Napoli showed how to play against Jürgen Klopp’s side by looking to exploit the space behind Liverpool’s full-backsIls sont les meilleurs! In the buildup to this game Jürgen Klopp had been at pains to play down any suggestion Liverpool came to Naples with an air of wider destiny about them. The notion had been put to the manager that Liverpool are, in a snapshot, the best football team out there: convincing Champions League winners last season and five points clear in the Premier League.Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day and for once Uefa’s cheese-laden anthem – the soundtrack down the years to so much autumn mediocrity – had seemed to strike the right note at...
The group stages have become predictable and merely reinforce financial inequalities between the biggest clubs and also-ransI n the distance the anthem swells. Inappropriate advertising hoardings are covered up. A continent prepares to give thanks to Gazprom for providing them with football. The Champions League returns on Tuesday, unleashing an excited flurry of anticipatory questions: Can Liverpool defend their crown? Will Pep Guardiola stop overcomplicating things and, after a nine-year break, finally lift his third European title as a manager? Will Juventus’s gamble on Cristiano Ronaldo pay off? Are Barcelona and Real Madrid as shambolic as they appear? Who will Paris Saint‑Germain lose to hilariously this time? But mostly, when does the real stuff start?Does any other competition that so...
Everybody has their favoured format for Uefa’s tournament but few want to see it evolve into a European Super League“Europe,” Sir Alex Ferguson said, actually a little before Manchester United’s 1999 success in the Champions League helped bring a knighthood his way, “ought to be the cherry on the cake. No one wants it to be the whole cake – that would spoil everything.”Ferguson was responding, a couple of decades ago, not only to non-champions being allowed into the hallowed event – he would mellow on seeing United go all the way in Europe after finishing second behind Arsenal in 1998 – but to Uefa tweaking the format once again to introduce a double group stage involving more matches. In...
Barcelona, PSG, Bayern and Juventus have won 25 of the last 28 league titles. Europe has become the only testing groundD id you feel it? The great disturbance in the force, as though millions of voices cried out in hope? Last weekend, something remarkable happened: none of the champions of Europe’s big five leagues won (a statistic that admittedly loses some of its potency when it is acknowledged that Serie A hadn’t started: Juventus kicked off their Serie A campaign on Saturday with a 1-0 win at Parma).Last season was the first time that each of the big five leagues had been retained, but here was the little man striking back: Barcelona lost, Paris Saint-Germain lost, Manchester City drew, Bayern...
City are serial winners with a great manager and squad but their short price is unusual when they have never reached the finalThe second week of Wimbledon is probably far too early to be thinking about football and what may happen at the business end of next season, unless you happen to be an ante-post gambler looking for some value in the long-term market before the competitions get under way.In which case you may be disappointed and surprised to find Manchester City priced as low as 4-1 to win the Champions League next season. Most bookmakers and betting exchanges have the English champions as clear favourites, with Barcelona offered at around 6-1 and Liverpool, Real Madrid and Juventus a little...