THE WARMUP

Welcome to Volume I, Edition XI of The Sunday Back Page. I’ve done some tweaking of the format. Please let me know what you think.

Happy Sunday. The Back Page is open.

This week, a bumbling spy in England sent me straight back to 2007 and to a story I covered at the New York Daily News that still doesn’t get enough credit for how petty it was. We’ve also got independent journalists making big moves, a data viz guy who makes Excel look like art, and a podcast that convinced me punk rockers care deeply about the Toronto Raptors.

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THE LEAD

An intern for Southampton Football Club tried to spy on Middlesbrough’s training session last week before a Championship playoff match. He hid behind a tree. He was photographed. He fled through a golf club bathroom. His credit card receipt placed him at the scene.

Sky Sports even had a reporter do a kind of reenactment. Middlesbrough is calling for Southampton to be thrown out of next weekend’s playoff final, the game known as the Richest Game in Football. A hearing is set for on or before Tuesday. The final at Wembley is scheduled for next Saturday — though the EFL has confirmed that date could change. Middlesbrough won’t even be allowed in the hearing room.

This is what spying has come to.

Marcelo Bielsa did it better. When Leeds United got caught surveilling opposing practices during their 2019 Championship campaign, Bielsa held a 70-minute press conference and said: Yes, I did it, I’ve done it my whole career, and by the way, I already knew everything about you anyway. The English soccer world decided he was a genius. Connor Stallions at Michigan at least had operational discipline — buying tickets to opposing games under fake names, filming signals from the stands.

Bill Belichick just told a cameraman where to stand.

I was at the New York Daily News when Spygate broke in September 2007. The Patriots got caught filming the Jets’ defensive signals from the sideline. Commissioner Roger Goodell fined Belichick $500,000, fined the club $250,000, stripped the club of a first-round pick, and then destroyed the tapes before anyone outside league offices could see them. Our cartoonist Ed Murwainski drew Belichick in his hoodie with a video camera. We plastered that thing everywhere.

Here’s what made it personal. When Eric Mangini — Belichick’s defensive coordinator — took the Jets job that offseason, Belichick told him not to. Mangini took it anyway. Belichick had his belongings boxed and shipped. Changed the locks.

So when the 2007 season opened, and Mangini’s Jets caught the Patriots’ cameraman on the sideline, Mangini reported it. He knew exactly what Belichick was doing because he’d been inside the operation. He probably lets it go if Belichick doesn’t make it so clear how he felt about people who leave.

Belichick left the Patriots after the 2023 season, second on the all-time wins list, behind Don Shula — a record he’ll have a hard time breaking now. He became eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year, and didn’t get in on the first ballot.

But Spygate is in that room. So is the man who put it there by changing the locks on a door.

— Ian Powers

THE QUESTION

In Marcelo Bielsa’s famous Spygate season at Leeds United, the club was caught spying on a Championship rival’s training session — yet that same club later knocked Leeds out of the promotion play-offs. Which club was it, and at what stage?

See answer below 👇

THE READS

Each week, we curate 4-6 of our favorite reads from this week. The selections came from our own curation and from dozens of submissions by our readers. Thank you so much, and keep them coming.

I’m a sucker for a good visual, and I don’t highlight them enough in this newsletter. Chris Gunther builds data visualizations out of Excel — yes, Excel — and his breakdown of every WNBA starting lineup to open the 2026 season is the kind of work that makes you stop scrolling.

The new CBA made nearly every player in the league a free agent this offseason. Gunther maps what that churn actually looks like, team by team — who stayed, who landed where, who’s getting paid. The Las Vegas Aces starting five will make a combined $5.2 million this season. The Seattle Storm’s starters average $620,000. That gap tells a story.

I’m not losing sleep over a bad season at the Bernabéu. But Rohan Ajit put in real work trying to explain how the whole thing came apart, and the answer is simpler than the piece’s length suggests: Ancelotti and Zidane knew how to manage people. Xabi Alonso knows tactics. At Real Madrid, those are not the same job.

The newsletter is called Kroos Control for a reason. Toni Kroos is all over the foundation section — and once you understand what he actually provided, the rest of the collapse makes sense. Nobody replaced him. Nobody replaced Benzema either. You can’t stack elite talent on top of a missing structure and expect it to hold.

