An exhilarating 2-0 win against Manchester City showed flickers of what Paris Saint-Germain and Messi 2.0 can do togetherAnd so it came to pass. With 73 minutes on the clock, He finally turned up.Lionel Messi had done very little for the previous 20 minutes at Parc des Princes. A promising first half had given way to one of those extended periods where Messi resembles a man maintaining a pretence of polite interest while milling around a notably disappointing flea market. Continue reading...
With Qatari investment the previously unfashionable French club are becoming giants of the global gameOn the banks of the Seine in Paris, five minutes from the Louvre, stands the Samaritaine department store. The building was last renovated at a cost of €750m. The interior is wood-panelled, there is a VIP area. The product selection consists of Dior, Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton. Shoes cost €1,000. Champagne bottles can be personalised, perfume bottles can be bought for six figures. Even in the pandemic, the luxury goods business continues to grow.The Samaritaine attracts people. They stroll through and admire the exhibits as they would the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. People want to see it like the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame....
Jürgen Klopp will have mixed feelings after a wild, ragged win over Milan that showcased all the best – and worst – of his team“Proper Champions League”. You said it, Jürgen. At times in the second half at Anfield, as the red and cream shapes spun and surged, exchanging darts and overloads, as the crowd generated that rolling surge of heat and noise under the low white lights, this felt like a kind of tribute night, a nostalgia spectacular, Those Famous European Nights redux.Part of the PR puff behind the European Super League – a wheeze the owners of these teams were so keen to embrace – was the sense these autumn games are a trudge, a schlep, cold product....
Crosses went astray and decisions were rushed but manager’s preparation finally yielded 1-0 result thanks to Romelu LukakuAs the half-time whistle edged closer, with openings scarce and Zenit St Petersburg carrying out their containment plan to perfection, an increasingly animated Thomas Tuchel could be seen urging Chelsea to calm down in the final third. There were too many rushed decisions from the European champions, a little too much desperation to force the issue, and Tuchel did not hold in his frustration when he saw Reece James spank a cross into the first white shirt after finding a rare pocket of space on the right flank.“Slow it down,” came the cry from Tuchel, who had spent most of the first half...
An unusually open group stage highlights the waning power of super-clubs and offers better football than what is to comeThere is, perhaps, no better indication of how broken modern football is that the return of the Champions League group stages feels almost like a palate cleanser. With the Swiss system to be introduced in 2024, and plans afoot for increasingly bloated World Cups to be staged increasingly often, the Champions League format appears by comparison a model of modest efficiency.Sure, most people who have paid even a passing interest over the past year could probably predict 16 clubs to qualify for the knockouts now and be sure of getting a dozen right, but it will take only 96 games to...