of soccer, and would there be better ways to use such charts to explain the game?
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It's an old-fashioned top four race! Have Tottenham and Arsenal gotten good? Why haven't United gotten good? We break down what remains a close race and try to piece together the evidence that something materially changed for either North London side.
Plus Chris Wood's transfer, which is funny.
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A bunch of business nearly done or in process and bunch of interesting links. We talk Trippier and Vlahovic, Coutinho and Adama.
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Josh Sargent, the ethics of sports analytics, Wilfried Ndidi and the evolution of midfield tactics, Liverpool's forward targets and more!
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A lot of games didn't happen. Most of the ones that did saw their outcomes significantly determined by how severe an omicron outbreak the clubs playing were going through. Does it mean... anything? We talk City, Chelsea, Wolves, Spurs, Arsenal and Liverppol.
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The omicron variant is spreading rapidly in Europe and the US. Tottenham and Manchester United have had to cancel matches because of outbreaks that may not have been omicron but regardless are a model of what we expect to see in sports over the next month. So what is the omicron variant? What are the likely outcomes for European soccer and you know, the world and stuff?
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It's been a very short time since Steven Gerrard, Antonio Conte and Eddie Howe took over their new clubs. It's been even less time since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer left United and Ralf Rangnick took over. There are early indications of potentially significant managerial effects in the numbers of Spurs and Villa, and less so at Newcastle. What does this mean? How do we look at performance and tactical indicators in very small samples when evaluating clubs and managers?
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United have a new manager and a new... consultant? We look at Rangnick's limited but striking statistical profile over the last decade and the style of pressing that is evident in the numbers. And then we ask, what will he do with a United squad that is significantly but also clearly not entirely a good fit for this pressing style?
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Things finally went so bad at United that Ole is out but it's not clear any of the underlying problems are solved. Arsenal got whooped and we're on the aggregates beat again. And have Chelsea turned it around (yes, we know they're in first place but unlike with Arsenal, there's a real underlying stats story here).
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We know a lot about quality of teams in the Premier League. We also know there's a lot we don't know. Trying to nail down our questions and our uncertainties about Liverpool, Chelsea, West Ham and Manchester United.
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Tottenham have a new manager. He's real good at managing. What do we expect to see from Conte at Spurs (hint: he's not precisely a "defensive manager" as many PL fans have known him) and just how good is this Tottenham talent that will suddenly have an elite manager in charge of them?
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Is this, finally, the moment that United's leadership realizes they've effectively been in crisis for years? They lost 5-0 to Liverpool and the performances on the pitch really are worse than they've been in a while, but are things going to change this time?
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Opening from Really??? With Mike & Mike
The Premier League season resumed and every game seemed to encapsulate a different narrative and statistical issue we've been following. Liverpool, Chelsea, Brentford, West Ham, Newcastle, what have we learned so far?
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Newcastle are now owned by the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. What is the KSA government trying to buy? Everyone calls it "sportwashing" but what exactly is that, what different forms can it take, and what will this mean for how Newcastle gets run in the next few years?
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Two parts of this podcast: what's going on in the NWSL as the players, league and fans negotiate a crisis of abuse of power by management and ownership, and then the big game between Liverpool and Man City.
Meg Linehan, "This Guy Has A Pattern": https://theathletic.com/2857633/2021/09/30/this-guy-has-a-pattern-amid-institutional-failure-former-nwsl-players-accuse-prominent-coach-of-sexual-coercion/
Molly Hensley-Clancy, "Women Describe 'Old Boys' Club" Culture At Washington Spirit": https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/09/22/washington-spirit-workplace-women-nwsl/
Steph Yang, "A Fear-Based System": https://theathletic.com/2862063/2021/10/01/a-fear-based-system-how-the-structure-of-sports-protects-abusers-of-power/
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Barcelona's crisis just keeps rolling. Is the manager the problem? Could anything solve the problem in the near term? And then we stay in La Liga where there is no obvious Real Madrid crisis but it remains unclear that they're, like, particularly good. And while Atletico don't find the theme, Mike has takes y'all.
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It's five matches into the season and everyone knows the table is lying... but is the xG table lying? More specifically, what can statistics tell us this early in the season, what does it mean that statistics "become reliable" after a certain period of time, and how does this inform how we're thinking about Tottenham and Chelsea and Arsenal and Everton?
Caley's R2 charts: https://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnation.com/2015/10/19/9295905/premier-league-projections-and-new-expected-goals
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One match down in this season's Champions League and we're all struggling to get our bearings. The Mikes talk about what we've seen so far from Barcelona, Bayern Munich, PSG, Real Madrid and Inter Milan and ask, is this anything?
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Berhalter did a bunch of very interesting stuff and it didn't work at all, and Southgate did all the same uninteresting stuff and it wasn't great either. This is mostly about Berhalter because, see above, it was interesting but they form a useful counterpoint for thinking about international managers.
(sorry for the audio gremlins, still getting used to the transatlantic podcasting and need to update our pre-record checklist)
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content notice: discussion of rape and sexual violence
Caley is really mad about the media coverage of the Ronaldo transfer, and Goodman has his own thoughts about the dilemmas that drive and screw up the media here.
And there was also an incredibly dramatic transfer window! United and Madrid and Barcelona and Atletico and Chelsea and around we go.
We discuss Jessica Luther and Kavitha Davidson's book Loving Sports When They Don't Love You Back: https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/luther-davidson-loving-sports-when-they-don%27t-love-you-back
We are sponsored by thepowerrank.com, Ed Feng's website and newsletter for sports betting and analytics. Check it out, he's a friend of the pod too!
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News! Breaking! Kane stays with Tottenham and Madrid lodge a frankly unbelievable bid for Mbappe and PSG even more unbelievably turn it down. What's going on in the striker market, in the business of football at the tippy-top level, and what does it all mean?
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We get into some hard agreements at the five minute mark and just keep rolling. Brentford, Arsenal, Leicester, Wolves, West Ham, Spurs, City, Liverpool, it's all here.
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We try to rank the whole Premier League. Here's part one.
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Lionel Messi is leaving Barcelona because they cannot pay him any money. It's a financial story and a football story and we get into it -- what is Barcelona's best way back and how long will it take them? Where is Messi going and if it's PSG, what is that gonna look like?
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We take your questions on soccer and how it works, discussing struggleball and pressing, xG in video games and what it reveals about what analytics is, and the ongoing search for WAR.
(also uh lol sorry Heather we'll actually answer your question on an upcoming pod.)
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A dramatic game with a lot to dig in to! We talk about England's impressive opening goal and good first half, how Italy regained control in the second half and what went wrong for England in their attempt to respond in turn. And the penalties, yeah, the penalties. But really it's the stuff before that that matters.
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Italy were fortunate to get through, England were a defensive powerhouse again... without Spinazzola, is there anything Italy can do? We talk about why Southgate has done a very good job despite the Saka and subs weirdness, the dynamics we expect in the final, Kyle Walker, Bonucci and Chiellini, Sterling dribbling... all the stuff.
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The quarterfinals were not quite as compelling as the round of 16 as matches but they set up a ton of fascinating questions for the semifinals. What is Italy without Spinazzola? Why did Spain struggle so much at even strength against Switzerland? Has Denmark run out of gas? Is there any way to get one over on this England team... if Southgate plays the good forwards at least?
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lol we called it a "mini Euro pod" at the start and then we couldn't stop talking about Italy and Belgium and Portugal and went 35 minutes anyway.... enjoy!
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So much Euros! Spain keep falling into bad fortune and Germany and Portugal played a weirdo classic and how about Denmark... so much to get into. Why there are more interesting teams at the Euros than we expected and why the tournament's probable two best aren't among them, where's Bruno, what to do with Verratti, and more.
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All our takes on the first part of the first round of games including Italy, Spain, Belgium, England and Netherlands takes -- why we are still skeptical of the Netherlands but were impressed by Spain even in a draw. Look for more little pods at the tournament continues!
(Episode re-uploaded due to an audio issue in the first version.)
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Big international tournaments! Happening soon! We get you up to speed on some of the big teams to watch in the Euros while taking some listener questions and also the USMNT won an international tournament and Goodman saw it happen so we've got a little on that too.
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With Goodman traveling we still do manage to take your questions about what's going on with the manager searches around Europe, what's happened to superclub budgets, what United are gonna do, and we manage to get caught behind the Conte news but still kind of explain what happened avant la lettre imo.
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We look back on the end of the season drama, and then on to manager news. We break down the careers of Antonio Conte and Zinedine Zidane and consider where they'll go next and what are the upsides and downsides of each for potential clubs.
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We've got seasons ending with a lot on the line in England, Spain and Italy, and the podcast takes you around the big games and asks the important questions like, will Atalanta's players feel happy or sad on Sunday, what the hell is wrong with the La Liga table and why won't anyone put some respect on Ronald Koeman's name?
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There's still just about a top four race still ongoing in the PremierLeague, but we've also got big Champions League qualifying drama in Italy and Germany, so this is your one-stop shop for all the top four drama around Europe.
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Manchester United vs. Liverpool did not take place becuase of fan protests, as the fallout from the failure of super league perhaps picks up and enters a new phase. It's fascinating! We talk about what the fans seem to demand, their various interests and how these might enable owners to buy them off, how the media covered these protests, and the fundamental contradictions in the system which will lead inexorably to its overturning.
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Tottenham are looking for a manager. The German coaching carousel spins. Weirdly almost all the richest clubs in the world are standing pat. What's going on, what do we expect from the managers who are or may be moving, have teams' approaches to their managerial positions changed?
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We are joined by Wall Street Journal reporter Josh Robinson to talk about the sudden collapse of the Super League, why it happened, and what comes next. Robinson is also the co-author of a book about the founding of the Premier League, The Club, and we think about why that breakaway succeeded but this one failed.
And you absolutely must stick around for his anecdote about how Man City decided to join up with the Super League.
The Club: https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/the-club/9780358213055
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We've got news. Caley and Goodman walk through the setup of the proposed Super League, its apparent business goals, the structural problems in European football that brought us to this point. and what we think is likely to emerge on the other side of this.
@Guidetobirds on the wage issue at the heart of the Super League: https://fileundertragicomedy.wordpress.com/2021/04/19/the-super-league-is-about-wages-too/
Murad Ahmed and Arash Massoudi in the Financial Times on the financing of the league: https://www.ft.com/content/f00bb232-a150-4f7d-b26a-e1b62cd175c3
Joshua Robinson in WSJ on the history and likely legal issues upcoming: https://www.wsj.com/articles/european-soccer-super-league-fifa-uefa-11618834570
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There's a title race in Spain, suddenly! And there was a great Clasico. We break down the game and why we think Barcelona are still favorites despites losing to Real Madrid and sitting third.
And we begin our top four profiles, going over how Leicester City and West Ham got here and how the relative stability of their xG numbers in both cases hides some real changes over time.
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(Opening from The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzche)
Chelsea and Leicester lost, Liverpool and West Ham won, Spurs -- who still technically in the top four race! -- drew with Newcastle. We walk through the small changes in the race this week and our favorites to get through.
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It's an international break and the US Men's National Team has good players on it, some of whom were even allowed by doctors and public health authorities to play with the team. Dest, Pulisic, Reyna, Aaronsen, formations, Musah, the Gold Cup, it's all here.
