Rodgers reaches his first English final, Spurs wait on Harry Kane’s ankle and Norwich make a welcome returnBrendan Rodgers’ previous FA Cup semi-final visit, in April 2015, ended in disaster, a deserved 2-1 loss with Liverpool to an Aston Villa team inspired by a teenage Jack Grealish. That was an afternoon when Liverpool froze but six years on, Rodgers is a manager with considerably more chops. His Leicester team approached their Sunday night visit to Wembley with poise, confidence and patience. On the sidelines, and even above the 4,000 fans in the stadium as part of a post-Covid experiment, Rodgers’s baritone was audible, talking his players through each passage of play. His suit is always reassuringly expensive but Rodgers remains...
Yet another defeat to pacy counterattackers raises tantalising questions over Manchester City’s European tie with PSGAnd so the quadruple remains out of reach for another season. Perhaps Pep Guardiola is right to banish talk of it: when goals are set so high, even an extraordinary season could feel like failure. And so it lingers, forever on the edge of perception, as the Double did for Liverpool for much of the 70s and 80s, something that feels often in their grasp and yet keeps on eluding them.For a long time, the Double was rare enough to be an almost mystical quest. Growing up in the 80s, the sides who had achieved it felt vaguely otherworldly, to be spoken of in hushed...
Thomas Tuchel asked his forward to pare his game back to a very specific movement at Wembley – and in workedIt is a sporting truism that some athletes “get better” by not playing. Absence is flattering to the reputation. Time dims the bad bits and illuminates the good. The problem for Timo Werner in this dynamic, the one flaw in the plan, is that there haven’t actually been any good bits yet.Or at least, not enough. And not until now. Instead Werner has been a frantic presence in west London, a £50m player whose basic footballing range has been seriously questioned. Most recently he was compared by one pundit to a non-scoring Jamie Vardy - which is, let’s face it,...
Champions League clash could be described as sportswashing derby with rich royal family owners going head to headSometimes sport can be a stage for the most beautiful dramas. It can thrill, it can inspire, it can move. It can offer the most plangent insights into life, showcase the full potential of the human brain, the human heart, the human body. Who does not feel the lump in the throat, the warm glow of shared experience, the great sense of human potential when they remember Bob Champion winning the National on Aldaniti, Dennis Taylor outlasting Steve Davis, or Ben Stokes at Headingley? Sport is a fairytale land where dreams can be made flesh.Once upon a time there was a football club...
Attempts to ruffle Manchester City feathers by home fans did not work and City then neutralised Erling HaalandThe explosions were so loud some hotel staff feared the building was shaking. Three times during the early hours of Wednesday morning Dortmund fans released industrial-strength fireworks outside the Radisson Blu, waking several of the Manchester City players inside.Pep Guardiola remained impervious. “I was sleeping like a baby, I didn’t hear a thing,” reported City’s manager before watching his defence come as near as any team’s to tranquilising Erling Haaland. Related: Foden thunderbolt puts Manchester City in semis after Dortmund scare Continue reading...