This Weekend in Football: A Recap

Hello all 🙂 Hope you’re all smiling through the Monday blues. 

Today we talk about:

• Sir Bobby Charlton, as we say goodbye to a titan of the game. 

• This weekend’s matches, and why they were among the most exciting we’ve seen this year.

• And finally, the Jamaican Women’s National Team, and why the players that just got them their best World Cup finish ever are now refusing to take the field. 

But first, here’s your FRONT THREE. 

The Front Three

Remembering a legend. Tributes have poured in for Sir Bobby Charlton after news broke of the Manchester United and England great’s passing on Sunday. United announced that they would take time to honor Sir Bobby before their home matches against Copenhagen on Tuesday and City on Sunday. Our thoughts are with his family. 

Putellas in a league of her own. On a lighter note, Spanish player Alexis Putellas has etched herself in Barcelona history, as over the weekend she became Barcelona Femení’s all-time leading goalscorer. If you’re not familiar with her game, then here are some highlights to get familiar. 

Papu Gómez banned. The Argentine midfielder and recent World Cup winner was handed a two-year doping ban on Sunday after terbutaline, a banned substance, was found in his sample. Papu maintains his innocence, taking to instagram over the weekend to explain that his son’s cough syrup was the reason for him accidentally ingesting the substance. Gómez can appeal the decision and his club, Italian side Monza, have stated that they will "evaluate the next procedural steps to take".

Recapping This Season’s Most Exciting Weekend Yet

We don’t usually do weekend recaps, but after a weekend as action-packed as this one, I pretty much had no choice. So let’s get into it. 

The weekend started off with a bang over in the Czech Republic’s top league, as FC Zlín hosted FK Mladá Boleslav in a match that would give us one of the wackiest scorelines of the season thus far. 9-5 was the final score in favor of the visitors.

Moving on from that 14-goal thriller (never thought I would write those words), we’re switching over to Kazakhstan, where FC Ordobasy picked up some hardware by clinching their first-ever Kazakh Premier League title with a 3-1 win over Shakhter. With this win, Ordobasy is slaying a massive dragon as they go six points clear of FC Astana, last year’s champions who were attempting to win their fifth title in seven years. 

Here’s the moment Ordobasy lifted the trophy:

Amazing stuff. However, they weren’t the only champions crowned this weekend. Let’s head over to Finland, where the title race reached a dramatic conclusion. 

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Finland’s top league, the way they crown their champions is a bit different:

• After each team plays 22 games of regular season football, the league splits in two. The top six teams go to a playoff where they all play each other, and the team with the most points after all 27 matches wins the league. The same is done for the bottom six teams, with the three stragglers doomed to relegation. 

• HJK Helsinki are similar to the “Bayern” of the Finnish league, and they went into the playoffs top of the table, eager to make it three consecutive titles in a row. 

• Heading into Saturday’s match in the capital, Kuopion Palloseura, or KuPS needed a three-goal win away from home to steal the league title from Helsinki, and they certainly gave the eventual champions a scare, finishing the day 2-1 victors. However, Helsinki did just enough to get over the line and win the big prize. 

• The result is especially brutal for KuPS, as this is the third consecutive year they’ve finished in second behind HJK. And in each of the previous two seasons they missed the title by just a point. 

Helsinki will know that KuPS will keep coming back for their crown. But for now, it’s time to pop the champagne. 

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Before we move on, I just want to rattle off some quickfire honorable mentions:

• Oldham Athletic and Rochdale played a whopping 16 minutes of added time as the Manchester side defeated Rochdale 4-3 in new manager Micky Mellon’s pulsating first match in charge. 

• Arsenal came back from 2-0 down at Stamford Bridge to steal a point from the jaws of defeat.  I feel like I’m obligated to say the words “mentality monsters” right now, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do. 

• Oh, and for those of you who are into advanced stats, Internacional beat Santos 7-1 in the Brazilian league with an xG of 1.61. The highlights are worth a watch. 

