Tag: Sports

The Alonso Curse Revisited: Nothing Newey Under the Sun

The Alonso Curse Revisited: Nothing Newey Under the Sun

There are only a few certainties in life. Death, taxes, and Fernando Alonso being in the wrong car at the wrong time. Three years ago, it looked like the infamous Alonso Curse could be lifting. Aston Martin was starting to see front-of-the-pack action. Alonso was on the podium the first three races of the season. Had a time traveller told you back then that by 2026 Alonso would be in an Adrian Newey car, you’d be expecting him to make space in his trophy cabinet for a third world title.

Just the notion of them being in the same team would have sounded far-fetched back then. Newey was Red Bull for the rest of his career. Until Christian Horner became the focal point of a team split. Newey was lured across by more than just Lawrence Stroll’s money (that undoubtedly helped). He was given an active role in shaping more than just the design of cars. He’d be a shareholder and a person with genuine authority. Aston Martin had shiny new facilities and a good track record of investment.

Newey said he needed a new challenge. The option Ferrari presumably offered was his old role in red overalls. Aston Martin may have – initially, at least – overextended Newey. Attempting to put his Midas touch on everything within reach. He was announced as the Team Principal, only for that role to blur and slowly retract as his position as Managing Technical Partner was reaffirmed. Newey is the most successful F1 car designer of all time. It doesn’t mean he can run all technical aspects and the race weekend to the same exacting standards. The attempt to do so will only create a dilution of excellence elsewhere.

This isn’t to say Aston Martin have struggled this year because Newey was spread too thin. A ghost from Alonso’s past – Honda – played a very large part. Honda was reunited with Newey in name, but it now appears many from the Red Bull Honda days had moved on, believing Honda’s time in the sport had elapsed. What Lawrence Stroll made a deal with was a Honda F1 reboot, not the version responsible for Red Bull victories.

It wasn’t just a performance issue with Honda. The vibration was so bad from the integration between engine, battery mounting, gearbox and transmission that Lance Stroll and Alonso limited their running time in the car to avoid permanent injury. But Alonso has been living with the curse for so long, not even this rattled him. The 2017 Honda engine at McLaren suffered from vibration issues. These resonance issues would induce electrical faults after shaking components beyond their finite life. The 2026 sequel was all that and more.

Alonso has largely taken it in his stride. He speaks of being at peace with his career, his achievements. It would be wrong to disbelieve him. Age brings about calmness and reflection. It only becomes a problem for a driver when it dampens down the fire too much. For Alonso, there are signs it still burns fierce. He spoke before the season that he’d be more inclined to carry on if the 2026 car wasn’t perfect, if there was still a challenge. His career choices have led him into situations where victories don’t come with trophies, but achieving the impossible in flawed machinery. 

He still faces that challenge at Aston Martin.

But he also knows time is starting to run out for one last taste of victory. When he declared the Barcelona Grand Prix could be his last, it revealed he is uncertain when he’ll call time on his career. A new contract with Aston Martin has yet to be agreed and his old friend at Alpine, Flavio Briatore, has been linked with recruiting Alonso.

It has all the ingredients for one final, poorly timed, Alonso move. On paper, Alpine may make some sort of sense. They’ll be using Mercedes power in 2027 and that currently looks like the most tempting engine bet on the grid. The team has a big new title sponsor: Gucci. Alonso and Gucci go well together. 

All the signals also align with fulfilling the final phase of The Curse.

He would be leaving Aston Martin at the exact moment a true Newey car is unleashed on the grid. This year’s variant is part-Newey, with Newey himself split into too many parts. The 2027 car is supposedly all Newey. Who wouldn’t want to get behind the steering wheel of that?

We’ll find out if Alonso rolls the dice one last time and finally gets a good hand. There is no perfect choice. A Newey design doesn’t guarantee a title. Lewis Hamilton’s haul attests to that. But being in one certainly improves your chances. Max Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel, Mika Häkkinen all won multiple world titles in a Newey car. Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve all took one apiece for Williams. Having Newey design the car gives a driver a strong hand.

Those four Williams titles highlight an Aston Martin trait that appealed to Newey and could convince Alonso to stay. Lawrence Stroll is seen by Newey as a genuine throwback. He’s seen as an active owner, in the style of Frank Williams. Stroll is giving Newey the keys to the kingdom but he’s not an absent, faceless money man. Alonso has a good relationship with Briatore so there’s a romanticised version where he has one last Enstone chapter.  

