The record signing rediscovered some old wing wizardry as the champions won 3-1 amid their best start to a season since 1930For a man who launched an app devoted to football tactics, Massimiliano Allegri does not always sound terribly fond of them. “We can talk for hours about schemes and organisation,” he told La Repubblica in 2014. “But games are won by players. If you have [Leo] Messi you almost start 2-0 up. It’s the same with [Cristiano] Ronaldo.”Little did he know the Portuguese would join him at Juventus. A lot can change in four years, but the victory they shared over Napoli on Saturday suggested Allegri’s assessment might be as valid as ever. Related: The farcical case of Virtus...
Summer deals have left last season’s Champions League semi-finalists imbalanced and time is not on the manager’s sideFive games in, and the Serie A top scorers chart has a decidedly unfamiliar feel. Fans might have expected to see Cristiano Ronaldo in first place, perhaps pursued by the man he displaced at Juventus: Gonzalo Higuaín. Or how about reigning joint-capocannonieri, Ciro Immobile and Mauro Icardi, each returning with the same teams?All but the last of that foursome scored this weekend, yet none of them leads the way. The most prolific player in Serie A is a 23-year-old signed by Genoa from Cracovia this summer for a paltry €4.5m. Krzysztof Piatek’s five goals only look more impressive when you consider his team...
Temperatures are rising on and off the pitch, with opposition building to that US plan and kick-off times doing little to helpAt the one end of the ground that is an end and not just a wall, a small gang of Rayo Vallecano fans in bright high-vis jackets and yellow hard hats started leaping up and down, testing the foundations. Around them, drums beat, flags waved and supporters laughed as they took out their tools to fix the place up, bashing away with inflatable yellow hammers. If it looked silly, it was supposed to – and it was no dafter than the real thing – but at least they were here now. Rayo, promoted in the summer after two years...
Finishing the weekend in second, with only Bayern Munich ahead of them, will do nicely for HerthaPál Dárdai was being very careful with his words and rightly so, given his team travel to unbeaten Werder Bremen on Tuesday before hosting the frankly terrifying Bayern Munich. That is an Englische Woche and a half by anyone’s standards. “I know you’re trying to provoke,” the Hertha coach said with a wry smile to journalists prompting him to show some enthusiasm, “but the Hertha fans know me. We’ve had three years of stability – and now, we’ve a team you can really enjoy. Just stay realistic.”Even if it’s a coach’s job to be balanced, those supporters who know Dárdai so well – he...
Leaving three forwards to float about and occasionally pull off a trick may be enough in Ligue 1 – but not when it comes to elite level. How have PSG not learned?A net €750m spent in eight years and that’s all you get? Success without money is all but impossible in the modern game, but wealth brings no guarantees. Football still has the capacity to make the richest of men seem very foolish if they pursue glamour at the expense of substance – a heartening moral, so long as you don’t think too closely about the source of the wealth that is paying for Neymar to squander his immense talents in an entitled fug of self-indulgence.For Paris Saint-Germain, there has...