Financial Fair Play leveling the field in Europe + should MLS teams refuse to do business with rivals?
Christian Polanco and Alexis Guerreros react to Crystal Palace winning their first ever trophy alongside Bologna & Newcastle, ending trophy droughts. Has Financial Fair Play leveled the field and fixed soccer?
Christian and Alexis break down the drama surrounding LAFC's Mark Delgado receiving last season's MLS Championship ring and why MLS teams shouldn't make trades with their rivals.
Later, Christian and Alexis bring back Rápido Reactions and react to the latest transfer news and rumors across Europe.
(9:30) - Have Financial Fair Play rules fixed soccer?
(28:00) - Should MLS teams do business with rivals?
(46:30) - Rápido Reactions: Florian Wirtz, Xavi Simons, Viktor Gyokeres & more
🖥️
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Club World Cup team guide – Inter Miami: Messi's star power, slow start for Mascherano
The inaugural Club World Cup starts on June 14, with its 32 teams split into eight groups of four in the opening phase. As part of our guides to the sides that will feature in the tournament, Felipe Cardenas gives you the background on Inter Miami. This is year five of Inter Miami's existence as a professional football club. The Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based team has been both the laughing stock of MLS and the premier club of North America's top flight. It has been a topsy-turvy start for David Beckham's pet project. Inter Miami enters the Club World Cup with battered hopes and a bruised ego following a difficult start to the 2025 MLS season. Captain and global football icon Lionel Messi will lead an underperforming squad into the tournament that hopes to advance out of Group A, which includes Porto from Portugal, Brazil's Palmeiras and Egyptian side Al Ahly. A place in this first playing of the expanded Club World Cup is a dream come true for Miami's owners, but will the tournament fulfil their wishes or turn into a nightmare experience? Since Messi's arrival in July 2023, Miami has tasted some competitive success while becoming a commercial behemoth in the U.S. The 2022 World Cup winner's presence has helped Miami become one of the most valuable clubs in MLS, currently valued at $1.19billion (£878m), according to a May report by Sportico. Messi's first full year saw Miami win the MLS Supporters' Shield, the trophy that goes to the team which earns the most points in the regular season. In that 2024 season, under former manager Tata Martino, Miami also set a new league record for points earned (74) in a campaign that crowned Messi as the league MVP. The year ended on a sour note, however, when they were eliminated by Atlanta United in the first round of the MLS title playoffs. Martino abruptly resigned due to personal reasons and Miami hired Messi's long-time friend and former Barcelona and Argentina team-mate Javier Mascherano as head coach. After a hot start to 2025, Mascherano's side has struggled to play consistently well, and aside from an over-reliance on Messi, who turns 38 this month, the team is devoid of a tactical identity. Funny you should ask. FIFA's convoluted qualification criteria handed Miami a ticket to the big dance. Miami didn't win the MLS Cup final to be crowned its champions, and hasn't come close to winning the Concacaf Champions Cup, either. But FIFA has always reserved one host slot for the Club World Cup, even before the competition was expanded to 32 teams from seven and moved from being an annual event to one staged every four years. Advertisement When Miami won that Supporters' Shield at the close of last year's regular season, FIFA president Gianni Infantino had the loophole he needed to invite Messi and company to this summer's competition in the United States. 'Miami loves football. The world loves football, and the world loves Miami,' Infantino said from Miami's home pitch last October. 'You're the best team of the season in America,' Infantino added. 'You can start telling your story to the world.' Miami will also open the tournament, against Al Ahly at 65,000-capacity Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens next Saturday night. If Infantino was dead-set on having Messi in this first edition of the new-look Club World Cup, he succeeded. How Miami fares in it is another story. The side is short on depth and the ageing legs of Messi and his former Barcelona team-mates Luis Suarez (38), Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba (both 36) won't be enough to make a deep run, even if Miami advances from the group stage. Give the ball to Messi and hope he creates a moment of magic. That sounds cynical, but unsurprisingly, everything goes through the Argentine No 10. And one can't blame his team-mates, if we're being honest. Messi remains highly effective around the penalty area and decisive when it matters most. He finished the 2024 MLS season with 21 goals and 17 assists (including