Like the word Blackpool running through the centre of a stick of seaside rock, Galileo's influence was a constant feature during 2020.

That won't come as a huge surprise to those in tune with the ways of the bloodstock world as Galileo has now been champion sire in Britain and Ireland for each of the last 11 years and 12 of the last 13 having briefly loaned his crown to Danehill Dancer in 2009.

However, even given his own standards of uncommon excellence, the last 12 months rank highly in Galileo's march towards immortality, not least because he passed a number of significant breeding milestones.

He ended last year with his progeny having earned 5,274,968 in prize-money, a haul that is more than double that of Dubawi, who finished runner-up for a fifth time with earnings of 2,456,588.

Galileo's 12th British and Irish sires' championship sees him move within hailing distance of the record set by his own sire, Sadler's Wells, who won 14 titles during a breed-shaping career that many thought they would never see the likes of again.

Sadler's Wells and handler Noel Stapleton lead Galileo, Montjeu and High Chaparral around Coolmore

Edward Whitaker

Their exploits have ensured that the leading sire crown has gone to a Coolmore stallion for each of the last 31 years, a run that stretches back to the first of Sadler's Wells' victories in 1990, takes in Caerleon's second title the following year, includes Danehill's hat trick of successes between 2005 and 2007 and, latterly, the Galileo era from 2008 to the present day.

Three horses registered a trio of European Group 1 victories during 2020, and, in a reflection of the dominance he exerts, Galileo duly figured prominently in all three pedigrees.

No horse contributed a greater sum to Galileo's annual progeny prize-money tally than the mighty mare Magical. She was never out of the first three in seven starts throughout 2020 and duly claimed 1,509,184 during a global campaign that not only saw her win three domestic Group 1s namely the Pretty Polly Stakes, the Tattersalls Gold Cup and the Irish Champion Stakes but also finish runner-up in the Breeders' Cup Turf and a closing third in the Hong Kong Cup. She rates a most exciting retiree to Coolmore's broodmare band for 2021.

Galileo was also responsible for three-time Group 1 winner Love, who swept the 1,000 Guineas, Oaks and Yorkshire Oaks as well as the champion three-year-old filly title. Love's Epsom triumph came just over an hour before Serpentine etched Galileo's name into the history books by giving his sire an unprecedented fifth success in the Derby.

The shock pillar-to-post victory saw Serpentine join New Approach (2008), Ruler Of The World (2013), Australia (2014) and Anthony Van Dyck (2019) on Galileo's Epsom roll of honour. The historic achievement saw Galileo overtake Sir Peter Teazle, Waxy, Cyllene, Blandford and Montjeu, who each sired four Derby winners apiece.

Serpentine gives Galileo his fifth Derby success

Edward Whitaker

Becoming the winningmost sire of the Turf's blue riband event was not the only record that Galileo claimed outright in 2020, as by that point he had also become the most prolific sire of Group/Grade 1 winners in history when Peaceful became his 85th elite-level scorer in the Irish 1,000 Guineas in June.

That success saw Galileo wrest the title from his former studmate Danehill. It had looked inevitable that Galileo would claim Danehill's Group/Grade 1 crown in 2020, having equalled the record on November 9, 2019 when Magic Wand landed the Mackinnon Stakes at Flemington.

Four more new Group/Grade 1 winners followed Peaceful, with Serpentine joined by Grand Prix de Paris and Hong Kong Vase hero Mogul, Moyglare Stud Stakes victress Shale,and Lael Stable's Magic Attitude, who claimed the Belmont Oaks. Those results mean Galileo's stud record now features 89 Group/Grade 1 winners atop a list of 535 black-type performers 224 of which have won at Group level, while a further 108 have struck in Listed company.

Moreover, Galileo's domination of 2020was not merely confined to the success of his own runners as he also claimed his maiden champion broodmare sire crown. His daughters were responsible for 144 winners (36 per cent strike-rate) in Britain and Ireland, among which were 17 stakes scorers who contributed to earnings of 3,539,753.

Ghaiyyath: Juddmonte International hero is out of Galileo's daughter Nightime

Edward Whitaker

He is, of course, the damsire of the world's highest-rated runner in Ghaiyyath, the son of Dubawi who has taken up residency at Darley's Kildangan Stud for 2021. The Godolphin colour bearer, who was bred by Dermot Weld's Springbank Way Stud, earned his monster rating courtesy of his romp in the Juddmonte International, which was the third of his three Group 1 wins last year following victories in the Coronation Cup and Coral-Eclipse.

Galileo was also represented as broodmare sire of Group 1 winners Barney Roy, St Mark's Basilica and Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe hero Sottsass the son of Siyouni who will stand alongside Galileo at Coolmore in 2021.

As if all that weren't enough, Galileo further underlined his growing importance as a sire of sires with his stallion sons supplying a slew of significant winners of their own. The top 35 in last year's British and Irish sires' table featured nofewer than five of Galileo's sons.

Most prominent of those was the 11th-placed Australia, who enjoyed something of a breakthrough year thanks to Galileo Chrome's St Leger success, a first at Group 1 level for his sire. Galileo Chrome's Classic strike was swiftly followed by the Grade 1 victory of Order Of Australia in the Breeders' Cup Mile, and supplemented by Group 2 wins for Cayenne Pepper and Leo De Fury.

