With individualists such as Özil and Pogba sadly marginalised, Atlético’s £110m man shows the classic No 10 still has a placeIn 19th-century Russian literature there was a recurrent figure known as The Superfluous Man. The Superfluous Man was talented, aimless, wealthy and pretty much redundant in society. He wrote poetry and wore finely stitched britches. He lounged on silken pouffes and was pointlessly good at pointless things. The world coddled and cosseted him. But it didn’t need him any more.It isn’t hard to find a few of these, our own Superfluous Men, in modern day football. This has been a constant note in the last year, the trend for a certain type of player, individualists with non-standard skills, to find...
The carrot of genuine competition will continue to be dangled, even if the latest edition of Der Klassiker was less one-sided“It is as unexpected as Christmas,” wrote 11 Freunde’s Tobias Ahrens, “but still leaves bitterness.” There are Bayern Munich victories over Borussia Dortmund and there are instances of Bayern Munich winning Der Klassiker, as it is now internationally branded, and there are many different shades of the story to point to with Dortmund having won three and drawn three of the pair’s last 17 Bundesliga meetings.Yet Saturday night’s latest edition of the fixture, however you want to describe it, requires further nuance in the description, from both sides. After five goals and a see-saw contest in which BVB scored first...
Musah’s record-breaking goal had lifted spirits after Kondogbia’s exit but crisis was deepening until Getafe threw them a lifeline “There’s one shot and the game’s over,” Javi Gracia said, and Valencia’s manager knew it wasn’t just the game either. Two minutes before the curfew began at last the crowd dispersed, leaving Carlos Soler alone in the silence. All that and it came down to this. For 99 minutes Valencia and Getafe had done battle, another chapter in a modern rivalry, producing two red cards, 13 yellows, 43 fouls, three goals and then this: a penalty to finish. Having been 1-0 up, Valencia were 2-1 down, conceding in the 87th and 94th minutes, the void opening beneath them. But suddenly here...
The treble winners have withdrawn their contract offer and the only questions now are when and where the Austrian will goThe gulf between the two parties has been clear for a while but when the news dropped on Sunday, it still felt jarring. Bayern Munich’s president, Herbert Hainer, has steered the ship through largely tranquil times since taking the helm just under a year ago, with a second treble in seven years to crown it all at the end of the season under the guidance of Hansi Flick.Now, one could say that Hainer has genuinely started the job as Bayern president, having had to make a tough public stance. Speaking to Bayerischer Rundfunk, he confirmed suspicions that negotiations to extend...
Liverpool centre-back remains a work in progress but his makeshift partnership with Fabinho just about kept Ajax out It was hardly a first touch that was going to inspire confidence. Barely 70 seconds had passed at the Amsterdam Arena when Joe Gomez took possession on the left-hand side of his penalty area. Attempting to shepherd the ball back to his goalkeeper, Gomez suddenly felt the breath of an Ajax forward at his shoulder and appeared to panic slightly, with Adrián required to sprint forward and smash the ball out for a throw-in, colliding with his 23-year-old teammate in the process.In the absence of the defensive colossus Virgil van Dijk it has fallen to the softly spoken south Londoner to step...