English Football Gets David Luiz Wrong. He Is a Fine Arsenal Signing

David Luiz celebrates his goal for Chelsea against Manchester City last season, a seizing of the moment that underlined his enduring worth. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
David Luiz celebrates his goal for Chelsea against Manchester City last season, a seizing of the moment that underlined his enduring worth. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
TT
20

English Football Gets David Luiz Wrong. He Is a Fine Arsenal Signing

David Luiz celebrates his goal for Chelsea against Manchester City last season, a seizing of the moment that underlined his enduring worth. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
David Luiz celebrates his goal for Chelsea against Manchester City last season, a seizing of the moment that underlined his enduring worth. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

Ever since he first arrived at Chelsea, bursting on to the scene like a labrador puppy at a family gathering unsure of whose face to lick, whose leg to gnaw, which plate of sausage rolls to attack first, David Luiz has had a reputation in England for going walkabout.

David Luiz makes the wrong move. David Luiz is in the wrong place. David Luiz appears to be fundamentally confused, head out, chest puffed, galloping off towards the wrong part of the world entirely. In this context it seems inevitable, a matter of destiny, that David Luiz should have found his way to the center of the Arsenal defense.

This is of course a cheap joke; a cheap joke that is, like all the best cheap jokes, unfunny because it’s also untrue but there are plenty of confusing and divisive things about David Luiz’s move from Chelsea to Arsenal on transfer deadline day. Getting David Luiz wrong: English football has been doing this for a while now.

New world order? Welcome to Premier League's new era of excellence
Read more
For now the most notable part of David Luiz’s move across London is the familiar wave of skepticism, the snarky chuckles, the idea floated around that Arsenal’s mop-haired defensive stroller has been overpriced and overvalued throughout his career; that he lacks good sense, spatial awareness, steel in the trenches and all the rest of it.

There is an obvious point of confusion here. On the one hand we have an acknowledged flake, chancer, and gadabout. On the other a defender who has strengthened every team that signed him; who was a kind of clown-shoed Virgil van Dijk for Antonio Conte’s title-winning Chelsea two years ago; and who has in terms of style and impact been one of the most influential overseas defenders in the Premier League.

Someone is getting football wrong here. It might not be the bloke with league title medals in three countries and a world-record combined career transfer fee for a defender.

Last season 93 defenders were dispossessed more often than the league’s top-ranked goofball. Only two made more passes.
One thing is clear. David Luiz is a wonderful signing for Arsenal, even aged 32 and with almost 600 games on the clock. This shouldn’t need saying but in a way Gary Neville did him a favor with those famous comments about resembling a PlayStation player controlled by a child. Neville was referring to a specific performance in a specific game but it was a funny line and it stuck, planting the idea of a player who could be consistently underrated, mocked for his foibles and for his progressive intent.

We mock David Luiz because his failures are so often spectacularly cinematic. Against Spurs at Wembley last year he didn’t just fail to tackle Son Heung-min, he dematerialized completely and winked back into existence doing something different on the other side of the pitch, breakdancing, cooking an omelet, rewiring a plug.

We mock David Luiz because when he makes these mistakes he looks so sad and noble in the TV close-up reaction shots, like a plucky orphan child in a Disney adventure whose best friend is a streetwise duck. Meanwhile beyond all this the real David Luiz has made two errors leading directly to a goal in his entire Premier League career. Last season 93 defenders were dispossessed more often than the league’s top-ranked goofball. Only two made more passes.

Three years ago he shifted his game to become the deep playmaker in a three-man defense who drove Chelsea’s last league title win. Last year it was his brilliant drilled crossfield V2 bomb pass at Stamford Bridge that set Manchester City en route to a defeat that might have derailed that brilliant team.

Risk and reward. Adaptability. Unconventional lines and angles. In many ways David Luiz is a kind of litmus test for insularity, for the idea that leaders can’t have floppy hair and romp about like a triumphant pedigree pantomime horse; or that there is only one kind of sporting bravery and it doesn’t involve taking imaginative risks or sucking up your own errors and continuing to play it the same way.