Ted Turner and Bobby Cox died within three days of each other earlier this month. Wendy Parker writes the Sports Biblio Reader, a newsletter devoted to sports books and history, and she grew up in Atlanta watching all of it. Her piece on what those two men built — and what it actually took to turn a punchline into a baseball city — is worth your time.

I’ll be honest: as a Mets fan who watched the Braves own the NL East for what felt like my entire adult life, it is genuinely difficult to fathom. But one of the reasons this newsletter exists is to push past the echo chamber. Read things that challenge you. Sit with a perspective you didn’t choose. Parker’s piece did that for me, and it might do it for you, too.

Dan Leydon has been on my radar for a while. He’s an illustrator who covers soccer with a level of conception and detail that stops you mid-scroll. He used to produce work for the late Grant Wahl when Substack was Wahl’s home. With the World Cup less than a month away, there is no better time to find him.

This piece breaks down what Leydon calls “Haaland Hang Time” — the specific mid-air contortion Erling Haaland uses to turn uncatchable crosses into goals. The illustration alone is worth the click. While you’re there, check his Notes too. His color wheel is the kind of thing you save and come back to.

THE LISTEN

Each week, we curate 1-2 of our favorite podcasts. The selections came from our own curation and from submissions by our readers. Thank you so much, and keep them coming.

I stumbled onto Indie Basketball this week, and I’m glad I did. Host Corban Ford has a simple and kind of perfect premise: talk basketball with musicians. This episode brings in Chris Cresswell of The Flatliners to discuss Raptors heartbreak, which is a very specific kind of pain that apparently crosses over into punk rock circles.

It’s different. It’s niche in the best way. If you’ve ever wanted proof that the sports and music worlds overlap more than you’d think, start here.

THE WATCH

Each week, we curate 1-2 of our favorite videos. The selections came from our own curation and from submissions by our readers. Thank you so much, and keep them coming.

Joon Lee makes some of the best sports video journalism on YouTube, and I’ve featured him in these pages before. The SBP one-a-month rule applies, so I’m using my slot wisely. This conversation with former MLB pitcher Adam Ottavino on why 100 mph has become the baseline rather than exceptional won’t rewrite what you know about the game — but it’ll sharpen it.

You may remember Ottavino as the guy who once said he’d strike out Babe Ruth every time. He’s thought more carefully about the game since then.

THE PRESSROOM

Aaron Gleeman has been writing about the Minnesota Twins longer than most Twins fans can remember. The Athletic hired him to do exactly that. But since the New York Times acquired The Athletic, the platform has drifted toward bigger personalities and broader regional coverage — beat writers who aren’t driving enough traffic find themselves exposed. Gleeman saw it coming and got out on his own terms.

Twins fans are better for it. And so is independent sports media.

Jenna Fryer spent years covering motorsports for the Associated Press, including the Indy 500. She took a voluntary buyout and launched her own Substack. The wire isn’t what it was, and writers who built real audiences on their beats are figuring that out.

The timing is something. The Indy 500 is next week, and for the first time in a long time, Fryer will be covering it for herself.

Matt Lombardo has been featured in these pages before. His insider NFL coverage is the real thing. He’s moving Between the Hashmarks to Beehiiv, citing the same reasons others have — Substack’s tolerance for certain figures and its Polymarket partnership among them. Making a platform decision based on principle, knowing it costs you something, takes conviction. We wish him well. It also raises a question worth sitting with: how far does a free speech credo go before it becomes something else?

THE ROSTER

We want to celebrate as many independent creators on The Sunday Back Page as possible. Here are all the people who either submitted their work for consideration or were considered independently this week. Many of these creators deserved a place in this newsletter, and we hope they continue to submit their work. Please keep them on your radar.

John | Views From The 6th Borough | Michael Pallett | Jesse Gerritsen | Her Game Plan | Heart of a Fan | Jeshal | Degrees of Competition | Tevin Morris | Kwame Twumasi-Ankrah | Baseball Scoops | Sando’s FC Barcelona

Want to see your independent publication featured here? Let us know. There are hundreds more baseball Substacks out there. Give me a shout!

THE ANSWER

Derby County. They beat Leeds in the play-off semi-finals, sending Bielsa’s side home despite the controversy surrounding his scouting methods all season.

THE SCORECARD