the playoffs), but ran out of gas against Atlanta in the post-season. Miami wants to press high and force opponents to play narrowly. When it comes together, Miami can be formidable in transition. The problem is with the back line and overall defensive structure. Miami leaks goals and tends to play so open that a spell of good play is consistently undone by poor defending. It wouldn't be a shock to see Mascherano dial back the high press and play a more pragmatic style in this competition. Mascherano is in his first job as a professional head coach. Before succeeding Martino in November, he had managed Argentina's under-20 and under-23 men's squads, and also coached Argentina's team at the 2024 Olympics, losing to hosts France in the quarterfinals. That was considered a massive disappointment, which led to widespread criticism of Mascherano's acumen as a manager. Having played under both at Barcelona, Mascherano has spoken publicly about his appreciation of Pep Guardiola's tactics and how Luis Enrique influenced him as both a player and a coach. Still, there is little evidence to suggest Mascherano's philosophy will resemble that of an elite coach. His close relationship with Messi, Suarez, Busquets and Alba suggests he was given the job for reasons other than his resumé. 'People can have their opinion, and those opinions are valid, clearly,' he said in December. 'But I'm convinced that I'm qualified to coach this team. I'm very excited to do so. Experience in football doesn't always make sense.' Less than three weeks from turning 38 years old, Messi doesn't have the same burst off the dribble that saw him embarrass defenders throughout the pitch when he played for Barcelona. These days, he tends to position himself as close to the goal as possible, where he can create and finish plays without expending too much energy. Advertisement But late-stage Messi is still a joy to watch, even if purists may want to hold onto memories of his dominant 20-year run as the world's best player rather than see him carrying an MLS team. He still walks about the pitch and sometimes stands motionless as the game goes on around him. Today, Messi picks his moments more cautiously than ever. 'Leo has turned into a complete player who plays all over the field,' Mascherano told The Athletic last year. 'When you have a player like that, the most important thing is to give him the freedom to move where he believes the team needs him and for his team-mates to understand his movements.' Messi has grown increasingly frustrated with Miami's up-and-down form, though. Many of his young team-mates struggle to match his advanced football IQ, which has irritated this winner of 10 La Liga titles, three Champions Leagues, two Copas America and the most recent World Cup three years ago — more so when the team loses games. His patience is thinner, as well, with MLS referees taking the brunt of Messi's anger. This Club World Cup could be a breaking point. Venezuela international Telasco Segovia is Miami's young player to watch. The 22-year-old attacking midfielder is a goal threat with a high ceiling. Segovia was signed this winter after spending two seasons in Portugal with Casa Pia. He has quickly become one of Miami's key players and an on-field ally of Messi and striker Suarez. Segovia is a versatile player, which allows him to roam the midfield and attacking areas and contribute both in possession and in transition. He tends to make the right decisions around the opponent's penalty area and is not shy about taking his chances. There's a maturity to him that stands out. On a team of veteran superstars who have won nearly everything in football, Segovia's self-confidence and clean technical play have been a boon for Miami. He's a regular for Venezuela's national team, but if he performs at a high level at the Club World Cup, the competition could be the showcase Segovia needs to reach his full potential. In-state rivals Orlando City can be considered Miami's rivals, but the truth is, every team Messi and company face plays with a knife between its teeth. Miami has become both a media darling and a hated club by rival MLS supporters. That's a sign that things are going as planned in South Florida, though. With Messi and his mates, Miami has sold out huge NFL stadiums and other neutral venues. Messi fans have run onto the pitch to take a selfie with him. On the road, opposing teams' supporters have congregated outside Miami's team hotel, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Argentine superstar. Advertisement All of that attention has turned Miami into an MLS villain, a nemesis that fans outside of Fort Lauderdale enjoy watching suffer. I don't think Miami would have it any other way. 'A lot of people are jealous of Inter Miami,' club managing owner Jorge Mas told FDP Radio in April. Enough said. Miami has plenty of detractors, but Messi boasts legions of fans worldwide. The team's pink kit is seen across the globe these days, and Messi, even in the twilight of his career, still conjures emotions and fanfare usually reserved for a mega pop star. Miami won't be a favorite at this tournament. We've established that. But the presence of Messi will bring eyeballs to FIFA's new baby. Neutrals will tune in to see if he still has any magic left in him. Romantics will watch in the hope he'll turn back the clock to November and December of 2022, when he finally led Argentina to World Cup glory. And that's precisely what Infantino had in mind when he gave them that hosts' spot. (Top photos: Getty Images; design: Kelsea Petersen)