Whatever he chooses next, it won’t be for “the challenge”. Being at the back of the grid for the whole of 2026 is challenging enough. It will be where he thinks – on the balance of probability – he stands the best chance of seeing a race win again. His options are clear: Mercedes power versus Newey design.

It’s the sort of decision that comes down to a coin toss. A 50/50. Within that choice is another factor that could swing the pendulum back to Aston Martin. At Alpine, he would likely be paired with Pierre Gasly. That would be a notable step up from Lance Stroll. Suddenly, he could be facing the George Russell dilemma: fight for a drive in the fastest car (not that the Alpine is expected to be this, but it will have the best engine) only to be outperformed by your team mate.

If Newey delivers a race-winning Aston Martin, it will be Fernando, not Lance, claiming those wins. If the Alpine becomes competitive, it’s plausible Gasly reveals the effects of Father Time on Alonso.

Which turns the 50/50 choice into a three-way split.

He could retire. After years of unfortunate timing in the transfer market, he may well decide he can’t face the prospect of another long year of uncertainty – or worse – watching the car he could have been in outperform the one he chose every race weekend.

Of the three choices, retirement is the one this writer fears most. Alonso has a claim to be the best driver of his generation. He’s now with the best designer in the history of the sport. It would be a shame not to see how it plays out. Even if the progress is slow to start, a Newey car with some Fernando DNA sounds like something worth sticking around for. It seems almost impossible the results wouldn’t eventually follow.

Curses can be lifted. Newey could well be the man to perform an exorcism. If it’s just poor timing and coincidence, probability states he has to make the right choice at some point.

If it’s just good old-fashioned luck, he’s due a bit before he hangs up his helmet.

Pep Guardiola: The Game-Changer

Pep Guardiola: The Game-Changer

Pep Guardiola’s arrival in England was surrounded by expectation and hyperbole from both rivals and supporters of Manchester City. Weighed down by an enviable record of success and a ready-made list of issues for detractors. For every achievement, a negative take. For every possibility, a reason why it couldn’t work. Not with the style of the Premier League. Not with the way we do things in this country.

It’s easy to forget now how the naysayers swelled in numbers by the end of his first season at City. Some of the most vocal wore sky blue and became ever more nostalgic for more recent managers. There was a vibe that Bobby Manc got City in a way Pep couldn’t. He was too stubborn. His brand of football couldn’t work in the Premier League. Third place and some telling defeats. Replacing the much-loved Joe Hart with Claudio Bravo because the new ‘keeper could play out from the back. Unfortunately, he spent too much time retrieving the ball from the back of his net. Hart had been offered to stay on, develop, but knew the writing was on the wall.

What no one appreciated – and it was demonstrated many times with multiple players – it takes time for people to adapt to Pep’s method. To understand what he needs. To implement the change and grow into it. Season one was not a mini-failure, it was an excavation. Discovering the elements that he could use for the new football he was bringing.

Any style of football can be called out in a reductive fashion. To say City played with a high line and were always vulnerable, that playing out from the back was risky and boring, is an oversimplification. It misses the minutiae that goes on to make Treble Winners, Centurions, Four-in-a-Row Titles, and twenty trophies in ten years. 

But people can be forgiven for losing faith and after the first year in the Premier League, the voices claiming his style wouldn’t work in England started to sound more plausible. Or at the very least, they may have had a point. What those people didn’t appreciate was the Guardiola process. His method. The immediate understanding and absorption of information, the meticulous attention to all possible solutions, the never-ending crafting of the final product. It takes players time to get on Pep’s wavelength.

Notably more players left the Etihad in his first season than were recruited. Of those, only John Stones and İlkay Gündogan had notable sustained careers. Both became better players under Pep’s instruction.

The second season was a concentrated net spend of £200M. Ederson erased the Bravo blot on Pep’s record. Benjamin Mendy and Kyle Walker solved the full back issue. The now irreplaceable Bernardo Silva joined Mendy from Monaco (thankfully, he didn’t join him at parties) and the students from the previous season saw all the pieces fall into place.

How do you silence the naysayers from twelve months previous?

Become The Centurions.

Suddenly no one was mocking about being “tippy tappy”. It wasn’t boring. 100 points in a single season can never be understated. Nor can 106 league goals. It was proof that Guardiola’s philosophy could work on these shores. And with it, a seed was planted. Where there was once doubt, there were open minds.

As the (full) saying goes: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.

Slowly at first – then so quickly teams from League Two to Sunday League were trying it – everyone was trying to play from the back. High defensive lines were okay. Goalkeepers, even Dave from the Dog and Duck, were being turned into ball playing sweeper-keepers. With varying degrees of success.

