After 10 years away, a cameo in a goalless draw with Real Madrid saw one of Spain’s greats return in a Real Sociedad shirt Dry your eyes, mate. “We cried over his departure,” Miguel-Ángel Moyá said, but the tears didn’t last long. On the final day of last season, Martin Odegaard told his Real Sociedad teammates he was staying for another season, only for Real Madrid to decide differently, changing everything. Twenty days later, recently knocked out of the Champions League, the La Liga winners announced they were bringing him home, four and a half years after he had joined, three since he had set off on loan at Heerenveen, Vitesse and Real Sociedad, and one ahead of schedule.In San...
Serge Gnabry scored a hat-trick and Leroy Sané dazzled on debut in an 8-0 win for the champions on gala nightFriday night. Opening night. Gala night for the champions. Yet if it was so familiar for Bayern Munich, it was alien too. The Rekordmeister has been here so many times that you could forgive it being cruised through on autopilot, as the board did when they and their guests from Gelsenkirchen sat in the directors box without social distancing or masks, earning the club a ticking off from Bavaria’s minister of health, Melanie Huml.Despite all the regular tells – not least a pair of effervescent wingers wearing the numbers 7 and 10 who tore poor Schalke to bits, more of...
The serial champions’ new manager brought instant improvement in win over Sampdoria with a flush of youth It did not take Andrea Pirlo long to get back in character as Il Maestro. On Monday he had been a student, successfully defending his thesis to complete his Uefa Pro Licence course at the Manager’s School in Coverciano. On Sunday, he was a teacher, helping the new kids at Juventus to integrate with their returning classmates whilst ensuring that the highest standards were maintained. Related: European roundup: Real Madrid held goalless by Real Sociedad Related: Roma’s Marash Kumbulla: ‘I liked to watch Smalling. I tried to learn from him’ Continue reading...
With no signings, no tour and no supporters, Zinedine Zidane’s side will be looking for a big improvement from Eden HazardReal Madrid beat Getafe 6-0 this week, or so it goes. The league champions’ only pre-season match was a ghost game: there was no one there to watch it, which is at least perfect preparation these days, but there were no television cameras and no report either, no lineups, no mention of it on the club’s Twitter and no glimpse of the goals – four of them scored by Karim Benzema. Sergio Ramos got a penalty, which you like to imagine was a Panenka, and Sergio Arribas hit the other. Or did he head it? Who knows? That is what...
Will the rookie manager steer Juventus to a 1oth straight title or could Inter, or Lazio or Atalanta, finally topple them?Millions of Italian children went back to school on Monday. So did the manager of Juventus. Andrea Pirlo was completing the final stage of his Uefa Pro licence course, defending a thesis he had submitted two weeks earlier under the title “My Football”.His writings will soon be made available, joining those of every other coach who has passed through Italy’s famous Scuola Allenatori (Managers’ School), in the library of the technical centre in Coverciano. Most of us, though, will get our first real insight into Pirlo’s vision for how the game should be played when Juventus host Sampdoria in their...