The Teenage Wasteland Derby 🔥

Hail GFOP! 

I type with fingers filled with a giddy excitement for the DeNiro-Pacino Liverpool-Arsenal rumble to come. We are blessed to have such an epic clash in our lives so early in the season that we can overreact to like a shiver of sharks attracted to fresh chum.

I hope you have had a good week. If not, remember it could always be worse – you could support Manchester United. Their League Cup defeat against fourth-tier Grimsby Town was remarkable to witness. Ruben Amorim arrived at Manchester United as a great young systems coach 301 days ago. Since then, he has won just seven out of 29 Premier League games, led United to their worst-ever Premier League finish, lost to Ange’s Tottenham in the Europa League final and has just suffered this latest humiliation. His next three games are against Burnley, Manchester City and Chelsea. How long does he last? At least the Grimsby goalkeeper cares about your answer. 💀

ii. Highlight of my week – speaking to Fabrizio Romano and Liverpool’s ex-data genius Ian Graham about the transfer window from two very different perspectives. I adore Ian and learn so much every time we speak. Pound for pound, his appearance on our most recent episode of Running The Game might be the best transfer window conversation out there. 📊

iii. I sat down with Sean McVay, head coach of the Los Angeles Rams, an avid Arsenal supporter, and, to borrow a line from the newly-engaged Taylor Swift, a human exclamation point. His boundless energy and enveloping zest for life is so infectious. It was truly a joy. We spoke about his friendship with Mikel Arteta, choosing football over soccer, and the virtues of self-betterment. What a man. Watch it here and add a little bit of enthusiasm to your day. 🐏

iv. In a rare change of pace, I'm handing off writing duties today to our newsletter director, Max. He'll be taking you through the full slate of Premier League fixtures below, but have no fear, I'll be back next Friday... I am actually away for 24 hours with my brother Nige who is in New York. Even though I am off, I did get up at 3 a.m. this morning to spend some time with Mo Salah to talk about what drives Liverpool’s Mentality Monster superpower, his burgeoning relationship with Hugo Ekitike, and what it feels like to let his daughters keep his trophies in their bedrooms. That conversation drops tomorrow at noon and is, I hope, a bolt of joy and meaning that will lift your life. ♥️

v. After the weekend, we slap into an international break. The U.S. team called up has triggered a seismic shockwave. Christian Pulisic back, but no Weston McKennie, Johnny Cardoso, Matt Turner, Tanner Tessmann, Gio Reyna, Haji Wright or Cameron Carter-Vickers. Twelve of the 23 players come from MLS. It feels like one of those deconstructed dishes in a super chef Michelin star restaurant where the traditional dish is presented in its separate components rather than assembled as a whole. We will discuss it more in the international break to come – we have a host of shows launching next week to break down where we are with just four camps until the World Cup. This smacks of a squad for whom the coach is still battling to define his culture, while still working out the core of his side. We are very much in “The Mannequin Strikes Back Era”. Send me your questions for Herc Gomez and Clint Dempsey here. 🇺🇸 

More: USMNT roster might hamper World Cup preparations.

vi. Son Heung-Min's home debut in Los Angeles is going to be the climax of the week. I cannot wait to watch. MLS is going to have a crossover cultural moment. We will break it down with wonder in the podcast with Rory Smith, which will drop on Tuesday next week. 🍫🍊 

Savor your football.

Courage,
ROG

This Week at MIB HQ 📣

Live in NYC! For all our friends in New York, we’d love to see you at Terminal 5 later this month for a night of celebration featuring basketball stars Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart, and to revel in the magical kingdom that is New York sports and its singular football culture with our friends at MLS and Walmart. If you’re in town on Sept. 18, come be with us – we start at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are HERE. 🗽

ii. ICYMI, we launched Switch the Play with Larry Nance Jr. last week with our first guest, the great Bald Mamba himself, Alex Caruso, who is 100% Manchester City. Up next, we have the Pacers’ own T.J. McConnell coming on to keep going deep on the overlap between the Premier League and the NBA. Send us your questions for T.J. here, we’d love to hear ‘em. 🏀

iii. We have LOVED THE WEEKEND IN OUR DISCORD. You have all made us laugh so much and the games are more enjoyable when you’re riding the highs, lows, and VAR-induced meltdowns with your fellow GFOPs. As we all know, football is better with friends and, now, matchdays are better with Discord. Join us here.

