Why Jordi Cruyff sacked himself, Ranieri exit laced with deceit and the week's best sportswriting

1. DAVIS OFTEN TRAINS late into the night, running the streets of Baltimore, and sleeps until midday. So it was his coach Calvin Ford — he sleeps much less, sometimes just an hour a night — who found the attempted-delivery note when he got to Upton Boxing Center, a gym in one of the city’s most blighted neighborhoods.

Ford, along with Kenny Ellis, another of Davis’s coaches, runs the training sessions at Upton five nights a week, showing young people the angles of the trade and keeping them off the same streets that Davis makes his training ground.

The coaches have been involved with fighting, in one way or another, for most of their lives. Ellis, 49, is a bearded former amateur boxer who has coached at Upton since 2005. And Ford, 52, was once a violent lieutenant in the Boardley-Burrows drug organization, which controlled parts of West Baltimore in the 1980s.

Finn Cohen, for the New York Times, tells the remarkable story of the Baltimore boxing gym that is producing champions against the odds.

Claudio Ranieri. Martin Rickett Martin Rickett

2. Ken Way has watched the increasingly bitter fallout at Leicester City since Claudio Ranieri was sacked last Thursday with growing sadness.

He has watched as Leicester’s players have been labelled “ungrateful”, “spoiled” and “treacherous”; accused of carrying out a coup against their own manager. He has seen the club’s Thai owners charged with killing romance stone dead. Listened as the sporting world has debated the tragic ending to one of the greatest fairytales the game has known. He cannot help but be full of regret.

Tom Cary of the Telegraph gets inside the head of former Leicester City sports psychologist Ken Way in an exclusive interview.

3. Whereas other combine moments are overcomplicated or understimulating, the 40 is neither. It is simple, .gif-able and raw. It’s an opportunity for young football stars, stripped of the physical and symbolic separation their sport typically provides, to blow everyone away. But it’s also an opening to blow up for all of the wrong reasons—like Vick Ballard did in 2012, stumbling out of the gates and taking out a tripod. Even future Hall of Famers like Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers look back on their runs with a twinge of regret—Brady admitting “I was really slow back then” and Rodgers attempting to label his 4.71 time as #fakenews.

Jacob Feloman, in Sports Illustrated, reflects on Chris Jones’ 40-yard dash at last year’s NFL Combine where he showed off more than just his impressive speed.

4. What should we read into the fact that not one player felt it necessary to offer a clipped tribute to Ranieri within 24 hours of his departure. A few have, in fairness, recognised him now, but it doesn’t feel like a coincidence that comes after their policy of omerta started to be questioned. It feels deliberate, pointed and spoilt beyond belief and in the case of Jamie Vardy it doesn’t help that at 9am on Friday the publicity-ravenous clods who have spent almost a year telling us they are going to turn him into a movie had put out a statement claiming they had been “inundated with questions, comments and concerns” – really? – asking whether Ranieri’s dismissal might affect their plans. “It does not,” they announced. Maybe it is time they just got on with making this film rather than milking it any more. Nice touch, though – using a manager’s sacking to get another plug.

In an article for the Guardian, Daniel Taylor describes how Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester City exit was laced with deceit and discourtesy.

Jordi Cruyff. Matt Dunham Matt Dunham

5. Since losing his father in March last year, Cruyff has faced new challenges in his life as he tries to come to terms with such a significant absence. The loss of a huge presence leaves a big hole. Concentrating on work has been a help of sorts, even if this has not been the most straightforward of seasons.

The role of a sporting director demands clear judgment, and around the turn of the year Maccabi Tel Aviv were drifting under the management of Shota Arvaladze. The players were underperforming. Cruyff analysed the situation and went for the “high-risk call” to take over the team himself while he looked around for a longer-term replacement.

Amy Lawrence writes for the Guardian on why Jordi Cruyff decided to sack himself as Maccabi Tel Aviv manager and move back to his role as sporting director.

6. Only time will tell if Magic Johnson is a success or failure in his new post, and one can certainly argue whether Le Batard’s opinion is correct, but only in a nonsensical politically correct world would such comments be considered racist. But welcome to the world we live in. Since making these comments, Le Batard has been attacked as being a racist, with his most vocal critics being his own colleagues at ESPN.

Former NFL player and now an ESPN commentator Keyshawn Johnson (no relation to Magic) was quick to go on the attack saying on ESPN: “I’m going to read between the lines, I’m going to read between the lines on this one. To me, he saying because he’s a black dude, that’s the way I look at it.” The same show allowed a call on air from one of Magic’s old teammates agreeing that racism was behind Le Batard’s comments. Mike Wilbon, another ESPN personality, blasted his fellow ESPN commentator in a series of tweets, criticizing Le Batard not for being racist but for not knowing what he was talking about.

John Calvin writes for ESPN on Magic Johnson’s new role as president of basketball operations for the LA Lakers.

7. I struggle with the thought of so many children being asked so early in their lives to put so much into what is essentially regarded as a dream. Parents buy into the process because they are told: “this is what your child will be!” But the assumption that a good player at eight makes a good player at 18 is a major problem. A very low percentage of those entering “the process” become elite athletes. Most fall away somewhere along the line and we hear very little more about them.

Mark O’Sullivan writes for the Irish Times on the difficulties facing youth coaches as the world of football evolves.

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