Australia: Galileo's leading sire son in 2020 supplied a brace of top-level winners

Coolmore

One place below Australia was Frankel, who may not have sired a British or Irish Group 1 winner in 2020 but did amass 1,168,104 in progeny earnings, while he was represented by top-flight scorers Grenadier Guards, Mirage Dancer and Mozu Ascot on the international stage.

A third King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes for the brilliant Enable helped her sire, Newsells Park Stud's Nathaniel, into 18th place, while the redoubtable Teofilo finished in 21st.

The second-crop son of Galileo, who stands at Darley's Kildangan Stud, also enjoyed a notably strong year with his overseas performers, with Exultant bagging a brace of Hong Kong Group 1s; in France each of Gear Up (Criterium de Saint-Cloud), Subjectivist (Prix Royal-Oak) and Tawkeel (Prix Saint Alary) struck at the top level; German filly Donjah won the Preis von Europa, while Twilight Payment landed the Melbourne Cup.

New Approach, who finished in 34th spot, added an eighth Group 1 winner to his record when Mac Swiney, bred and trained by Jim Bolger, landed the Vertem Futurity Trophy.

With sons Churchill, Decorated Knight, Highland Reel and Ulysses among the sires fielding their first juveniles in 2021, it is not much of a stretch of the imagination to think Galileo will be adding to his list of 20 Group 1 winner-siring sons in the near future.

Churchill: among the first-crop two-year-old sires in 2021

Coolmore

Although he officially turned 23 on New Year's Day, a promising crop of first-season sire sons is far from the only reason to believe therewill be more of the same from Galileo in 2021. He has, of course, another incredibly strong hand among this year's three-year-olds, including ante-post Derby favourite High Definition.

He also has a crop of 137 blue-blooded juveniles to go to war with, among which are the sons and daughters of 32 Group/Grade 1-winning mares, 30 names who boast at least one top level-winning sibling and four two-year-olds who have both a dam and at least one sibling who have struck at the elite level.

Given the numbers involved it would take far too long to detail all of Galileo's well-bred two-year-olds this year. But, for a flavour of what's in store, there are siblings to the likes of Anthony Van Dyck, Found, Gleneagles, Hermosa, Magical, Minding, Tepin and Thunder Snow in the pipeline, as well as the most expensive yearling filly sold in 2020, the 3,400,000gns sister to Japan and Mogul.

Among the Group 1-winning mares with a Galileo two-year-old on the ground are Beauty Parlour, Dancing Rain, Goldikova, Homecoming Queen, Just The Judge, Legatissimo, Mecca's Angel, Quiet Reflection, Sky Lantern, Stellar Wind and Tiggy Wiggy.

So much of what we all thought was normal life has been turned on its head of late. But, for the time being, it looks as though it is still Galileo's world and we are all just living in it. Long may that continue.

More to read:

Honouring the best of breeding in 2020: the Racing Post Bloodstock Awards

Find out which sires recorded the most eyecatching statistics in 2020

From young guns to sires on fire: hunting out value among the 2021 covering fees

From the unexpected to the unwelcome: the biggest bloodstock shocks in 2020

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Why it's Galileo's world in 2021 and we're all just living in it - Racing Post

The Bayeux Tapestry.

The woman is inside, framed in a doorway. Shes fully cloaked and wears a headscarf; only her hands and face are visible. Her arms are open, palms tilted upa universal gesture, but of what? Protest? Surprise? Welcome?

The man, a monk, is outside. His left hand is on his hip, hissy fit style. He lunges toward the woman and penetrates her space, touching her face with his right hand. Is it a slapor a caress?

No one knows. The pair lived a thousand years ago, but like insects trapped in amber, we can still see them, borne through time far from their few short years of life and breath. I feel for themthey didnt ask for immortalityand I almost want to look away, but I never do.

The woman and monk were embroidered into the Bayeux Tapestry in rich, vegetable-toned yarns in the years following William of Normandys invasion of Britain, in 1066. The Tapestry tells the storyskewed to Williams conquering point of viewof how he vanquished King Harold of England at the Battle of Hastings.

Its a rousing boys adventure: broken oaths and feasting, ships braving the English channel, a brutal battle scene strewn with body parts, chainmail, and upended horses. Of the 626 human figures depicted, three are female. The Queen of England, a refugee escaping battle, and AElfgyva, the woman in the doorway: an enigma with a name.

Here atMs., our team is continuing to report throughthis global health crisisdoing what we can to keep you informed andup-to-date on some of the most underreported issues of thispandemic.Weask that you consider supporting our work to bring you substantive, uniquereportingwe cant do it without you. Support our independent reporting and truth-telling for as little as $5 per month.

The Bayeux Tapestry is 230 feet long and under two feet wide. A football field is only 160 feet long, so that should give you a sense of the immense, thundering onrush of Williams narrative. Yet towards the beginning it rams smack into AElfgyva and comes to a screeching halt:

VBI VNVS CLERICVS ET AELFGYVA.

The Latin text above the image of the lady and monk reads, Here a Certain Cleric and AElfgyva. After their encounter, the story gallops forward towards conquest.

Thats all weve got. Actually, not quitea tiny, naked man, genitalia on full display, squats in the margin below AElfgyvas feet, mimicking the monks gesture in reverse. At one time her story clearly carried powerful significance for its viewers, but like the meaning of Stonehenge, weve clean forgotten what it was.

