There has been plenty of entertainment but it has been an unusual and not always satisfying season in GermanyThe clock, since you asked, kept on ticking. As the curtain fell on Hamburger SV’s unbroken presence in top flight since the Bundesliga’s formation in 1963, it was alone in maintaining steady hands (give or take it being digital). With the home side’s winning position futile, as Wolfsburg completed an eventually emphatic victory over Köln 170km to the south, any façade of holding it together began to crack.Pyrotechnics rained down from the ultras in the Nordtribüne and a heavy police presence took over the pitch in lines, with horses and dogs for company. Some of those waiting to see if the famous...
Bayern thrashed Zidane’s side 2-2 and there is plenty to suggest a knockout blow can be landed on their elegant glass jawReal Madrid tried so hard to lose this semi-final. Bayern Munich tried so hard to win it. That neither could achieve this apparently shared aim speaks in the first place to Real’s pure champion will and secondly to that nexus of game-management, calamitous Bayern defending and something close to a kind of white-shirted voodoo, the ability to win even while in the process of sputtering and panting like a stalled presidential motorcade.This was a fun, wild, oddly drunken game of football that ended 2-2 at the Bernabéu and 4-3 to Real on aggregate. At the end of which a...
From the 1960 final to the miracle of Istanbul, Europe’s top club competition has provided many moments to rival the drama of Real Madrid’s quarter-final against JuventusThe almost shocking conclusion to what had been a notable Juventus recovery against Real Madrid at the Bernabéu has not only divided opinion – it was a penalty all day long, one could only admire the stealth with which Medhi Benatia administered his shove in the back of Lucas Vázquez and the bravery of Michael Oliver for punishing it – but has also inspired much talk of the evening being one of the most dramatic in the history of the European Cup and Champions League. However the latter stages of the competition have frequently...
Bayern Munich have one hand on the title but Borussia Dortmund’s display against them called into question their right to be part of Der Klassiker“Die Bundesliga ist für uns vorbei.” Pep Guardiola’s infamous declaration in a 2014 press conference, with the title in the bag, that Bayern Munich’s league campaign was over might have been off the cuff, but he spent a long time afterwards trying to live it down. The drop in intensity that followed his words prefaced a pair of sluggish performances in the Champions League semi-finals against Real Madrid, and Guardiola would later openly admit his error. It was probably the biggest mistake of his enthralling three-year spell at the Allianz Arena. Jupp Heynckes is not about...
Uefa’s president wants to improve competitive balance but the top clubs’ financial dominance equates to power too, and it is unlikely his mooted measures will make a significant differenceFor football people raised on the foundational European Cup feats of Manchester United’s home-schooled Busby Babes and Celtic’s 1967 triumph with a team of local lads, the modern Champions League is a mixed blessing. Over the last 23 years the tournament has constructed a glittering stage for Lionel Messi and the world’s greatest players but European football’s concentration of wealth is delivering the final rounds and trophy itself to the same few richest clubs. Related: Chelsea given painful reminder of declining European status by Barcelona | Dominic Fifield The measures Ceferin has...