iv. From the stage in NYC to your living room. Add some extra joy to your weekend and watch Rog, David Moyes, James Tarkowski, Séamus Coleman, and Iliman Ndiaye with our MiB Everton Special on Peacock tomorrow at noon. 📺

To the Football 🍻

By Max Bonem

Liverpool vs. Arsenal (Sunday, 11:30 a.m. ET, USA)

Turns out this Premier League season is officially a teenage wasteland. Although, what are the odds that Liverpool’s 16-year-old Rio Ngumoha or Arsenal’s 15-year-old Max Dowman know who The Who is? While Arteta’s Gunners arrive at Anfield still basking in the glow of their near-perfect day at the Emirates against Leeds last Saturday, Liverpool were just lucky to get out of Tyneside in one piece. Rio’s euphoric 100th-minute winner at St James’ Park earned the Reds three points while they looked borderline outmatched by a 10-man Newcastle side who had a point to prove amidst Isak’s summer of rest and relaxation. Now that Arsenal’s new No. 9 has remembered how to score and Eberechi Eze is likely to make his debut, even without Saka and Ødegaard, Slot and co. will need to find some cohesion if they want to do anything but simply survive on Sunday.

Tottenham vs. Bournemouth (Saturday, 10 a.m. ET, Peacock)

Spurs are absolutely cooking at the moment as Thomas Frank has transformed this team from chaos incarnate to a high-functioning, cohesive unit with one goal in mind: to win. Even without Maddison or Kulusevski, Tottenham have looked creatively inspired thanks to Richarlison, a resurgent Brennan Johnson, and Mohammed Kudus, who seems poised to prove that Spurs are better off without Eze or Gibbs-White. Bournemouth are still finding their footing, but with Antoine Semenyo looking like one of the season’s early breakouts, they’ll at least give Tottenham’s defense, who are yet to give up a goal this season, some problems.

More: Spurs’ current vibes are so good that they even wished Ange a happy 60th birthday this week.

Brighton vs. Manchester City (Sunday, 9 a.m. ET, Peacock) 

With the transfer window shutting on Monday, Pep seems no closer to a goal-keeping solution than he was last Saturday. Ederson’s somehow still wandering the halls of the Etihad, James Trafford was lucky to get out of City’s lackluster loss to Spurs with all his limbs in tact (and potentially still as the starter), and there’s no official word yet on Donnarumma’s rumored arrival. In the meantime, they’ll head to the south coast to play a Brighton side that made Jack Grealish look like the player City signed for $135 million in 2021, rather than the one City ground to a halt over the past three seasons.

More: Early missteps show Guardiola’s rebuild of City remains a work in progress.

Chelsea vs. Fulham (Saturday, 7:30 a.m. ET, Peacock)

No Cole Palmer? No problem. Faced with a last-minute injury scratch for their star playmaker, the rest of the Chelsea squad did something against West Ham that they seemed allergic to last season – they scored goals. While Fulham are a tougher matchup than Graham Potter’s side–in that Fulham are a functioning football team–Maresca appears to have rediscovered the formula that helped the Blues win the Club World Cup earlier this summer. While Palmer continues rehabbing, aka going undercover at Notting Hill Carnival, a big piece of that formula will be 18-year-old Estêvão, who showed last week why the world’s biggest fan of chippy chips isn’t the only Chelsea player who could play on the AND1 Mixtape Tour.

Manchester United vs. Burnley (Saturday, 10 a.m. ET, Peacock)

Manchester United have been weighed, measured, and found wanting. Or in other words, they’ve just been slapped by the fish. A return to Old Trafford might help this disheveled United side re-find the form they started the season with against Arsenal when they somehow came out of a loss looking like a top-six team. But as what’s already become routine, we’ll have to see which version of Amorim’s new-look squad decides to show up this weekend.

Wolves vs. Everton (Saturday, 10 a.m. ET, Peacock)

Rog writes: Everton are flying so high post-Big Dickinson Energy debut glory. We are Jack Grealish’s team now and he is perfect. I could not be more excited about Tyler Dibling. We are becoming a club filled with players who wear tiny shin pads. Tyler will fit right in. I don’t even know who we are anymore. Everton suddenly have a number of attackers who can run with the ball and not lose it. Who can, in fact, create and caress and flummox all those around them. They can even do the goals. I had to look that last word up. And Beto. This level of happiness – songs like this being composed – can only lead to anti-climax this weekend…

More Football, Did Ya Say? ⚽️

😱 Simply put, the best goal you’ll see this week.

🔱 The exact moment Grimsby Town supporters will never ever forget.

