Superliga: The Jungle, an Impossible Miracle with Superliga | Sports

Florentino Perez is absolutely right when he denounces the growing supremacy of football clubs owned by practically the state or the super-rich. The two most famous examples of the first are Paris Saint-Germain (Qatar) and Manchester City (Abu Dhabi, one of the seven states that make up the United Arab Emirates), although there are more. The second group is led by Chelsea’s Roman Abramovich. The first seeks above all for political propaganda and global projection. Billionaires seek social respect and ego filling: They have so much money that they don’t mind losing anything to feed their ego. If it were to make cars rather than football, then a large portion of these investments would be considered aid from the state and would be banned.

The problem is that Florentino Perez is right to diagnose but not to cure. Its Superliga project does not seek equality and justice in football, but rather aims to prolong the preeminence of historical teams but with traditional income such as Real Madrid, Barcelona or Juventus. The closed competition he proposes will ensure that they remain among the richest. However, this solution suits a few (including The guiltyThat thrives on petrodollars and the oligarchy) but it hurts everyone. With the Premier League, it would be impossible to repeat the greatest extraordinary miracle European football has ever seen: the one carried out by Nottingham Forest 40 years ago.

Nottingham (330,000 inhabitants) is a medieval city in central England that evokes historical or mythological figures such as Richard the Lionheart and Robin Hood, the thief who stole the rich to provide plunder to the poor. But Nottingham does not need Robin Hood to be a legendary city because it has double the honor in football history, with a giant capital H, from the hands of its two teams: Notts County and Forrest.

The two rival citizens (their stadiums a few hundred meters from each other, although the Trent River separates them) shine in one of England’s most chosen derby due to their rarity: they have not played a division in years and their official matches have been reduced to butler collisions Sometimes. The last league derby was in 1994, in the second division. The most recent was in 2011, in the League Cup. All six of their FA Cup matches date to the nineteenth century, between 1878 and 1894.

Notts County plays fifth level of English football, but was founded in 1862 and is the oldest still active professional football club in the world. Note the phrase “professional” (because other non-professional clubs also claim this title) and “still active”.

Jungle fans are not fans: they are born only three years later, in 1865, they always play first or second (although they have not played in the Premier League since the 1998-99 season) and they starred in that miracle that was with the league Excellent. Be impossible. In the 1977–78 season, which was newly promoted to number one after five years in second place, Forrest was declared league champion against all odds with controversial Brian Clough on the bench. But their legend will become even greater when, in the following year, they managed to win the European Cup by defeating Malmo (1-0) in Munich with a goal by legendary Trevor Francis, the striker who had just signed, and broke the first barrier. Time. one million pound. The following year they finished second in the league but played the European Cup as champions … and won it again! In the final, they defeated Kevin Keegan (1-0) in Hamburg at the Bernabéu.

This feat, by moving from second place to two European champions, is impossible to happen again in a competition like the one that Florentino wants.

You can follow SPORTS at The social networking site Facebook s TwitterOr, register here to receive Weekly newsletter.