:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69203577/1232526357.0.jpg)
Hi, all!
Inter Miami manager Phil Neville seems to be enjoying the city’s great food scene.
Phil Neville's Instagram is performance art, honestly. Tomato soup in Miami. Also: why have Campbell's, an iconic piece of American cuisine, tbh, when you can have... "Heinz tomato soup." pic.twitter.com/9vOfWj7QHA
— Pablo Iglesias Maurer (@MLSist) April 28, 2021
Ramble of the Day
Yesterday, Leyton Orient made an announcement about what they called “a new direction for female football.” Some of it seems pretty good:
- “The Club will be launching an Academy that in time will include age groups from under 9’s to under 18’s, mirroring the boys’ Academy.”
- “This will be supplemented by development centres [and] college programmes.”
- “This year, in partnership with Writtle College, a programme was launched for girls over the age of 16 to study for qualifications, whilst improving their footballing skills with professional coaching from the club.”
It’s nice to see a club put some thought and investment into an entire program for female footballers. That’s why I find it particularly confusing to see the club say the plan is to eventually launch a first team that starts in the sixth tier when they already have a team in the fourth tier.
There’s a distinction worth making that the team that currently carries Leyton Orient’s name is not fully operated by the club, and the new team they plan to launch will be. It feels weird to have to start from scratch when there’s a lot of precedent in England where the richer party can absorb the team without messing with its competitive place.
Leyton Orient might have an explanation, but the club is currently displacing a number of footballers indefinitely. The club, at the very least, owes them an explanation because it is currently sending some very mixed signals, as a former player noted.
Extremely disappointing to learn that @leytonorientfc has decided to drop the women's team -- one that I've loved playing on for the past two years. And to frame this decision as a "strategy to develop female football" is so disingenuous. https://t.co/bOrJkWN9Mx
— Allison McCann (@atmccann) April 28, 2021
Links of the Day
Real Madrid’s Marcelo could miss his side’s Champions League trip to Chelsea after being selected to be a poll worker during the elections for Madrid assembly.
A study of high school footballers in Michigan found that teenage girls had double the risk of concussion compared to teenage boys.
A longer read: Louise Taylor on the career of England’s cap leader Fara Williams, which gave her a front row seat to the rise of the women’s game for the Guardian