Premier League champions showed progress with a mature display but must be wary against a team that are never done When Eduardo Camavinga picked up the ball at the start of the move that shifted this game and shaped the tie, setting up what promises to be a superb second leg next week, 34 minutes had gone and Manchester City, the team who had won 16 games in a row, were already over 3o0 passes. They had 72% of possession and 100% of the shots, 6 to 0. Thibaut Courtois had intervened four times, the best save from Rodrigo Hernández, taking his Champions League count to 26 from the last 26 shots he has faced. And the Frenchman was still...
Belgian midfielder has been on a roll since the World Cup and he produced something sublime in the Spanish capitalShortly after the post‑World Cup resumption Pep Guardiola made some comments about Kevin De Bruyne; sighing a little, looking sad, bemoaning by sly implication the physical state of his champion midfielder.As motivational obiter dicta go it was brutally effective. The Belgian has been sublime on the current winning run. This has been late imperial De Bruyne, a resurgent wave, buried a little behind the cold, hard numbers of Erling Haaland playing (and this is no coincidence) just ahead of him. Continue reading...
Tom Vernon started RTD in Ghana in 1999 and its reach has extended to FC Nordsjælland’s chase for the Danish SuperligaThe Danish Superliga is coming to a thrilling conclusion, with FC Copenhagen and FC Nordsjælland competing to win the league. If Nordsjælland secure the title they will do so as the youngest team competing in Europe’s top divisions. They host Copenhagen on Monday.My recent obsession with the Superliga began when I started exploring the broader role football can play in society. I wanted to learn from the best and the most purpose-focused organisation in sport, maybe the world, is the Right to Dream group (RTD), which established itself in Ghana in 1999 and bought Nordsjælland in 2015. Most recently it...
Few fans expected them to win a first championship in 33 years, but Luciano Spalletti’s team have been an irresistible forceThis was not the stadium where Napoli had hoped to seal their Serie A title but after a 33-year wait you can make any place feel like the promised land. There are more than 500 miles of road between the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona and Udinese’s Dacia Arena, and thousands of supporters travelled them to be present when their team crossed the finish line.They were made to suffer a little while longer, watching Napoli fall behind to a brilliantly taken goal by Sandi Lovric. But when Victor Osimhen swept an equaliser home through a crowded penalty area at the start...
Imanol Alguacil’s side look set for the Champions League after beating Madrid, with thanks owed to one player in particularA little after the clock struck 12 on the night when David Silva, 37, ran 10 kilometres, completed more passes, won more possession, made more tackles, created more chances and provided more assists than anyone else; the delirious, noisy night when everybody bounced about and he led his team – the fifth of a career that began 19 years ago and isn’t ending any time soon – to victory over the European champions and the cusp of a Champions League place for the first time in a decade, his manager was asked what exactly they were giving him up in San...