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
How the Premier League revolutionised academies to create pathways for Delap, Eze, Johnson and many more
Neil Saunders, the Premier League's director of football, condenses 15 years of working in youth development into one point: 'We know that every player pathway is different — there isn't one right pathway.' Four days apart, Eberechi Eze and Brennan Johnson proved his point. Eze scored the winner in the FA Cup final for Crystal Palace, the first major trophy in their history. Advertisement Then Johnson tapped in Pape Sarr's cross for the only goal in the Europa League final, ending Tottenham Hotspur's 41-year wait for European silverware. The respective professional careers of Eze and Johnson now look remarkably similar: aged 26 and 24 respectively, over 100 Premier League appearances each, scorers of goals for their national teams (England for Eze, Wales for Johnson) and now of winners in cup finals. Their pathways to get here, however, were not so similar. Eze's route was textbook non-linear: the London-born forward got released (or 'deselected', as those in youth development now say) four times in his academy days — by Arsenal, Fulham, Reading and Millwall — before finally settling at Queens Park Rangers. After a brief loan in League Two, the fourth tier of English football, at Wycombe Wanderers as a teenager, he had three progressively better seasons in the second-tier Championship with QPR before joining top-flight Palace in August 2020 in a deal worth around £20million ($27m at the current exchange rate). Johnson was at hometown club Forest from under-nines and moved up through the age groups. At 19, he helped Lincoln City to the League One play-offs in his only loan spell. The following season, he broke into Forest's first team. They went on to win promotion via the play-offs, with Johnson being voted the Championship's young player of the season. After one year in the Premier League, Tottenham paid £47.5million for him in the summer 2023 transfer window. Saunders had some responsibility for both players' development. Being director of football for the Premier League means looking after everyone from under-nines through to under-21s, coaches and referees — 'football development, as we term it,' he says. He used to be on the other side of the game. His 10 years in the Watford academy stopped just short of a first-team appearance but he played a couple of seasons for Exeter City in the EFL's lower divisions — and international futsal for England — before having to retire due to a knee injury at age 27. Advertisement In a private box at Wembley Stadium, he talked to The Athletic during a break at the annual Premier League Youth Development Conference. Over the two-day event, senior academy staff from all 92 clubs from England's top four divisions meet, along with professional game stakeholders. Knowledge is shared and presentations are delivered on topics such as coaching, psychology and the experiences of players' parents. 'Our responsibility is to provide clubs with many different options to support their needs,' Saunders says. His job title was academy programme manager when the elite player performance plan (EPPP) was introduced by the Premier League in 2012. It was the blueprint for a restructuring of the English academy system. Saunders knows the 'mission' of the EPPP word for word: 'To develop more and better home-grown players, capable of performing at the highest level — the Premier League and the national team'. He can add FA Cup finals to that, with Eze last season and also the 2024 version, which was won by goals from two academy graduates — Manchester United's Kobbie Mainoo and Alejandro Garnacho. Then there is the photo of seven players from Chelsea's Cobham-based youth setup posing together with the trophy after the 2020-21 Champions League final, when club-trained Mason Mount set up the goal in their 1-0 win against Manchester City. Mount was the first Englishman to get an assist in European club football's biggest game for 13 years. Made in Chelsea 💙🏆#UCL | #UCLfinal — UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) May 30, 2021 'We needed to see a step change,' Saunders says of the landscape in 2012. 