Diego Simeone’s side looked alarmingly like a team who have lost their identity in a bloodless 2-0 defeat at Real MadridOn Sunday night at the Santiago Bernabéu, Atlético Madrid pulled off a spectacular smash-and-grab 2-0 victory against Real Madrid. Both Atlético goals came from surgical counterattacks, after being forced to soak up long spells of pressure. Despite playing most of the game on the front foot and having the majority of the chances, Real were undone by customary defensive lapses and a curious lack of intensity in key moments of the game.Sounds pretty plausible, right? And to be fair, that’s almost what happened. As the particularly observant among you will have noticed, I just swapped the names of the two...
The redraw of the Champions League last 16 was kind to the Premier League clubs and the quartet should progressBayern, as ever, have been dominant in the Bundesliga and they romped through the group stage winning six out of six, scoring 22 and conceding only three. Under Julian Nagelsmann they play with as high a line as they did under Hansi Flick, and Robert Lewandowski remains as prolific as ever. If there are doubts, they are only over two things: Bayern’s squad is not as deep as those of many of their rivals, making them susceptible to injuries, and top-class sides may be able to exploit that high line. Salzburg have in the past caused problems against other hard-pressing teams,...
Real Madrid’s manager knows it will be tough to beat Atlético on Sunday but the Italian is serene in his second spellHello again. The day that Carlo Ancelotti returned to Real Madrid, a chance conversation about something completely different unexpectedly bringing him back to Spain six years later, he looked around Valdebebas and saw familiar faces everywhere, comfort in the lack of change. “The same physios, the same kit men, the same journalists, the same vision, the same demands of greatness,” as he put it. “Everything is immutable: the only thing that changes is the coach.”It is there, anyway. Since he left, Madrid have been through five of them: Rafa Benítez, Zinedine Zidane, Julen Lopetegui, Santi Solari and Zidane again....
Right-back’s brilliance against Atlético Madrid helped Anfield move on from the unsettling pre-pandemic fixture of 2020Was this a kind of closure? Not really. But it felt like a marker along the way.This Champions League game will be remembered for two things. First, as a way of putting to bed that unsettling, unloved pre‑pandemic game, Liverpool versus Atlético Madrid, March 2020, the last dance before the shutters came down. And second for a brilliant performance from the local boy, Trent Alexander‑Arnold, who oozed around Anfield reeling off moments of clarity and precision, using that beautifully expressive right foot to sketch in the corners, the details, the shape of the game in a decisive first half. Continue reading...
Is the tactical wheel turning for Jürgen Klopp, the manager whose guided chaos changed the modern game?‘Something,” Jürgen Klopp said in February 2019 after Liverpool had drawn 0-0 at home against Bayern, “changed in the world of football – everyone adapted to it and we have to make sure we adapt.”He was talking about a new-found willingness from top teams to defend. In as far as it has been possible to trace anything in the vastly changed environment of Covid-19, he was probably right – and yet watching Liverpool beat Atlético Madrid 3-2 on Tuesday, nobody could have believed football has entered a new age of attrition. And in that, perhaps, lies one of the two doubts that lurk behind...