Masterplan behind Liverpool title win, Copa del Rey chaos, Wrexham rise again

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Hello! It’s 20 times for Liverpool. They’re Premier League champions once more. Who could resist a good selfie?

On the way:

Slot machine’s jackpot: How Liverpool won title No 20 – with transition from Klopp the key

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The title won by Liverpool in 2020 was unique in a couple of respects. It was their first of the Premier League era — barren years for a club with such historical punching power — and it had the distinction of being lifted behind closed doors at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Their half of the city made up for that stolen moment yesterday, exploding in colour as another domestic championship dropped. Title No 20, drawing Liverpool level with Manchester United, had been the club’s to lose since the first weekend of November, when they grasped the nettle and locked in. Say what you like about the strength of the division but a 26-game unbeaten streak would break its back in most seasons.

‘Transition’ is a buzzword in football, and Liverpool in 2024-25 are the epitome of it: shifting from Jurgen Klopp to Arne Slot without missing a beat. Sure, Slot has made his mark. You’ll have seen photos of the famous coffee bar where the club’s players hang out and Mohamed Salah holds court. This James Pearce epic charts the tireless video analysis, the cycle of meetings and Slot’s calm rhetoric — with the exception, that is, of the afternoon when he almost smashed the dressing room door off its hinges.

But to me, the defining aspect of Liverpool’s season — perhaps the thing that made an unexpected title feasible — is the continuity of Klopp passing the baton to Slot. If the Dutchman was at all tempted to try to reinvent the wheel at Anfield, he thought better of it. And the results speak for themselves.

Insight and inheritance

In hindsight, Klopp announcing his intention to leave Liverpool far in advance of him quitting did them a favour. Coaches rarely depart so smoothly. The vast majority are unceremoniously sacked after losing their grip.

Klopp and Slot were able to speak in productive fashion over the summer, giving the 46-year-old some valuable insight into the squad he was inheriting. Rather than abandoning Klopp’s gegenpressing, Slot tweaked the intensity of it and brought greater control to the football. Even the padel courts installed by Klopp at the club’s training ground are still in vogue.

Managers don’t always appreciate lingering legacies. Some have to be seen to be different, or to make clean breaks from the past. Slot, who told the BBC that “what mattered most was that the team (Klopp) left behind was able to win the trophy”, possessed the sense to realise there was lots to like about the shoes he was filling. Perhaps the defining factor in a rousing year was the Dutchman’s ability to leave his ego at the door.

• You’ll find a special ‘Champions!’ edition from the team at the Walk On Podcast on Apple and Spotify this morning. Luckily, James Pearce recorded it before he hit the boozer.

News round-up

• A stunning victory for Arsenal Women, who took Champions League specialists Lyon to the cleaners in the semi-finals of this season’s competition. It means a first final appearance since 2007. They’ll face Spanish opposition after Barcelona wiped the floor with Chelsea.
• Tottenham Hotspur want the Premier League to rearrange their game against Aston Villa, scheduled for Sunday, May 18, to help with a possible Europa League final appearance. Villa, however, are not having it, in case it hinders their Champions League qualification chances.
• More cuts at Manchester United. In other news, the sky is blue. Director of scouting Steve Brown is leaving his job, with redundancies hitting the recruitment ranks hard. After a last-gasp 1-1 draw at Bournemouth yesterday, another huge Europa League week lies ahead of them.
• Confirmation that Ipswich Town have been relegated from the Premier League after losing to Newcastle United. That’s all three promoted clubs heading straight back down, without drawing blood. Not good.
• A midfielder in League Two, Tranmere Rovers’ Sam Finley, has been given a 13-match ban for using a homophobic slur during a match in January — the longest suspension ever imposed in England for that offence.🖱️ Most clicked in Friday’s TAFC: Tifo Football’s sneaky ball boy video.

Copa chaos: Barca win after referee’s tears, Ancelotti set to leave for Brazil

Premier Sports

Barcelona won their 32nd Copa del Rey on Saturday, an extra-time goal from Jules Kounde putting Real Madrid in their place (above), but Spanish football doesn’t make it easy to accentuate the positives.

The main consequence of the result is that we’re now certain Carlo Ancelotti will exit Madrid at the end of season and take charge of Brazil as head coach, in time for the 2026 World Cup. Mario Cortegana has the exclusive details of an imminent separation.