'The EPPP was born out of a backdrop of a perception that English players — and players coming through our system — weren't technically as advanced or tactically as astute as some of our European counterparts.' It meant that, with the Premier League strengthening and foreign investment rising, its clubs increasingly recruited from abroad. The nadirs were England's senior men's side failing to qualify for the 2008 European Championship and the under-21s getting beaten 4-0 by their German counterparts in the age group's Euro 2009 final. Advertisement Saunders says, 'The EPPP gave us absolute clarity around what we were going after: more game time for young players in the Premier League and across the professional game; more contact (training) time; professionalising talent ID, recruitment, and the coaching workforce with age-appropriate qualifications; modernising academy structures; a significant spike in academy investment.' How does he reflect on its success 13 years on? 'Internationally, there is high recognition for the English academy system and the quality of academy players,' Saunders says. He reels off stats about 68 debuts by 'homegrown' players in the 2024-25 Premier League, when 18 of the 20 teams had a homegrown debutant. ('Homegrown' is defined as any player who was at a club for three years before they are 21 and later played for the first team.) 'It's really, really positive. We've got over a third of the world's top 250 players playing in the Premier League — and the bar keeps getting higher each year,' he says. Over £2.5billion has been invested into academies now, benefiting from a four per cent levy 'that gets ring-fenced to specifically invest in youth development. As transfer fees have increased, that's created a really healthy fund'. Saunders brings up the summer of 2017 — the first green shoots of recovery following adoption of the EPPP. Three England age-group teams won tournaments in quick succession: the Under-17 and Under-20s World Cups, and the Under-19 Euros. Though what mattered to Saunders was not just those team triumphs but that Phil Foden (U17 World Cup), Mount (U19 Euros) and Dominic Solanke (U20 World Cup) were all voted player of the tournament. 'Our players as individuals were being recognised for their performances,' he says. 'Suddenly, there was a narrative shift. We now (in 2017) have some of the best young players, but they need the chance to break through. The ultimate aim of academies is to develop players that are ready to transition into the first team. It's not necessary to win age-group football.' Advertisement The real success was where England's senior men finished at the four major tournaments from World Cup 2018 to Euro 2024: semi-finalists, runners-up, quarter-finalists, runners-up again. Of Gareth Southgate's 26-man squad at the European Championship in Germany last summer, 19 had come through English academies following the EPPP's implementation. Six of those played at multiple academies — Eze, Declan Rice, Ivan Toney, Aaron Ramsdale, Dean Henderson and Joe Gomez — while, across the whole squad, half had been out on loan at least once and nine of them multiple times. A research paper published at the end of 2024, which the Netherlands' FA and its University of Groningen collaborated on, studied the pathways of 3,000 male and female Dutch footballers. They found '446 unique career development patterns,' with 'deselections' at international age-group teams (followed by reselections at higher ages) positively related to reaching the senior national side. Senior elite players actually had more atypical pathways than those who did not reach elite levels. 'Contrary to the widespread belief, elite players do not necessarily progress from early recruitment in a continuous, singular fashion,' the authors wrote. 'The typical pathway to future soccer success can be characterised as atypical (and) nonlinear (…) these findings highlight the need for fluid and flexible pathways.' Liam Delap is a perfect example. He spent a decade in Derby County's academy before joining Manchester City. There, he won an FA Youth Cup and league titles as both an under-18 and under-23 (twice). In 2020-21, he scored 24 times in 20 league starts under Enzo Marseca for the under-23s. It is a single-season Premier League 2 goals record which still stands. 'It was really special. I smashed it. It's nice to know that someone's not broken it,' says Delap at the Wembley event, ahead of collecting an award: Premier League academy graduate of the year (on-pitch achievements) for 2024-25. That City team is one of the best ever assembled at academy level, featuring current European top-five league players — and multiple senior or under-21 internationals — in Delap, Cole Palmer, Romeo Lavia, Taylor Harwood-Bellis, James McAtee, Morgan Rogers, James Trafford and Felix Nmecha. Advertisement 'It was so talented,' Delap says of that title-winning side. 'You never know at that age what everyone's going to go on to do, but it just showed how good we must have been because everyone's flying at the moment. 