I dont know what happened between AElfgyva and her monk, but I do know that when I encountered the Bayeux Tapestry in college, over 30 years ago, AElfgyva leapt straight off the linen into my life. Shes resonated there ever since. Shes never been a mystery Ive needed to solve; whats engaged me all this time is how history has treated her.

the cleric may be making a pass, or slapping the woman for having impure thoughts or for being a witch, writes David Wilson, commentator on a Knopf facsimile of the tapestry.

Male opinion down the ages has allowed just a trinity of identities, as I discovered reading about AElfgyva in college. In text after text I read, we must surmise she was a victim, whore or witch. Apparently, those are the only roles open to women who ride the centuries with insufficient personal stories.

What really happened? All we can say is that someone did something to her, or she did something to thwart 11th century conventions of female behavior. Yet based on her scene in the tapestry, shes been reduced to those three nouns, no more: Victim, Whore, Witch.

Think thats just male scholars sitting in judgment of women in medieval tapestries? Think again.

Think of Breonna Taylor: Breonna Taylor Is a Victim of Bad Decision Making.

Think of Christine Blasey Ford: CRTVs Steven Crowder: Christine Blasey Ford is a lying whore.

Think of Meghan Markle, now Duchess of Sussex: Meghan Markle Called Witch, Prince Harry Under Her Spell.

AElfgyva the individual has vanished, but AElfgyva the templatea silhouette stitched in yarn, like the chalk outline of a bodyis very much with us, and were still filling it with the same trinity of nouns. We dont use tapestries to tell our stories anymore, but even in our 24/7 news cycle, we can never have omniscient knowledge of what happened to any of these women, even if theyre our immediate contemporaries. Theyre not fictional characters and were not authors; we lack sufficient stories. And so we fill in the news with shorthand.

What we need to examine is the kind of shorthand we use, and who dictates it.

The media and the public pretty much agree that Breonna Taylorthe young Black woman shot and killed by police in her own apartment during a botched drug raid this past Marchwas a victim. Most agree she was an innocent victim; some, like Jason Whitlock of the You Tube program, Fearless, feel that she was the victim of her own bad decisions.

However you fill in her story, her imagelike AElfgyvashas taken on iconic status in the absence of the living woman. The shorthand remains in place and Taylors agency is quashed.

In 2018, Professor Christine Blasey Ford accused then Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers. As soon as she agreed to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to tell her story, the shorthand machine got to work. Despite Ford being 100% certain that it was Kavanaugh who attacked her, Republican senators undermined and disregarded her story and she was openly mocked by President Trump, who questioned her credibility. Conservative commentator Steven Crowder went further, calling her a lying whore.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, infamously opted out of the British Royal Family earlier this year along with her husband, Harry, Duke of Sussex. As if there could have been no other explanations for their decisionnot the British presss hounding of the couple, as they hounded Harrys mother, Diana; not the implicit (and sometimes explicit) racism brewing around the biracial Meghanmany declared the couples exit to be solely Meghans initiative. Conservative American writer, Candace Owens, succinctly explained how she convinced her husband to leave Britain: Meghan Markle is a witch. Harry is under her spell. Many readers responded online: Couldnt agree more.

The medium has changed but not the message. If AElfgyva could speak to us shed probably say, #MeToo. If I could speak for her Id add, #SayHerName (its pronounced something like ELV-jiva, and means gift of the elves).

We can never gather all the facts of any story that enters the public consciousness. What we can do is resist reducing our assumptions to the oldest nouns at hand. The ones that have been around for a thousand years or morethe ones that imprison women in two dimensions of male design.

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The AElfgyva Syndrome and Erasure of Women's Stories - Ms. Magazine

The words of encouragement from Germany boss Joachim Low came to haunt Mario Gotze.

"Show the world you're better than Messi," he told the 22-year-old as he prepared to come on in the 2014 World Cup final with the game locked at 0-0 against Argentina. Ten minutes later, Gotze turned and volleyed Germany into a 1-0 extra-time win over Argentina, winning the World Cup and launching himself into sporting immortality.

"Gotze is a miracle boy, a boy wonder. He can play any position up front," Low said afterwards.

It was to be another step forward in what promised to be a remarkable, once-in-a-generation career. Fast-forward to 2020 and in some corners of the football world, Gotze has been written off as a former star, a dynamic player now finishing out his career far from the top tier. That criticism used to get to him, but he's realised in recent years that he only needs to meet his own expectations. As he rebuilds his career in the relative quiet of the Eredivisie at PSV Eindhoven, he is tentatively planning his second life in football.

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Borussia Dortmund, the club that gave him his senior debut on Nov. 21, 2009, released him in June. The six years since that goal in Brazil saw him spend two seasons at Bayern Munich and return to Borussia Dortmund, where his form and fitness slipped away. But remember this: Gotze is still only 28.

Having made his debut at 17 years old to great fanfare, he won five Bundesliga titles, signed a record transfer to controversially join Bayern Munich, and then went back to Borussia Dortmund, humbled by three indifferent seasons, hoping to appease their fuming fans. Then came his health trouble, injuries, the weight of expectation and unhealthy comparisons with his past performances. He finally left Bayern on a free transfer and spent the summer training on his own, before inadvertently whipping up a social media frenzy in early October.

Noise follows Gotze, but he's not one to cultivate it. He hoped for anonymity when he visited PSV for his medical, but a photo of his black Mercedes parked on the Vonderweg near the Phillips Stadium went viral.

