Real’s failure to beat 10-man Atlético gave the leaders the chance to go 10 points clear – but Almería spoiled the party“This is not goodbye to the league,” Carlo Ancelotti said but no one was really listening and even he didn’t sound sure, not yet. Saturday evening at the Santiago Bernabéu and it was done. Real Madrid had just drawn 1-1 with Atlético, leaving Barcelona to slip out of sight at the top, the only winners those watching in a city 600km away. If this was Diego Simeone’s final derby in the capital, the underwhelming final chapter in a rivalry he revived and suffered like no one else, a once epic series slowing to a close, he could at least...
Luciano Spalletti’s side are now 18 points clear in their Scudetto quest, with Milan, Inter and Juventus nowhere to be seenThe Stadio Carlo Castellani held some unhappy recent memories for Napoli. It was here that their title challenge unravelled last April, as a 2-0 lead over Empoli in the 80th minute became a 3-2 defeat. They were authors of their own demise back then, the equaliser arriving when goalkeeper Alex Meret dallied in possession and allowed Andrea Pinamonti to block an attempted clearance straight into his net.Could they self-destruct a second time? They held an identical 2-0 advantage on Sunday when Mário Rui earned a pointless red card, kicking out at Francesco Caputo. Instead of wobbling, Napoli became even more...
German football’s newest force ended a historic week by being ‘shaken off like a handful of snow’ by the ‘irritated’ championsUrs Fischer knew. In a season where everything, anything has been possible for Union Berlin and after in a week in which the bar being raised even higher didn’t feel like a pinch, there was still a frontier too far. And this was it.“We had no chance,” said Union’s defender Robin Knoche after a 3-0 defeat at Bayern Munich in Sunday’s late game, a loss that will not ruin the Berliners’ phenomenal season but which could have been so, so much worse without the intervention of Frederik Rønnow, whose string of face-saving saves included one literally with his face, late...
The former Italian premier lessens the romance but Raffaele Palladino has been the coaching find of the seasonOnly one Serie A team remains undefeated in 2023 and it is not the one you might assume. Napoli continue to swagger toward the Scudetto, 15 points clear at the top of Serie A, but they were beaten by Inter at the start of January. Monza drew with the Nerazzurri three days later and have not lost a game since 10 November.A 1-0 win over Bologna on Sunday lifted them into the top half of the table. They are level on points with Juventus in ninth and while that situation owes to the Bianconeri’s points deduction, Monza have won both head-to-head games. Not...
The league leaders are not yet made in Xavi’s image but have ground out results with help from once-marginalised playersAs Barcelona’s players came back out of the dressing room, along the corridor and turned left, heading down the stairs past the chapel presided over by the virgin of Montserrat, there was clapping and the usual shouts. A “come on” here, a “let’s go” there, a “do it, team”. And then, just before the last of them ducked into the light, 77,987 people waiting on the other side for the second half to start, a voice said something none of them would say publicly: “Today is the league, eh!”It was half-time on Sunday and in the season – 19 games gone,...