A tactical reshuffle failed to pay off for Milan’s manager, leaving recent calls, not least regarding Rafael Leão, open to questionAt the southern end of San Siro, Milan’s Ultras did their best to set a tone. “The champions of Italy welcome the champions of Arabia,” read the banner hung from that dizzyingly vertical second tier, reminding Inter counterparts at the far end that a Supercoppa victory in Riyadh could never mean as much as a scudetto.There was just one problem: nobody has seen Milan’s title-winning side since before the World Cup. The team who have taken the pitch in 2023 are the palest of imitations, familiar faces playing unrecognisable football. They had won one out of seven games so far...
The player who had been on the pitch for every league game since 2017 watched his team lose 1-0 to Iago Aspas and CeltaWeird things happened this weekend. The circle closed at the Bernabéu with a 0-0 draw that wasn’t just better than it sounds, but better than almost anything all season. Xavi Hernández, the Barcelona coach who declared “our history says you have to win and play well; a 1-0 in the 90th minute is no use”, went to Girona and oversaw a third 1-0 victory in a row, completing a run from pre-history to go five points clear and become winter champions. Real Madrid, who turned the plan upside down by playing well and not winning, didn’t score...
Hertha were motivated and applied themselves well against city rivals Union. The problem was the resultIt was always going to be aesthetics, and so it proved. The importance of only the eighth top-flight derby between Hertha and Union was everywhere you looked – not least in the sold-out stands of the Olympiastadion, such a contrast to the relatively paltry turnout for Wednesday night’s humiliating hammering for Hertha at the hands of Wolfsburg. The problem was that, even at such an early stage of this as an elite-level rivalry, we already knew which way this was going, and so it proved. Hertha’s coach Sandro Schwarz had suggested in Thursday’s pre-match press conference that the result didn’t matter as much as the...
Milan slumped at home to Sassuolo, while Monza rocked Juventus. Is there anyone who can now stop Napoli?By the end, it felt like a cup final: two teams playing as if everything needed to be settled right here. One moment Roma’s keeper, Rui Patricio, was making a save at his near post and the next he was sprinting toward the opposite goal, joining the attack for a corner. As teammate Gianluca Mancini’s final attempt on goal was blocked, Napoli players spilled from the dugout punching the air, yelling, embracing.Why should it matter like this? José Mourinho had told us on Saturday that the Serie A title race was already over, offering his congratulations. “I don’t want to be misinterpreted …...
Niko Kovac’s heart may be ‘attached to Hertha’ but his surging Wolfsburg team showed them little mercy in a Bundesliga routWolves are built to thrive in bitter winter, so with the champions still struggling to de-ice the windscreen and get the motor running, who better to assume the role of Bayern for now? In a glacial Olympiastadion in Berlin on Tuesday, Wolfsburg flamed their hosts, Hertha, 5-0 to make it two wins, 11 goals scored and none conceded. They remain seventh but only three points off third place and now with a better goal difference, and defensive record, than any team beyond Bayern.They are imperious. It was Die Wölfe’s sixth league win in a row, and they’ve kept clean sheets...