His name still carries clout, but he's no longer that 17-year-old self, the fearless one who had the game on a piece of string and was the rock star in Jurgen Klopp's title-winning Borussia Dortmund team.

"I don't see it as the old Mario Gotze," Gotze tells ESPN. "I think you have different phases in your career -- you get older, you experience a lot of things and the key is to develop all the time, in the right way and not to try to be the old one, because when I was the old one, I was just young."

As he enjoys the silence and privacy of PSV's training ground Campus de Herdgang in the heart of the Langoed de Wielewaal forest, he's better prepared to brush off criticism which previously got to him. And quietly, he's loving football again. And he's playing well. But don't expect him to make any bold predictions. This time Gotze is playing football on his own terms and the only expectations he worries about, are his own.

When he travelled to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup, Gotze had just completed his first season at Bayern Munich. By that point, starring on the international stage was the logical next step. He'd already been dubbed "Gotzinho" by the German press after a remarkable performance against Brazil in a 2011 friendly. He also was the heartbeat of the back-to-back Bundesliga-winning Borussia Dortmund side -- the darling of the Sud Tribune at the Westfalenstadion.

In that second season, the 2012-13 campaign, he had 30 goal-scoring contributions in their 44 games. The great Franz Beckenbauer said that Dortmund midfield of Gotze and Marco Reus was better than the Barcelona double-act of Andres Iniesta and Xavi.

Bayern Munich came knocking and Gotze, a Bavarian, answered as Dortmund's rivals activated his 37m release clause, at the time a record transfer for a German player. The news, which broke 36 hours before Borussia Dortmund's Champions League semifinal against Real Madrid, was a hammer blow to Dortmund. In Uli Hesse's "Building the Yellow Wall," he speaks of how Klopp compared the news to feeling like a "heart attack," while sporting director Michael Zorc "walked in like somebody had died" to break the news to Klopp.

As Hesse said in his book, "there were only losers in this story, because the transfer would turn out to be a disastrous move."

After a promising first season playing as a multi-positional false 9, he headed to the 2014 World Cup as Germany's brightest young star. His tournament form was fair, though without being remarkable. Then, in the final, Andre Schurrle crossed the ball into the box in the 112th minute, Gotze controlled the ball on his chest, and in the same movement volleyed it beyond Argentina's Sergio Romero to give Germany their fourth World Cup and first since 1990.

The words of wisdom from Low advice, which Gotze later admitted should've stayed private, was hardly helpful in dimming the pressure, but his glory in Brazil would signal the end of the first movement in his symphony, rather than the catalyst for further overtures. Marcel Schmelzer, his Borussia Dortmund teammate, said, "I could imagine that he'll say one day it would have been better to not score it" while Mario's brother Fabian said: "To be that successful [at 22 years old] could be the reason why he has lost his ease." Schurrle said at the time how that winning goal brought Gotze "a lot of stress."

Gotze is looking back at that final as he talks to ESPN in the heart of PSV's training ground. He talks methodically and quietly, but expresses everything through his hands.

"I think for me, it was the best thing that happened when I was that young, because I always dreamed of playing in the World Cup and scoring -- I think it was a dream. For sure I was very young, I have to put that into perspective also.... It will always be a positive, but yeah just the expectation... the expectation you get from the media and everyone around you..."

His sentence tails off, the words "was hard" going unsaid. He feels the hype around him "peaked" when he was 17. He's reluctant to expand on how tough it was for him, only alluding to the media pressure being hard. "You have a lot of newspapers, media in Germany... that's part of the job, so I think the only way is to deal with it in the best way for me as an athlete and a person."

0:40

PSV midfielder Mario Gotze shares what he would tell his 18-year-old self.

The 2014 "ideal Gotze" has followed him around. The following two seasons at Bayern Munich saw him fall away: with every poor performance, he was compared to his previous form or to the man Guardiola wanted Bayern to sign that summer: Neymar. Beckenbauer, previously one of Gotze's main cheerleaders, said he was playing "like a child."

"This kind of behaviour does not fit in at Bayern," he said. "It is time for him to grow up. He has shown at Dortmund what he can do and we know that he is a great talent. But there is still something missing."

Bayern Munich chairman and ex-West Germany legend Karl-Heinz Rummenigge offered a more measured take, referring back to those words from Low. "Such sentences, once made public, are of course an unbelievable and damning weight on his shoulders."

Gotze went back to Dortmund in 2016. He'd missed 116 days of the previous season at Bayern due to hamstring injury. In early 2017, he was still fielding questions about 2014. "The picture people have of me is not up to date," he said then. "I can't always score a goal when I play or get subbed in like in the World Cup final. There is more to football. It's complex these days: Running, intensity, diligence." Then came his medical diagnosis: muscular myopathy, which causes muscle weakness and fatigue. He was ruled out for the rest of the season.

At the time he said he trained too much, trying to combat those feelings of tiredness. Those without knowing his condition criticised his fitness levels. When asked about that time in his life, he moves the narrative on.

"It was not the best period, but it was a learning process for me," Gotze says, "When I was 17, 18 I didn't go into the Bundesliga knowing everything, so you have to try a few things and improve yourself, and sometimes take a few steps back, and have ups and downs. I think this is normal and is a process -- now I am happy with how it is developing for myself."

The frequent theme of Gotze as he sees himself and football is one of escaping from the prism of expectation and potential. "I can't just blind it out," he said in 2018. He wants to see his career from a 360-degree perspective, rather than anchored on the past.

