Real Madrid’s Marcelo and Dani Alves of Juventus have redefined their position while bringing plenty of trophies to their clubs in the past 10 years“Three months ago some people wanted to strangle him,” Massimiliano Allegri said with a smile, but that night they just wanted to hug him. The story goes that when Dani Alves arrived at Juventus, Gigi Buffon took him to one side and asked him to teach them how to win the Champions League. He might not be able to do that exactly but Allegri was speaking just after Alves had taken them to Cardiff, delivering the pass for the first goal and volleying home the second in Monaco. He had already provided two assists in the...
The Red Devils confirm their place in the Champions League after winning the Europa League. Plus: Chelsea take on Arsenal in the FA Cup final, Huddersfield and Reading meet at Wembley with a spot in the Premier League at stake, and Crystal Palace and Sunderland hunt for a new manager … againIain Macintosh helms the ship for the first and conceivably only time for today’s edition of Football Weekly Extra, and he’s joined by James Horncastle, Michael Cox, Paolo Bandini, and a laptop on which he can continue to play Football Manager.We begin with Manchester United’s emotional victory against Ajax in the Europa League final, completing an historic though thoroughly mediocre treble for José Mourinho, but the club are back...
The idea that participation in Europe’s top club competition is less important to England’s top flight because of TV money dissolves on analysisThere is an emerging school of thought that qualification for the European Champions League is no longer quite the financial and commercial boost that it used to be, given the galactic increase in Premier League TV money showering fortunes on all 20 clubs from 2016-19.It is true the increase in the English top flight’s broadcasting deals, from £5.1bn in 2013-16 to £8.4bn in the present three-year cycle, is a dramatic windfall – inflated at home by BT’s serious designs on BSkyB’s 25-year subscriber stranglehold and internationally by increased coverage of the Premier League on channels all over the...
Luka Modric’s departure from England felt insufficiently mourned, yet his performance against Atlético marked him out again as the world’s best midfielderThen there were two. On Tuesday night inside the giant shiny-plated Armadillo that is the Juventus Stadium, as the lights dazzled and thrillingly loud American brat-rock split a hole in the sky, 10,000 Italians held up 10,000 plastic cards to spell the word “Cardiff” in vast shimmery letters. This is, in all likelihood, the first time this has ever happened, and probably the last too.A day later in Madrid as thunderstorms cleared the streets after midnight people in the city centre bars could be heard yelling and chanting and, in one side street off the Calle de Toledo, singing with...
The podders give their take on the Champions League semis. Plus: the Premier League’s least foreign-sounding foreigners; and Chelsea head to West Brom … but will they return with the title? Rate, review, share and on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.On today’s Football Weekly Extra, AC Jimbo is joined by Barry Glendenning, James Horncastle and Jacob Steinberg for some hot chat about the Champions League, the Premier League and beyond. Continue reading...