Section:GDN 1N PaGe:39 Edition Date:190808 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 7/8/2019 20:01 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
Thursday 8 August 2019 The Guardian •Sport^39
Football‘I hope my words lead
to action on guns’
A
lejandro Bedoya was
at home in the French
city of Nantes in the
autumn of 2015, tuned
to Germany’s friendly
at the Stade de France
against Les Bleus. Like much of the
viewing public, he knew something
was amiss in the fi rst half, when the
broadcast picked up loud noises
emanating from outside the stadium.
They would later be revealed as
suicide bomb explosions, one by a
terrorist who had tried to infi ltrate
the stadium itself.
For a USA international midfi elder
long engaged in off -fi eld matters,
the targeting of a sporting event for
terror in the 13 November attacks
marked a bitter awakening. Bedoya
had rarely heeded the call to “stick
to sports” and, when life-or-death
issues encroached, the notion that
he should limit himself to the game
alone was wide of the mark.
“That’s when as a football
player, as an athlete, they’re using a
stadium, a place of entertainment,
to attack our freedoms. So of course
you think about that,” Bedoya
told the Guardian this week.
“You’re stuck in a locker room and
something goes off , or you’re on
the fi eld and somebody can, if they
can get into the stadium with the
types of guns and ammunition and
magazines these guys have and fi re
away, you’re on the fi eld, an opentarget. Of course these things cross
our minds.”
The attacks in Paris are one
of the myriad infl uences that
provide context for Bedoya making
headlines on Sunday. The captain of
MLS’s Philadelphia Union, Bedoya
scored in the third minute of a
nationally televised game against
DC United. After celebrating with
teammates, he found a broadcast
microphone and shouted a message
to a nation rocked by two mass
shootings that weekend: “Hey
Congress, do something now. End
gun violence. Let’s go!”
His words rocketed around
the internet, the video garnering
millions of views. The reaction
surprised no one more than Bedoya,
who found out from an Audi Field
security guard at half-time that his
moment had gone viral.
In the hours before the game,
Bedoya had tweeted about the mass
shootings in El Paso and Dayton
that had claimed a combined total
of more than 30 lives. He’d talked
about them with family, includingPhiladelphia Union’s Bedoya
made headlines by shouting
into a pitchside microphone
after scoring an MLS goalMatthew De George
Chester, Pennsylvaniaa group chat with friends who,
half-jokingly, challenged Bedoya to
use his visibility to get his voice out
there. As he went through his usual
pre-match routine, the tragedies
remained in his thoughts.
“The fact that I scored an early
goal, third minute, I’m guessing
everything was fresh in my mind,”
Bedoya said. “So maybe it was a sign
from God or something that, hey,
you have a platform, speak out. I
don’t know. It just happened.”
Bedoya is n ot new to the issue.
His wife, Beatrice, is Norwegian, a
country where a mass shooting in
2011 caused profound changes in its
approach to gun violence. Bedoya
grew up in Weston, Florida, 20
miles from Parkland, site of a mass
shooting at Marjorie Stoneman
Douglas High School in 2018. Bedoya
had played football there, knew
people aff ected and spoke in support
of victims in the 2018 season opener.
His professional career has taken
him all over the world, from 66 USA
caps to club stints at Nantes and
Rangers, and two spells in Sweden.
He has had teammates and friends
from many nations, able to see
issues at home and abroad through
a diverse set of viewpoints.
Since his 10 impassioned words
on Fox Sports – which he tells the
Guardian he does n ot regret and
would n ot change – Bedoya has
spoken with great care. He stressed
that his call was nonpartisan, not
a political gesture but one of a
concerned citizen, a human being
and father before an athlete.
The 32-year-old is grateful for the
outpouring of support, saying that
responses have been “95% positive”,
and he has seen his message
amplifi ed by many athletes. He
hopes his words, and the optimism
that consensus and change can
be achieved, provide a counter
to that. “Words matter,” Bedoya
said. “Words are very powerful.
And words lead to action, just
like my words I hope can keep the
conversation going and lead to action
in Congress to hopefully pass some
legislation that can help limit this.”▼ Bedoya yells into a
microphone after scoring
against DC United on Sunday
PATRICK MCDERMOTT/GETTY IMAGESBedoya shouted:
‘Hey Congress,
do something
now. End gun
violence. Let’s go!’