"If I could tell my younger self something, it would be to relax a bit, and to see the whole picture and that I have not only got two or three years of playing... so it's rather, I have 15 years to develop and improve and not go too hard on myself and to relax a bit more."

As he looks back on that spell, he is philosophical.

"From the outside, for sure there was a lot of media and pressure, but the only thing that matters [is] my view, my own view and how I view myself and my development. Maybe I put too much pressure on myself, and that's the only thing that is more important than what other people expect or say because in the end, it's all about yourself, and how you see yourself."

That self-inflicted pressure was down to his own personal "ambition" and "trying to develop and improve myself every day, and all the time." He laughs at this point, as if to alleviate tension. But as he talks, there is this overwhelming feeling of calm as he's embraced the joy of playing at PSV and rediscovering that love of football.

Gotze was released by Dortmund in June 2020. He'd missed the final matches of the season for his son, Rome, who was born six weeks prematurely, and that time away from the team dynamic allowed him to re-evaluate his priorities.

In his final season at Dortmund, the team's system changed when they signed Erling Haaland and Gotze's "false 9" role was no longer needed. Despite Lucien Favre saying Gotze could "play anywhere," that versatility went against him. He only played for 609 minutes, scoring three goals and contributing one assist in his final season. His minutes-per-goal ratio went from 205 at Bayern to 445 in his second Dortmund spell.

After his release, Gotze spent the off-season with his new family and focused on personal growth, throwing himself into yoga and fitness training. There was interest from Bayer Leverkusen, and even talk of a return to Bayern Munich. Hansi Flick called Gotze to talk about the move; though Uli Hoeness supported it, a formal offer was ultimately vetoed by sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic.

There was also interest from a Major League Soccer team and other Bundesliga sides, Hertha Berlin and FC Cologne. AC Milan, Roma, Sevilla and West Ham all reportedly showed interest. There was talk of a potential reunion with his old Dortmund boss Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool, but that never materialised either.

"He needs a club that gives him the feeling that he doesn't have to change the world in every game," Klopp said of Gotze. "Instead, Gotze has to just play normally and then play again and play again. Then I think we'll see the 'old' Mario Gotze again."

That "old Gotze" is reappearing at PSV Eindhoven.

"I am a man of feeling," he said on signing with the Dutch side, one of the Eredivisie's biggest teams and title winners as recently as 2017-18. But it's not the old Gotze they're getting, it's more like a Gotze 2.0. He is, in short, loving it at in the Netherlands: Roger Schmidt, the former Bayer Leverkusen boss and now PSV manager, was a huge factor in him opting for the Eredivisie.

"I think the style of play of playing very bravely are things I missed a lot, especially last year when I did not play too much," Gotze said. "This is very important for me. I think I am really close [to my top level], I just have to play to get the rhythm, I think this is the most important thing for me right now.

"And then we have to see, it also depends on the team and how successful we are -- I depend on the team a lot also."

Schmidt is loving Gotze at PSV as well. "He has the gift to make his teammates around him better," Schmidt said. "But it is important that we can get him into his best shape, and he can be his best self."

Gotze is passing on his own experience and knowledge to the next generation, like the ridiculously talented Mo Ihattaren. "For him [Ihattaren] it's the same situation as when I was young, to find the consistency and perform on that level - but it take time, it's a process and he will learn from the ups and downs. This is a big task."

While his experiences and mentorships are bearing fruit at PSV, he's also contributing on the field. He scored on his debut away at PEC Zwolle and has to date scored four goals in 11 games and contributed two assists. "If I look back on the last year, it's important I play," Gotze said. "[My personal goals] are to play, have a great impact and we see how it goes. Try to stay in the moment, enjoy it and try my best."

This same outlook is why he wants to play down expectations and hopes of a Germany recall; you sense it's partly to squash any hype, but also downplay any personal hopes of adding to his 63 caps. Gotze smiles as he is asked about hopes of a Germany recall.

"We are still in touch, I've known him since I was 18 years old. I have worked with him, we were successful together. He is a good guy, great person, good coach. But for me as a player, I don't decide. I don't make the decision, but I am always open to it... yeah."

He is also turning half an eye to life after football. He has invested in the Sanity Group, a Berlin-based pharmaceutical company that's focused on the health benefits of cannabinoids, alongside other celebrities including music producer Will.i.am and ex-footballer Dennis Aogo. But he's far from done in sport.

We're starting to see a new, resilient Gotze coming through. But don't expect him to make any bold predictions on how this year will work out. It's clicking, but when asked whether he sees himself staying at PSV beyond the two-year contract, Gotze anchors himself in the present. "I don't want to look too far in the future. For me it's the moment and for me it's the time right now and then we see how it goes."

Additional reporting by Milan van Dongen

Read the rest here:
Gotze's journey from World Cup hero to second act at PSV after joy and pain at Bayern and Dortmund - ESPN

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Nick Sabans coaching rehab at the University of Alabama is two-fold.

It creates opportunities for coaches to reinvent themselves and endear themselves to a passionate fan base; however, it also opens them to other enticing job offers in the future and a coach that was starting to be loved by fans has to part ways from them.

This song and dance happens again with Stephen Steve Ambrose Sarkisian.

After two seasons with the Crimson Tide, the University of Texas desired him and hired him to be its next head football coach.