'They're all taking different paths but everyone's doing well.' Those paths are also converging slightly, with Delap reuniting with Palmer and Lavia this summer at Chelsea to be coached, at first-team level now, by Maresca again. He had been on the fringes of Pep Guardiola's first team in 2021-22 but Erling Haaland then arrived the next summer from Borussia Dortmund, so the 'pathway' to City's No 9 shirt was blocked. Championship loans with Stoke City, Preston North End and Hull City followed, before he made a permanent move to promoted Ipswich Town last summer. 'To have those different experiences with different managers and different playing styles is really important for someone so young. It's really helped me,' he says. Delap acclimatised quickly to the Premier League in his full-debut season (he had made two substitute appearances for City, totalling 47 minutes of game time). He scored 12 of relegation-bound Ipswich's 36 league goals, including two penalties, and earned a reputation for hard-hitting shots, a variety of finishes, and his physicality in duelling with defenders and ball-carrying over big distances. 'It's different, stepping up (to the Premier League),' he says. 'Everyone just gets stronger, more experienced and faster. You don't get as many chances, and there is the relentlessness of game after game, being on it, and the competitiveness is higher.' Delap is only the eighth Englishman aged 22 or younger to score 10+ goals in a Premier League season since 2018-19. He cites Harry Kane — now England men's captain and all-time top-scorer, who had four EFL loans in his teens before breaking through at Tottenham — as a role model; one he can now look forward to joining in the Champions League next season. 'The plan doesn't stand still,' says Saunders. 'You continue to evolve and improve. We've updated the EPPP so it continues to be fit for purpose going forward.' Some tweaks were small, such as changing Premier League 2 from an under-23s competition to under-21s, 'really to reflect the age group of players that were playing in it'. Advertisement 'We can move quite quickly from 'The data and the feedback suggest this is a good idea' (to) 'Let's move ahead and do it',' he says, citing the Premier League International Cup. This was introduced as a 16-team tournament (eight Premier League sides and eight from continental Europe) in 2014-15 but a decade later has doubled in size. The benefit is exposure, Saunders says: 'Making sure that those young players, the first time they step on a Premier League pitch and face a German, a Spanish or a French player, they've had the experience of that through the pathways.' The National League Cup was brought back last year for similar reasons. It is an equal split of Premier League 2 (under-21) and (fifth-tier) National League sides in a group-stage-then-knockouts format akin to the EFL Trophy, the latter a tournament in which the under-21 sides of some Category One clubs face first-teams from Leagues One and Two. There are two areas where Saunders accepts that more progress can be made. First, how clubs poach young talent from others, before players even turn professional, in cut-price deals, which he says will 'always be a challenge to manage'. Brexit has had an impact on that. Saunders says, 'Previously, our clubs used to be able to recruit players from Europe from age 16. We (the Premier League) and the clubs felt that was a really positive addition. Maybe one or two in every age group of the best players from France or Portugal helped to make the best of our young players even better. That has been taken away, so naturally clubs' recruitment pool has shrunk to look domestically.' Compensation rules were increased a few years ago based on club feedback — even if the money involved is still just a decimal percentage of some first-team transfer fees — and contingent payments are in place, too. These are clauses, Saunders explains, that mean 'if the player goes on to achieve certain milestones in the Premier League, or if he's sold on for a transfer fee in the future, a percentage of that money comes back to the club that developed him'. Advertisement The other area where progress can be made is in recruitment. The Athletic brings up the relative age effect, which is the overrepresentation of players born earlier in the (academic) year as scouts and coaches show bias or positively discriminate towards early developers — in England, that's those born from September to November (Q1) birthdays, rather than summer babies (Q4: June to August). Saunders rightly points out that it is 'something that exists across all sports — academics have spent a lot of time looking into that'. 