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There's Derby talk and Chris Wilder talk and Kelechi explodes but the Premier League ain't giving us much right now. So we get into some of the weird stats of Covidball and the consistently uninteresting big performers of the season.
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A variety of topics, variously arranged! The Manchester Derby, the Madrid Derby, "Der Klassiker", is Milan good or not, the end of the Messi and Ronaldo Era, the era of the supremacy of the Premier League? We get to it all.
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Months of "meh" at the bottom of the table have been transformed into moderate amounts of drama. We discuss how Fulham got, well, not good exactly, but solid enough defensively to get draws, and the risks now for Burnley, Newcastle, Brighton(?) and Southampton(??).
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Managers! xG! Is Klopp doing something wrong now? Is Potter? Our answers are pretty decidedly no, but we get into how you ask questions about managers when something is going wrong under the hood, statistically or tactically or with all of their players getting injured at once, say.
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How PSG pressed Barcelona out of a big tie, how Leipzig failed to contain Liverpool, Dortmund surprising us a bit against Sevilla, all our takes on the latest round of the Champions League right here.
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A lot has changed since we last covered the top teams in Europe. We take on the teams playing this week in the Champions League, including PSG's injury problems, how far Barcelona have rebounded, the peculiar new Leipzig system, Ronaldo's new/old role, and more.
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The Premier League top four race keeps being the story because it keeps changing! Why the table is still lying, why Liverpool and Chelsea haven't put it away yet, what Tuchel is up to, and which underdogs still have a shot.
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That was very nearly another fascinating Spurs-Liverpool match and we get into the first 20 minutes before Kane's injury more or less put it to bed. And right now the top four race is as open as it's ever been, what's up with that?
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Over at patreon.com/doublepivot you can get our subscription level player profiles beginning with Martin Ødegaard and Papu Gomez, and continuing through the week with more every day. And there is even a special deal, 15 percent off when you subscribe for a year so check it out.
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Frank Lampard appears to be on the way out at Chelsea. We look back at his time at Chelsea and consider what we got right and what we got wrong, and we talk a bit about the state of research on analytics about managers -- do they really matter?
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We take a spin around the entire Premier League and answer your (or our) burning questions on each club. Starting with the meaning of Arsenal's recent good results and what we got wrong about Sheffield United, and continuing through Mo Salah's production decline, what Spurs need from the transfer market, the very very badness of West Brom and more.
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We got us a Premier League title race but uhhhhh City are going to win it now? We talk about Liverpool's collapse-that-is-not-a-collapse, Pep's transformation of Man City, Frank and the Chelsea game, and the chance of an upset title winner.
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We keep it rolling! Not too many interesting games but a fascinating pile-up in the top four and title races and we walk through what's going on with Chelsea, City, Villa, Spurs, United, Leicester and Everton.
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We have so many games, so much going on, we got more of your questions on Chelsea and Liverpool who may determine their place in the title race in the next week, and also a bunch of midtable questions because Leeds, Arsenal and Brighton are just fascinating.
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We take a lot of your questions and get technical right off the bat, with discussions of data collection and "post-shot xG" leading into some talk about City, Grealish, Brighton and Chelsea.
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We had a big week of Champions League and we're starting to get a sense of who are the favorites to win the trophy. So we start with the North London Derby and then begin our tour around the best teams in Europe.
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Do we have a better sense of who's going to win the Premier League title? Maybe a little? Spurs-Chelsea analysis, how much are Liverpool favored by, how close are City, and is there anyone else.... maybe?
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A Mourinho Masterclass from Spurs, what does it mean? Why are we feeling so sure that Jurgen Klopp is the best manager in the world right now? And what is Mikel Arteta doing?
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Our listeners can have a little USMNT analysis, as a treat. And then on to more of your questions, including discussions of Gareth Bale, Roberto Firmino, Diogo Jota and the importance of the "utility player".
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We take your questions on Liverpool, penalties, Barcelona, Mason Mount, Southampton, Yunus Musah and more!
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We still don't understand what's happening in football. We bounce a few questions off each other -- Juventus, Barcelona, Tottenham, Everton and Manchester United, what's going on?
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The Premier League table is strange right now, but unlike what you'd expect when the table is weird after five matches, it's not lying. It's just weird. We walk through the teams that we still expect to be good but have questions about, the teams we're reasonably convinced are now good, and the teams we're starting to give up on.
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There's a plan to bail out and massively reorganize English club football, and it's both a fascinating document chock full of good ideas and a total scam. We break it down! And then we try to sort out what Arsenal are doing and how bad it's likely to get.
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What a weekend! The Premier League continues to delight and confuse and we try to sort out as best as we can what happened in Saturday's matches -- in particular the strange patterns of Leeds vs Man City -- and look at what we can draw from Everton's continuing dominance, Chelsea looking competent, and Manchester City... what.
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So much is happening in the PL that isn't what we expected. In part one of the pod here on the free side, we look at the hot starts by Leicester, Everton, Brighton and Liverpool (ok we expected that last one) and consider what's gone wrong early at Manchester City.
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Mike and Michael look at the hottest narratives of the first week or two -- Everton, Palace, Arsenal, Leicester, Weston McKennie and more -- and ask, "is this anything?" How much can we have really learned from 180 minutes of football? In most cases, of course, not that much, but there are real trends to take a look at.
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Leeds and Liverpool played a classic and (parts of) the popular narrative about it are more right than the shot stats might suggest. Arsenal were good and Chelsea were bad but does it mean anything? Oh yeah and Everton - Spurs.
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It's that time again! A new Premier League season kicking off and we preview all 20 teams and try our best to stuff it into two hours. Here's the first hour!
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The Premier League season is almost upon us, and we've seen very different strategies so far from the teams we'd rate 3rd to 9th in the Premier League as they approach another run at the Champions League places. Who's doing it right, Everton or Spurs, Wolves or Leicester, Arsenal or United? We break it down. (Chelsea... Chelsea's fine.)
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Goodman and Caley walk through a tactically fascinating but sadly short of actually great Champions League Final and appreciate how Bayern replaced Arjen Robben with Serge Gnabry and became the best team in the world again. Then they turn to Everton, a team with no plan that will probably be good and fun anyway.
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A fascinating if not super competitive pair of semifinal matches are in the books. We look at everything PSG did right and, as is typical for us, spend a lot of time perserverating on what went for a Bayern team that won 3-0.
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Wow. Bayern-Barca was the perfect crescendo to everything we'd predicted and City-Lyon was.... not. We talk about the distinct patterns of the Bayern match and consider whether Pep's shit works in the playoffs.
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Two quarterfinals are in the books and one semifinal is scheduled. We break down two very exciting but tactically meh games -- Leipzig did enough to break down Atleti's profoundly negative side and PSG almost got football'd by an exhausted Atalanta but... didn't -- and then we give you our preview of that semi.
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We break down the big games, Leicester-United and a little bit on the others (Watford-Arsenal!) and then ask, well, what did we learn from these 90 matches since the shutdown? Kinda turns into a City pod.
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We have actual final day drama in the Premier League. Six teams with everything on the time, five crucial matches. We tour the games with plentiful tangents, here's part 1 with Manchester United and our picks for the relegation chase.
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We break down the ruling against UEFA from the Court of Arbitration in Sport, and how it crystallizes the fundamental issue here: there are no good guys, and UEFA got caught breaking its own rules, but nothing about the ruling exonerates City either.
And then we have Real Madrid's title, how Zidane put together a title-winning team despite crucial things going wrong early in the season, and what the future of La Liga will look like -- maybe without a great Barcelona side for a long time?
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Has the top five race ended? Has the relegation chase ended? We break down Leicester-Arsenal and look at the teams remaining in contention for the top five and there's not a lot left here. At the bottom things remain more in doubt, but the chances we're talking Europa places in a week are pretty high.
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It's been inevitable for a while, but it was certainly not inevitable 12 months ago and even less so six years ago. How did Liverpool build a team to win a Champions League and Premier League trophy in back to back seasons? How do we tell this story, and how do we parse out the different causes, from business development to analytics to coaching and tactics to good fortune. It's an unquestionable analytics success story, and also one that takes on a different shape from many of those we're used to in American sports.
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We walk through the whole Premier League team by team. And there's a lot of football coming and we want to help you out, so for each team we make the case that you shouldn't watch them. It gets harder as we go along.
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He's going to Chelsea! Probably! But the podcast works better if we treat it as settled fact!
We break down what kind of player Werner is, how he might fit on this Chelsea side and within Lampard's style, and what this transfer indicates about the state of the football economy.
https://thecorrespondent.com/517/three-reasons-the-football-season-is-starting-again-money-money-money/4240227200-05001e50
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We break down Bayern's victory over Dortmund and the effective end of the title race in the Bundesliga. And we discuss the new substition rules in soccer, how they're being used, and what we'd like to see from managers with this new resource.
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Time to talk about actual soccer games with actual soccer statistics. The Bundesliga is back and Dortmund and Bayern won and we spend a lot of time talking about Gladbach and Leverkusen's underlying statistics because of course we do.
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Caley is joined by poet, scholar, activist and wikipedia-confirmed Arsenal fan Clint Smith (@clintsmithiii) to talk about why he loves and misses sports (even Arsenal!), and about his academic work in the study of education and the way people who have been incarcerated make meaning through education.
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The Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has nearly completed its purchase of Newcastle United Football Club. We talk about what this means. Another ownership group in the Premier League driven not by a need to make profits but by a drive for soft power, sportwashing a reputation sullied by war crimes, murder and oppression. What will that mean for Newcastle and the Premier League?
George Caulkin's report in The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/1759832/2020/04/21/newcastle-takeover-bruce-charnley-transfers/
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We've reached the point of the pandemic where sports leagues around the world are scrambling to find ways to safely return to action. The Bundesliga is poised to make the first attempt in the soccer world, and the Two Mikes size up the odds against the Germans (and really, everyone else). Then they talk loosely about generational gaps and leaps before turning to lobsters and chocolate tortas (but not together, that would be gross).
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Mike Goodman is joined by political scientist and Tottenham fan Brian Schaffner to go back over the season for Tottenham, because that's fun, and then they talk about the use of analytics in another field entirely, with Schaffner's political science / public opinion research.
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The Double Pivot Interview Series continues, with Mike Goodman talking to SB Nation's erstwhile soccer writer and current e-sports writer Kim McCauley (@lgbtqfc) about the only kind of sports that people can play under pandemic, how to understand it, how to watch it, and more.
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Soccer! Sort of!
Michael interviews Meg Linehan (@itsmeglinehan), a reporter from The Athletic who has been covering all the drama with US Soccer, for a recap and analysis of everything that's gone down in the last month with the equal pay lawsuit filed by the US Women's National Team. There's a lot to cover, and it's about soccer, mostly.
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The two Mikes are parents at home with young children in their respective cities, and in today's podcast, they recount their struggles during isolation. Also, they watched some bad comedies and have thoughts. It's a free podcast and you're bored anyway. Enjoy!
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We're back and the Premier League has now shut down, and it raises more specifically the question of what sports will be while we're shut down, so we talked about it on this podcast, too.
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What's this pod going to be during the pandemic? We have a plan! We will be doing shorter podcasts, several per week, on various topics. This week becuase things are nuts, we have a pair of podcasts directly on the news and soccer and coronavirus.