That revelation, though, was only a fraction of the drama surrounding the final. On Thursday, Real’s in-house TV station broadcast a montage of alleged mistakes made by match referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea in previous games involving them. A day later, De Burgos Bengoetxea broke down in tears at a press conference, speaking about the impact of criticism on his family. “That’s really f***ed up,” he said.

His comments sparked rumours that Madrid would withdraw from the final, rumours they denied — but only via an official communication which berated De Burgos Bengoetxea for “unfortunate and inappropriate statements”.

Against that backdrop, there was no chance of Saturday passing off quietly and by the time extra-time ended, Antonio Rudiger, Lucas Vasquez and Jude Bellingham had all been sent off. Rudiger, who was on the bench after being substituted, received a red card for throwing an object onto the pitch in anger at a foul awarded against Kylian Mbappe.

The aggro is an extension of a concerted attack on officials in Spain, something Madrid are in the thick of. Whether their complaints are legitimate or not, it can’t be escaping anybody that the onslaught is getting out of control.

Wrexham rise again: EPL in sight as Reynolds and McElhenney seal third promotion in row

To do justice to Wrexham’s third straight promotion — never before seen in England’s top five divisions — let’s strip away the celebrity angles (as all-consuming as viral videos of Danny DeVito can be, and as salty as Charlton Athletic’s Nathan Jones was in describing Wrexham as “the circus”).

Behind the razzmatazz is a rational business plan, or so it seems to me after reading Richard Sutcliffe’s take on their quantum leap from non-League to the Championship. They’ve jacked up their wage bill without going all Birmingham City on transfer fees. They used an insurance policy to cover £850,000 of bonuses. The Ryan Reynolds-Rob McElhenney axis has been reinforced by support from the wealthy Allyns, a New York-based family.

Like Slot at Liverpool, Reynolds and McElhenney aren’t letting their egos muddy the bigger picture. Work is about to start on Wrexham’s stadium, with the longer-term intention of raising its capacity to 28,000 — the sort of attendance Brighton are thriving on in the Premier League, and comfortably beyond those of Brentford and Bournemouth. They’re consistently planning one step ahead.

Crucially, the buzz around them doesn’t look like blowing itself out. Money gravitates towards Wrexham and celebrity endorsements do, too. There’s no better example of an entity harnessing global appeal. At the start, I had no expectation of this project reaching the Premier League. As time goes on, I see no way that it doesn’t.

Wembley notebook: Man City show nous to set up FA Cup final with Palace dreamers  

Manchester City were in the semi-finals of the FA Cup for the seventh season running yesterday. I took up a seat in the crowd at Wembley but thousands of theirs were unsold.

A late-ish Sunday kick-off in London didn’t help but the bottom line is that the novelty of these ties has worn off for City. They’ve been here so many times before, and very recently.

That said, their big-time experience told against Nottingham Forest. The crafty Rico Lewis pulled the strings in midfield and scored after a minute. Forest, who last won the FA Cup in 1959, froze and lost 2-0.

City’s year has been messy but their know-how is intact. Which begs the question: can Crystal Palace, who hammered Aston Villa in the other semi and have never lifted the cup, bridge the gap in experience more successfully when the final comes around next month? Frankly, I doubt it.

• Quiz answer (from Friday’s TAFC question): The seven London venues which have staged FA Cup semi-finals were Wembley (old), Wembley (new), Stamford Bridge, Kennington Oval, White Hart Lane, Highbury and Crystal Palace. Fair play if you cracked that one.

Catch a match

(Selected games, times ET/UK): Championship: Leeds United vs Bristol City, 3pm/8pm — CBS, Paramount+, Amazon Prime/Sky Sports; Serie A: Udinese vs Bologna, 12.30pm/5.30pm — CBS, Paramount+, Amazon Prime/OneFootball; Lazio vs Parma, 2.45pm/7.45pm — Paramount+/OneFootball.

And finally…

Sky Sports

A Luton Town fan in our office is forever on at TAFC about the club’s misfortune, and for real: some of it has been dreadful.

But we won’t hear another word about bad luck after the 90th minute of their Championship game against Coventry City on Saturday yielded a comedy winner (above). It was the moment the Big Man reached down, touched Kenilworth Road and said “this one’s for you”. And it might just keep them up.

(Top photo: Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

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