Before he becomes a full-time Longhorn, Sarkisian operated the nations most explosive offense this season. Hes coached three Heisman finalists, including two in the top-four. Mac Jones (quarterback) and DeVonta Smith (wide receiver) have both done more than enough to grant the Tide its third Heisman winner in school history, but we will see what happens next Tuesday.

For now, the primary question is will the news on Sarkisian become too much of a distraction for Alabama in the College Football Playoff?

He will coach the offense in the CFP National Championship Game versus Ohio State on Jan. 11 at HardRock Stadium in Miami, Fla.

We saw moments with Kirby Smart (2015) and Jeremy Pruitt (2017) where it was not an issue, but we also saw in situations with Lane Kiffin (2016) and multiple coaches in 2018 where it was an issue and it cost Alabama a national title.

Smart and Pruitt both finished the job with national titles, prior to assuming roles as head coaches.Sarkisian is a savvy professional and he wants to finish what he started.

He has a chance to win his first national championship as an offensive coordinator.

The last time he was on top of the college football world was in 2003 as a quarterbacks coach for the University of Southern California.

When it comes to this team, the 2017 class is its saving grace. With six five-stars leading the group, the class arrived under a lot of pressure and expectations.

Despite the responsibility, the 2017 bunch has accomplished a lot. It has an opportunity to be cemented as one of the best classes to come through the program. While the 2009 signing class was a part of three BCS National Championships, the significance of the group was felt in two of them. The 2017 class snatched victory from defeat in the 2018 CFP National Championship, as Tua Tagovailoa, Alex Leatherwood, Najee Harris, Jerry Jeudy, Henry Ruggs III and DeVonta Smith all played versus Georgia.

Saban knew he had recruited the talent in 2017, but he also knew he brought in players with hunger.

Najee Harris is the talker of the group, but he will hurdle you back in place. Mac Jones has been through so much as a first-year starting quarterback, but he refuses to end this season with a championship. Three of the Tides four permanent team captains Mac Jones, DeVonta Smith and Alex Leatherwood were from the 2017 class. Harris, Smith, Leatherwood and Dylan Moses all returned for an opportunity to leave as national champions. Even with their individual accomplishments, this class knows its career is not complete without a second national title ring. Expect a fierce week of practice and complete focus from Alabama, as the 2017 class wont allow distractions to happen. This group is one win away from immortality and becoming the second team of the Saban era to finish a perfect season with a national championship.

The Tide will be prepared for Ryan Day and Ohio State.

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Stephen M. Smith is the managing editor and seniorwriter forTouchdown Alabama Magazine. Youcan like him onFacebookor follow him on Twitter, via@CoachingMSmith

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Does of the news of Steve Sarkisian taking Texas job become a distraction in CFP? - Touchdown Alabama Magazine

During his time in the DC Universe, Batman has faced off against many threats but none have challenged him like Cthulhu, the greatest evil.

The beauty of Batman as a character is how versatile and adaptable he really is. His origin, skillset, and background can be applied to virtually any number of alternate world stories. It's a flexibility that characters like Superman and Wonder Woman lack due to being firmly routed in a very specific narrative related to their powers and origins. But the concept of Batman can be applied to virtually any scenario. A Victorian Era Gotham City, a futuristic one, and almost two decades ago, a '20s Gotham City where Batman faced off against a Cthulu-like entity.

In Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham by Mike Mignola, Richard Price, Troy Nixey, and Bill Oakley, Bruce Wayne has been away from Gotham for about 20 years. He traveled the world acquiring skills much like his main continuity counterpart, he even picked up alternate versions of his first threeRobins along the way. But what prompted Bruce to leave Gotham for all this time is a little different from his usual origin story in Crime Alley.

RELATED:Batman: Bruce Wayne Makes a BOLD Costume Choice for His Most Personal Battles

As usual, young Bruce was out with his parents when they were accosted by an armed assailant. But the man who killed Thomas andMartha Wayne wasn't Joe Chill and he certainly had no intention of stealing pearls. Their murderer was fueled by pure rage towards Thomas Wayne and his family. Bruce managed to flee into a nearby church, but upon climbing to the top of the bell tower, he was met by a hanged man that warned him of "The Thing" and that it was coming and how Bruce was the only one who could stop it. The experience traumatized Bruce, but also informed his decision to leave Gotham to train. He would train, not for a war on crime, but to one day do battle with whatever force had robbed him of his parents and seemed to be behind the supernatural forces hidden within the city. And20 years later he finally donned the cape and cowl to search for answers, but what he discovered was even more bizarre and disturbing than he could have imagined.

In a unique spin on Ra's al Ghul, he was not an immortal eco-terrorist but a deranged cultist, bent on freeing Iog-Sotha, a Lovecraftian horror, from its prison. The reason Bruce was dragged into the supernatural proceedings was that his father was directly involved in making Gotham the site of its return. The Thomas Wayne of this universe was in fact centuries old, having been involved in a ritual with one of Iog-Sotha's followers that granted him immortality. But recognizing what would happen if they went through with the ritual, Thomas and his cohorts built Gotham over the temple that Iog-Sotha would return through.

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Batman Fought Lovecraftian Horrors in The Doom That Came to Gotham - CBR - Comic Book Resources

As we leave a very difficult 2020 behind, were grateful to have had so many incredible voices as part of Magazine, and for the places their words, ideas, images, and music have taken us. We asked some of our contributors to share a wish for 2021 in a form of their choosing; something theyre looking forward to, something they hope for, or something theyd like to see. Their responses below show the connections we still find through artand the uninhibited dancing in a crowd we still seek.

