A December Copa del Rey thrashing for Club Deportivo Becerril ended with an open invite for their fans to visit the Reale Arena. At the weekend, two-thirds of a small town took them up on it At the end of training on Friday night, the players from Club Deportivo Becerril packed everything away and headed straight home. It was quarter past 10 and they had to be up early the next morning. Not long after 7.30am they were back, boarding the bus heading north, a four-hour journey ahead. One of the buses, that is. They had a game, but this time it wasn’t theirs. Instead, they were going to San Sebastián, singing songs all the way there, and the whole...
Their 2-2 draw at the Bernabéu lifted Celta back out of the relegation zone; more importantly, it lifted them emotionallyFirst Joseph Aidoo took Zinedine Zidane down, then Denis Suárez and Santi Mina did the same to his defence. The first hit was harder but the second hurt more. There were 30 minutes left at the Bernabéu when everyone saw the Ghanaian tumble off the pitch and crash into the Real Madrid manager, knocking him to the floor and giving him a bloody lip; there were four minutes left when the Galician saw something none of them had, except the man born in the same province a month earlier. And before anyone knew it, so swift and smooth, via some hidden...
Sacking of Ernesto Valverde and Messi’s fallout with sporting director Eric Abidal are symptoms of long-term stagnation and disjointed structure at the Camp NouL ast Tuesday, as Lionel Messi lashed out at the club’s sporting director, Eric Abidal, the crisis at Barcelona became official. But this is a story about far more than clashing egos and mismanagement at the Camp Nou. It is a parable of modern football, of the problem with genius and the difficulty of identity.Perhaps the strangest aspect of the saga – sparked by the Argentinian reacting with fury to what he saw as Abidal’s attempt to blame the players for the recent sacking of Ernesto Valverde – is that it has taken so long to reach...
After Saturday’s incident involving Iñaki Williams, there is still a lingering sense that racism is not being taken seriously enoughIñaki Williams had just begun the long walk to the bench when he heard something. There were 20 minutes left and Athletic Bilbao were drawing 1-1 at Espanyol, but that didn’t matter much any more. He was heading towards where Iker Muniain was about to take corner, yet his mind was elsewhere now. Barely a metre from Muniain as he ran up and bent the ball into the box, the pair crossing paths, his attention was drawn to the stands instead. Williams slowed slightly, head turned, hearing it more clearly now. He couldn’t tell how many, but it was too many....
Against Granada it was very Setién. It was also very Barcelona, in a move driven by nostalgia, but with a glimpse of the futureNine hundred and ninety-eight … 999… 1,000. And still it went. Jordi Alba played the ball to Riqui Puig, who played it to Sergi Busquets, who played it to Arthur Melo, who played it to Sergi Roberto, who played it to Gerard Piqué. Who, finally halted on 100, didn’t get the chance to play it to anyone else. Half an hour before his first game as coach of Barcelona, Quique Setién had sat on the bench alongside his assistant Éder Sarabia, empty seats rising around them, still barely able to believe they were here, and silently contemplated...