UFS 08 16 26

The Underdog Football Show Big transfers, big news Hey, hey, oh Every rumor Every move The Underdog Football Show Every league, every goal Hey, hey, oh Every story To be told The Underdog Football Show Welcome to the Underdog Football Show, I'm Chris Horberdell. The EFL is officially back and Saturday gave us a pretty good reminder of why the opening weekend is usually worth paying attention to. Bolton returned to the championship by finally beating Preston, Luton erased a two-goal halftime deficit in a seven-goal game, Lincoln played second-tier football for the first time in 65 years, and Nashville handed Inter-Miami one of its roughest nights of the season. We've also got the Women's Africa Cup of Nations final today that nobody would have predicted three weeks ago, seven Champions League places about to be decided, a major change in Liverpool's ownership structure, one of the more unusual potential takeovers anywhere in the EFL, and a transfer section with two genuinely major moves completed yesterday. We're also going to take a look at some of the lines over at Lucky Rebel for context on what's going on and what can be expected. But let's start with Bolton. Bolton Wanderers opened their championship season Saturday with a 2-1 win over Preston North End. Sam Dalby and Thierry Gale scored in the first half and the result give Bolton their first win over Preston in 25 years. More importantly for the larger picture, it was Bolton's first championship victory since March of 2019. That is a very good way to come back into the first division. Bolton have spent the better part of the last decade working back from financial crisis, administration, and a fall into League 2. Now we're not at the point where you start talking about another promotion, it's one match, but beating a local rival on opening day gives a newly promoted club exactly the kind of start that it wants. The other championship result I really wanted to watch closely was Middlesbrough against Lincoln City. Lincoln were playing in the second tier for the first time in 65 years, and they came very close to taking the game before Will Lancashire scored late to give Middlesbrough a 2-1 win. Lincoln's story is worth keeping in the back of your mind this season. They were a National League club as recently as 2017. Nine years later, they're in the championship. That progression has been built more gradually than some of the more heavily financed clubs we talk about, Now, the question is whether they can establish themselves instead of simply enjoying the novelty of being there this season. I think it's fair to say that League 1 produced the game of Saturday. Reading led Lutontown 3-1 at halftime. Luton 1-4-3. Gideon Kedua scored the winner in the 96th minute after Luton had completely flipped the match in the second half. And staying in League 1, Leicester City didn't get the immediate reset they probably wanted. They drew with Knotts County 1-1 after a bad mistake by Harry Suter allowed that last goal. It's kind of a strange thing to say about a club that won the Premier League 10 years ago and are still playing top flight football fairly recently, but that's what Leicester City are now, and League 1 just is not a division that cares about reputation. Over in the MLS, the result that mattered most on Saturday was Nashville beating Inter-Miami 4-1. Hani Mukhtar scored twice while Sam Surage also got on the score sheet. For Nashville, they moved five points clear at the top of the Eastern Conference, and it's also worth pointing out Lionel Messi missed a penalty for Miami in this one. It's an interesting result because the MLS conversations still tend to begin and kind of end with Miami, which is understandable because Messi changes the scale of attention around any club he plays for, but Nashville have earned the right to be discussed on competitive terms rather than simply as one of the teams standing between Miami and a trophy. They've been more consistent, they just beat Miami decisively in a game with real conference implications, and they're sitting at the top of the East right now. That's also why the broader MLS futures picture is worth watching rather than treating Miami as inevitable. The league still has enough parity that form and structure matter, especially once you get into the playoff format. Now the thing maybe I've wanted to talk about the most, the Women's Africa Cup of Nations. Last week we talked about Malawi being one win away from qualifying for its first Women's World Cup. Well, gang, they got that win and then they kept going. Malawi are now in the WAFCON final today against Cameroon, which is an unthinkable thing to be saying if you would have talked about this a month ago. I need to say this again, this is Malawi's first appearance in the tournament. They beat Algeria 3-1 in Wednesday's semifinal with Tabitha Chawinga scoring twice, and that came after Malawi had already beaten Ghana in the quarterfinal and secured a first-ever place in the 2027 Women's World Cup. Congratulations, ladies, that's amazing. And, you know, the story is certainly not over yet. It's moved well beyond being a nice debut. Malawi have beaten defending champions Nigeria, qualified for their first World Cup, and reached the continental final in their first WAFCON appearance. The Chawinga sisters are obviously central