Sergio Ramos’s injury limits score-settling from the 2018 Champions League final but there’s a season on the lineMohamed Salah did not disclose much in an interview with Marca last week but enough to let the Spanish sports daily with close ties to Real Madrid know that, yes, he is open to playing in La Liga one day and, yes, there is “special motivation” for Liverpool’s Champions League quarter-final on Tuesday. A reunion with the Spanish champions is one he and Liverpool have craved since their agonising night in Kyiv in 2018.There will be no opportunity to exact personal revenge on Sergio Ramos with the Real captain sidelined by injury, but there always was more to a tie with major implications...
Real Madrid’s third home league defeat of the campaign leaves them level on points with Barcelona, but 10 points adrift of leaders AtléticoRonald Koeman didn’t intend to speak for both of them and plenty thought he shouldn’t have spoken at all, but as it turned out that’s exactly what he did. It was just after midday on Saturday when the coach said Barcelona “are not in a position to win much” and just before 6pm when Real Madrid showed nor are they.By the following night, the greatest rivals in sport couldn’t be closer: same points, same wins, same draws, same defeats, same goals conceded. But if a battle is building, it’s not for anything that matters much, and the team...
A shock for the ages provided the happiest night in the life of what, right now, might be the saddest city in Spain“Javi Antón is crying,” said Vicente Parras, and he wasn’t the only one. The manager of Club Deportivo Alcoyano looked across the pitch at El Callao with its whitewashed walls, “Morale” splashed alongside the little blue door in the corner and saw his players still on the grass long after the final whistle. Some of them held white shirts, most of them held phones. “They’re all out there calling home,” he said: endless messages and dozens of conversations starting the way his had a few minutes before. Parras’s son couldn’t come to the game; no one could. “I...
An icy flight across Spain was in vain for Madrid as they were held in Pamplona while Atlêtico’s games in hand rack upAthletic Club Bilbao parked the bus but couldn’t land the plane. The driver arrived early and waited outside Barajas Terminal Four on Friday evening while thousands of feet above him the pilot bringing the team to Madrid to play Atlético circled the city before giving up and going home. At around the same time Real Madrid’s players were sitting in another plane on the runway, watching snow fall and time pass. To the south, Rayo Vallecano’s footballers got off the coach and helped push stranded cars along the road, or tried to. “Do you think we should be...
The manager appears to be feeling the strain and it will be hard for him to continue if his team go out of the Champions League “Yeah, yeah, for sure,” Zinedine Zidane said and then a familiar, knowing smile returned to his face after a few weeks in which it hadn’t been seen. Real Madrid’s coach had just been asked if this was the most difficult moment in his career. “For sure,” he continued, “but it’s like always: there have been bad moments, criticism, and today’s the same. Maybe more than before, but no problem: I’m not thinking about that. I feel like the players are going to do it on the pitch. Tomorrow is an opportunity to show that...