We have a little soccer to talk about (Atletico did a soccer) but we're as overwhelmed with the pandemic as anyone and the question of what sports will be, so we talked about on this podcast.
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The COVID-19 not-yet-a-pandemic is already disrupting the Italian football season, and if the projections from epidemiologists are to be trusted, it won't be for just a few weeks and it certainly won't be just Italy. We dig into the newest example of how sports themselves don't stick to sports.
Then we talk about relegation, honestly, pretty much as if there will be a normal Premier League season. It's hard to keep your brain in pandemic mode.
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Manchester City have been banned from the Champions League for the next two seasons, and fined $30 million for breaching Financial Fair Play rules. City are appealing to the CAS. The Two Mikes explain what the hell CAS is and also sort through the rest of the mess to clear it all up for you.
Der Spiegel article on Football Leaks: https://www.spiegel.de/international/manchester-city-exposed-bending-the-rules-to-the-tune-of-millions-a-1236346.html
Tariq Panja on UEFA and PSG: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/sports/psg-uefa-ffp.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
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The knockout stages of the Champions League are upon us, so the Two Mikes break down each matchup. In this episode, they talk Atleti-Liverpool, Dortmund-PSG, Atalanta-Valencia and Leipzig-Spurs.
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The two Mikes race through the latest results in England (and what we've learned of late about the clubs in the thick of the most noteworthy results) before turning their attention to more of your questions.
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We start with one of our "Mousa Dembele" pods where we scout a player using the stats. Here it's United's new signing Bruno Fernandes, an elite creator who may or may not be a possession sieve, and what to expect from him and why we're excited to watch him in a top league.
Then we take listener questions about what "ball progression" means and why different measurements are proliferating, about the ongoing transformation of the fullback position and its knock-on effects on football tactics, on what sorts of attackers United needs to target beyond Bruno, and more.
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These were not two slates of matches that reward analysis. Chelsea-Arsenal and Everton-Newcastle actively defy any attempt to analyze them. But we find our way through, taking stock of the extent of Chelsea's decline, Wolves' rise, and whether there are any new takes we can wring out of Spurs and United anymore.
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Nate Scott of For the Win and USA Today sits in for Caley and talks Fulham soccer, off ball movement and the dangers of playing pretty football at the bottom of the Premier League table with the remaining Mike. Make sure to also check out Nate's true crime podcast, The Sneak, about an armored car heist and the once great athlete who committed it."For more on The Sneak, see here: https://wondery.com/shows/the-sneak/Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
This week at patreon.com/doublepivot we've got a continuation of last week's player pod with discussions of players around Europe including among others Achraf Hakimi, Fede Valverde, Christopher Nkunku and, uh, Messi.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Halfway through the season, we've seen enough of key players at every club to make some observations. The two Mikes point out a player or two from nine EPL clubs (Arsenal, Brighton, Everton, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham, Norwich City, Sheffield United, Newcastle, Palace) that you should be noticing, and not always for good reasons. Part 2 (and the other 11 clubs) follows on Patreon.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Spurs and United won on Boxing Day while Chelsea lost, and all of the sudden, Frank Lampard's squad looks more wobbly than they did a month ago.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Analytics seem to be missing something about Liverpool. Or at least, that's how it seems to a lot of people trying to understand the club's run of dominance. The two Mikes take a closer look and explore a few theories, and use Tuesday's Dortmund-Leipzig match as a perfect jumping-off point for the discussion.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes explain why Everton should stick with Duncan Ferguson in perpetuity (full disclosure: this misleading and completely incorrect statement was written by a Liverpool fan), and then move on to the Manchester Derby, which may have killed the title race. The only hope for that title race may now lie with Leicester City, who have figured out some things.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
There's a new manager at Arsenal, the very early returns weren't different. Will we see something different? How will it affect the top four race, if there even is a race? Leicester, Chelsea, United, Spurs, Wolves, Arsenal, is anything gonna happen?Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Mourinho is managing Tottenham, they won two games and look, it's not our fault this is objectively interesting. It is! So we've got a podcast on it, and also City-Chelsea.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
There are so many reasons why the marriage of Tottenham Hotspur and Jose Mourinho is bound to end in an ugly divorce, but for now, the two Mikes imagine a world where it just might work. Before that, they take a quick look at the biggest match in England this weekend: Manchester City vs. Chelsea.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Liverpool put some distance between themselves and Manchester City (and Chelsea!) with a big win, and while the teams performed relatively evenly in the match, the two Mikes spotted some tactical issues that made things tough for Pep Guardiola's squad. As previously mentioned, Chelsea is pretty dang good, while Leicester vs. Arsenal perfectly encapsulated both squads.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
As Liverpool grow more heavily reliant on fullbacks attacking, and Manchester City deal with injuries and inconsistency on the backline, it creates some odd possibilities for the squads' clash this weekend. Outside of the title race, the race for top 4 is shaping up to not be much of a race at all if nothing changes, and the same could be said for the relegation places. But as usual, the numbers suggest otherwise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The latest edition of Liverpool vs. Spurs contained multitudes and the two Mikes are here to break it down, but not before a quick look at Burnley vs. Chelsea, which was super weird in its own right.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Welcome to the 2019-20 Premier League season, where even the teams fighting for the top spots in the league are doing so in the most uninspiring fashion imaginable. If you like goals and you like shots, well, this isn't the place to find them. The two Mikes attempt to figure out what the heck is going on.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Mike and Michael are at the Statsbomb conference in London. They talk through some of the highlights of last weekend's matches in the Premier League and then discuss what they saw at the conference and the new key concept in soccer analytics introduced by Thom Lawrence, "The Valley of Meh" and what it means for understanding the game.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
A Manchester United - Arsenal match seemed to confirm every one of our priors about these two teams. But is something wrong with City? Why are Liverpool a bit less good than they seem? My god what is happening with Spurs? Mike and Michael start to reconsider Spurs and Chelsea while holding the line on the rest. Plus more of the same questions from La Liga, while Real and Barcelona continue not to whelm us.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Teams outside the top two in the Premier League may just be mailing it in and playing the kids this season. Chelsea vs. Liverpool was an interesting watch, and Leicester City showed its best lineup against Spurs, Other things are happening, too! This is just part one!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
For subscribers at patreon.com/doublepivot we have a two-part (p)review, where we cover our eight Champions League groups, by way of discussing the matches in the first round on Tuesday and Wednesday, and what to expect in the groups over the next few months.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Yeah so Man City lost to Norwich City. We get into what happened and what it could mean as we survey the weekend's results in the Premier League and ask if the table is already shaking out about the way we expected? Leicester, Wolves, Spurs, Norwich, City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea all covered.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Mike and Michael are joined by the New York Times' Astead Herndon, a national political reporter and Tottenham Hotspur fan. The conversation winds from Americans finding their Premier League team to polling analytics and diversity in media, back around to why Michael and Astead still feel good about Tottenham this season.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The North London derby provided all the insanity it normally does, and weird come-from-behind results echoed the sentiment around the league. That all leads the two Mikes to ask what we really know about the Premier League this season after four matches. Then, their attention turns to all the giants having a hell of a hard time getting going in La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
A chronological tour of the weekend's Premier League matches. There were many things to talk about, it was a chance to expand from our top six discussion of last week to look also at the middle of the table and below and see what we're expecting from everyone after a few weeks of matches.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
City vs. Spurs was weird, Wolves vs. United was boring, Chelsea vs. Leicester was confusing, and Liverpool vs. Arsenal could get wild. To close the episode out as a teaser to Serie A talk on the premium side, the two Mikes pen their usual love letter to Atalanta.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Is Chelsea in crisis? Is Mancheter United great now? Are Liverpool and City running away with the league? We pump the brakes a lot, it's the first week. We have questions about Chelsea but they weren't 0-4 awful. We still don't know what United's midfield is, and Liverpool and City were weirdly not their best. Then Caley takes you on a tour of Broadway musicals and ancient feminist hymns.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
We covered the action from Deadline Day for our subscribers (as well as those 10 other PL teams in the second part of the preview) and this is the teaser about it.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes reunite to kick off the season with a mega preview. They cover 10 teams in this episode, and the other 10 over on the subscriber side. Here, they'll touch on Liverpool's lack of movement in the transfer window, Leicester's best case scenario post-Maguire, Everton's looks-can-be-deceiving moves, whether Norwich can stay up, and much more.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
In the first of a series of interviews with people we think are cool who also happen to be soccer fans, I talk to Brandon West (@btwest) the president of New Kings Democrats, about grassroots organizing in Brooklyn, the county committee and Democratic Party reform, and his theories of politics. And also we talk about Liverpool's preseason and Adam Lallana at the 6!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Salacious gossip correspondent Joel Wertheimer (@wertwhile) returns and we give your our best attempt to explain all the drama around Mauro Icardi. There is so much drama. It all starts with an affair. We give you dramatic readings. There are instagram influencers, plural. A "soccer gossip" show called Tiki Taka. And then we talk about Spurs some. The Wanda Derby: https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/apr/14/maxi-lopez-sampdoria-wanda-derby-interThe tattoo: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2663942/Mauro-Icardi-gets-tattoo-Maxi-Lopezs-three-children-Inter-Milan-striker-sets-home-ex-wife-Wanda-Nara.htmlThe Wan Collection: https://www.wancollection.com/woman/The Autobiography: https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/oct/17/mauro-icardi-v-inters-ultras-an-unhappy-chapter-in-his-ongoing-san-siro-sagaThe Ultras' Response: http://www.curvanordmilano.net/comunicati/437-icardi-la-parola-fineTiki Taka: https://www.espn.com/soccer/italian-serie-a/12/blog/post/3776138/mauro-icardi-drama-at-inter-with-wanda-nara-in-the-middle-could-derail-their-seasonMore Tiki Taka: https://en.as.com/en/2019/02/25/football/1551101525_082977.htmlThe Italian Big Brother Drama: https://www.caughtoffside.com/2019/04/11/mauro-icardis-sister-opens-up-on-feud-with-wanda-nara-as-row-goes-on/Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Goodman is back from paternity, briefly, to fill in this week for a Lost Podcast (which will be re-done soon). We talk about West Ham, Chelsea, Bayern, Dortmund and you know, a bunch of the transfers that have happened.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
With Goodman on paternity leave, Caley has been lining up guests. This week features SB Nation writer, advice columnist and man-about-Twitter Zito Madu (@_Zeets) for a conversation about the confusing (but also not actually bad yet) summer transfer windows of Arsenal and Barcelona, with a little bonus advice at the end.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Meg Linehan (@itsmeglinehan) goes deep on Megan Rapinoe and the meanings and contexts of her activism, in particular her advocacy for racial justice causes as a gay white woman. Meg calls in the big guns for this pod, joined by a scholar of theology studying racial justice movements, Marjorie Corbman, who also happens to be Meg's wife. That's right y'all, it's a wifepod. Oh and also it's about the World Cup final and stuff.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
We got together this weekend to talk about the US game, how Meg's wife jump-started one of the best news stories of the week, the disappointing Germans, the ehhhhhh Dutch, the sad story of France, and everything else we could jam into a pod.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