to all of it. Tabitha Chawinga and Tamwa Chawinga are two of the most recognizable Malawian football players in the world, and this tournament's given them a national team run that now matches the level of their club careers. Amazing and fun, and just, it epitomizes why we love football. Cameroon's route's been completely different. They beat Nigeria, won nothing in the quarterfinal, then they went against host nation Morocco. They won on poundies after a scoreless semifinal. Cameroon have been to the final three times before, and they've never won it. So today, we get either Cameroon finally winning its first African title, or Malawi completing one of the greatest debut performances in tournament history in terms of international football. How fun is that? Either outcome is a major story. And I guess before we leave the competitive stuff, Champions League qualifying reaches its final round this week. There are 14 clubs playing for seven places in the league phase. Tuesday gives us Levski Sofia vs AEK Athens, Dinago Zagreb against Viking, and Fenerbahce against Lyon. Wednesday gives us Hapoel Bereisiva against Saba, Celtic against Lask, Slovan Bratislava against Celje, and Nisei against Boda Galint. This is one of my favorite stages of European football, because the financial difference between winning and losing here can alter an entire season. 29 clubs are already in the Champions League phase. These are the final seven. And trust me, they matter. Yes, lose here and you still drop into the Europa League. It's still European football, obviously, but the money's on a completely different planet. Not the same opponents, not the same platform, not the same prestige. This matters more than you can imagine. Celtic against Lask is particularly interesting, because Celtic have repeatedly found this stage difficult in recent years. Viking are here after winning Norway's championship. Nisei has never played in the Champions League proper. Boda Galint have spent years building one of the best small club development models in Europe, and are now one tie away again. These are the matches where qualifying for a competition can mean almost as much to a club as actually playing in it. And then today, Arsenal and Man City meet in the Community Shield. It's going to give us our first competitive look at Enzo Maresca as Man City's manager, taking over after Pep left, against an Arsenal side that comes into the season as the defending Premier League champions. More big stuff here. Despite all the storylines, though, I'm kind of more interested in what the game tells us structurally than I am in trying to make the Community Shield larger than it is. How is City going to look under Enzo? How quickly can Arsenal move from being a team trying to catch City to being the team that everyone's trying to catch? And how much should expectations around Arsenal change now that winning the league's no longer theoretical? I think it's really interesting that at Lucky Rebel, Arsenal are minus 200 to win at least one major trophy this season, with no major trophy at plus 150. Arsenal are also minus 110 to go over 79 league points. It's a pretty clear statement about the level they're being judged at now. 79 points in a respectable cup would have been viewed as a strong Arsenal season not long ago. Now it's just not enough. On the other end of the Premier League, Lucky Rebel has Hull City at minus 550 to be relegated, Coventry City at minus 130, and Ipswich Town at minus 125. And by the way, how crazy is it that Coventry just keeps signing strikers now? But that aside, it tells you exactly how difficult the jump is going to be for these guys. Coventry City also open at Arsenal on Friday, which is not great for them. Hull and Ipswich have their own survival arguments, but before the season starts, the market has already separated the promoted sides pretty sharply from the rest of the established Premier League. Now to one of the biggest stories in football this week, Fenway Sports Group has agreed to sell a 30% stake in Liverpool to a consortium that includes Amit Bhatia, Jeff Bezos, and Eduardo Saverin. The deal's worth about 1.65 billion euro, with FSG retaining control of the club. Amit Bhatia is also expected to become Liverpool's vice president. I think the important distinction here is that Liverpool have not been sold. FSG remains the controlling owner, but if 30% is worth 1.65 billion euro, that transaction implies the club valuation is roughly 5.5 billion. And that is remarkable when you remember FSG bought Liverpool for about 300 million in 2010. And just a quick aside on that front, if you do want to learn more about that sale and read just an absolutely fascinating book, I'd encourage you to check out Ex-Genius by James Tippett. I am reading it right now and it's outstanding. But anyway, this sale shows why the biggest football clubs have increasingly become a separate class of global asset. The value doesn't match the season ticket sales and domestic broadcasting anymore. It's the international media, the sponsorship, the licensing, commercial rights, digital reach, real estate, and the scarcity of owning a meaningful piece of one of the world's truly global clubs. For Liverpool supporters, the practical question is, you know, what's going to change? I think the expectation is that this doesn't fundamentally rewrite the club's day-to-day football operation or suddenly produce a completely different transfer model. But you are adding another enormous amount of outside capital and another powerful group of investors to the club's ownership group. It will alter things. With the Premier League beginning this week, Lucky Rebel have Liverpool to score at least 75 league goals at minus 130. 