Real Madrid just had to be good enough against opponents resembling a sinking vessel peopled by castawaysWell, there goes the season. Perhaps summer budget too. Who knows maybe the entire Chelsea 3.0 Blue Sky Project Stage One?With 28 minutes to go in a Champions League second leg Chelsea always seemed to be losing, even when they were threatening vaguely to win it, the home bench took a deep breath, cleared its throat, and coughed up £260m of randomly assembled attacking talent. Continue reading...
Former player Bryan Gil helped to secure a 2-0 win for Sevilla that kept Valencia in the bottom three and in desperate troubleAt the end of the tunnel, Bryan Gil found a quiet corner to talk to old friends, lingering by the dressing room door, but there wasn’t much he could say that would help now. The last time he had been here, a year ago, he and his Valencia teammates had gathered on the stadium balcony overlooking Avenida Suecia, leaping about and spraying champagne everywhere. That night, thousands gathered below, celebrating reaching the Cup final and singing for him to stay. This time, late on Sunday night, they were out there again; though he had changed team and they...
Sandro Schwarz departed on Sunday after Friday’s grim 5-2 defeat leaves Hertha rock-bottom of the Bundesliga“That,” said Benjamin Weber, “was a real slap in the face.” Hertha’s sporting director has been in situ for less than three months, but he is already acclimatised to the chaos of the capital club. Not surprisingly, perhaps. Before returning to the club in late January he had served the club for almost two decades in a variety of roles. “I’m a Berliner. I’m a Herthaner,” he told his introductory press conference.This, then, will hurt. Hertha have been circling the drain for a while now, retaining their top-flight place via the relegation playoff last season having finished two points clear of the playoff spot the...
Midfielder delivers a complete one- man guide to elite-level football with an imperious display against Bayern MunichJust before the hour in this match at the Etihad Stadium, Bernardo Silva took the ball on the right flank and began to drive inside, not so much sprinting as ambling urgently, like a man running a little late to deliver a lecture, scarf flapping absently over one shoulder.Casually, more just to hold on to the ball, he nutmegged Alphonso Davies. Then he did something impossible, seeming somehow to walk through Davies’s legs in pursuit of the ball, reappearing on the other side of his man via some invisible hobbit tunnel. Continue reading...
Spurs need a hungry manager on the way up, rather than one – no matter how young – fighting for relevanceIf only Julian Nagelsmann had never become manager of Bayern Munich, the world might have believed he would be a very good manager of Bayern Munich. It was a job to which he had seemed destined since becoming the youngest coach in Bundesliga history in 2016, taking charge of Hoffenheim at the age of 29. He had already led Hoffenheim’s under-19s to the Bundesliga youth title. He seemed preternaturally gifted and in Germany the gifted always end up at Bayern, especially when they come from Bavaria.Taking over with Hoffenheim seven points adrift, Nagelsmann inspired them to unlikely survival and the...