When a topic arises too important, too pressing to wait for our normal recording schedule, we bring you the emergency pod you need. Meg Linehan (@itsmeglinehan) is in France, joined by Allison McCann (@atmccann) of the New York Times, to talk about Marta's bold lip and the topic of makeup at the World Cup. It's a good one.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Special Double Pivot World Cup host Meg Linehan (@itsmeglinehan) lined up a great interview with USWNT legend and broadcaster Julie Foudy, and she also recaps the action from the Cup and looks forward to the US' potential lineup issues in the knockouts and against Sweden.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Double Pivot guest host Meg Linehan is joined by Steph Yang to break down the first round of games from France, from the US's impressive victory to Australia's disappointing defeat and all the games in between. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Over at patreon.com/doublepivot, we've got a special transferpod, going into depth on the moves Real Madrid have made, what this means for their team next season, and how this affects some key Premier League sides, especially Spurs, United and Chelsea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The women's world cup kicks off on Friday! We have a special expert guest Meg Linehan who will be leading the podcast during the World Cup. Here, Meg walks us through the groups and gives her picks for a tournament that looks as wide open as any World Cup has been in a while. She's also got a few favorite underdogs and a few players to watch, and we've got stats! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Breaking down what to expect in a fascinating game. We come at the tactics through the lineups, how different tweaks to personnel could support different approaches by Spurs and Liverpool.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Mike and Michael get into the final day of the Serie A season -- late Sunday matches are the ones to watch -- and then for the FA Cup. But it's not a game recap, and there's not much to recap. Why has everyone gotten mad at Manchester City suddenly? What must we as fans confront when we think and talk about the sportwashing ownership model practiced by the United Arab Emirates and Qatar?Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Who was the best player for each of the Premier League clubs this season? Some teams, like Liverpool and Manchester City, have so many key players it's tough to make a call. Others, like Huddersfield and Cardiff, make this decision harder than it needs to be. The two Mikes try anyway in the first half of this mega show. The other half is over on Patreon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
We're not wasting time here on bits or "league" matches. This Double Pivot gets to the point. We go a full episode on just Spurs-Ajax. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
All across Europe last weekend, teams in Top 4 and title races (outside the top two in England and a hot little potato of an Italian club named Atalanta) fell all over themselves in pursuit of glory. Heck, some of them seemed downright apathetic. Others, like Manchester United, seem unaware of what the points are worth and how many games remain to get more of them. The two Mikes break down all the stumbling and bumbling down the stretch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Four huge matches and they're all previewed for you in depth on the subscriber side. All our takes on Spurs-Ajax, Liverpool-Barcelona, Arsenal-Valencia and Frankfurt-Chelsea, over at patreon.com/doublepivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
After floundering performances by Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United, are we sure any of them actually want to play in the Champions League next year? The two Mikes go through the recent run of results for those clubs, and also touch on Everton, Wolves, Watford and Leicester City battling for that 7th league spot. Also, did you SEE Atalanta's result last weekend?!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
There really was a lot to analyze here. It's just a little weird to reset your brain to thinking after it was blasted into a thousand tiny pieces. Juventus-Ajax and City-Spurs both offered us an array of content to analyze, from key substitutions to unusual player roles to styles of ball progression, not to mention a soupcon of VAR controversies, and we got into it.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
In their final match of the season against a Top 6 opponent, Liverpool passed a big test to remain in the title hunt. A crafty goal kept Arsenal alive away to 10-man Watford. Cardiff City kept the relegation fight going with a big win over Brighton. It may feel like the Premier League fixtures were an eternity ago, but the two Mikes take a look back with the context of the Top 4 and relegation race in the mix. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Everton vs. Arsenal was wild, Deulofeu was unreal, Liverpool keeps winning despite some surprising rotation moves, Chelsea torched West Ham, and Barca buried Atletico to all but wrap up La Liga. All football club analysis is welcome in this episode of Deep Blue Something.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes are here to tell you why it was a good week to be a member of either the Pochettino or OGS fan clubs, why Liverpool's approach vs. Spurs was interesting (and why Spurs' plan was even more interesting and weird), and why Jadon Sancho won't be enough to fix what ails United. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
From Fulham's disastrous season to Watford's surprising top half of the table run to Andre Gomes being — pretty good! — there's plenty to reconsider from predictions and assessments made late last summer. The two Mikes hit those topics, plus David Brooks, James Maddison, Wolves, Dortmund, Alvaro Morata and the stark difference between Joe Hart and Tom Heaton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Thanks to a strict policy of never caring about international breaks that involve inconsequential matches, the two Mikes have nothing to talk about. That's where you saved the day with your questions. From Tyler Adams' meteor-like emergence in Germany to better understanding SPI, you brought the heat and the guys took their swings. (A baseball reference on a soccer podcast!)Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Spurs, United, Arsenal and Chelsea are in a bit of a scrum for the final two Champions League spots, so who's best positioned, and who's playing well at the right time? The two Mikes dive in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Everybody's bottling everything! Things got weird in North London and on Merseyside over the weekend. Referee decisions played a huge factor in London with strange results, and Everton went extremely conservative to secure a stalemate with Liverpool, leading many to question whether the latter is slipping out of the title race. The two Mikes have plenty to talk about.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
City-Chelsea and Liverpool-United. Neither was, say, fun to watch, unless you're a connoisseur of injuries. At least we had drama with Kepa and Sarri. And for this pod, the fact that the games were bad requires explanation! Why didn't Liverpool and City just whup 'em? Tune in to find out.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Caley's throat was not up to two hours of podcasting this week so the only Double Pivot is on the subscription side, at patreon.com/doublepivot, where Mike and Michael give you their takes on Liverpool-Bayern and Caley wades into the stats to see what he can glean from them on games he did not watch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Chelsea's sudden stumble is on the verge of an all-out spiral, and the two Mikes are trying to figure out why it happened and the reasonable steps should it not get any better. Should Sarri be given another year and allowed to keep shaping the roster for the future? At the other end of the table, Crystal Palace, Southampton, Burnley, Newcastle, Brighton and Cardiff are fighting to stay out of the spot above Fulham and Huddersfield in the relegation battle. Who does enough to stay up?Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Thanks to injuries, some key players have been moved around in Liverpool's formation, and it's not going great, as evidenced by draws to West Ham and Leicester. Meanwhile, City don't look like their usual steamroller selves, but it hasn't mattered. What does it all mean? And what would it take for Spurs to get a serious run in the race? The two Mikes are here for you.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Sound the conch! The top six teams in England are nearly all in some state of disarray as January turns into February, so the two Mikes assess the damage and determine what's worth sweating and what's worth dismissing — for now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
This week Mike and Michael are joined by Wall Street Journal sportswriter Jonathan Clegg, co-author of the new book, The Club: How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports. It's a history of the business of the Premier League, how it was formed and negotiated, how it grew, the structural forces that shaped its growth. It's catnip for a Double Pivot conversation, and we had a lot of fun.You can follow Jonathan on twitter at @cleggjon and read more about the book from the publisher here: https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/The-Club/9781328506450. The other book discussed on the podcast was David Goldblatt's The Game of Our Lives.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
On this week's premium episode, available at patreon.com/doublepivot, we preview the second half of the season in the Bundesliga and Serie A. Lots of scouting the stats as we break down one title race and two top four races with a bunch of intriguing teams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Harry Kane is out for a while, so are Spurs doomed? The two Mikes take a look at the stakes while Tottenham Hotspur's talisman is out. Plus, fullback apocalypse at City and Liverpool, and why it may not matter for two very different reasons. Finally, David Wagner's tenure at Huddersfield has come to a close. So, uh, was he actually good? Or sort of good? Or lucky? It's tricky.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Over at patreon.com/doublepivot you can check out the rest of our team. Which strikers were left, which ball progressors and ball winners interest us? Who's popping the goalkeeper stats? Which of these players are in the team of the season because of what they do for their team, and who's there that could be a star in another team's system?Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Most cup matches are irrelevant to the two Mikes. Nevertheless, they attempt to draw sweeping conclusions about the state of affairs with Spurs and Chelsea. Then it's on to Real Madrid, which might be pulling a Manchester United with a sudden fall from the top. Finally, you asked for it, and now you get it. They close out by picking the first few players of the season thus far — from non-top six Premier League clubs.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Over at patreon.com/doublepivot, the Mikes are trekking to the continent with regularity! A preview of the second half of the La Liga season is on the pod, plus a mailbag with subscriber questions about Marcus Rashford, Spurs transfers, substitute effects and players outside the Champions League that could help the top clubs. And we're also doing some 10-minute game previews for double premium subscribers, that one this week is for Sevilla - Atletico. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
What a game! The Mikes had an incredible amount of fun watching City play Liverpool with the title pretty much on the line, and they take you through the game, hitting on the big moments, the tactical shifts, and what this game means for the title race. Then it's over to the big transfer news and the American Christian Pulisic going to Chelsea for over £50m. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
On the premium side this holiday week, it's Premier League analytics talk. Really out of our comfort zone.Liverpool are, like, way ahead for the title. How did that happen? We take a look at this story from a few angles -- what does it mean about projections, about variance, about tactics and injuries? We can explain Liverpool getting better, but can we explain how City got worse? And we even talk about Spurs because they're there too. who'da thunk it. Check out patreon.com/doublepivot for the full episode.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Jose Mourinho's sacking feels like the end of a story. We try to tell it correctly. How did it all go wrong at United? What was new in his failures at United that wasn't present in previous managerial stints? What is "Mourinho ball" anyway, and what have we learned about it at United? Is it outdated? Is it dependent on a certain talent baseline? And finally, where will Jose go next?Plus a little Christmas Bible History Corner.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
We talk about the questions of race and racism in sports media that Raheem Sterling has helped surface, about why it's necessary to think critically about race simply to do soccer analysis well, and then over to the weirdness of Chelsea - Man City and why are Chelsea so good at defending sometimes... and finally the relegation scrap. A lot in here! Caley got to talk about discourse.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
It's our North London Derby --- how bad did Spurs get wrecked --- wait are Arsenal good now --- is Unai Emery figuring it out --- make Caley sad episode but boom he's in Mexico and it's 80 degrees so who's the real loser here episode. Look for Goodman sadness on the Patreon side.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
There wasn't a second leg to the Copa Libertadores final between Boca Grande and River Plate. Neither of the Mikes is an expert on South American football so we called in a ringer, Brenda Elsey (@policultura), a professor of history at Hofstra and specialist on South American sport and politics, as well as one of the hosts of the Burn It All Down podcast. Brenda helped walk us through how the final came to be called off, the problems of violence in men's soccer, the forces seeking to corporatize and privatize the South American game, and the grassroots soccer movement in Argentina, in both men's and women's soccer, that tends to get lost in most discussions of these problems. We had just a ton of fun recording this, hope you like it too.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
No, this isn't some great existential crisis debate. Expected goals have become such a huge part of the soccer-sphere that the two Mikes decided an international break was a good time to dive deeper into what we're trying to measure, the methods at work, how we got here, and where it's all headed. Prepare to nerd out, y'all.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Dortmund now stand seven points clear of Bayern after a 3-2 derby win, so is the Bundesliga race over? The two Mikes toss around all the theories on why it is not, and also try to understand what is and is not working for both clubs. Then, they turn their attention toward Manchester United, what the underlying numbers say about Jose Mourinho's squad, and why it may not get better.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
You've read and heard about the potential formation of a European super league, so what does it entail? Why is it being proposed? Is it good? Bad? If it were to happen, what's the best way for it to happen, and what would be lost in the process? The two Mikes tackle these questions and more – oh, and talk a little about Arsenal and Liverpool – over at Patreon this week.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