80 plus is plus 175. One of the more useful ways to frame Liverpool this season because they have enough attacking talent that the question isn't whether they can score. It's whether the overall construction is good enough for the attack to turn into a title challenge. Now let's go down to the EFL for this week's club story. And we're talking about Northamptontown. They're in League 2 again after relegation last season. They've got a new manager in Chris Hogue. They've rebuilt a significant part of their squad. And now they might be about to get one of the strangest new ownership groups in the football league. A consortium called Sports Alpha Capital is in discussions to acquire a majority stake in the team. And one of the people involved is Alessandro Payto. Yes, that Alessandro Payto. Brazil International. AC Milan. Chelsea. Villarreal. Sao Paulo. Corinthians. Orlando City. One of the most famous young players in the world when he first arrived in Europe. Now he's potentially involved in buying Northamptontown. But there is an important wrinkle to all of this involving Payto. He is part of the consortium, but he's not leading it. And I think that story gets a little turned around. Sports Alpha Capital had previously been working on a potential takeover of Colchester United. For, you know, reasons, it didn't happen. The group then moved their attention to Northamptontown. And that part of the story is almost more interesting than the celebrity name. Because this isn't simply a former footballer deciding he always loved Northamptontown and he wants to own the club. It appears to be an investment group actively looking for an EFL club where it believes it can deploy capital and build value quickly. Fun plug here for anybody who's listening and enjoys my other shows. I actually have Tom Cliff of Northamptontown on The Beautiful Game this week. Talking about the club, everything that's going on, and everything surrounding it. So check that out. It comes out Monday. But the timing of all of this matters because Northamptontown had just been relegated. They're back in League 2. Like I said, Chris Hogue is coming as the manager. They've already got seven new players in the door. More are probably coming before the end of the window. That means an ownership group would not be acquiring a stable club sitting comfortably at mid-table. They're arriving at a point where the sporting direction has already been reset a little bit. And Northamptontown are exactly the level of a club where a well-run capital injection could make a major difference without requiring anything close to Premier League money. Better recruitment infrastructure, academy investment, training facilities, data, medical support, commercial work, and potentially cleaning up the stadium a little bit. The amounts required to materially improve these things at League 2 levels are enormous by normal standards, but they're tiny compared to what investors now spend simply acquiring minority positions in elite clubs like we just talked about. Of course, there's obvious risk. Changing owners doesn't automatically make a club smarter. And the fact that this group looked at Colchester before Northamptontown tells you this is an investment prospect, not a romantic local takeover. It doesn't make it bad inherently, it just means supporters should evaluate the plan rather than the famous names attached to it. What does Sports Alpha Capital actually want Northamptontown to become? How much capital is committed? What's the timeline? What happens if promotion doesn't come quickly? What role does Payto actually have beyond being the most recognizable person in the group? Those are questions that matter. For now, it is still a proposed takeover rather than a completed one, but yeah, it's going to happen. And when it does go through, Northamptontown having Payto involved in its ownership would be one of the more unexpected EFL developments of the summer. Now let's talk about transfers. We start with the biggest confirmed move on Saturday. PSG have signed Ferran Torres from Barcelona. The contract runs through 2031. The clubs didn't disclose a fee, although reporting says it's right around 50 million euro or so. Torres is 26. The move comes less than a month after he scored Spain's extra time winner against Argentina in the World Cup final. He also scored 21 goals with three assists and 49 appearances for Barcelona last year. And I think the fit might be more interesting than the headline. It's really, really clean. Luis Enrique already coached Torres with Spain. He knows how he moves. He knows how he can use him. And Torres can play from the middle or either side without needing the attack redesigned after him. PSG lost Gonzalo Ramos to AC Milan earlier this summer. So there was a distinct need for another forward. This feels less like PSG collecting another expensive attacker and more like a manager specifically getting a guy he already trusts. And that tends to