🏆 This season’s Champions League draw is set. There are a lot of tasty matchups to get excited about, but here are three early favorites:

• Trent Alexander-Arnold’s Real Madrid will visit Anfield to play Liverpool in the League Phase.

• Similarly, Manchester City will welcome back Kevin De Bruyne and his new blue club, Napoli.

• Real Madrid will make the furthest trip east in the history of the tournament when they fly 4,000 miles to Almaty, Kazakhstan to face debutants FC Kairat.

• Also, Bayer Leverkusen, who are coached by former United manager Erik ten Hag, truly give zero f*cks.

The Correspondent w/ Rory Smith, Issue #3: Chelsea’s Never-Ending Math Equation 💰

Rory writes: It is hard to say which is the most impressive piece of business. At first glance, perhaps, it is convincing Burnley to commit $30 million of the club’s precious promotion windfall to sign Lesley Ugochukwu, a French midfielder who spent last season as a regular fixture in a Southampton team who will be remembered, statistically, as one of the worst sides ever to grace the Premier League.

Still, perhaps there are mitigating circumstances. Ugochukwu is young. He was one of Southampton’s better players, even if that is quite a low bar. He is industrious, dynamic, a rough outline of a very modern midfielder. Maybe that price tag is not so surprising.

How about Armando Broja, then, a striker who has scored two Premier League goals in three seasons? The 23-year-old’s most recent loan spell, at Everton last year, saw him resolutely fail to win a consistent place at a side that was so lacking in cutting edge it eventually decided Beto was a viable option…

Read the full newsletter here 📧

More Great Football Around the World 🌎

Lecce vs. AC Milan (Today, 2:45 p.m. ET, Paramount+) 🇮🇹

The Rossoneri’s season did not get off to the start that Christian Pulisic, Luka Modrić and company were hoping for last weekend when they lost at home to Cremonese. But a new week means new opportunities for Milan to try to remember that they were once quite good, and they head to Lecce today to play the last team to reach safety and avoid relegation in Serie A last season. Fun fact: Lecce is the southernmost mainland team playing in Serie A this season, while Cagliari, who play in Sardinia, are technically a few degrees further south.

Rayo Vallecano vs. Barcelona (Sunday, 3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN+) 🇪🇸

If you look at Barcelona’s season so far, you could say they’re doing typical Barca things by winning their first two games and trotting out a few new world-class players. But if you look closely, you’ll see that they bested a 10-man Mallorca side in week one, and only just squeaked past recently-promoted Levante last Saturday thanks to a 91st-minute own goal. And while Rayo Vallecano sit in eighth, which is exactly where they finished in La Liga last season, they do have a striker named Jorge de Frutos, which seems reason enough to support Los Franjirrojos this or any weekend.

Millwall vs. Wrexham (Saturday, 10 a.m. ET, Paramount+) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Three games into the season and it’s not hard to imagine the Red Dragons playing “The Scientist” on repeat in the locker room at the STōK Cae Ras, quietly repeating to themselves, “Nobody said it was easy, No one ever said it would be so hard…” A draw and two losses isn’t quite the start that Wrexham had in mind as they seek their fourth straight promotion and this week they’ll take their refurbished squad to the one and only “f*cking Millwall,” who currently sit in eighth, which is exactly where they finished in last season’s Championship as well. One could say they’re the Rayo Vallecano of England’s second division, if you think about it.

NWSL - Orlando Pride vs. Gotham FC (Tonight, 8 p.m. ET, Prime) 🇺🇸

Nine games remain in what is rapidly becoming a race for second place. Reigning champs Orlando Pride were dealt a likely fatal blow this week in their efforts to retain their title, as star striker Barbra Banda was placed on the season-ending injury list. With 13 goals for her side in last year’s winning run, her loss will be felt as the team balance finishing the season strong with their CONCACAF Champions Cup obligations. Meanwhile, opponents Gotham are also struggling for form two years on from their Championship win and one year on from “Super Team” allegations. Only one win in their last five outings has them sitting in eighth. Both sides remain in playoff contention going into tonight, but Gotham could drop out if any of the three teams below them were to pick up points later this weekend.

New Club Means Fresh New Balance Kicks ⚽️

Eze is northbound, and we can't wait to see what he does. Shop the latest Furons HERE. Furon - crafted for speed.

MiB Mad Libs 📝

This week’s phrase is: “The only thing stopping Jack Grealish from making this year’s EPL team of the season is _______.”

Email us your submissions to be in contention to win a coveted MiB patch.

