The Delfini are suffering one of the worst seasons of any club in Serie A history, a rout at Torino coming fresh off an arson attack at their president’s houseSixty-five seconds. That was all it took for Pescara to start unravelling at Torino’s Stadio Olimpico. A pair of defenders failed to prevent Antonio Barreca sending a cross over from the left, a third was outjumped inside the box by Marco Benassi and two more lunged hopelessly after Iago Falqué as he pounced on the loose ball and drove it into the roof of the net.Within 15 minutes, Torino had trebled their lead. It was 5-0 by the 61st. Pescara’s manager, Massimo Oddo, tucked himself into a corner of the visitors’...
Les Girondins’ youngsters could lead the way to a challenge for the Champions League next season, if only they could get their shot in the current campaignBy Adam White and Eric Devin for Get French Football NewsLong-time observers of French football are always quick to read L’Équipe. The venerable sports daily is in a place of privilege in terms of information, despite its sometimes dramatic headlines. While the paper may display some subjectivity in its player ratings, there is often a welcome frankness in that subjectivity; a player’s performance is taken not only in the isolation of the match but considered holistically against his talents and his campaign to date. These ratings are assigned on a scale of one to...
A club from a village of 700 people is causing a stir in the Polish top flight thanks to an ambitious owner, drones and a strong female presenceThe village of Nieciecza in southern Poland is not a place you would expect to find a top-flight football team, surrounded as it is by rural cornfields, the pretty river Dunajec and a huge factory that manufactures paving slabs and building materials at its northern end. But up at the north-eastern corner is the home of Bruk-Bet Termalica Nieciecza, a club that are defying all expectations by occupying fourth place in the Ekstraklasa, where they sit just six points behind the leaders, Jagiellonia Bialystok, before the league resumes on 10 February. Their recently...
The cancellation means the same tedious, unpleasant war: accusations, paranoia and shots fired by the usual suspects. Expect the worst, expect a messA storm tore through Spanish football this weekend – and for once that’s is not some mangled metaphor. Late on Thursday night it started, hitting Galicia hard. An average of 80 litres of water fell per square metre, 126 in the worst hit areas, and winds reached 120kph. The facade of a sports centre collapsed, an airport tower was damaged, rivers overflowed, dozens of trees were pulled up, two people died, and there were 640 calls to ‘999’ – which is ‘112’ here. A total of 49,378 people were left without electricity and the first division was left...
You won’t convince many BVB fans that Leipzig are good for football but on a tempestuous night at the Westfalenstadion they were good for their teamDie Gelbe Wand, the famous yellow wall, is never less than vocal but on Saturday it spoke loudest without the aid of air or lungs. As their Borussia Dortmund prepared to kick off the Bundesliga’s game of the weekend, against RB Leipzig, the banners came out – some big, some small, maybe 100 of them, maybe more. The strength of feeling that habitually emanates from Europe’s biggest standing terrace is well known, but this was something else.They all shared similar messages. “Bullen Schweine,” “Red Bull – Feind des Fussballs!” (“football’s enemy”), and even a few...