Bayern Munich wrapped up a fifth successive Bundesliga title sparking scenes of celebration, but the outlook for Wolfsburg is far bleakerIt has been a long couple of weeks for Bayern Munich. Little wonder, then, that Thiago Alcântara’s first words as the players made it back to the dressing room after celebrating with a fifth successive Bundesliga crown with their travelling fans at Wolfsburg were, according to Süddeutsche Zeitung, a throaty cry of “donde está el alcohol?”Long after the season is done, Bayern will pick over the season’s two most costly defeats, each of which defy comprehension for very different reasons – against Real Madrid, in the Champions League and last week, against Borussia Dortmund in the DfB Pokal semi-final. In...
The Bayern midfielder increasingly looks a candidate for the title of most startlingly strange meteoric 24-month first-team career ever. Wonderkids bewareAmong the many doomed and dreadful writing projects I occasionally pretend to be working on is a Bret Easton Ellis-style football novel about a hip, talented, existentially glazed and clueless wonderkid being passed around Europe’s super-clubs by the shady financial powers that run the world game.The lead character is an interchangeable young star, probably Portuguese, called something generic like Rui Pinto or José Costa. Tattooed and glossed, garlanded with premature honours, his entire private and professional life is owned by a Gestifute-style talent agency. He wears sunglasses and huge headphones and speaks mainly in emojis, while being shuttled from elite...
Tuesday’s farcical goings-on at Real Madrid came a matter of weeks after Barcelona’s tainted comeback against PSG and are damaging the Champions LeagueIt would be a great service indeed if Uefa ditched the Champions League anthem for the remainder of this season’s competition and replaced it with Dance of the Cuckoos, the theme tune from Laurel and Hardy. The players could still line up and listen to it with awed reverence, of course, because that would provide an amusing and instantly shareable meme for folks wishing to illustrate the contrast between what the competition purports to be and the farce that it often is.The quarter-final between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich was trailed as a high-brow duel that would offer...
Cristiano Ronaldo has scored more goals than any other Real Madrid player and yet he was whistled by supporters against Bayern Munich. How is that possible?There are supposed to be about 1,300 words in this article. It is tempting to just spend 1,287 of them listing the things that Cristiano Ronaldo has done at Real Madrid – and there are more than enough of them to take up all that space, that is for sure, from the two Champions League titles to the 395 goals – and then leave just enough room at the bottom to add: “On Tuesday night at the Santiago Bernabéu some Real Madrid fans whistled him. Dicks.” On one level at least that would probably sum...
The veteran ‘Robbery’ pair destroyed Borussia Dortmund and have won the fight with Douglas Costa and Kingsley Coman to be Ancelotti’s weapons of choiceIt was Der Klassiker in name, but not quite always in nature. When Bayern Munich meet Borussia Dortmund it always means something, but there were hints throughout on Saturday evening’s three-quarter-throttle effort of bests being saved for more significant challenges to come. There was “even time for kisses,” as Süddeutsche Zeitung put it, referring to Carlo Ancelotti’s peck on the cheek for Franck Ribéry on the touchline as the Frenchman was replaced deep into the second half. It is safe to assume that if there was some sort of acquiesce of non-aggression before a week which will...