The emergence of any young English defender with the ability to pass the ball tends to generate a whisper of solemn excitement. Meanwhile David Luiz is already out there: a clown, a joke, a human error message, and a leader in a more basic sense.

His penalty in the 2012 Champions League final remains an outstanding moment in Chelsea’s modern history, the ball thumped with such furious will into the top corner you felt the game, the day, rearranging itself around him. In the aftermath of a horrendous showing in that 7-1 meltdown against Germany at the 2014 World Cup it was easy to forget David Luiz had led that blubbing, weeping Brazil team to the semi-finals by the hairs on its neck.

At which point the prospect of Arsenal and a reunion with Unai Emery starts to make quite a lot of sense. There is no doubt Arsenal’s ball-romping defensive shield has it in him to produce some terrible moments over the next few weeks. He is also an instant spirit injection, a player who remains brilliantly fun and brilliantly funny but also uplifting for those around him.

Four years ago Arsène Wenger was at pains to reassure Arsenal’s fans his new signing Gabriel Paulista was “nothing like David Luiz”. Since then David Luiz and successive groups of teammates have won the Premier League, FA Cup, Europa League, French League (twice) and French Cup (twice), while David Luiz has been voted into the PFA team of the year in France and England.

It seems fair to say had Arsenal signed the world’s most amusingly watchable defensive shield back then and maybe taken a punt on Diego Costa too they’d have won at least one league title since. For now we have this, a late-breaking injection of something entirely unexpected. The results might be predictable but they won’t be dull.

(The Guardian)



Bayern Munich’s Thomas Mueller Says he Will Leave Club at Season End

FILED - 23 October 2024, Spain, Barcelona: Bayern Munich's Thomas Mueller applauds the fans after the UEFA Champions League soccer match between FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich at Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys. Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa
FILED - 23 October 2024, Spain, Barcelona: Bayern Munich's Thomas Mueller applauds the fans after the UEFA Champions League soccer match between FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich at Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys. Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa
TT
20

Bayern Munich’s Thomas Mueller Says he Will Leave Club at Season End

FILED - 23 October 2024, Spain, Barcelona: Bayern Munich's Thomas Mueller applauds the fans after the UEFA Champions League soccer match between FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich at Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys. Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa
FILED - 23 October 2024, Spain, Barcelona: Bayern Munich's Thomas Mueller applauds the fans after the UEFA Champions League soccer match between FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich at Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys. Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa

Bayern Munich crowd favorite Thomas Mueller will leave the German record champions at the end of the season after 25 years at the club because he was not offered another contract, he said on Saturday.
In a message on social media, the 35-year-old attacking midfielder, who started as a youth player and won a record 12 league crowns with Bayern - the most by any Bundesliga player - said he would have liked to stay on.
"Even after all these years, regardless of the minutes I play, I still really enjoy being on the pitch with the lads and fighting for titles together for our team. I could have easily imagined taking on this role next year as well," Reuters quoted him as saying.
"However, the club consciously decided not to negotiate a new contract with me for next season. Even if this wasn't in line with my personal wishes, it's important that the club follows its convictions. I respect this step, which the board and supervisory board certainly didn't take lightly."
He did not make any reference to the next step of his club career.
Mueller, for years a guaranteed starter, had seen his playing time drop sharply in the last two seasons and now only plays a minor role under coach Vincent Kompany.
His future has been the subject of intense speculation for several months but until now, both the club and the player have stayed silent. While there is no indication that Mueller will retire from football any time soon, Bayern have hinted they would like him to get involved with the club following the end of his playing days.
A one-club player, a rarity in top football these days, Mueller also won two Champions League titles, two club World Cups and six German Cups with Bayern among other titles. He also helped Germany to the 2014 World Cup.
Mueller could add more titles this season to his bulging trophy cabinet, with Bayern leading the title race by a nine-point advantage. They also face Italy's Inter Milan in the Champions League quarter-finals next week.
The Champions League final will be held in Munich's Allianz Arena.
"Now our full focus is on our sporting goals for the season," Mueller said. "It would be a dream for me to bring the league trophy back home and reach the long-awaited final at home at the end of May."