Will AI bring heavy-metal football back to Liverpool?
TIME FOR A COACH TRIPIt was only a matter of time before one of football’s big clubs placed their future in the hands of AI. Happily for Liverpool, they’ve plumped for a man with those initials rather than a rapidly growing technology that has been expertly designed to fill billionaires’ pockets. Yep, Andoni Iraola has verbally agreed to replace Arne Slot as Liverpool head coach and will go from walking on water at Bournemouth to hearing – maybe even singing, though he doesn’t look like a touchline lungs man – You’ll Never Walk Alone before every home game. The last time Liverpool appointed a Spanish manager, they were champions of Europe within a year. And Iraola will inherit a stronger squad than Rafa Benítez did in 2004 – albeit one that was put together by a manager whose style of play is very different to Iraola’s.Slot prioritised possession, arguably to a fault, and only Manchester City had a higher average than Liverpool’s 59.3% in the Premier League. Iraola’s Bournemouth team (50.1%, since you asked, 11th out of 20) are much closer in spirit to Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool. You’ll be reading a lot about heavy metal in the next few days, mainly regurgitations of Mohamed Salah’s recent quotes. “I want to see Liverpool go back to being the heavy metal attacking team that opponents fear and back to being a team that wins trophies,” spaffed Salah on Instachat after Liverpool were hammered at Aston Villa. “That is the football I know how to play and that is the identity that needs to be recovered and kept for good. It cannot be negotiable and everyone that joins this club should adapt to it.”Iraola won’t need to adapt tactically, and all the available evidence suggests he is a top-class coach. The success or failure of his appointment will probably depend on how well he adapts to the scrutiny and pressure of such a huge job. The imminent appointment of Iraola continues a dizzying managerial merry-go-round, with teams keen to get their business done before the Geopolitics World Cup consumes us all for 39 days and 39 nights. Marco Silva is expected to replace José Mourinho at Benfica, which means Fulham, Manchester City and Crystal Palace are looking for new gaffers. So are Salford City, who have given Karl Robinson the boot after losing in the League Two playoff final. Salford have been through five full-time managers in the 2020s. Maybe it’s time to give Claude a go, and we don’t mean Puel.QUOTE OF THE DAY“One hundred per cent! I feel like everyone in the squad and the staff believes we can win it” – Kobbie Mainoo veers dangerously close to roaring “it’s coming home!!!” when chatting to reporters at England’s first GWC training session in Miami.View image in fullscreenKobbie Mainoo, there, with some lovely balancing skills. Photograph: Richard Pelham/Getty Images
double quotation markTonda Eckert’s ‘For everything that has happened I want to apologise’ non-apology manages to completely miss the point. Things didn’t ‘happen’, Tonda, you and your staff ‘did things’ and you should be apologising for ‘everything that we did’. I am reminded of Ronald Reagan’s infamous ‘mistakes were made’. Of course, one should always make allowances for people with limited English skills, but what is Eckert’s excuse?” – Carl Zetie.
double quotation markInteresting riff on the ‘You’re Tim Payne’ song. Personally, I wouldn’t classify Carly Simon as either ‘soft rock’ or album oriented rock (Football Daily letters passim). She’s more in the singer-songwriter genre for me. By the way, her sister Joanna was an acclaimed opera singer. Nessun Dorma, anyone?” – Mike Wilner.
If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day is … Carl Zetie. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here.SEMI-AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLEAt the end of a season disfigured by near-constant tear-ups over the use of technology, what could gladden our hearts more going into the GWC than the announcement of new(!) improved(!) refinements to the semi-automated offside technology first trialled at last year’s Coppa Gianni? Fifa boffins have developed a new form of the technology for GWC that automatically sends an alert to an assistant referee if a player is more than 10cm offside, an “improvement” on previous versions that only raised the alarm if a player was 50cm off. The official will still have a choice of whether to raise their flag and the technology will not be able to spot the closest offsides – and subjective calls on whether, for example, a player was interfering with play will still be left to the semi-automated humans running the line. Fifa says the system will protect players from knack sustained when play needlessly continues while the officials await a VAR referral. It will all be backed up by, it says here, AI-enabled 3D avatars of all 1,248 GWC squad players who will be corralled into special chambers for a digital once-over. While the rest of us can bask in a tournament that absolutely definitely will now contain no refereeing/technology discourse.MOVING THE GOALPOSTSHere’s Megan Swanick on how the NWSL hopes to gain growth through the GWC.NEWS, BITS AND BOBSMexico’s football federation has lost its appeal against a Fifa fine for their fans’ homophobic chanting. Giving its adjudication, the court of arbitration for sport said: “They [the judges] observed that the conduct of the fans was collective and widespread, and not merely a one-off occurrence.”The Democratic Republic of Congo are hoping to go ahead with their GWC warmup against Chile in La Linea de la Concepcion in Spain next week despite local authorities prohibiting next Monday’s match due to the Ebola outbreak in the DRC. The Congolese Football Federation said on Wednesday that the team was in compliance with all health, sporting and regulatory requirements, and said it was in discussions with the relevant authorities and the Spanish Football Federation to find a solution that would allow the match to take place.Read into it what you will but Jude Bellingham has landed the coveted No 10 shirt for the GWC as England revealed their all-important squad numbers on Tuesday. His rivals for the position, Morgan Rogers and Eberechi Eze, have merely the No 17 and 21 jerseys respectively. Full details here.Atalanta’s Éderson is set to become Manchester United’s Éderson in the first major signing of Michael Carrick’s permanent tenure as Old Trafford gaffer. The 26-year-old midfielder will set United back an initial £35m.View image in fullscreenHands up if you’re heading to Old Trafford. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PAEverton, meanwhile, are sniffing around Middlesbrough’s Hayden Hackney. But they’re not the only ones – Brighton, Tottenham, Nottingham Forest and Leeds have also been linked with the midfielder, who has a year left on his contract and is likely to cost around £15m.Ella Toone is weighing up her Manchester United future after a challenging campaign. “I have a year left [on my contract]. Obviously it’s now time to talk. I just know I have got to make a decision on what’s best for me,” she hinted.And Lewis Koumas’s late leveller for Wales denied Ghana a winning send-off for the GWC in their friendly at Cardiff City Stadium. The 1-1 draw was only Wales’s second ever match against an African side.RECOMMENDED SUBSCRIBINGSign up for The Recap, our weekly roundup of editors’ picks, featuring highlights from our sport coverage over the past seven days and delivered to your inboxes first thing every Sunday morning. Don’t miss it. STILL WANT MORE?In the first of a series of dispatches from the GWC, fans in the host cities air their hopes, fears and gripes about the tournament.Our latest GWC team previews focus on a Sweden side suddenly feeling all chipper under Graham Potter, and Ronald Koeman’s Netherlands, who go into the tournament beset by injury angst.View image in fullscreenIt’s nice to see Graham Potter looking so happy these days. Photograph: Emma Wallskog/Bilbyrån/ShutterstockHere’s Jamie Jackson on why Marcus Rashford heads to the GWC in limbo despite a decent season at Barcelona.The women’s World Sevens was great fun in the sun, says Tom Garry, and a perfect riposte to those who take the game far too seriously.And which goalkeepers have won major finals without making a save? The Knowledge knows.MEMORY LANE23 June 1998: Scotland and Morocco fans enjoy a song and dance together before the ir group game in St Etienne at the 1998 World Cup. Craig Brown’s side were beaten 3-0 and exited teh tournament bottom of the group.View image in fullscreen Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PASWEEPSTAKE!