To close this off, let’s talk about 17-year old Marc Guiu, who scored just seconds into his Barcelona debut to give the Blaugrana the 1-0 win yesterday. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that USL club Sacramento Republic’s Da’vian Kimbrough was the latest wonderkid to give me an existential crisis, and I’d like to report that Guiu has now stolen that title. But enough about me, here’s his family reacting to the goal. Take in all of this wholesomeness:

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Jamaica Women’s National Team Players Refusing to Take the Field

On Saturday, Jamaican goalkeeper Rebecca Spencer released a statement on behalf of the Jamaica Woman’s National Team (known to their fans as The Reggae Girlz), explaining that the 2023 World Cup players would not be participating in this month’s upcoming Gold Cup Qualifiers in order to protest negligence by Jamaica’s Football Federation. The statement cites three main issues as the main cause of the fracture between Jamaica’s players and the JFF:

• Lack of communication

• Poor management

• Delayed payments

In order to understand where these players are coming from, we looked into each of these allegations one by one.  

Lack of communication

• Just three weeks ago, the JFF announced that they would not renew Lorne Donaldson’s contract, leaving less than a month for a new manager to come in and get settled before Gold Cup Qualifiers. 

• Former assistant Xavier Gilbert has been appointed interim manager for the team’s two upcoming qualifiers. However, Spencer alleges in her statement that the payers did not find out who their new head coach was until the rest of the world did, “three days prior to [their] report date through social media, despite [their] efforts to have direct communication with the JFF”. 

Poor management

• The JFF has received numerous complaints from its players for failing to properly handle tournament logistics. 

• In another statement released by the Jamaican Women, Spencer alleges that the Jamaican players “have sat down with the federation to respectfully express concerns resulting from subpar planning, transportation, accommodations, training conditions, compensation, communication, nutrition, and accessibility to proper resources”. 

• Quick example: during last summer’s CONCACAF Nations League, Jamaica’s men’s side was left stranded in Suriname after a match. In a letter to the JFF after returning, the Reggae Boyz called out the federation for improper hotel accommodations and travel arrangements, alleging that they had to sleep on sofa beds during their trip.

• The Jamaican players have been voicing their concerns about this lack of organization for months now, and The Athletic provided some telling quotes from Marlo Sweatman, midfielder and Jamaican international: 

Delayed payments

Finally, players allege that the JFF has been delinquent in paying its players the money earned from matches. 

• Late payments have created numerous issues for the women’s national team before, as the team has been forced to turn to some pretty unconvential sources in order to raise the money required to travel to tournaments.

• In 2014, Cedella Marley, daughter of musical icon Bob Marley, raised over $300,000 USD to help keep the team afloat. 

• Money was also tight heading into this past summer’s World Cup, as the mother of one of the players launched a GoFundMe to help the team pay for travel expenses.  

• Further, the women state that they have continuously reported for duty without being paid what they’re owed. 

The Bigger Picture

Ultimately, this problem is not unique to Jamaica. 

• Football federations all over the world have come under fire for the continued mistreatment of players and lack of accountability. If you missed it, check out our issue from June 21, 2023 when we talked about how Canada’s football federation was exploring bankrupcy. 

• Recently, there was excitement over FIFA’s announcement of increased wages for women’s players. However, president of FIFA Gianni Infantino did not provide any encouraging words regarding how federations will be held accountable for paying players on time. 

• Infantino stated that while federations are responsible for paying the players, there was essentially nothing FIFA could do to guarantee that the players are actually paid in a timely manner. 

This is where we turn to you. What do you think is the reason why football federations can’t seem to treat their players properly? Reply to this email and let us know. 

Regardless, Lorne Donaldson has made his opinion on the matter very clear before his tenure as manager came to an end: “Governments and everybody, cut the bullcrap; it’s time to step up and support women’s football”. 

Full Time. Thanks so much for reading, and a special shoutout to the 152 new signings that joined Today FC since the last issue. 

More Good Stuff 👍

Before we sign off, Transfer Markt released this graphic of the highest-paid players this year. Anyone you think should/shouldn’t be on this list? You know the drill. Reply to this email and let us know. 

Take care ❤️

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