'Our clubs have a bias to Q1, Q2 (December to February). That still feels like a big opportunity for us to widen the talent pool even further,' he says. In its 10-year report on the EPPP in 2022, the Premier League said 45 per cent of academy players were Q1-born, four times the number from Q4. The importance of this is that, at senior elite levels, there is an equal distribution of birth quartile (players born in all four quarters of the year are fairly evenly represented). That is because late developers catch up and those who stood out for early physical maturation sometimes lack top technical and tactical skills. For instance, Eze (June) and Garnacho (July) are Q4, and Mainoo (April) and Johnson (May) are Q3. 'We're working with clubs to better understand it, and it's complex, but at least acknowledging that the challenge exists (is a start) and then trying to find ways to mitigate that,' Saunders says. One way is biobanding, grouping players based on physical maturity rather than date of birth (known as chronological age). This is done using X-rays of the left hand and wrist to determine 'bone age' and thus physical maturation. That practice is slightly contentious — ie, the possibility that a pre-pubescent goalkeeper may not be recruited because of their predicted height — but is used on a good-faith principle because it is fundamentally part of the player-led approach. As Saunders says, it is about the 'long run' in player development. Advertisement The Premier League also has a battery of fitness tests that players, from under-12 up, complete each season. They have data to benchmark physical averages for each chronological age-group position — and how that differs for a Category 1 academy player compared to Category 3. 'Suddenly you put him (a late physical developer) in an environment with boys that are of a similar physical stature and coaches get a really different perspective,' Saunders explains. Saunders is passionate about the positive impact academies can — and mostly do — have on all players, rather than success or failure being based on whether they earn a professional contract or reach the Premier League. 'There's probably been an external perception that academies are great for those players that go through and play in the first teams, 'But what about the sacrifices that other boys make?' We've always promoted holistic development,' he says. He is particularly proud of how education has improved under the EPPP (an often-overlooked part of its off-field work). 'Young players are now achieving above the national average in GCSEs (exams UK schoolchildren sit around age 16), and we have more players going on to do A-levels than ever before. We're working with universities to provide scholarships,' he says. Tom Smith, a former Arsenal academy goalkeeper now at League Two club Colchester United, is a shining example of education balanced with a playing career. Now 23, Smith graduated last year with a first-class degree in economics and management from the London School of Economics. Scholar of the Year: Myles Lewis-Skelly Academy Graduate Award: Tom Smith The duo were recognised at the recent Premier League Youth Development Awards 🏆 — Arsenal Academy (@ArsenalAcademy) May 21, 2025 That achievement earned him the off-pitch Academy Graduate of the Year Award for 2024-25 at the Wembley event, recognition of his personal development. Speaking of being deselected by Arsenal two summers ago, Smith says, 'It came at the right time — I sort of knew it was coming.' It was certainly not the nadir many often assume it to be. 'The worst moment of my time at Arsenal?' he says. 'Knowing that I wasn't the smartest in the dressing room. Me and Bukayo (Saka, now a first-team star at the club and a full England international) used to have a competition on who was smarter. I remember sitting in the changing room when we all got our GCSE results at 16. We got (the) emails one by one, and he just beat me.' Advertisement Saka, too, has his own pathway, and is one of the poster boys for the EPPP and the academy system. Saunders points out that, in the Euros final against Spain last July, Saka was playing in a front four with Kane (the German Bundesliga's 2023-24 top scorer), Jude Bellingham (2023-24 player of the year in Spain's La Liga) and Phil Foden (who won the same honour in the Premier League that season): 'All of them have in common that they're English and they've come through our academy system — each of them taking ownership of their pathway.' Saunders and pathways. He is wonderfully relentless, and, just once, lets himself revel in 15 years of success in developing the next generation. 'There was a time,' he recalls, 'when people said, 'We're not tactically or technically at the level of our European counterparts', to the point now where we say, 'We've got so many amazing No 10s — how do we fit them into the national team?'' (Top photos: Brennan Johnson, left, and Liam Delap; Getty Images)
New York Times
9 hours ago
- New York Times
Cruz Azul spokesperson: Marsch ‘out of line' for Whitecaps poisoning allegation
