The Critic Magazine

Why levelling up failed

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SIMON WALKER/NO10 DOWNING STREET/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

AS ANTONIO CONTE’S TENURE AS MANAGER OF TOTTENHAM Hotspur began to spiral in January 2023, the Italian made a striking observation on British football culture:

In England, I think there is a bad habit that there is only the coach to speak. I have never seen the medical department come here and explain that this player is having difficulty to recover. I never see the club or sporting director to come here and explain the strategy and the vision of the club.

Harkening back to his previous experience, Conte reflected that “In Italy, every game, before the game, there is a person from the club who goes with the media and then has to answer many questions,” whereas in the UK, “There is only one face to show.”

The former United States Secretary of State, Dr Henry Kissinger, said in an interview with Bayern Munich FC on the eve of his 100th birthday, that “American football and baseball are a glorification of the human experience — football is its embodiment … it multiplies the situations where you feel the great vastness of the human

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