Which League Is Best? The One Your Team Is In

Correspondence

An interesting note from David Post, who points out that it might be harder to be a Houston Astros fan at the moment than a Manchester City one. “In the Astros’ case, it was the players themselves engaged in the misbehavior,” he wrote. “City fans can at least say the back office and money guys cheated, but that doesn’t change what happened on the pitch. For the Astros, their in-game performances are now all tainted.”

I understand his logic entirely: It’s hard to think of what Manchester City did as cheating in the same way that, say, doping is cheating. It all seems too detached from the actual business of scoring goals to be quite as severe. But rules — even rules you don’t like — are rules.

There is no question about my favorite line of the week, which is so good James Thurber might have written it. A hat tip to Don Karon, writing about how we should change the offside rule. “I would suggest it to be if any part of a player’s foot is onside, the player is onside,” he wrote. “Otherwise, I envision players reaching back to grab some part of a defender’s jersey to ensure that their hand is onside and, therefore, they are onside. I expect this would result in fighting.”

That’s all for this week. Thanks for all the correspondence, as ever. If there’s anything urgent, I’m on Twitter. My Instagram was updated last week for the first time this year. You can download Set Piece Menu wherever you get your podcasts, and feel free to drop me a line at askrory@nytimes.com. And please click here to subscribe to this newsletter on behalf of your cousins, too.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/sports/soccer/champions-league-rory-smith.html