In 2021, may we welcome a world that is closer together. The pandemic has made us understand that we are one species, sharing similar goals and aspirations. The pandemic has also acted as a mirror, reflecting our good traits and exposing the hate and anger that all too often is the weak response to challenge. May we see this point in history as an opportunity for global compassion and kindness.

Read "Taken for Granite: A Climber Sees Yosemite from a New Vantage Point."

Image courtesy of Conrad Anker.

Image courtesy of Conrad Anker

I am reading a great novel called The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. My wish for 2021 is that this becomes a massively popular book that youd see on the coffee table in every home. This book encourages the kind of innovative thinking humanity needs. I also wish for all artists, musicians, and creative people to come out of this stressful time with healthy minds, so they can get back to making beautiful things.

Listen to "A Portable Embrace."

A wish for 2021: for a continued widening arc of engagement, critical discourse, and art-work that is responsive to the seismic transitions of this present moment. This hope is that the growth and learning we have done together both in art and in the world over this past year continues to expand our perspectives and transform us alongside the transformations we see in the world.

Read "Re-Imaging America."

In a year that has brought so much radical change to so many people, my wish is for a 2021 that brings increasing clarity and perspective, inner calm and balance alongside enduring attention and commitment to systems of creative and holistic care of workers and artists and art workers through and beyond institutional spaces. I'd also love to see it become possible to reconvene again on a dance floor as a collective celebration of continuing to hold and make space; the imagination and possibility there is one we've all longed for as we've sashayed across our living room floors alone with the speakers bumping at different points. Movement spurs thought and so my hope is for more ways to movemove our bodies, move one another, move the world.

Read "Re-Imaging America."

Like everyone, I wish for the return of civility and liberalism in our national discourse and the retreat of the virus that is COVID and the sickness that is Trumpism. In addition, I wish for antidepressants that dont have sexual side effects; my childrens recovery from the relative isolation that the virus has engendered; an honest reckoning with police brutality; more things sold with less packaging; travel; easeful death for people I love who are in decline; recovery for other people I know who are in decline; a boom market; more curiosity in my children; a release from the bonds of the screen for people who grow lonely as they interact with it; reduced anxiety; cures for what wants curing but not for anything else; art that is full of complex meaning but also looks nice on the wall; to stay the age I am a while longer; to keep my children from telling lies; to see the opioid epidemic stemmed rather than revenged; a pair of brown monk strap shoes; an end to global warming; peace in the Middle East; peace outside the Middle East; a new generation dedicated to equality but also respectful of merit; the end of the stigma around, indeed the word for, appropriationism; the rebuilding of the American educational system; beauty and truth in every day; a Pulitzer prize; a cure for psychosis; the cancellation of Brexit; a chance to go into orbital flight; the reuniting of separated children at the US border with their parents; immortality; the breakup of oppressive monopolies; athletic grace; and the ability, for me and everyone, to learn from human suffering.

Listen to "The Case for Artistic Genius."

I figure the planet-level stuff is sort of obvious. Personally, though? That Shuhada Sadaqat (Sinead OConnor) feel good and put out another record, that my fifteen-year-old start listening to me about her posture, that I get better about forgiveness and finishing things.

Read "Another Country" and listen to "The Deepest Cuts."

I dont have a wish per se, but I have a new song and video called "Cant Escape into Space," which is kind of a wish.

Wolfgang Tillmans, "Can't Escape Into Space." Music written by Wolfgang Tillmans, Tim Knapp, Bruno Breitzke. Produced by Tim Knapp, Bruno Breitzke and Wolfgang Tillmans. Vocals and lyrics by Wolfgang Tillmans.

Listen to "On My Own."

Here's my wishI wish people would stop dying from Covid-19. I wish a vaccine was just a shot, a neutral thing that prevented a deadly disease. That's a privileged position. Vaccines, like illnesses, are always loaded with cultural and political meaning. We are collectively deciding how much trust to place in our government institutions (and pharmaceutical companies), perpetrators of systemic white supremacy and violence against marginalized bodies. I hope we can trust these shots, and the trust is not broken. I hope we can be free.

Look at "Love Sick."

I wish that in 2021 we will be able look back on this strange and terrible year with relief and satisfaction that it's over, and some prideeven joyon how we and our friends and colleagues and neighbors responded to its many challenges with dignity, responsibility, solemnity, but also creativity and humor. And that the habits and abilities forged in crisis don't leave us too quickly or fully.

Read "Can Drawing Be a Crime?"

My wish for 2021 is to de-center the human and to foreground the phenomenon within nature.

Read and watch "Cooking with Artists: Anicka Yi."

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We Are All Related: Artists, Writers, and More Share Wishes for 2021 | Magazine - MoMA

Man lives on food, water and air but not for them. One universal law of life, in a world with limited resources, is the constant struggle of living organisms for these, in order to leave behind maximum copies of themselves in the form of their progeny. This simple rule of nature has carved our bodies and minds over millions of years, as new species evolve, better adapted to their environments. It operates silently at the level of our genes, by selecting those genes from the pool which code for such behaviour as will maximise their survival.

