Leipzig’s leader showed why he outscored Nagelsmann at coaching school and hinted at a brighter future for clubJulian Nagelsmann has missed this kind of competition and so, in recent months, has the Bundesliga. This felt just like a Saturday night Top-Spiel should, a meeting of minds, of wills, of guts. RB Leipzig have not shone this season like the upstarts they have been since promotion in 2016 – they have been “playing below their potential … it’s no secret”. as Thomas Müller put it at full-time – but they came to Bayern Munich with what a lot of teams leave at home. Hunger and bravery.On a weekend when Borussia Dortmund underlined that their nominal title challenge is barely even that,...
Furious fans interrupted training after the cup defeat to Union Berlin in midweek and the pressure intensified on Sunday“We have to make sure,” said Hertha Berlin head coach, Tayfun Korkut, “that we put this week behind us and focus on the coming games.” A mere 109 seconds into Sunday’s game against Bayern Munich Corentin Tolisso had the ball in the Hertha net and was called for a marginal offside, and even before the midfielder eventually headed the opener it never felt like the home side were doing anything other than trying to contain the deluge in a paper cup, as Neil Finn might have said – but the coach meant more than just that. Continue reading...
Álvaro Cervera, lauded by fans as the club’s greatest ever manager, has moved on with the club struggling for survivalÁlvaro Cervera had the look. He also had the T-shirts, the slogan and even the sign, a symbol all of his own. Not for him a bat beamed across the sky but a pair of stylised yellow specs, like some sort of short-sighted superman. Which he kind of was and always will be now, even for those who accepted it was time to let go: a cult figure in Cádiz, city of carnival and comedy. This great counter-cultural anti-hero who changed them and let them change him too, if maybe not quite enough in the end. ‘Mr Glasses’, Salvi Sánchez called...
The Switzerland goalkeeper saved two penalties but Borussia Mönchengladbach still lost out to old rivals Bayer LeverkusenHe should have been a hero for a second straight week, but that’s just not how things are working out for Borussia Mönchengladbach right now. Yann Sommer had already flexed his considerable goalkeeping muscles last week, keeping Bayern Munich at bay to help bring home a famous win. This week, the Switzerland star perhaps even bettered himself.In Saturday’s late game with Bayer Leverkusen, a perennial rival for the Champions League places in recent years, Sommer saved not one but two penalties in the second half, and they were both great stops, first plunging to his right to deny Patrik Schick and then later to...
Four teams went through the charade of turning up for doomed games as Serie A resumed under another Covid cloudA new year, but hardly the fresh start Italian football was hoping for. Serie A was supposed to return from its winter break with a full round of games on Thursday, but four out of 10 never took place. As Covid cases continue to rise across the country, local health authorities (known in Italy by the acronym ASL) intervened to block teams from attending fixtures.Bologna, Torino, Salernitana and Udinese were each ordered to quarantine following outbreaks in their respective squads. Their opponents – Internazionale, Atalanta, Venezia and Fiorentina – still each showed up to the relevant stadium and performed the surreal...