Sports Poets Society

Claudio Ranieri non è più l'allenatore del Leicester City campione d'Inghilterra. Centotrentatré anni spazzati via nove mesi dopo averli sublimati con l'unico titolo della propria storia.  E' il mancato lieto fine della favola lunga una stagione, e forse irripetibile. A sorprendere davvero però è solo il momento, non l'esonero in sé. «La decisione più difficile», parola del vicepresidente Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabh, nei sette anni da quando il club è diventato di proprietà della King Power, non a caso anche nome-sponsor dello stadio. Se a fine febbraio non hai ancora segnato un gol in campionato nell'anno nuovo, e sempre in Premier League vieni da cinque sconfitte consecutive, il tuo destino è segnato. Si trattava solo di sapere quando, non se. Per i media inglesi, sembrava coincidere con il 12 febbraio in caso di sconfitta a Swansea, scontro diretto per la salvezza, poi puntualmente arrivata; ma alla vigilia del replay del quarto turno di FA Cup, ...

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/feb/23/wayne-rooney-manchester-united-china-legacy-done?CMP=fb_a-football_b-gdnfootball di JONATHAN WILSON, The Guardian What seems remarkable now is how uncontroversial the issue of Wayne Rooney’s departure from Manchester United has come to feel. This is, after all, a player who started United’s first five league games of the season, a run of games that suggested he was a first-choice. Perhaps José Mourinho really did see him as such, or maybe he was playing a clever political game, but either way Rooney has faded to the extent that the suggestion he will start Sunday’s EFL Cup final on the bench provokes little comment. There is always a tendency to portray Mourinho as a great Machiavellian spider, forever spinning his webs of intrigue, never doing anything without some ulterior motive, but if his aim this season was to prove that Rooney is not good enough for a place in the first team and to shuffle him without fuss out ...

Flickr: Uetchy https://cityobservatory.org/cursing-the-candle/ By Joe Cortright 23.2.2017 How should we view the early signs of a turnaround in Detroit? Better to light a single candle than simply curse the darkness . The past decades have been full of dark days for Detroit, but there are finally signs of a turnaround, a first few glimmers that the city is stemming the downward spiral of economic and social decline. But for at least a few critics that’s not good enough: not content with cursing the darkness, they’re also cursing the first few candles that have been lit, for the sin of failing to resolve the city’s entire crushing legacy of decline everywhere, for everyone, and all at once. Michigan State political scientist Laura Reese and Wayne State urban affairs expert Gary Sands have written an essay “ Detroit’s recovery: The glass is half-full at best ,” for Conversation which was reprinted at CityLab as “ Is Detroit really making a comeback? ” The article is based on a longer ac...