The foundation for the Champions League final win was laid by excellent work down the right flank which overwhelmed the converted wide players featuring on the Juventus leftThe key feature of the opening stages of the Champions League final on Saturday was Real Madrid suffering down their right flank. Luka Modric was forced to cover a huge amount of space, and the right-back Dani Carvajal was overloaded and overpowered by Mario Mandzukic. By the end of the night, however, Real ran out comfortable winners – with Modric and Carvajal crucial in their attacking play.It is rare to see a European final contested between two teams using such flexible systems. Zinedine Zidane’s use of Isco rather than a half‑fit Gareth Bale...
The man nicknamed the ‘Ant’ is a keen photographer and Stone Roses fan but he knows how to get the best out of a football squad on and off the pitchThe day Ernesto Valverde left Olympiakos, bringing his second brief but successful spell to a close in 2012, Pep Guardiola was asked what he made of his departure. “Greece has lost a great coach,” he said, “and we’ve got a great photographer back.” Valverde’s work had certainly left an impression in Athens, hung on the walls of the Ileana Tounta centre for contemporary art and displayed in the trophy cabinets of the Giorgios Karaiskaskis Stadium, Piraeus – where, according to his fellow Spaniard Michel González, who eventually took over as...
Madrid scored in every game this season. They are one game from a first league and European Cup double in 59 years. This is historic, even for themFor a moment there Marcelo looked a bit worried. Danilo, Casemiro and Lucas Vázquez bundled back out of the press room a little less noisily than they had bundled in, chanting and spraying champagne about. Álvaro Morata followed them, getting out of the manager’s chair and taking the bottle off the desk as he departed. The Brazilian pushed him towards the door but then paused. Glancing down a little sheepishly, he picked up the TV they’d knocked as they bounced around and set about trying to fix it. From one side, Lucas said...
‘Lucky Luca’ Waldschmidt popped up with a late winner to sink Wolfsburg and spark wild scenes in Hamburg, as HSV avoided the relegation play-off“No, HSV haven’t won the championship,” said the voiceover on ZDF’s Das Aktuelle Sportstudio as they rolled footage of jubilant Hamburg SV supporters streaming on to the Volksparkstadion pitch. “They’ve stayed up.” There may be widespread incredulity around Germany as to just what constitutes success for the 1983 European Cup winners these days, but very few among the 57,000 sell-out crowd on Saturday cared about that. It had been the latest improbable moment in what has become an improbable role that HSV play in the Bundesliga. The little-used Luca Waldschmidt had come on as substitute in the...
Juve’s sixth straight Scudetto is a testament to the small group of players who have remained. But there have also been fantastically shrewd transfer dealingsMassimiliano Allegri might want to keep an eye on the baggage scanner when Juan Cuadrado checks in for next week’s flight to Cardiff. The Colombian tipped two bottles of water over his manager in the wake of Juventus’s Coppa Italia win last Wednesday, but after they sealed the Scudetto he covered his boss in foam instead.Is it premature to ask what celebration Cuadrado has in mind for a Champions League triumph? There is still the small matter of a final against Real Madrid to get through, after all. But that is the only obstacle remaining in...