The greatest teams of all time never exist in isolation. To raise levels, you need a worthy opponent. Someone who appears relentless in their pursuit as you stand on top of the mountain. One iteration of Pep’s City teams is the best Premier League side of all time. The debate is which team from which season. This wouldn’t be the case without Klopp’s Liverpool.

The Merseyside club under the German raised the bar higher than had been seen before in England. Jürgen’s Heavy Metal Football was seen as the antidote to Pep’s patient possession. They hit 97 points in the 2018-19 season. Good enough to win the league any normal year.

Except, Liverpool were up against a team that was anything but ordinary. City won the final fourteen league games, finishing on 98 points. It revealed the resilience and ruthlessness that was installed into the club’s DNA. This became the new Typical City.

Not before a reset was required.

In his first three seasons, Pep could be seen as a Missionary for his style of play. The Centurions and the run-in with Liverpool delivered his gospel. What followed were the years where he became a true controller. His previous managerial stints had been short in nature. After finishing a point above Liverpool, he surrendered the title to Klopp the following year.

It was a true transitional phase. Not just the loss of Vincent Kompany – immortalised forever, signing off with the goal against Leicester the previous season – but David Silva’s last year in a City shirt. Cancelo was recruited and so was a player called Rodri.

It was the year Covid changed the world and football didn’t escape. One where the sharp focus on City in the Champions League was harsher than ever. If you can’t fairly criticise what Guardiola has achieved, the only avenue left is to remind everyone what he hasn’t done. The defeat to Lyon – a Champions League game played over one leg because of Covid – drove the new narrative: he’s too clever for his own good.

But equally, because of the league performance, not that clever because he’d been worked out. This time, his style wouldn’t work in England. Yeah, yeah, people jumped the gun after the first season and called it too early. Then there was The Centurions and pipping Liverpool. But this time, really, no doubts: Pep was cooked and out of his depth. 

So he went on to win four Premier League titles in a row. An accomplishment never seen before in England.

Transition became a state of permanent flux. If anyone thought they could solve Pep, he was already dreaming up the next system. He’s playing 4D chess while everyone else is learning tic-tac-toe.

Managers who thought they knew City patterns were faced with a colder machine. When it looked like City desperately required a striker, Pep won the league with a false 9. People spending time working out that conundrum looked up to see the most un-Pep player in Erling Haaland sign with the club. Suddenly, City are more direct.

The Missionary became The Great Adapter. 

He picked up a domestic treble in the process — first English club to do so. The Holy Grail of the Champions League was secured — as part of a Premier League and FA Cup treble. It makes City the only English side to win the Continental Treble (Premier League, FA Cup, and European Cup) as the reigning champions of England. A FIFA Club World Cup, a Super Cup, what felt like an annual League Cup. The trophies became synonymous with the pairing of Pep and City.

Kevin De Bruyne became arguably the best in the world as he peaked. Rodri recognised as such when he won the Ballon d’Or.

Those who said Pep’s football was boring when he arrived, were now just bored of watching him dominate English football.

When it’s hard to argue with the results, detractors have turned to the low-hanging fruit. The most obvious being the financial spend, which neatly leads them to the 115 charges. The Covid season saw City initially found guilty by UEFA and subsequently cleared by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Yes, there’s no doubt Pep has spent money when required.

It didn’t seem such a sin when Alex Ferguson signed Rio Ferdinand for £29.1M in 2002. Adjusted using CPI, that’s about £61.5M – but – football stands outside of regular inflation. The TV deal for the Premier League during that cycle was £1BN over three seasons. The clubs currently share a £6.7BN pot. Marc-Israel Guéhi seems like a real bargain.

Buying the league was romanticised when Jack Walker did it for Blackburn Rovers. The Eighties saw the decade start with Robson going to United for £1.5M and surging to £2.8M when Liverpool re-signed Ian Rush. Chris Waddle was sold to Marseille for £4.25M in 1989.

Going all the way back to 1905, Alf Common was signed for £1,000 — the first four-figure transfer fee. Aptly named because spending money in football has always been common. The results do vary wildly.

In the last five years, Manchester United’s net spend of £684.61M is the highest in the Premier League. Newly crowned champions Arsenal are second with £675.77M. Man City are down in seventh with £397.78M.

You need money for success, but money doesn’t guarantee success.