El Clasico is covered, Barcelona's tweaks in midfield, the future of superclub buying strength... but we're here for just one thing. Joel Wertheimer, Double Pivot's salacious gossip correspondent, joins us for a deep dive into the most important soccer news of the week, a blind gossip item on twitter about Real Madrid players that we could NOT avoid discussing.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
In which the Mikes rank the Champions League favorites. They both agree about City at the top, but they disagree--somewhat--about how it shakes out just below that. See what they think of Juventus, Barcelona, Bayern, Liverpool, Madrid, Dortmund, Atleti and Napoli by subscribing at patreon.com/doublepivot.Also a little preview of the Caley Bible Podcast at the end of this one.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
There are little stories developing with all of the top teams in Europe and how much they've improved or declined from last year, how much the team is playing up to their talent, how much the table is flattering them. We start with Arsenal and Spurs and then WHEW it's Liverpool and United and Chelsea and Napoli and Juve and Barca and Real and Sevilla and we got ourselves a podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
In this edition of the mailbag: What are the Two Mikes best and worst sports stats hot takes? Would you give Eddie Howe a shot at managing a Top 6 club? Is Arsenal's talent roughly at the level that expected goals predicts, or are they underperforming their talent level? Why do we evaluate soccer managers based on whether they have players to suit their system, when we don't do that in a sport like, say, basketball? What are the current challenges in soccer analytics as a scientific discipline? Just how good was Laurent Koscielny? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Bayern is boring, Real Madrid can't score and Jadon Sancho's on fire, perhaps a bit at Christian Pulisic's expense. After a quick Liverpool vs. Manchester City recap, the two Mikes look at the problems facing some of the clubs we regularly expect in Champions League semifinals, and what it may take to keep them at that level come season's end. Over at Patreon, they look to England to examine Manchester United, Arsenal and Spurs' woes.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
It's a tough one. The Mikes are joined by Jessica Luther, who literally wrote the book on the topic of sports and sexual assault, to discuss Kathryn Mayorga's allegations against Cristiano Ronaldo. What do we know? How has this story been reported? And what are the responsibilities of clubs and leagues, fans and analysts, when survivors bring forward stories like this about figures in sports?Thread with a link to Mayorga's story as well as documents used by reporters from Der Spiegel: https://twitter.com/derWinterbach/status/1046478115734720513The extremely good tweet by Sanaa that got us thinking:https://twitter.com/sanaa_mq/status/1047104457442562049Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Over at patreon, we have a subscription episode with even more stats, a bunch of Chelsea discussion, and even we talk ourselves into watching the Bundesliga. It gets real.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Mike and Mike break out some of Caley's stats and a few Statsbomb numbers and pick out some surprising numbers, Who have been the Premier League's best passers? Who plays an unexpectedly key in their team's build up? Are they going to gush about James Milner again? Numbers on Kieran Trippier, James Maddison, Granit Xhaka, Marcos Alonso, Ruben Neves and more. (And by more we mean, James Milner.)Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
In this week's premium episode, the two Mikes go deep on some big results. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Do we know exactly what Arsenal is trying to do yet? Is it OK to declare the Chelsea is super good or should we hold off? The heck is Everton's deal? And what's up with the weird Bournemouth numbers? These questions are pondered by the two Mikes as the dive deeper into all of them and briefly touch on the West Hams and Newcastles of the world along the way.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes start a light jog into the return of club soccer after the international break, analyzing the most notable performances thus far in La Liga (Barcelona - good!, Atletico - not so good!), Serie A (it's more entertaining than you think!), and the Premier League, including a quick preview of Spurs vs. Liverpool off the top, and some Watford talk at the back. The Bundesliga will have to play more games before being broken down. Sorry, Bundesliga. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Over at the patreon we take a tour of the Premier League week that was, including Watford staying perfect and Spurs not, United winning impressively and Arsenal... also winning, and how bad are things at Burnley and West Ham.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Spurs exited Old Trafford with a resounding 3-0 victory, but the match wasn't all it seemed in the final score. Still, things are looking bleak for United, and somewhat promising for Spurs. The two Mikes walk through every facet of a very confusing but altogether seismic match. Then, they review what City's draw with Wolves means for their title defense, and just how bad Burnley might actually be. In part 2 of today's episode over on the Double Pivot Patreon page, the two Mikes review Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea's wins and size up what we truly know about each club at this point.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Is this Guendouzi kid for real? What is this new role for Kante going to mean going forward? How does Ashley Barnes work and why does he keep scoring goals? What are xPoints and are they worth investing any time or effort into learning more about? It's the first (and free) part of this week's two-part podcast mailbag! Catch Part Two on the Double Pivot Patreon page.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
An extremely real and cromulent cup final took place between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid, and we got a glimpse of things to come. The two Mikes break down what the glimpse may have revealed, why it may not matter when sizing up Barcelona, and the weird numbers behind the more intriguing squads in Spain. Plus, a quick look at what we learned from City's 2-0 win over Arsenal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Deadline day is upon us and we have to preview so much! The Mikes blow through seven teams in this preview episode, discussing why they like Brighton's business so much, why they still can't believe in Burnley (mostly) and then on to Chelsea, who might be really, really frickin good, and who will be fun even if they aren't. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Over on the premium side we did the second part of our four-part Premier League preview in which we covered three different London sides including the Gunners. There's even an unexpected podcast debut at the close, it's a big one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
We begin the two-week, four-part Premier League preview. This week the Mikes kick off with whether Huddersfield are getting relegated (probably), then on to whether Southampton and Newcastle will be fine again (maybe not!), some mild disagreement over whether Everton are good and then, this week's big club is... Liverpool. We'll get through all 20 teams before the season starts.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
It's not quite season preview time, but there's not much going on, so how about a two-part mailbag?! In Part 1, the two Mikes address a Grealish-Spurs marriage, the tough spots Martial and Alderweireld are in, West Ham's transfer spree, Gonzalo Higuaín and Mario Mandzukic — and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
We had four games to talk about! The quarterfinals gave us an opportunity to talk about France's continuing good luck and amazing defense, how seriously we want to credit Roberto Martinez for his side's upset win over Brazil, and whether the football is coming home -- in this week's episode, brought to you by The Athletic Soccer. Double Pivot listeners users can go to theathletic.com/doublepivot to receive 40% off their first-year subscription. Check it out for even more great world soccer coverage.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
France might have the best player in the tournament, but the most shackled squad. Uruguay might not be the worse version of Argentina that Goodman thought they'd be. Belgium...well...you can't say that wasn't a wild way to finish a match (just ignore the first 70 minutes where everything was very bad). Then there's Brazil, a team that somehow is getting nitpicked despite looking very, very good. How they got here – and where they go from here – in this week's episode, brought to you by The Athletic Soccer. Double Pivot listeners users can go to theathletic.com/doublepivot to receive 40% off their first-year subscription. Check it out for even more great world soccer coverage.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Over at the subscription side, we took questions, previewed the round of 16, and solved the tiebreaker question once and for all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Who exactly is coaching Argentina? What's Brazil's best XI? Is it really worth being annoyed at France's approach? Is there cause for concern with Spain? Is Germany doomed? These questions and more answered by the two Mikes in an episode brought to you by The Athletic Soccer. Double Pivot listeners users can go to theathletic.com/doublepivot to receive 40% off their first-year subscription. Check it out for even more great world soccer coverage.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
There has been so very much world cup. It has led to so very many takes. We go through our list of eight contenders to see who's up (England!) who's down (Germany!) and who's complicated (Brazil!). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
If you've got questions about the World Cup in Russia, you've come to the right place. As you scramble to fill out your bracket or fantasy team before the first match kicks off, the two Mikes have all the analysis and speculation you'll need to become an expert in roughly two hours. Who will win the golden boot? Which team is a quarterfinals — or even semifinals — sleeper? How bad will the opening match be? These questions and more answered in a two-part preview, brought to you by The Athletic Soccer. Double Pivot listeners users can go to theathletic.com/doublepivot to receive 40% off their first-year subscription. Check it out for even more great world soccer coverage.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
We had so much fun doing a fantasy draft with the guys from the Total Soccer Show, we did a whole show about it.https://theathletic.com/382939/2018/06/07/the-athletics-world-cup-absentees-rejects-reallocation-draft/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
We were gonna just tease the premium podcast and then we realized, there's so much world cup! Gotta pod!France, England, Belgium, Colombia. Let's go.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
When the news breaks, the Double Pivot is here for you, going deep into the stories that matter in your life.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The Champions League final looks like it's going to be fun, and so we spent a whole episode talking about what we think is gonna happen. Go to patreon.com/doublepivot to unlock the whole episode.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes quickly revisit the two very boring cup finals before diving into the chaos that was Inter vs. Lazio. Then, they look at the managerial appointments at Arsenal, Dortmund, West Ham and PSG. Just not necessarily in that order.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
We talked to Ted Knutsen of Statsbomb and this was a premium episode of deep nerdiness. They have a new soccer data project, and we got into a bunch of questions about soccer analytics.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
What in the world is going on with Chelsea? Manchester United are probably going to dig in and go after this trophy, aren't they? Atletico is still really good, but can they stop the Payet and Thauvin show? The two Mikes tackle the big questions surrounding both cups, and even a few lurking on the periphery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The subscribers asked a bunch of good questions so we answered them.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes are tired of narratives that our fickle fan emotions perpetuate, but that the numbers reject. So they take a measured look at the final stretch of the season for Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool, before turning their attention to Antonio Conte's team. If the frantic final chase to reach top four falls short for the Blues, is it about to get worse? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
If you like off-the-rails excitement, the Champions League is here for you, and so are the two Mikes. In this week's premium episode, they break down the second legs between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, and Roma and Liverpool. They briefly break down the Europa semifinals to kick things off, but then get to the good stuff...before throwing out some early speculation on the Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
With the season winding down, the Mikes think about all the takes they've had and left unsaid. But why leave them unsaid forever? Asier Illaramendi! RB Leipzig! What about those guaranteed Champions League places for the 4th place teams in the big four leagues? Plus some mourning of Napoli, a little Chelsea-Liverpool sprinkled on top, and zoos zoos zoos to finish it all off.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
We not only had takes galore on Liverpool-Roma and Bayern-Real, we also had to get into the Arsenal-Atletico farce.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The magic of the F.A. Cup is all anyone in the world is talking about, so the two Mikes are joining in. They wax poetic on Southampton's demise, Mourinho's good and bad days, Spurs' frustration and Chelsea at their best. Then, they turn their attention to what has suddenly become a riveting race for the Coppa Campioni d'Italia.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
In the patreon ep, we talk about the FA Cup and get pretty pundity.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
There is no hope for West Brom, and probably no hope for Stoke City or Southampton. Yet, the Two Mikes chart the path that got these clubs to this point, the odd solutions they've employed to attempt to save themselves, and the slim possibility of escaping the drop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
There were three great matches and also Sevilla-Bayern, so we have a lot to talk about. This is just a teaser.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
