It was the round of games that could have changed everything, but didn’t really change anything, except that the finish line drew closerMálaga’s manager Míchel González called it liberation, safety virtually secured against Sporting Gijón. Real Betis’s fans called for coach Víctor Sánchez del Amo to go, just like Gus Poyet, except that time they actually wrote a letter demanding his sacking and this time they just sang it. Diego Simeone appealed for Atlético’s fans to put down their sandwiches and shout. Thirteen kilometres down the A42 at Butarque, where the sandwiches are better than anywhere else, sizzling away on a portable hotplate, Leganés’s supporters did, beaten but singing about their top flight status on the night Real Madrid visited...
Brazil’s young star has the world at his gifted feet and as such is highly unlikely to be playing in the Premier League any time soonWhen it comes to pure spectacle most people seem to have preferred the old pre-facelift model José Mourinho. Albeit it has been a few years since we saw that cheerfully acerbic entertainer, back in the days when Mourinho could be bothered to smile, play to the gallery, spook an opponent with his bastardish charm and generally floss, brush, pomade and change out of his pyjamas.Personally, I quite like the new version. Gloomy José, the shell-suited grinch, has his own appeal. Mourinho may be a more grizzled figure these days, resembling in his public appearances a...
Real Madrid and Chelsea desperately wanted Neymar from Santos but the Brazilian had his heart set on Barcelona. This extract from a new book reveals how the chase unfolded and why it ended up in courtOn a July evening in 2011 the football world’s focus was on the Vila Belmiro Stadium in Santos, which appears little changed from the days when a teenage Pelé lived in a dormitory under one of the stands. National-team coaches had arrived in Brazil before the World Cup qualifying draw, as a 19‑year‑old footballer called Neymar went toe-to-toe with Ronaldinho, the two-time world player of the year famous for his hip-swivelling trickery with the ball and toothy grin.Sporting a blond mohawk hairstyle that teenagers all...
Gruelling festive fixture lists may not be good preparation for playing Champions League football in February but Tottenham were already out by ChristmasEnglish football may be about to plunge into one of its regular periods of introspection now that Leicester City are left as the only standard-bearers for the Premier League in the Champions League quarter-finals, though the rest of Europe will not find anything too surprising in this week’s developments. Related: Monaco’s Tiemoué Bakayoko condemns Manchester City to away-goal defeat Related: Arsène Wenger has been living on borrowed time at Arsenal for too long | Richard Williams Continue reading...
By selecting Thiago Silva ahead of Presnel Kimpembe at centre-half the coach abandoned the meritocracy which was bringing progress at PSG and has lost more than just an extraordinary Champions League tie as a result“The return of winter.” “The Parisian wreck.” “Unspeakable.” “A huge mess.” “The height of disillusionment.” The Parisian papers and France’s leading sports dailies were unsparing in their assessment of Paris Saint-Germain’s incredible 6-1 defeat by Barcelona. Conceding three goals in the final 10 minutes was a dismal end to the French side’s Champions League campaign, but to do it having secured a seemingly insurmountable first-leg lead was indeed unspeakable.Losing by that margin alone was painful, but doubly so after how the visitors had come back into...