This is why the mudslinging isn’t reserved just for Pep’s transfer activity. The outstanding 115+ charges remain the default position for all detractors. Never have so many people been experts on a topic they’ve no insight into or sound understanding of. Regardless of the outcome, the club – and managers and players by association – will never be given due credit.

None of the negativity can change the argument about Guardiola’s influence. Children are now trained differently because of his arrival. Every level of the football pyramid has altered its play style because of one man’s vision and application. In his leaving statement, Pep spoke more elegantly and poetically than anything this writer can create for such a great man.

He gets Manchester and Manchester loves him. And his truth sits in plain sight when he speaks about the area. Mentioning the Industrial Revolution, and a city built from graft, it becomes the perfect summary for his time at the club. He has spearheaded a football revolution. It required hard work. The result is like the colour of the bricks he mentions — imperfect but resilient. Everything is the product of a massive progression forward. The results not always pretty but authentic and worthwhile.

He changed how a country views its national sport.

Guardiola arrived as a football missionary. He leaves a man changed by England, but not nearly as much as England was changed by him.

Has The Alonso Curse Been Lifted?

Has The Alonso Curse Been Lifted?

In July 2017 this writer asked a simple question in the article: Is Alonso Cursed?

Recently, that article has been viewed on a regular basis, presumably as people take to search engines looking for all things Alonso following his switch to Aston Martin. Early signs (just two races and a promising pre-season) indicate the Spaniard has finally timed the transfer market correctly.

His move from Alpine had a few factors which made it a key story in F1’s transfer circus. The pre-cursor was four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel announcing his retirement from the sport. He appeared genuinely at ease with the decision. To such an extent, I doubt he looks upon this year’s AMR2023 with much envy. It wasn’t dissimilar (using that phrase with Germans could open up a Gary Lineker moment) to the way his hero Michael Schumacher stepped aside at Mercedes when they were in the hunt for Lewis Hamilton.

When the itch has been scratched, the fire inside resembles ambers, it’s time to leave the paddock behind.

This is where Alonso differs. His passion continues to bleed into every career choice. Critics will point out he’s played a large part in his own misfortune. It’s acknowledged he’s demanding. His new boss, billionaire Lawrence Stroll, has said he embraces this aspect of Alonso’s character. Drive and focus is great for an emerging team who lack championship experience. It proves problematic when Fernando’s frustrations kick-in.

Alpine may have endured all they could stomach of Alonso’s demands. They offered a one-year deal. This was like playing a game of chicken. It shows they were prepared to call his bluff, and were happy with the risk if him leaving. This was when they thought it was possible to replace him with their rookie reserve driver Oscar Piastri.

A lesson here in checking the small print and finer details of contracts: Piastri signed for McLaren, a move confirmed as legitimate by the FIA’s contract recognition board. This condemned the likeable Daniel Ricciardo to a year as Red Bull’s reserve driver.

Alonso claims the major aspect in deciding to move was the feeling of being wanted. Could this be the first time he felt personally sought after? Teams in the past have needed his raw speed and have been willing to manage his personality. At Aston Martin, Stroll sold it as a new home where his character traits were welcome.

For Alonso, who must have been confident he wasn’t moving down the pack, the longer contract and better personal connection sealed the deal. He must be aware time is now his main enemy if he’s to join the other five men who are in the history books as three-time F1 World Champions. He wasn’t getting a ride at Red Bull or Mercedes, so signing with Stroll’s affluent outfit made sense.

It was Lawrence Stroll who took the biggest gamble. Alonso arriving at a project – for all his undeniable talent – usually places a hex on that year’s car. Sure, he extracts every last millisecond from its potential, but usually they are seconds away from the podium spots in terms of performance.

And then there’s the strong personality. Much is made about how Lawrence’s son, Lance Stroll, has been gifted his drive in Formula 1. Nothing will expose any flaws in his ability like being paired with Fernando Alonso. Surely, Lawrence will have to favour Alonso’s requests over his own son’s. But iron sharpens iron, and Lance has already silenced some critics following his Bahrain effort. He drove with injured wrists, defying advice to rest and skip the race.

It’s a long season. Two races can’t provide enough information to state the Alonso Curse has been lifted. Ferrari and Mercedes will be working hard to close the gap to Red Bull, let alone Aston Martin. It does appear he’s starting a new team from a strong position for a change. As he secured his one-hundredth podium in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, he’s sent a strong signal he’s finally back for one last shot.

What was notable, was how relaxed he appeared in interviews when that podium was initially rescinded. Is there going to be anything more dangerous than an in-form Alonso, in a fast car, who keeps his emotions in check and doesn’t get rattled?