We take a step back and talk about the Manchester City and Barcelona seasons in context. Runaway title winners tomorrow, champions league quarterfinal losers today. Is that a bad season? What is a bad or good season, really? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
This is not the full double pivot double secret premium podcast episode about the Champions League, this is just a teaser.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
This episode begins with a deep dive into Chelsea - Spurs, mourns the top four and title races that were not to be, and then takes a hard right turn into takery with some pointed questions about why the Bundesliga is bad and no one likes it.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Want more Double Pivot? We have good news! After that news, the Two Mikes tell you how much to value xGChain and why it's hard to look to numbers for defensive midfielder evaluation. Plus, (sort of) defending Mourinho, busting a Pochettino myth, how to recruit backups for players who are in the XI every week — and more — including a debate about which MCU movie has been the best.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The World Cup is coming up and we are ramping up. Early previews of England, Brazil and Spain right in your international earholes. We are, again, foolishly England-curious and perhaps also foolishly Iniesta-dismissive.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
One day, Manchester United's tactics look brilliant. The next, foolish. So, which is it? The two Mikes examine the differences between an impressive win over Liverpool and a listless Champions League exit at the hands of Sevilla, and whether the Special One's playbook won't work in the current era of world football. Plus, with just Manchester City and Liverpool left in the quarterfinals, is it fair to ask if it reflects poorly on the Premier League? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Caley is not happy about the football but he's happy to have his primary, gremlin-free-usb laptop back. He and Goodman talk about Spurs not bottling it against Juventus and the weird, basic, extremely good tactics of Valverde's Barcelona. Can Chelsea beat them? The two hosts slightly disagree. Then a little love for Liverpool before it all ends.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
PRODUCER'S NOTE: We apologize in advance for a few moments when Caley's audio goes south for a minute or two. It's a free-for-all in the bottom half of the Premier League table, but the two Mikes have some ideas about which clubs are in a lot more trouble than the rest. And they even see a few obvious problems that the clubs themselves aren't doing much to address correctly. Before they roll through all the teams under the threat of the drop, they quickly touch on the two big matches between top six clubs over the weekend, and finish with a spoiler-filled discussion about Black Panther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The home stretch to make the Top 4 in Germany is absolutely bonkers. How bonkers? There were literally hundreds of tennis balls raining from the sky in Frankfurt. Why isn't Dortmund better? Why has RB Leipzig fallen off? Is Eintracht Frankfurt actually this good? The two Mikes ponder these questions (and touch on Schalke and Bayer Leverkusen) before turning their attention to an entertaining clash at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Juventus had Spurs on the ropes, and then it all fell apart. The two Mikes break down the first leg of the tie, look ahead to the second, and assess what's working and what's not for each club. Then, they look at the Top 4 race in the Premier League and sort out where it may go from here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
A fascinating clash at Anfield turned into a referendum on diving and offside rules, but the two Mikes talk about all of it, somehow. Then they turn their attention to whatever the heck is happening to Chelsea right now. No Crisis Conch necessary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes interrupt this transfer window discussion with the Arsenal Crisis Conch (patent pending), and use it as a springboard into more transfer talk, not just about the Gunners, but also many of their Top 6 counterparts. There's also some Dortmund and PSG chatter that gets mixed in, thanks to the players involved in some of the bigger transfers this window. Plus, one Mike uses the opportunity to talk about pundits saying players "lack end product," and how it never means what they think it means. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Last week a conch was blown. This conch, unbeknownst to us, was endowed with the power to make Arsenal win a blowout and reach a cup final. So we return to Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham to ask what we got wrong and what we want to retract from last week. Plus Coutinho, Alexis, Mkhitaryan and more transfer talk.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Chelsea are still in a comfortable spot in the Premier League table, but also don't look quite right (and might be buying Andy Carroll? What?). Arsenal are definitely in a more complicated predicament, despite being a very good team. And who the heck knows how to correctly explain what's happening with Real Madrid? The two Mikes try!This episode is sponsored by Health IQ, an insurance company that helps health conscious people like runners, cyclist, weightlifters and vegetarians get lower rates on their life insurance. Go to healthiq.com/TDP to support the show and see if you qualify.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
As if mega blockbuster transfers in January weren't enough, now we've got a "mystery player" in the mix. Or something. The two Mikes break down the big moves you already know about, the one that's probably next, and answer your questions about the window with varying degrees of incredulity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
"Choosing a new club to support at some point in life is not only very OK but also sometimes a more organic & admirable form of connection." Zack Goldman's tweet launched a fierce debate, and the two Mikes want to weigh in. Then, in the non-soccer portion of the show, they break down their takeaways from the new Star Wars. SPOILER ALERT: There will be spoilers.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Manchester United were supposed to challenge City in a race for the title this season, but it hasn't played out that way. The two Mikes attempt to figure out why, whether Mourinho has lost some of his touch, and if there's any validity to his reasons for the club's struggles. Meanwhile, rival Liverpool just splashed a whole lot of cash on a center back, and there are no shortage of angles to examine.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
PSG brought in Neymar and Mbappe for matches against Real Madrid, they just thought it would be a few rounds later. Is Manchester United now the English team in crisis? And the two Mikes break down who they're most concerned about in the relegation zone.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
We now know the final 16 teams in the Champions League, but are we any closer to understanding who has the best chance to win it? Sitting at Caley's kitchen table, the two Mikes try to sort through what we've learned from group play. Plus, the results of the Champions League mean the Europa League may actually be pretty exciting this year, so they briefly mention that before closing the majority of the show out with some thoughts on the race between the two Manchester clubs.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Yet again, there are a lot of confused people on the interwebs who can't quite wrap their heads around expected goals. The two Mikes are here to help, and Burnley is the focal point. They tackle topics like how xG and tactics inform each other and what exactly is in that Burnley black magic. Then, they attempt to sort through the logic behind recent managerial appointments in the Premier League. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
International breaks and the second half of Champions League group play are a drag, so the two Mikes turn their attention elsewhere. They review Arsenal's victory over rival Spurs, what it means for both teams going forward and where they fit in the league pecking order. Then, they talk about just how good Manchester City are, how Pep Guardiola's squad currently works, and how remarkable the tactics are in execution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes are on an international break quest to determine who the true 7th-best team in the Premier League might be. The table says it's Burnley, Everton fans believe it is theirs indefinitely, and Southampton is awfully good at being the most annoying candidate of the bunch. Plus, some recalibration after key Bundesliga clashes force our fearless leaders to examine their previous assessments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
It turns out the two Mikes were wrong about Spurs, but in a surprising way. They discuss how Mauricio Pochettino's club continues to improve in the face of tough expectations before turning their attention north to Liverpool and Everton. Namely, they take a closer look at what's wrong with Jurgen Klopp's Reds than they have before, and walk through all the contradictions and weird decisions that led Everton to sack Ronald Koeman. And who would be Goodman's first choice as his replacement? Giggsy, obviously. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Some key pieces will be missing for both sides at Anfield, so what should we expect? The two Mikes go through the options available to each manager, what the true strengths and weaknesses of each side really are, and why Liverpool's been such a problem for Spurs where other teams have not. Plus, they briefly touch on United, City and especially Chelsea, since Conte’s group is having some issues.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
There are bigger problems in the world, but two very depressed Mikes reflect on the utter calamity that crashed with a hollow thud in Trinidad and Tobago and cannot be ignored. What's the USMNT doing wrong? What could it be doing right? Is there a manager out there who makes more sense than others? Will the USSF go that direction, or do something disappointingly predictable? How do you organize the narratives floating around this mess? And if you're tired of thinking about it, they cleanse the palate by previewing Liverpool vs. Manchester United. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Will Morata's absence destroy the way Chelsea want to play? Will Manchester United be OK without Pogba? Will Liverpool be OK without a defense? The two Mikes take a look at the Top 6, some teams a little more closely than others, and try to sort out how important the next few months will be and whether absences will alter the razor thin margins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Juventus made some big changes over the summer, and the team that came out the other end looks different than the one we saw in the Champions League final. Meanwhile, Madridistas are panicking, and Arsenal is either a trash fire or just fine, depending on who you talk to. The two Mikes hash it all out with Copa90's Aaron West. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
After a much better podcast with a much better guest host (Aaron West) was eaten by gremlins, Caley does his best to fly solo without Goodman on topics like Everton, the title race, Spurs and Chelsea, before bringing in Producer Max to talk about Liverpool's sky-is-falling narrative after a draw with Burnley and a loss to Leicester City. How much does he Carabao those results? (Sorry, we're sorry, we're trying to delete it.)Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes talk about Crystal Palace firing their manager, don't talk about Sadio Mane's red card, go deep on Tottenham's Champions League tactical shift, and revel in Barcelona's strong start to the season. Plus the return of Bible History Corner. It's like it never left. Because it didn't.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
If you think you've got theories on what's happened to Arsenal, just wait until you hear what former Vice Sports (R.I.P.) writer Aaron Gordon's been simmering about. While he melts down over the direction of his rudderless club, the two Mikes play nice and attempt to point out a few silver linings. Then it's on to a very not nice set of topics: the corruption of FIFA and the ignored possibilities for rampant doping in the sport. Also, the USMNT comes up, but as with their performance in Honduras, expecting even the bare minimum might be too much to ask in this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
When PSG triggered Neymar's enormous release clause, the transfer market exploded and prices shot through the roof. The two Mikes try to make sense of what's happened, what might still happen, and explore the market's effect on the teams trying to make moves in the final hours of the transfer window. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
As a Spurs fan, Caley can't stand idly by while his team considers bringing in a player with a questionable past. He and Goodman talk through the issue before turning their attention to Manchester City vs. Everton and Chelsea vs. Spurs, two matches that contained far less sense than they should have. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two clubs from Manchester are clearly going to battle it out for the Premier League's greatest prize, while every other team is a roaring trash fire. We might as well end the season now. The two Mikes discuss whether last week's results fell in line with their expectations for the clubs involved before turning their attention to the rest of Europe, and specifically whether anyone will challenge Real Madrid, PSG, Juventus or Bayern Munich for domestic titles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Ever wonder which players the analytics guys will ride or die for? You're about to find out. The two Mikes pick their own side of analytics wizards to keep an eye on this season, including players like Kelechi Iheanacho, Ryan Sessegnon and...Dwight Gayle???? Yeah, it's quite a mix. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Based on last year's order of finish, the two Mikes speculate whether each club in this year's Barclay's Premier League will finish higher or lower than they did last May. While they don't agree on every pick, they do agree that it will be very surprising if one specific team doesn't win the title. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
There's some stupid money being thrown around, and the two Mikes can't even get a cut. PSG is prepared to pay a massive amount of money for Neymar, which certainly presents the question of whether he's worth it. Furthermore, would anything short of a Champions League title constitute a failure if the French giants get their man? As a chaser, the guys take a quick look at what's left for England's best teams to accomplish in the final month of the transfer window.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The summer doldrums get a shot of excitement with yet another mailbag. The two Mikes answer your many questions, including: The USMNT is much more tolerable to watch under Arena than Klinsmann...true?Thoughts on Coutinho as a midfielder vs. left forward? How do you feel about Firmino as a striker vs. top rated strikers?Why is Olivier Giroud so underrated?Is Eric Dier going or staying, and should Spurs really hold on to him if United is offering this much? Who are y’all cheering for at the women’s Euros?How much depth do the top teams need to have to compete on all fronts?Will teams eventually sell streams of their games directly to consumers as a subscription, bypassing TV to get more direct revenue?Have you revised your take on Arsenal’s switch to the 3-4-2-1?There will also be Game of Thrones talk.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
