☕ Sunday Read Recommendations

This week I'm stepping away from the World Cup series for a moment and sharing three pieces from colleagues I follow and respect — very different angles, all worth your time.

🧠 Artefact: The Guardiola Overthink (by Dan Leydon): A precise dissection of why Pep benches his best players in his biggest matches — and why the pattern only emerged after he stopped managing Messi. I always look forward to Dan's editions partly for the writing and partly for his illustrations, which are genuinely unlike anything else in the football writing space. → danleydon.substack.com/…

📺 Can we stop applauding Sky for televising women's sport? (by Clare McEwen): The WSL moved behind Sky's paywall and everyone celebrated. Clare makes the case that this was the wrong deal at the wrong time — visibility matters more than exclusivity when you're still building an audience. The sequencing question (when do you monetize vs. when do you grow?) is one of the most underexplored in sports business. → theaccidentalcoach.subs…

🏟️ Stadium Financing (by Nikola Vuković, CFA): A genuine primer on how stadium projects are actually capitalized — bank loans, public bonds, private equity, naming rights as collateral. The infrastructure investment story is the commercial story nobody tells properly. → nikolavukovic.substack.…

🌍 Bonus track — en español:El fútbol para explicar el mundo (by Juan Pablo Gatti): For those who read Spanish — or want to try. Juan Pablo traces how football has functioned as a political and cultural lens across different national histories, from the UK to Latin America. It's the kind of long-form thinking that makes you see the game differently. → elespiritudeolimpia.sub…

What are you reading?