Gladbach could have hauled themselves back into the Champions League race with a win against Leverkusen. Instead they fell to a defeat that effectively ends their seasonThe evening began with a show of respect from the visiting Borussia Mönchengladbach fans. It ended with anything but. As their players emerged on to the BayArena pitch to face Bayer Leverkusen on Saturday, Gladbach’s 4,000 travelling fans held aloft black pieces of plastic, creating a tifo in memory of well-known fan Waltraud “Walli” Hamraths, who recently died at the age of 83.In the circumstances, Gladbach’s players shouldn’t have been surprised at what happened at the end. They were, again, hugely disappointing in a match in which they had the opportunity to haul themselves...
Daniele De Rossi was just one of the players with tears in his eyes as football began again in Italy after the death of the Fiorentina captainFlorence downed tools to remember Davide Astori on Thursday. The player’s funeral had been held in the morning at the Basilica Santa Croce, with a crowd of 10,000 in attendance, but even those who could not be there in person joined in with a minute-long pause for reflection at 1pm. Across the city, businesses shut off the lights and ceased trading.One day later, Italian football sought to pay tribute by carrying on. The country’s top divisions had abandoned all fixtures after Astori’s sudden passing the previous weekend but the time had come to continue....
Spurs looked like they would reach the last eight before the playmaker sprang to life and Chiellini defended for his lifeFor an hour at Wembley, with the quarter-finals of the Champions League beckoning and the scalp of Juventus already partially hacked from its canary‑yellow neck, Tottenham found themselves playing like a team in the process of becoming something else, of forgetting, just for an hour, to be Spurs.It will be a crushing disappointment Mauricio Pochettino’s team failed to hold their momentum long enough to see out this tie. But it is also tribute to the pure footballing will of opponents who seemed at times on the verge of being outmuscled; to the transformative power of a match-changing foul on Dele...
A Lionel Messi free-kick won the match for Barcelona but their teamwork and sacrifice is what saw them past Atlético MadridDiego Simeone was sitting under the main stand at Europe’s largest stadium but for a moment, he was back in a playground 10,000km away. There two kids stand a few metres apart and edge towards each other, one step at a time, in turn, heel to toe, “bread” and “cheese” accompanying every tiny advance. Eventually one treads on the other – the winner now and, let’s face it, the winner in the game too.“Pan.” Related: Peter Stöger puts stamp on Dortmund to leave board with decision to make | Andy Brassell Related: Serie A pauses for Davide Astori then vows...
The Austrian could not be doing more to remain as manager, with his side now looking as if they have put in a shiftOn other weekends, it would have been a cause for glumness. Yet even in falling a place below bitter rivals Schalke, from second to third, it felt as if it had been a fairly successful day for Borussia Dortmund. They emerged from Saturday evening’s Topspiel at RB Leipzig not only with a point – and having maintained a three-point lead over their hosts in the race for Champions League qualification – but with the satisfying feeling of having put in a shift.They can be few things that their coach, Peter Stöger, cherishes as much as this. Many...