In this episode of the Double Pivot, your excellent questions are answered yet again, including:What does Ross Barkley do, and how would he look in a Pochettino side?Sell Alexis now, or let him leave for free next year?Is Romelu Lukaku a good fit for “slow-playing” Manchester United?How seriously should we take AC Milan? Would rather your club signed Defoe or Rooney to a four-year contract?Is it better to have loved and lost (Liverpool) or to never have loved at all (Spurs)? Subtitle: Why are Liverpool fans so prone to absurd transfer meltdowns that make zero sense when observed by anyone else?Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
How good are all of the xG models out there? One year after his initial evaluation of various submitted models, Nils Mackay (mackayanalytics.nl) released the results of a second round of models, including one built by a host of this here podcast. The two Mikes explore Mackay's findings, tackling topics like big chances, scorer bias in Opta data (or any data for that matter), and much more.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes are joined by Shireen Ahmed of the Burn It All Down podcast to discuss the early success of the podcast, which examines the intersection of feminism and sports, plus a few interesting social topics floating in and around and through the beautiful game. To set the table, the guys do a quick review of the 1-1 draw that's left the U.S. in a solid World Cup qualifying position. Editor's note: The amount of Ronaldo's reported settlement is incorrectly noted in this discussion. It was actually reported as being $375,000. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
When it comes to the U.S. Men's National Team, everything should probably now be built around Christian Pulisic, but that creates a few hurdles. The two Mikes talk about those hurdles, the current SPI probabilities, and then turn their attention to the mailbag. In it, they find questions about Liverpool's apparent failure to land Virgil van Dijk from Southampton and the meltdown it caused amongst the LFC faithful, whether statistical insights at one level of soccer (Premier League) apply to other levels (women's or college soccer), and whether Chelsea and/or City are addressing their needs thus far in the transfer market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Now that we've got your attention, let's talk about every magic moment from Saturday night in Cardiff. From diabolical deflections, to the mystical Manzukic, to that roustabout Ramos — and we haven't even gotten to Ronaldo's frosted tips! — the match had a little bit of something for everyone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Priya Ramesh writes about Dutch football for Benefoot, StatsBomb, FourFourTwo, The Guardian, Bleacher Report, and more. So who better to interview on the eve of the Europa League final? The conversation leaves no stone unturned, from Ajax's young stars to Jose Mourinho's use of the dark side of the force (it'll make sense when you hear it). You can find Priya on Twitter: @Priya8Ramesh.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes review some of their worst assessments over the course of the 2016-17 season. Topics include: David Moyes, Claudio Bravo, Chelsea, Barcelona, Spurs, Daniel Sturridge, Manchester United, Kelechi Iheanacho and Marcus Rashford. The surprise twist: Sometimes when they're wrong, they're not wrong at all (or something like that). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Buckle up, because we're covering a lot of ground in this week's episode. In chronological order, here are all the questions the gents were able to get to: – What is Everton's best case scenario if they sell Lukaku and Barkley this summer?– What stops first, and when: Spurs 'competing with the top 4', or Spurs spending around half as much on wages as them?– Does Klopp's style of play have the capacity, with an improved squad, to consistently defeat low block counter-attack Premier League teams?– Back at the start of the PL season, you were high on Liverpool and Arsenal, low on Spurs. What do you think changed?– Should Stoke sack Mark Hughes?– Deviation from expectation(xG) is often been attributed to variation. How much of this is random & how much are factors we can't factor yet?– In your opinion, who is the worst player that consistently gets minutes for a Top 6 side? – What has made 3 at the back so successful this season in the premier league? What has changed from earlier years if anything?– How will China affect the summer transfer market? (Aka let us mourn the loss of Diego Costa on Chelsea)– Leicester - have they been all that different under Shakespeare than Ranieri (only Spurs have won more points in last 10)Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes discuss Higuain shaking off the "choker" label, Juventus holding off another great attacking side, and Atletico coming up empty at the hands of their rivals. Then, it's time for a long talk about what went wrong with Arsenal this year, what changes could mean (and whether they seem likely), and what the future holds for the club if it finishes sixth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Is it more of a Mourinho match if his team sets out to get a 0-0 result, or if it shouldn't set out to get a 0-0 result and still gets a 0-0 result? The two Mikes ponder this important question, then attempt to figure out what Real Madrid was doing in the waning moments of the most pivotal match of the season. Then, it's on to your questions, like... Do midfielders need to play with more grit or is it a trait from a bygone era that's no longer relevant? Coutinho or Eriksen? Who's your favorite fun player on a lower half PL side? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The Champions League is down to four teams, and the two Mikes posit whether Monaco's dream run can end with them lifting the cup. The F.A. Cup is also down to four clubs, and despite a bevy of jokes throughout the current season, the guys are actually going to talk about these two matches, and the implications surrounding the teams playing in them. Mostly Arsenal, but a little bit about everyone else, too. Due to a technical malfunction, Caley's audio is off a bit this week, so apologies in advance.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
We're down to the finest of margins in the Champions League, and it shows. The two Mikes talk about whether one goal will be enough to see Atletico through or if Leicester can get lucky, whether Barcelona can mount another comeback or if it's time to talk about Juve as a favorite, and whether a Javi Martinez red card will define a season for one or two of the world's biggest super clubs. Plus, reaction to Dortmund having to play after the attack on their team bus, a potential shift in the CL power structure, and the relegation battle in the Premier League. Oh, and bible history corner. It's a 50th episode extravaganza, and it’s got everything!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Chelsea's 2-1 defeat of City shouldn't worry City fans because they're locks for the top 4, right? The two Mikes explain that while Chelsea and Spurs are all but locks to finish first and second, what happens to the four teams fighting for two spots behind them is anyone's guess. The numbers say Manchester United are much better than their position, Arsenal is much worse defensively this year, Liverpool is on the brink of a worrying trend, and if City were as good as everyone assumes, they wouldn't be in this race to begin with.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
To make up for last week's absence, it's an episode built entirely around your questions. Questions/topics include: Is it possible/efficient/useful for an international team to use a system that players aren’t familiar with at the club level? (3:50) Who is better now, and who has a higher ceiling, Christian Pulisic or Dele Alli? (17:00) What's up with the Netherlands and Argentina? (25:15) Is Arsenal's dependence on Cazorla more about him being great or Arsenal having a flawed midfield set up? (32:45) Will we see reliable golkeeper metrics in the future or will GK success always be mostly attributed to luck? (38:55)Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Just about everyone who cares has a theory on what's wrong at Arsenal. One Mike's stance was so white hot that Twitter is yet to recover. The other Mike started a European war when he suggested that the top English teams would be better if they could sign the best players away from the teams directly below them. Have your extinguisher nearby for this one, your listening device may spontaneously combust!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Analytics go out the window when craziness takes over, which is how the two Mikes feel about one of the greatest comebacks in Champions League history (they still talk about it). Meanwhile, a clash between Chelsea and Manchester United in the F.A. Cup somehow turned into a Paul Pogba bashing, and just to keep things ugly, we close things out with many thoughts on the Lukaku situation at Everton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Some guy named Mike Goodman joins the podcast to figure out what's going on with Klopp’s squad on Merseyside, as well catch up on everything he's missed, from Claudio Rainieri's exit, PSG's thrashing of Barcelona and Caley's time spent watching "Newsies.”Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
With Mike Goodman still on paternity leave, Michael Caley welcomes Ben Daniels to the pod to talk about the big stories of the day. They cover Barcelona's tragic situation of merely having a good shot at winning two trophies this year, after winning merely two last year as well. Both Michael and Ben were drawn fully into the magic of the League Cup, where Southampton failed to gain a deserved victory over Manchester United. But, they ask, what does it all MEAN you know? And then to Italy, where both Michael and Ben took their first looks at upstarts Atalanta and came away impressed.Cap it off with the longest Bible History Corner ever and this was a bonanza of soccer and not soccer.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
One Mike continues to march alone while another is graduating from training wheels as a father. In this episode, the remaining Mike welcomes a first guest, Bobby Gardiner, to break down the issues with the teams scrapping at the bottom of the Premier League table with a special spotlight on the defending champions. Then, Mike welcomes in Conrad Appiah of Opta to figure out what goes on behind the scenes to record all the data that's vital to the world of soccer analytics.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Quick note off the top: The audio quality of this episode isn't up to our normal standards, and we're sorry for that. This was our second attempt, and we decided a grainy-sounding something was better than nothing this week. SB Nation's Graham MacAree joins Michael Caley to talk about some weird results, the questions we're not asking in analytics, and yes, a digression that ties together Alexis Sanchez and the Peloponnesian War.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
As the fixture congestion fades, the race for the top four tightens and the two Mikes are starting to worry about a few clubs. Chelsea and Liverpool drew, which meant little for Chelsea but confirmed some suspicions about Liverpool. Elsewhere, Manchester United, Arsenal and Spurs all failed to get results when they figured they would. Is the hill getting steeper for one or all of them? Finally, the transfer window is closed, so which moves were noteworthy?Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
What do you do when your midfield doesn't really exist? You put Yaya Toure there by himself to hold down the fort behind a tidal wave of attacking options. It nearly worked for Pep Guardiola's side, but there was plenty to unpack from how both teams handled the opposition's approach. The two Mikes break down the match before turning their attention to "the magic of the cup." That's right, they zero in on the biggest matches and storylines in this weekend's FA Cup, from PSG vs. Monaco to Nice's run of form to the suddenly important clash between Real Madrid and Real Sociedad. And if you're saying to yourself, "Hey, those aren't FA Cup stories," well, that's the joke. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
In the most congested part of the schedule for England's top clubs, some seem to be solidifying their style while others are falling off their expected pace. The two Mikes dive into whether the solution to Pep's woes at City is to buy more stars, if it's just too late for Liverpool to make a useful addition in this transfer window, and where they'd strengthen at clubs where there are less obvious holes to fill (United, Spurs, Arsenal and Chelsea). Also, it turns out Hawai'i is very nice, and Caley's dog vehemently objects to the Double Pivot Pod.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Spurs had a very specific plan to derail Chelsea's epic run of results, and it worked, over and over and over. How did it work? Well, the two Mikes have some ideas about that and a few about what it means for both squads going forward. Then, they run through the issues City is having, and just how concerning they might be down the stretch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
We're not completely sure what happened, but we're here to talk about what did happen when Samir Nasri's Twitter account started fighting with itself. Then, the two Mikes debate whether Bob Bradley was truly given a fair shake at Swansea before handing out midseason awards. But these aren't your garden variety awards, with gems like "Player Most Likely to be Accused of Having a 'Crisis of Confidence' in the Second Half of the Season" award.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Publicly declare that Chelsea are now sizable favorites to win the Premier League – with a seemingly insurmountable lead – and you'll be met with plenty of doubt. The two Mikes dive deeper into the numbers that explain why it will take something special for anyone else to win the league. Then, they turn their attention to the seemingly endless amount of criticism Mesut Ozil gets (and whether any of it is warranted), before finishing with Southampton and the lack of goals keeping them stuck around seventh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Defense presents a lot of problems when it comes to statistical analysis, and it gets very tricky when you start to move beyond chances created or conceded. The easy-to-define link between what players are doing and the endpoint of expected goals and goals on offense isn't so easy to follow backwards from the same result on defense. The two Mikes examine why defensive stats aren't great, and why reacting to what an offense is doing is hard to quantify beyond the reaction itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
