An overcommitment to attack and a lack of organisation has led to the champions slipping up at a vital stage of the seasonThis could have been Tuesday night all over again. So much of Bayern Munich’s play dazzled a sold-out PreZero Arena, and the champions could easily have done to Hoffenheim what they had done to Red Bull Salzburg four days previously. Maybe the difference between the two games was just “a little bit of luck,” as Thomas Müller said it was.There was certainly little sense of anguish or regret. Julian Nagelsmann may have the luxury of being able to look at the process knowing that the results will likely follow, but he was satisfied with his team’s performance. Bayern...
Seven straight draws have marked a turnaround, but the manager is yet to find the right formula up front to escape Serie A’s relegation placesGenoa needed someone to steady the ship. By mid-January, the Rossoblù seemed to be disappearing beneath the waves of the Ligurian Riviera, having collected more managers than wins through the first 22 games of this Serie A season. Davide Ballardini was fired in November with the team in 17th in the table. In two months under Andriy Shevchenko, they sunk a further two places.Alexander Blessin arrived promising “high velocity” football, “made of pressing and mentality”. Supporters did not know what to expect. The newspapers promised a disciple of Ralf Rangnick – one who had coached youth...
What more could you ask of your sporting sibling than the performance Giroud turned in against Napoli on Sunday?As players swapped shirts and fans began to make their way to the exits at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, Olivier Giroud ran a hand over his beard and listened to an interviewer from Dazn complimenting his Italian. His eyebrows raised at the question that followed: “You’re a bit like Zlatan [Ibrahimovic]: you give instructions, you encourage, you motivate your teammates. So now that he’s back, who plays?”It was an unexpected line of enquiry on a night when Giroud had, once again, shifted the course of Serie A’s title race, scoring the goal that delivered Milan victory over Napoli just as his...
Munir El Haddadi came off the bench early to send the crowd at the Sánchez Pizjuán Stadium into a frenzy with a vital goal“I was sitting on the bench thinking: ‘Bloody hell, I’m enjoying this,’” Munir El Haddadi said, and it would only get better. He had been inside the bus as it moved slowly through the smoke on the short trip to the Sánchez Pizjuán stadium; now he was alongside the pitch, unable to sit still as his Sevilla teammates made their way through Real Betis quite a lot quicker. With the noise rising round them this was a moment to be part of and, sooner than expected, he was sprinting off in the sunshine, laughing as the substitutes...
Just when it seemed they had blown another chance to go top of Serie A, the Spaniard sank Lazio to set up a seismic meeting with Milan on SundayLuciano Spalletti called it a “crossroads” in Napoli’s season. After their elimination from Europe on Thursday night, his team had no dreams left to pursue beyond a Scudetto bid that appeared to be fading. Top of the table at the start of December, the Partenopei had since fallen behind both Milan clubs and were starting to feel Juventus’s breath on their necks.Results were trending in the wrong direction. More importantly, so were performances. Napoli drew away to Barcelona at the Camp Nou but their 4-2 defeat in the return leg was more...