Mourinho pushed hard to bring Bernardo Silva to the Bernabeu, then called out his fitness on his debut. It's a power move, and a gamble.
Barca tied Araujo down long-term in January and are now loaning him out with Liverpool paying the wages. One club looks lost. The other just went shopping in the wreckage.
Scrapping the plan to sell stakes in the World Cup was a tactical retreat, not a fix. Europe is right to keep pressing on how Gianni Infantino actually runs FIFA.
A midfielder goes down and the club suddenly rediscovers its checkbook. That's not a plan. It's a panic response with a transfer fee attached.
The final was billed as a coin-flip. It wasn't close. Spain's control-football project suffocated Argentina, and it makes the case for a whole philosophy over the star-power model.