El Clásico never fails to create talking points, but this one was a lot different than most in recent memory, particularly if you start to look ahead in the season. But first, a trip through the Premier League top six and their hijinks. From Liverpool's collapse to Bournemouth, to the weird problems hampering the triumvirate of Arsenal, Manchester United and Spurs, to the bar room brawl that was Chelsea vs. Manchester City. Also, everyone's favorite dog wears a t-shirt.Our sponsor this week is Futchi. Get $20 off a Futchi set with the promo code HOWLER.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
A few surprise candidates snuck into the relegation race, and that makes sorting through the field even more interesting than usual. From West Brom to Sunderland, the two Mikes make the case for the demise or survival of all of the clubs struggling to get out of the cellar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
If you're wondering why RB Leipzig isn't the feel-good story that Leicester City was just a year ago, there are a few things you should learn about the Bundesliga. But before the guys welcome in this week's guest, they examine the "other" three teams chasing the leaders in the Premier League. Our sponsor this week is Futchi. Get $20 off a Futchi set with the promo code HOWLER.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The axes have been sharpening to oust Jurgen Klinnsman, and a 4-0 result against Costa Rica didn't help. The two Mikes examine whether it's time for the U.S. to make a change at the helm, and what factors are most important when making that decision. Then, they try to figure out which La Liga team is the best. Is Barça actually in crisis? How is Real Madrid doing something so crazy? And is Atletico Madrid the best team in the world?Our sponsor this week is Futchi. Get $20 off a Futchi set with the promo code HOWLER.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes are joined by one of the world's preeminent soccer journalists to discuss how the rise of analytics has changed how the sport is covered, how far the relationship between the two still has to go, and what hurdles stand between those covering the game and today's ultra-informed fan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Four Premier League strikers are having very different seasons. What's wrong with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and is this a slump to ride out or do something about? Jamie Vardy's shots are way down, and there are a few reasons why. Romelu Lukaku isn't struggling at all, and yet doesn't seem to get the credit he deserves. And Spurs aren't the same without Harry Kane. The two Mikes dive into the unique situations confronting each striker and club before switching gears to chat with Joe Sykes of FiveThirtyEight about Charles Reep, widely considered the father of modern soccer analytics, and the subject of a Hot Takedown podcast you need to check out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes revisit their preseason rankings of the title contenders, and examine what's changed for each of them since then. They start with Manchester United, who have a very cranky and expensive group of reserves that never see the field. Injury riddled Spurs have had a lot go wrong so far this year, and the jury is still out on Chelsea for some very specific reasons. A few numbers suggest that Liverpool is for real, a lack of depth may haunt Arsenal yet again, and you'll be stunned to find that Manchester City are still leading the pack by a wide margin (but one part of the field remains a potentially large problem). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Two draws were received very differently this week. The two Mikes take a longer look at the scoreless draw at Anfield (sorry in advance), and then flip to the 1-1 result at the Etihad. They examine a few questions along the way. Can this United team win a title, or even finish in the top four with this approach? Is Daniel Sturridge a problem for LFC? Should expectations be shifting higher for Everton? And of course, the annual wave of "Is Pep a fraud?" narratives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
During a riveting international break, the two Mikes desperately search for something else to talk about, and land on the windows of opportunity in front of four premier league clubs. How badly do Manchester City need a fullback? Does Liverpool need a left back or a midfielder more, and does that change if Jürgen Klopp thinks they can win the title this year? Should Swansea City and Sunderland buy or stand pat when the January window arrives with relegation potentially looming? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Tottenham Hotspur played a slightly different style against Manchester City, and it totally freaking worked. The two Mikes discuss whether the outcome outlined the ways in which City are vulnerable, revisit the idea that Barcelona might possibly be in trouble, walk the path of the hottest takes to assess Swansea City's hiring of Bob Bradley, and then spend a lot of time talking about Hamilton (the play, not the Scottish team). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The Goalmouth is a new, 5-minute podcast that will show up on your phone by 7 a.m. EST every weekday morning so you can hear the latest soccer news and nonsense on your commute. In collaboration with the Total Soccer Show and Dirty Tackle. For more information, visit: http://fifa.wtf/2dgVPgT Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
How much will injuries to Messi and Harry Kane affect Barcelona and Tottenham Hotspur, respectively? The two Mikes dive into the numbers, and then re-examine their preseason assessments of four English clubs: Manchester United, Chelsea, West Ham and Stoke City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
After four matches, the two Mikes assess whether their preseason predictions are playing out as they expected. Is Manchester City's terrifying attack enough to overcome issues at the back? Yes, Chelsea looks fantastic, but there are some problems. Speaking of problems, Arsenal has a whole mess of them. Plus, thoughts on Liverpool, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, and even Everton(!). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
This episode answers the age old question: Is football played on spreadsheets? In the heart of the international break, the two Mikes take the extra time to dive deep into everything you could ever possibly want to know about expected goals, and then talk about it some more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
What we talk about when we talk about pressing actually varies more than most pundits would have you believe. For instance, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur have similar approaches, but one big difference. Bayer Leverkusen has a tendency to turn their pressing into hockey on grass. The two Mikes dive a little deeper into types of pressing and their desired results, and then sort out all these Champions League changes everyone is freaking out about. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes provide the hottest of takes regarding a certain Barcelona star's bleached quaff, but also marvel at how good Barcelona looks in spite of its best player's hair. A bit farther north, Manchester City and Liverpool put in some eyebrow-raising performances, and is it time to be concerned about Crystal Palace, Sunderland, and Bournemouth? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
You might think you can learn a lot about a team by watching them play for 90 minutes, but when those are the first 90 minutes of the season, all bets are off. The two Mikes review the most interesting results from the Barclay's Premier League opening weekend, and decide which parts were worth filing away for later, and which were worth throwing out the minute the final whistle blew. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Get comfortable with life in the middle, as the two Mikes assess the dealings and futures of the "Middle 7" – teams that probably won't win the title, and probably won't get relegated. Much is covered, including: Liverpool’s favorable schedule, Spurs’ reinforcement of their core, Leicester City’s understandable variance, Southampton’s process, West Ham’s ugly numbers, Stoke’s lack of moves, and Everton’s perplexing moves. Then, it's time for the opposite of Hot Takes: it's Cold Gives. Which somehow translates to: What are the biggest question marks in the league for the 2016-17 campaign? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The first installment of this preview covers the top 4 (teams with the best shot to win the title), and the bottom 9 (teams that will probably fight relegation). The two Mikes discuss Manchester City’s attacking options, Arsenal’s lack of significant upside, Chelsea’s seemingly perfect additions, and Manchester United’s high risk/high reward moves. Then the real fun starts with odes to the talents of Pardew and Moyes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The only thing stranger than the players Barcelona has signed this summer is the fact that Real Madrid has signed so few. The two Mikes examine what those clubs and Atletico Madrid and Sevilla are building toward, and whether the pieces fit right now or down the road. They also welcome in their first-ever show guest, Stephanie Yang of Stars and Stripes FC, to break down the USWNT's chances at the impending Olympics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Juventus looks like it's going to get a whole lot of money for Paul Pogba, and that's good because they've already spent all the money on Gonzalo Higuain. The two Mikes examine the domino effect of mega transfers, the pros and cons for all the clubs involved, and what these big money deals tell us about where world football might be headed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Do you think the math in the Sadio Mané and the Henrikh Mkhitaryan transfers is a little fuzzy? Are you trying to figure out what the heck Borussia Dortmund and PSG are doing? Ever wonder what's really holding back Liverpool and Everton in the transfer market each year? The Two Mikes explore these conundrums and more in this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
You could argue that France's approach in the Euro 16 final was right, it just wasn't right enough. It was also completely unnecessary. The two Mikes break down the final, remind you that the latest international tournament wasn't so bad (and you'll be excited about the next), and then spend some time breaking down how they evaluate managers. With club seasons approaching, they also ask: Why was the Premier League so weird last season? And will it be weird again? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Les Bleus faced their first true challenge and dismantled Die Mannschaft, while Portugal made sure Wales' greatest accomplishment of the tournament would be the quarterfinals win over Belgium. Now, Ronaldo's band of disruptors square up with the first squad that may be up to the task of running straight at them for 90 minutes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes keep riding with Portugal (who, along with Ronaldo, is getting a bad wrap), while Wales made Caley look prescient, Germany vs. Italy wasn't the chess match we were looking for, and Iceland's dream died an honorable death. Plus: Will Germany be able to adapt with so many missing pieces against France, and can Wales keep the miracle run going against Portugal? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes tackle a number of misconceptions including: Poland might be doing well because their best player is struggling, Belgium has at least one really great tactic, Italy is not a defensive team in the way that many are saying, and France is actually the underdog against Iceland (ok, we lied about the last one). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
A bunch of bodies crashed into each other in the Copa América final, and it ended with Messi's international career on life support. The two Mikes dive into the chaos that unfolded at MetLife Stadium before turning their attention to Croatia's cruel exit at the hands of Portugal, Italy's total disruption of Spain, and Iceland's smiting of England. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Can anything positive be drawn from Argentina's destruction of a hapless American side? The two Mikes offer their findings from an autopsy of the U.S. loss, posit whether this Argentina vs. Chile rematch will be any different than the one we saw in the group stages, and preview the Euro knockout rounds, while trying to figure out what makes Croatia so good. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The power of Messi's beard (and really good players) is powering Argentina to what seems like an inevitable Copa win. Plus, Chile runs rampant, there's a nasty rumor going around that strikers at Euro 2016 are nonexistent, and the Mikes discuss what they've gotten right (Belgium) and wrong (Mexico). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Now that we've seen each group a few times, what can we make of Besler at left back for the USMNT, Roy Hodgson's striker and midfield decisions, France benching its two best players, and Belgium not quite living up to its potential on paper? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes break down the biggest matches of the Euro 2016 and Copa América Centario weekend, but not before a necessary discussion about the elephant in the room with the Spanish national team, and the lesson we must all learn when it comes to the teams and players we love to watch, and the sexual assault, rape and domestic violence victims who are thoughtlessly cast aside in the name of sport. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
In case you hadn't noticed, Argentina is great and they showed why in a dominant performance against Chile. The Mikes dive into how good the former squad is, and how worried we should be about the latter. Plus, the sky is no longer falling for the USMNT, England and Belgium seem better than they probably are, and four players to watch over the next week and why. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
The two Mikes can't wait to talk about the red-hot, scintillating action from the first weekend of Copa America Centario, but first, they're going to preview Euro 2016. Specifically, a quick examination of France (the deserved favorites), Germany (who play weirder than you thought), and Spain (no, seriously, they're still really good!). Also: El Tri weirdly struggles with a man advantage, the USMNT wasn't that bad, and Klinsmann isn't that wrong. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)
Introducing The Double Pivot, hosted by Mike Goodman and Michael Caley. The Double Pivot is for people who want smart commentary with a healthy dose of analytics to back it up. First up: the Copa América, and why Argentina’s 2 to 1 odds to win it is a tad, shall we say, crazy. Mike and Mike also discuss what they’ll be watching for in the early matches, what to make of the USMNT right now, and touch on a few predictions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/doublepivot)