work better than the former. The other major move was Cristian Romero leaving Tottenham for Atletico Madrid. Romero signed also through 2031. The fee wasn't officially announced, but reporting has it around 34 million euro. He leaves Tottenham after 156 appearances and 13 goals. He captained the club, helped them to win the 24-25 Europa League and was named UEFA's player of the season after that competition. So Madrid makes a lot of sense here. Cristian Romero is aggressive. He wants to defend forward. He likes contact. He's comfortable stepping out of the line and turning defensive actions into immediate transitions. Diego Simeone can work with that. And the question for Tottenham, though, is harder. You're not just replacing a center back. You're replacing your captain and one of the most experienced defenders you had, somebody you trusted, somebody who played with a very clear edge. That is going to be more of a challenge for the team. Lucky Rebel has Tottenham over 62 Premier League points at even money, which is a useful benchmark for what we can expect from them this year. Although, given all of their moves, I honestly don't know if we have any idea what we can expect from them this year. If Tottenham are going to clear that, replacing the personality and reliability they just lost at center back matters as much as replacing the talent. There's also a couple of smaller moves that are worth watching. Aston Villa are reportedly set to sign goalkeeper Zion Suzuki, while Emiliano Martinez has drawn interest from Juventus. And this would be significant for a bunch of reasons if it happens. Zion Suzuki is young enough to develop, but he's experienced enough that he wouldn't be coming in simply as a backup project. And if Martinez leaves, Villa would be trying to replace both the top goalkeeper and one of the strongest personalities in their dressing room. And, you know, we just talked about that with Tottenham. Jed Spence is another name moving towards a very interesting fit, with Inter Milan strongly linked to the Tottenham wingback. And I think this makes tactical sense. Italian football has often been a good landing spot for athletic wide defenders who benefit from playing as widebacks rather than traditional fullbacks. Jed Spence already has experience in Serie A from his loan with Genoa. So this kind of makes sense here. In one that, I don't know, makes a little bit less sense to me, Arna Engels has been linked with a move from Celtic to West Ham. You know, not the biggest fee of the window, but it is going to be arguably the biggest fee in the EFL championship history if it happens at the reported 30 million number. And the broader Newcastle-Sunderland picture is worth watching too, I think, because Lucky Rebel has Newcastle at minus 300 to finish above Sunderland as the Premier League's top northeast club, with Sunderland at plus 200. After all the turnover around Newcastle this summer, the gap becomes something worth tracking after actual league games start. On the women's side, the biggest move of the week is Jenna Nightswonger returning to the NWSL. Bay FC acquired Nightswonger from Arsenal for an undisclosed fee and signed her through 2028. She's 25. She was the fourth overall pick in the 2023 NWSL draft, won Rookie of the Year and NWSL championship with Gotham in that first season. She's been part of the United States team that won an Olympic gold in Paris in 2014. It's a very, very good addition for Bay. You're getting a player who already understands the league, has international experience, contributes on both sides of the ball and is young enough that this should cover her prime years without, you know, having to pay for the back end of a career. The Leicester City women also signed Paulina Nystrom from Bequia Hacken at an undisclosed fee. So Nystrom's a 25-year-old Finnish international who signed a two-year contract. And it's kind of exactly the sort of women's transfer that gets buried beneath moves involving Arsenal, Chelsea, Barcelona, etc. But Leicester City women need players in prime age years who can improve the level immediately without requiring superstar money. And I think Nystrom fits that profile pretty nicely. Good move for them. Before we finish, one final Premier League number is interesting to me. At Lucky Rebel, Arsenal are minus 300 to finish as a top London club. Chelsea plus 350, Tottenham plus 1,200, Brentford 2,500, Palace 3,300, and Fulham plus 4,000. It's not really a market about geography. It's another measure of how far expectations around Arsenal have moved. This time last year, obviously defending the title was hypothetical. Now, Arsenal begin the season as champions. They have continued to strengthen, and virtually every market around them assumes that they're going to remain one of the very best teams in England. The first actual test comes with that Friday Coventry City match we talked about, and that's going to be fun. For today, we get Arsenal against Man City in our first competitive look at what the post-pep era of City is going to look like. And I'm just so excited that football, that real football is back. No offense to the pre-season friendlies or anything like that, but this is amazing. Anyway, that'll do for this week. This has been the Underdog Football Show. I've had a blast. I hope you have as well. I'll see you next time.