But we do not fall in love in order to produce a large brood, nor do we look after our children only because they are the means of propagation of our genes. We do things that seem far removed from this Malthusian world of struggle for survival. And it appears we liveforthem. We sing and dance with our friends, we invent wildly improbable supernatural beings and equally preposterous means to appease them, we pierce our bodies to put on trinkets, we toil in our gardens to beautify our surroundings, we invent intricate systems of sounds and body-movements and derive rapturous joy listening and watching people who have mastered these, we zealously guard little leisure wrenched from the gruelling task of earning livelihood and spend it holding hands of our beloveds, we fritter hard-earned money to travel to far-off lands to watch sun sink behind an interminable ocean, we pave mountains, we carve stones, we paint caves.

Are all these activities in pursuit of happiness? If by happiness we mean sum-total of pleasurable stimuli during a sensory experience, much of our lives are spent in ventures which are far from pleasant when being performed. An act of creation is the most tormenting experience of man: be it painting, sculpture, writing, music, or scientific invention. People spend excruciating lives in these pursuits. We only learn of those who succeed. Even they admit that the process of achieving their objective is an unmitigated misery.

Writing a book is horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

-George Orwell, Why I Write

These human endeavours at least provide for an illusion of immortality. One feels they are leaving behind a part of themselves for the posterity. What about people who live and die in strange, hostile lands to spread the message of their imaginary God. People spend their precious youths in climbing remote, inhospitable mountains or charting the seas of the world.

People with exquisite intellect whittle away their most productive years in inventing esoteric streams of abstract knowledge which has no apparent utility for mankind. What is this gigantic human industry for? If it is not for the immediate pleasure and apparently not to maximize individual survival, what then drives it? What does man seek in this relentless labour?

It seems this unflagging strife is in pursuance ofmeaningin life. Meaning, not in the sense of Cosmic truth of existence, but meaning in the sense of a goal, a value, that makes every moment of life worth living. Meaning gives a narrative to our past and a direction to our future. It gives us a feeling that our life is not a mere collection of random occurrences but each moment is a component of the whole which we can strive to carve. It is a known fact that life without meaning, though not lacking in pleasure, is rarely felt to be happy. While a life devoid of much pleasures but seen to be meaningful is considered rewarding.

People find this meaning in various activities: in arts, science, music, travel, charity; in being a dutiful parent or a loving spouse; in building empires or in simply being an honest, sincere citizen.

Science presents another interesting view of life.

Human life is inconsequential in the realm of cosmos, though inseparably woven in its fabric. Origin of human life was a cosmic phenomenon, like any other. In this infinite vastness of universe, we inhabit a speck of dust called Earth which is itself an insignificant planet revolving around a moderately sized star. There are billions such stars and planetary systems in our galaxy and billions such galaxies in our universe. It would not make any difference to universe if all of a sudden human life was to be snubbed from it. Planets would go on revolving around their stars, stars will go on exploding into supernovae or collapse into black holes, universe will go on expanding and as this expansion slows, perhaps one day it will vanish into a void from which it had risen.

Universe grinds according to certain simple laws. These laws are blind. They have no purpose. Mans search for meaning in his ephemeral life, seen in the context of the meaninglessness of existence is intensely tragic, if not outright absurd. Steven Weinberg, a Noble laureate in physics, thought that the more universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.

Scientific explanations, stark and trenchant as they are, appear to sap life of its vitality. But when approached with a longing only for truth, they expose a vista of unparalleled simplicity about origin of universe and life on earth. In a few words they give us the law which explains the origin of the most exquisite living machine.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable!

-Shakespeare

This relentless search, a by-product of our thinking mind itself a fruit of evolution, is as real as the supreme brain that stirred it, however fruitless it may be.

It is this endless quest, which makes human life shine with a singular beauty.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

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Meaning in it all - The Times of India Blog

2021 is a year that began with the coronavirus pandemic and will continue with a vaccination framework to eradicate the level of contagiousness of the Sars-Cov-2 virus. The new year will feature a total of 18 holidays, which is expected to serve to prop up tourism after being one of the worst hit sectors in 2020 by restrictions to contain the virus.

The first holiday of the year was January 1, on the occasion of the New Year: the next will be Carnival, Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th February.

In March , the holiday of the 24, for the National Day of Memory for Truth and Justice. The following month theApril 2(Veterans Day and those who died in the Malvinas War and Good Friday) and later on May 1 (Workers Day).

He 25 of May, will be a holiday for the May Revolution, then the June 20th, for the passage to the Immortality of General Manuel Belgrano.

In 2021, the last permanent holidays will be theJuly 9th(Independence Day),December 8(Day of the Immaculate Conception of Mary) and theDecember 25th(Christmas).

Portable holidays will be the June 17 (Step to the Immortality of Gral. Gemes), which will be commemorated onJune 21; he 17 of August (Passage to the Immortality of General Jos de San Martn), which will be commemorated onAugust 16th.

Then the holiday of October 12 (Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity), which will be commemorated onOctober 11thand theNovember 20(National Sovereignty Day).

Finally, holidays for tourism purposes will be el May 24, October 8 and November 22.

The Government informed by means of the decree established in the calendar of holidays, that with the incorporation of the long weekend extended from Friday 8 to Monday 11 of October, the national Government encourages tourist getaways in spring, to replicate the successful experience from the recovery of the Carnival Holidays and continue to reactivate the sector, hit worldwide by the Covid-19 pandemic .

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What is the calendar like? - Explica