Farewells for Chiellini and possibly Perisic as Inter won a compelling showpiece featuring two penalties and a red cardBy the end of the night at the Stadio Olimpico, we had seen it all: six goals, two penalties, a red card given and another that probably should. A cup final edition of the Derby d’Italia, played out over 120 messy but captivating minutes and followed up with immediate breaking news. Giorgio Chiellini, Juventus’s captain, announced he was leaving the club. Ivan Perisic, the match-winner for Internazionale, suggested he could soon be moving on too.The stakes had been clear before kick-off. For Juventus this was a last chance to salvage a disappointing season. The rehiring of Massimiliano Allegri as manager last summer...
No one older had ever ever scored twice in La Liga. But that didn’t stop Molina and Granada leaving Mallorca in a hole“This was life or death,” Jorge Molina said and he had chosen life again, clinging on to primera, his place. It had taken him until he was 29 to reach the first division, finally making it around about the time a career in the lower leagues should have started winding down, eight seasons, five teams, three tiers, more than 250 games and a hundred goals after he had begun in Benidorm. Twice it had been taken away from him, twice he returned, fighting back when he was supposed to be finished, and there was no way he was...
Our short-term situation is bleak but we will rebuild the city – I cannot imagine a life in Mariupol without footballBefore 24 February, we had everything to look forward to at FC Mariupol. We were struggling in the Ukrainian Premier League but there was a bigger picture: our infrastructure was one of the country’s most developed, and we had ambitions to build a team that would reach the Europa League. In the last four years, we played in the qualifiers twice: we felt we were on the brink of something special.We had one of the best playing surfaces around, with a new hybrid pitch; our stadium was well kept, with plans for a major redevelopment in 2025, and we had...
Villarreal’s fans were starting to dream of Paris but the introduction of Luis Díaz changed the game“You suffer and then ...”, Jürgen Klopp clicked his fingers: “... you react.”It may not have been quite that simple, nor quite so instantaneous, and it certainly wasn’t as effortless as that, but as it turned out Liverpool’s manager wasn’t far off in his prediction. Continue reading...
Emotional and empathic manager galvanised a flawed team with an ageing midfield for a canter to La Liga crownThe season that ended early with Carlo Ancelotti becoming the only manager to win all five of Europe’s major leagues started with a phone call about something completely different. If this wasn’t exactly the way they had planned it, that’s because it was better. In late May last year Zinedine Zidane announced he was leaving Real Madrid, dropping a letter bomb as he went, and the sudden search for someone to replace him wasn’t going particularly well. Until one Saturday when, discussing other deals, they told Ancelotti as much, the conversation shifting from players to coaches, an idea forming. What about me?A...