A Cruz Azul spokesperson has labeled Canada manager Jesse Marsch's accusations as 'out of line,' after Marsch claimed that Vancouver Whitecaps players were 'poisoned' during the MLS side's trip to Mexico City for the Concacaf Champions Cup final. Cruz Azul won the match 5-0 on Sunday night in a dominant performance in which Vancouver failed to register a single shot. On Thursday, the Whitecaps said in a statement that a 'significant number' of players and staff had fallen ill upon the team's return to Canada. Advertisement The Athletic reported that only seven of the 26 players who traveled to Mexico City had not presented any symptoms. On Thursday, Vancouver sporting director Axel Schuster avoided any assumptions that Cruz Azul had anything to do with the outbreak. 'Not only have we lost the game, we also have picked up some form of a virus and are dealing with that right now,' Schuster told reporters. 'I don't think it's right to speculate anything before we have more proof.' But on Friday, Marsch, whose Canada roster for this summer's Concacaf Gold Cup features three Whitecaps players, did not mince words when he told a group of reporters in Toronto his feelings about the situation. 'It's for me, appalling that this is the second year in a row that Concacaf and the powers that be have allowed an MLS team to go down to Mexico for a big final and get poisoned,' Marsch said. 'It's ridiculous. Something has to be done to protect these environments.' 'Look, in the past when you would go down there, I remember being with the U.S. national team and club teams going down to Mexico, it was 'will the fire alarm be pulled in the middle of the night? Will there be dancing and singing?' And those are somewhat spirited, competitive advantages that are created when you go down to Mexico. But poisoning the team is another, is another version,' Marsch said. 'Look I don't have any proof here that this (happened) but it's not random,' he added. 'It's not random that two years in a row this has happened. If I were the Vancouver Whitecaps, if I were the Columbus Crew, if I were MLS, I would be absolutely angry that this has been allowed to happen.' Whitecaps players Sam Adekugbe, Ali Ahmed, and Jayden Nelson are Canadian internationals and were among the players who fell ill. 'When all three of (Nelson, Adekugbe and Ahmed) are sick, it's clear. It wasn't just, 'Ah, I don't feel so great'. There was talk of whether it was an infectious virus but in the end, I don't want to speak but I think the results are that it was food poisoning.' Advertisement Vancouver traveled to Mexico City with its own chefs and sent additional staff members to Mexico prior to the final to ensure that preparations were satisfactory. This is normal across all sports, but it took on added importance after the Columbus Crew were defeated 3-0 in the 2024 Concacaf Champions Cup final to Pachuca. That match was also played in Mexico and several Crew players suffered a similar stomach illness the day prior and the day of the final. 'We're very confident that our setup is good,' Schuster told DH Sports on May 30, the day before the loss to Cruz Azul. 'Nothing will get in our way to play with the best performance on Sunday.' The Cruz Azul spokesperson told The Athletic on Friday that Marsch's comments sounded like 'damage control' following the Whitecaps' humiliating defeat. He added that Cruz Azul does not participate in any logistical planning, including meals, for visiting teams. Clubs from around the world play competitive matches in Mexico without incident, the spokesperson added – the Whitecaps themselves played at Monterrey and Pumas UNAM en route to the final. The hotel where Vancouver stayed in Mexico City is one that is used consistently by several first division Liga MX teams, including Club América. While Vancouver officials believe that the players and staff members became ill following a post-game meal that did not take place at their team hotel, Schuster was asked on Thursday if any players felt ill before Sunday's final. 'In hindsight, everyone felt ill during the game,' he said with a laugh. 'It feels like something happened after the game,' he continued. 'And then on the flight it was somehow transmitted. But now I'm a little bit in the speculation that I didn't really want to go to, so my answer to that is that it is unlikely that it was already there during the game.' Advertisement Schuster was asked if the post-game meal was the source of the virus. 'I really don't want to speculate because it also leads to accusations,' he said. 'Who was responsible for that? Was it provided by our opponent or whoever? We had actually two post-match meals. I don't even know because I wasn't at the airport, because there was more food provided at the airport again. 'So yeah, the only thing I can say is that in our first short little research, it is interesting that in all groups, players, staff, traveling party, national team players, it was more or less 50% (who got sick). The people who haven't been there after the game are 100% healthy.'