Leeds quick out
of the blocks
as Bielsa looks
to go one better
Sky Bet Championship analysis
Ben FisherL
eeds ’s season is 9 0
minutes old but they
could not have made a
more convincing start
than in their 3-1 win at
Bristol City. The caveat
is that blazing starts are nothing
new under Marcelo Bielsa and he
acknowledged that this is ground
zero in terms of achieving the
Premier League return he stuck
around to realise. The wry smile
and sheepish chuckle that greeted
a question asking if his team’s
suff ocating performance in platinum
and pink surpassed his expectations
said as much. “I know perfectly
well that this is a long season and
all of the things that happen at the
start of the season do not determine
the fi nish. We suff ered a lot in this
situation last season,” he said.
But the early evidence, as it was
last season when Leeds won fi ve
of their opening six matches, is
compelling. Even if Bielsa does tickle
his squad by adding another new
face before the transfer deadline
today , other than the defender
Ben White, who was peerless
on debut on Sunday, and Hélder
Costa, a summer addition from
Wolverhampton , he is working with
the same core of players, including
a raft of youngsters from the club’s
academy, with the 17-year-old
Mateusz Bogusz the latest to make a
big impression.
“Everybody has highlighted that
Pontus Jansson left but Ben came
in and he looked like he had been
there for years,” the striker Patrick
Bamford said of the Brighton loanee.
Despite key departures – Kemar
Roofe has just followed Jansson and
Bailey Peacock-Farrell out of the
door – the spine of the team remains
pristine; so strong, so stubborn.
A n inner circle of dependables
defi ne them: Liam Cooper, Mateusz
Klich, Kalvin Phillips and Pablo
Hernández, who somehow did not
get into the Championship team of
the year last season.
Because of how Leeds blew Bristol
City away, Bielsa could keep some of
his powder dry at Ashton Gate, with
Jack Clarke, the teenage forward
back on loan at the club after joining
Tottenham for £10m this summer,
not called on and Ezgjan Alioski and
Costa merely saying hello off the
bench. Leeds hardly looked bereft
of options with Gaetano Berardi
and Luke Ayling still to return from
suspension and injury respectively.
Jansson has left for Brentford and
Roofe joined Anderlecht on Tuesday
but keeping hold of Phillips, a
player tracked by Aston Villa thissummer, was paramount because
he provides Leeds’s zest. He is
comfortable dropping into defence
in Bielsa’s famed 3-3-1-3 and has
made the anchorman role his own
under the Argentinian in Leeds’s
familiar 4-1-4-1 formation.
Phillips is a midfi eld bouncer.
He shakes off challenges, turns
over possession, eats up ground
and drives Leeds forward. For fans,
Phillips is the local boy done good,
having grown up in Armley, around
the corner from Elland Road.
The uproar around spying led to
scrutiny of Bielsa’s integrity but he
is a magnanimous character. Be it
detailing his plans for the season
on a piece of paper after bumping
into fans in Wetherby, handing
out sweets to young supporters ,
naming his team before matches
or ordering Jansson to allow Villa
to score in the spirit of the game,
Bielsa has prove d to be a generous
personality.E
ven the way Bielsa
off ered the world a
peek inside his brain
via that Powerpoint
presentation in
January was as
daringly transparent as it was
extraordinary. On Sunday Bielsa
attempted to cool simmering
tensions by approaching Lee
Johnson at half-time to clear the
air over a touchline disagreement
between his physio and the City
head coach. They sorted out their
diff erences at the interval but
Johnson was unhappy. “If you had
a tactician watching the way they
conduct their technical area, you’d
see why,” he said. “They like to
work that and listen, fair play to
them, most clubs do the same.”
Bielsa and Leeds are
approaching uncharted territory- he is the fi rst manager to start
successive seasons at the club
since Simon Grayson eight years
ago – but something about this
marriage feels sacred. For a team to
put down as resounding a marker
as they did on the back of another
brutal summer of triple and
quadruple sessions sets the tone
for another tantalising campaign.
The challenge is to be more
durable and how bottomless
this small squad will prove over
a gruelling season remains to be
seen but they have already off ered
answers to several questions.
Bielsa’s methods are no mystery,
his thinking is no longer shrouded
in secrecy but early evidence
suggests Leeds will take some
stopping.
▲ Marcelo Bielsa is working with the
same core of players as last seasonРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS