Monday 11/20

🦃😋🍽️ Happy Turkey Week Statesiders. What better way to start the week than a nearly 100 year old Rivalry? This Tuesday, we got ourselves one of the biggest matchups in International soccer— Brazil vs Argentina. Argentina had the last laugh in 2021 when they beat their eternal rivals in the Copa America final 1-0. The stakes may not be as high this time, but both teams lost their first game during this international break and finishing the year with 2 straight losses is not an option for either country.

Giveaway: Our latest giveaway winner has won themselves a $50 gift card to spend at Golaco Kits. Stay tuned as we cook up our next giveaway series.

International Matches
State Of The Euros

Red Devils Belgium GIF by ElevenSportsBE

Gif by ElevenSportsBE on Giphy

💰⤴️ High stakes International break. We make jokes about the international break being tough to handle, but reality is there are some high stakes matches and in Europe there are spots up for grabs for the 2024 UEFA European Championships. The tournament takes place from the 14th of June to the 14th of July (roughly the same dates as Copa America) and will be hosted by Germany.

🛫✅ Trips to Germany booked. On Friday, Denmark qualified via a 2-1 win over Slovenia. The Netherlands also secured their spot with a 1-0 over Ireland on Saturday, with Weghorst scoring the winning goal in the 12th minute. Spain booked their spot in Germany as well as they won against Georgia 3-1. Unfortunately their young star, Gavi, is feared to have sustained a serious injury during the match.

Noteworthy—The defending champions, Italy, have set their selves up for success with a 5-2 win against Macedonia and will qualify if they avoid a loss in their upcoming match against Ukraine. Here’s the full list of the Nations who have qualified so far.

⚽🆕🆕 Connected Ball Technology. Building off of the 2022 World Cup, ADIDAs revealed the official match ball for the tournament, and they are sticking with the “smart ball” concept. The technology is meant to give the VAR crew precise data of the ball movement all to optimize the decision making of the referees. The official tournament ball is named “FUSSBALLLIEBE” which is German for “love of football”. Check out the new design here.

***Mark your calendar for December 2nd for the group drawings, as well as the next stage of ticket sales.

Premier League
Deducted a Dime

GIF via GIFER

📰 🔒️ Financial Fair Play is a Thing in the Premier League, and Everton found out. This season Premier League’s table has taken a spin, as Everton has been handed a 10-point deduction after breaking the league’s profit and sustainability rules. From 14th to 19th place, Everton are sitting pretty in relegation zone, level on points with Burnley. The Toffees were charged and referred to an independent commission in March for an alleged breach of FFP rules.

The Toffees posted a deficit of £44.7m in 2021-22, taking their total losses over the past five years to £430m, with clubs only permitted to lose £105m over a three-year period. But this three-person independent commission found that there was £19.5m more than that. Everton have indicated their intent to appeal the decision before an Independent Appeals Commission.

👀 🔍️ What about the other clubs? Leicester City may have a bone to pick with the timing of this decision. Particularly, had this point deduction happened last season then the foxes would have stayed in the Premier League and avoided relegation. So Leicester City along with 4 other clubs are considering filing a claim for compensation with the Premier League, but Leicester City is thinking of taking it a step further by suing Everton, seeking a financial reparation from the loss revenue from dropping to the Championship league.

📜 🗞️ A Premier Deduction has a nice ring to it, until it happens to you. Point deduction doesn't happen often in the Premier League. In fact the Toffees are just the third Premier League side to receive point deduction. West Ham found themselves in a close call with their signings of the Argentinian duo Carlos Teves & Javier Mascherano, but avoided deductions and just took a huge fine instead.

Middlesbrough’s negativo trio. January 1997, cold winter for the Boro as they were the first team in Premier League history to receive a point deduction. What did it for them? Then manager Bryan Robson claimed he was without his entire 23-man squad due to illness/injury and therefore unable to name a full roster. Boro further failed to provide required proof and were docked three points along with a £50k fine.

🫣 😨 Pandora doesn’t go back in the box, it only comes out. Everton’s punishment comes amid table-leader Manchester City facing 115 charges, while Chelsea are under investigation after reports of payments in the tens of millions were made during former-owner Roman Abramovich’s tenure. Everton’s due process paves the road for several other heavy hitters to go down the tunnel and meet these independent commissions at the end of that tunnel.