I doubt that English Premier League soccer generates many hot takes on American sports gabfest shows. But the second tier of English soccer garnered some recently after a bizarre match between Aston Villa and Leeds United presented an outbreak of good sportsmanship.
Aston Villa and Leeds United are two of English football’s blue bloods. Villa, the preeminent team in the Midlands, won a European championship in the 1980s. Leeds, the preeminent Yorkshire club, made a strong run at that championship at the beginning of this century.
These days, though, both teams are mired in the England’s second division, desperate to make it out of the wilderness and back onto the massive stage the EPL has become. And this year both have a shot at doing so. More about that in a moment.
Last Sunday, Villa and Leeds faced off at Elland Road in Leeds. The match was scoreless and apparently fairly uneventful until the 72nd minute. Here’s what happened then:
A Villa player, Jonathan Kodjia, went down injured, clutching his head. His teammates expected play to stop, either at the referees direction or by Leeds kicking the ball out of bounds. Leeds was not required to kick it out. Technically, it’s up to the referee to stop play for an injured player and referees aren’t required to do so except in case of a head injury.
In this case, the injured Villa player appeared to have a head injury. In that situation, if the ref doesn’t stop play, it’s customary in the English game for the opposition, if it’s in possession of the ball, to do it. That way, the player can get immediate treatment and advantage is not taken due to the injury.
In this case, Leeds appeared to slow down as if to stop play. But then Mateusz Klich played on. Villa’s defenders had slowed down and were unable to stop Klich from scoring.
Villa reacted violently to Klich’s breach of form. Fights broke out between players. (In the middle of it, naturally, was the legendary John Terry about whom I wrote about here. Terry is now an assistant coach for Villa).
Leeds’ coach Marcelo Bielsa, one of the genuine characters of world football, decided to allow Villa to score an equalizer. The Leeds players backed away as Villa kicked off, and Albert Adomah headed for goal.
But Leeds defender Pontus Jansson was having none of it. The big Swede, one of the top defenders in the second tier, tried to stop Adomah. However, the Villa man was able to score, after which Jansson nearly had to fight his own teammates for opting out of good sportsmanship.
The best video I’ve found of these events is here, at Sky News.
Bielsa’s decision produced some controversy in England. However, the consensus was that he should be commended for good sportsmanship and for upholding the norms of the English game. (Ironically, Bielsa came under fire earlier this year over allegations that sent someone to spy on a Derby County practice session before the two teams met).
It’s true that players sometimes fake injuries when their team is out of possession and the other side is attacking. It’s possible that the Villa player, Kodjia, wasn’t really hurt. But when a team in possession slows down after an opponent goes to ground clutching his head, as Leeds did, it violates the unwritten rules of the English game suddenly to accelerate and bear down on goal.
This didn’t stop loud mouth American sports chatterers from attacking Bielsa’s decision to permit Villa to equalize. That’s fine. Either one values good sportsmanship or one doesn’t.
But the American sports yak I heard on the subject got it objectively wrong when talking heads criticized Bielsa for jeopardizing Leeds’ chances for promotion. If anything, he enhanced them. Here’s why:
Three teams are promoted from England’s second tier to its first at the end of every season. The top two teams in the second tier are promoted automatically. The next four play a mini-tournament. Promotion for the winner. Heartbreak for the other three teams and their fans.
A win over Villa would have moved Leeds to within three points of Sheffield United for second place, with one match to go. Wins are worth three points. Thus, had Leeds beaten Villa, a Leeds win and a Sheffield United loss on the final day of the regular season would have left the two teams level on points at the end of the campaign.
In such cases, goal difference over the course of the season is the tie-breaker. Leeds goal difference is inferior to Sheffield’s by 13. In other words, even with a win over Villa, Leeds had no hope of gaining automatic promotion. And this was clear when Leeds played Villa. Sheffield United had effectively clinched second place by defeating Ipswich Town the day before.
Meanwhile, Villa sits in fifth place, meaning that it will participate, along with Leeds, in the four-team tournament that determines the last promotion spot. Villa was going to be in that tourney regardless of the outcome of its match against Leeds.
In the mini-tournament, if Leeds defeats either Derby County or Middlesbrough (sixth place hasn’t been decided yet) and Villa gets past arch-rivals West Bromwich Albion, Leeds and Villa will square off again, this time at Wembley Stadium for the hundreds of millions of dollars that a berth in the Premier League is worth.
If you’re a Leeds United player or coach, would you want to face a Villa team still incensed about Klich’s unsporting goal. I wouldn’t.
Thus, Bielsa didn’t just do the right thing. He also deprived Villa of ammunition — “bulletin board material,” as it were — in case the two teams meet for all the marbles.
I’m not saying that Bielsa calculated all of this. He may simply have adhered to the values of his sport on the spur of the moment. But those who criticize him for jeopardizing his team’s prospects for making the Premier League next season are off-base.
As for good sportsmanship, it’s, um, good. Sports isn’t war or politics.
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