⚽ Chelsea FC = Drama

Hi all 🙂

If you’re still catching your breath from this weekend, we don’t blame you. Let’s get into it. 

But first: I wanted to take a moment to shout out our Twitter. If you want more football news and stories that we don’t report on here, drop us a follow! Here’s an example of what you can expect: 

We’ll also be announcing a giveaway there on Wednesday 👀

Now, here’s your FRONT THREE.

Cue dramatic news music

The Front Three

Napoli sack Rudi Garcia. After a disappointing start to the season, the reigning Serie A Champions have decided to part ways with the Frenchman. What put the nail in the coffin for Garcia? A 1-0 loss to relegation-threatened Empoli over the weekend, who had won just two of its previous 12 going into Sunday’s matchup. 

Argentinian clubs give presidential candidate the middle finger. In possibly the weekend’s best story, numerous Argentinian clubs spoke out against presidential candidate Javier Milei. Milei made himself the subject of all this backlash when he said that he wanted to privatize Argentinian football clubs, taking away ownership from fans. Here’s River Plate’s response, they were just one of over 40 clubs that released statements:

Scenes from the Swedes. If you haven’t been watching Sweden’s Allsvensken, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! Sweden’s top league came to a dramatic conclusion over the weekend, with Malmö FF winning the title. The Swedish giants bounced back from a disappointing 7th place finish last year, sealing the deal with a 1-0 win over IF Elfsborg yesterday. Here they are celebrating their win:

malmo_ff

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Chelsea looked…good? Again?

London’s Blues seemingly can’t help but get themselves involved in unforgettable Premier League matches lately. After their thrilling 4-1 win over Spurs last Monday, Chelsea provided us with another brilliantly entertaining 4-4 draw against treble winners Man City on Sunday. While Pochettino will certainly be upset about a few defensive lapses, for the first time in his tenure he’s starting to put together a string of good performances at a time when the team seemingly needed it most. 

• Chelsea used the home crowd to get off to a bright start in the game, but couldn’t put early half-chances away.

• City then did what they do best and took Chelsea out of the game a bit with some possession, eventually leading to Haaland being taken down in the box while trying to converge on a cross. Haaland converted from the spot (of course) to make it 1-0 to the champions. 

• Chelsea quickly battled back, however, with two goals of their own. First was Thiago Silva scoring from a corner to knot things up, then Raheem Sterling tapped in a second against his former club to give the Blues the lead. 

• Chelsea must have thought they would take a lead into halftime, but another defensive lapse off of a set piece came back to bite them with Akanji heading in a goal for City in first-half injury time.

• The second half began similarly for Chelsea, with Haaland scoring his second of the match, and one of the only goals you’ll ever see be scored by someone’s crotch. 

• Chelsea just would not go away, though,qualizing with Jackson scoring from a rebound off a Gallagher shot. Huge goal for Jackson, as the man who was struggling to find the net before this past week has now scored four in his last two. 

• Championship DNA kept showing for City, as they took the lead again in the final five minutes as Rodri's deflected shot found the net. 

• But then Chelsea’s Armando Broja added another twist in the tale by winning a penalty in added time, with Cole Palmer scoring against his old team to level the score.

Key takeaway: Chelsea took this match to City and got their reward. Instead of sitting back, Chelsea gave their creative players a chance to shine, with Sterling, Palmer, and Connor Gallagher all having a lot of success finding spaces in the attacking third. Is Chelsea’s Banter Era finally coming to an end? Reply to this email and let us know your thoughts. 

Quote of the Day

Today’s Quote of the Day comes from Luis Enrique. Here’s what he had to say about Kylian Mbappé over the weekend:

Now here’s the full un-memeified quote:

“I’m not really happy with Kylian Mbappé today. I have nothing to say about the goals. But he can help the team more, in a different way. I'll talk to him about it first, I'll never tell you what it is because it's private…Kylian is one of the best in the world. But we need more. We want him to do more.”

Contrary to popular belief, we’re not just talking about this for the drama. Luis Enrique saying something like this to the press is a huge deal. There are not many players in world football that have more influence over their clubs than Kylian Mbappé does over PSG. The French Champions have had to quell offers from Real Madrid and Saudi Arabia by giving their star an insane contract, which has made criticizing the player a difficult task for people associated with the club. Luis Enrique publicly demanding more from Mbappé is, without doubt, a first. 

Gotham’s Heroes

If you missed the NWSL Championship over the weekend, let us fill you in: 

• Gotham FC popped the champagne and took home the hardware, beating OL Reign 2-1. However, nothing came easy for them. 

• Lynn Williams and Esther Gonzalez were the heroes, scoring goals in the championship game.

• Midge Purce was the standout player and the championship game MVP, making significant contributions.

• While Megan Rapinoe and Ali Krieger were both playing their final matches, Krieger was the one who got the storybook ending, as she walked away with her first NWSL title. Rapinoe unfortunately had to be substituted after three minutes with an Achilles injury. 

• The game had a dramatic moment in stoppage time when Gotham's goalkeeper was red-carded, and an outfield player had to step in as a makeshift goalkeeper.

• Despite the challenges, Gotham dug in and saw the rest of the game out, marking the club's remarkable turnaround from the league's basement to champions.

Shoutout to any Gotham fans in the audience today. You’ve had to suffer for this one, but it was well worth it. 

Full Time. And the sun sets on another issue of Today FC. Thanks so much for reading and giving us your time today. Word of wisdom: if Chelsea’s performances have taught me anything over the past week, it’s that it’s never too late to start turning things around. Even if you’ve been losing a lot lately, you can start getting results today.

Take care ❤️

More Good Stuff 👍

Andros Towsend went on Ben Foster’s Fozcast and talked about how chicken feet are an important part of his diet 😳

Crazy situation in Norway. A reddit user pointed out that second-division team Lyn needed to win by 10 goals to secure promotion to the nation’s top league. They won 10-1 and just missed out 🤯

According to reports, Cesc Fabregas was just appointed interim manager of Como in Italy’s Serie B 👀

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