There were loads of fantastic submissions this week, but there can only be one winner: Anthony Barbush.

“Eberechi Eze choosing Arsenal over Spurs is the equivalent of Andie choosing Blane over Duckie.”

Anthony, we thought the ending to Grimsby Town vs. Manchester United was the best thing we’d see all week. And then, your submission came along. This is tip-top, send us your postal address and we will get you a patch. 💙

Introducing Pet FC’s Newest Member: Emma 🐱

We have partnered with the two-legged people at Purina to create Pet FC, a new initiative where we will be featuring YOUR four-legged friends that show a true love of football on par with their human counterparts.

This tabby cat from New York LOVES sharing a name with USWNT coach Emma Hayes, and is an incredible goalkeeper. She is a huge Gotham FC and USWNT fan, and is patiently waiting for her national team call up. 🧤😻

Do you have a great football story involving the dog or cat in your life? Click the link below to submit your pets and pet stories, and we will be regularly featuring the best of the best here in the Raven and on our social channels. What's more, we have Purina prize packs for every pet featured.

Submit your Pet FC stories here 🐾

Not Football and All the Better for It 📖

• Here’s How A Man Accidentally Bought 10,400 Greg Briley Rookie Cards. A cautionary tale about shopping online and supporting the Seattle Mariners.

• An incomplete list of things Jane Austen disliked. She would've LOVED Substack though.

• Holy Ground: Bob’s House.

• Belgium Leads The World With Most Calories Per Person. Ireland ranked #4 and UK not even charting. Justice.

• #TobyCarvery: How the World Fell in Love With a Summer of British Chaos. 

• The people long for “Storage Wars”: The secrets of lost luggage auctions: I bought four bags for £100. What would I find inside?

A GFOP Writes… ✍️

Steven writes: Hello MIB! I was a very less than casual soccer fan prior to 2020. I would only watch the international tournaments because I always knew when it was on and where to watch it.  But I always enjoyed watching it and I knew who the countries were when they played.  When it came to clubs,I never knew where or when to watch!  Then when COVID happened and the world was a dark place a friend of mine convinced me to get Peacock so I could watch the premiere league as "project restart" kicked off.  

I had no idea who to root for and just blindly decided to follow my friend in his fandom and support a small, not at all rich club by the name of Chelsea F.C. It was weird with no fans in the stands but I found myself loving the sport and purely for the sport. Just a bunch of lads hoofing the ball in the back of the net on a Saturday. 

I found myself learning much more about the history of European soccer and watching highlights and classic matches on YouTube. Even when Chelsea weren't playing I found myself watching all the matches and quickly trying to find how I could watch the champions league. 

I learned through connecting with other fans on the Internet how much this game meant to people and how beautiful it could be. My sister in law lives in London with her British wife and they are a family of Gunnars while my father in law sings "you'll never walk alone.". It makes keeping an eye on the table very tense at times but has added another layer of love in our family.  

I used to not know why everyone in London mocked Tottenham so much, and now I own N'Golo Kante's jersey.  

Courage,
Steven C

Max writes: Hello Steven, I was struck by your email not just because I also only became obsessed with the Premier League during Project Restart, but because I too chose Chelsea as my team for completely arbitrary reasons. In fact, I originally planned to support Wolves, solely because I thought their full team name sounded like one of the great houses from “Game of Thrones.” Luckily, a life-long Arsenal fan recommended I choose a Big Six side, and after crossing off the other five clubs for various superstitious and/or biased reasons, he suggested Chelsea because of Pulisic being on the team at the time.

Like you, I spent much of 2020 watching old match highlights and classic games on YouTube and asking important questions like, “Why don’t more goalkeepers wear cool headgear like Petr Čech?” and “Between Pedro and Olivier Giroud, who consumes more Drakkar Noir on a monthly basis?” In short, I felt a whole world open up and within it found a community of people who were just as happy as I was to wake up and have a pint first thing Saturday morning while watching a game occurring an ocean away.

It’s beautiful that you’ve been able to connect with your sister’s wife and her family in a whole new way, and while Gunners and Blues fans might not see eye-to-eye on much (other than late-era Raz not being a great addition to either of our sides), we can both agree that mocking Tottenham, no matter how many trophies they win, will never get old. Let’s go Blues!

Keep sending your stories and questions to [email protected].

To Better Days Ahead for All.

Let’s not take a moment watching football together for granted and make great memories.

Big Love.

Courage,
Rog, Max and the whole MiB team

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