To follow PSG and Chelsea, Sevilla were the latest team to suffer from Carlo Ancelotti’s men’s powers of recoveryIn the middle of it all, someone fetched David Alaba a chair. It was late, it had been a long week, his legs were weary and everyone were making a lot of noise, but this seat was not for sitting. This was for celebrating, his thing now, and so he took it and lifted it above his head. Back by popular demand, he emulated what he had done after that absurd comeback against Paris Saint Germain, a cheer went round the dressing room and his team-mates started singing: “That’s the way Madrid win!”They had only gone and done it again, and this...
Despite relinquishing his European crown the manic German has shown masterful leadership of his squad and troubled club At 9.50pm on Tuesday Chelsea’s players gathered on the Bernabéu touchline to prepare for extra time, having just beaten Real Madrid 3-1 in their own stadium over 90 minutes: a sensational result in isolation, but with a tinge of dread now too, a sense of having run themselves to a state of exhaustion in pursuit of a retreating mirage.Rodrygo’s goal 10 minutes from the end of normal time will be remembered for Luka Modric’s sublime diagonal pass, a weird, snaking, dipping thing, like an entity from some other physical plane. But the effect of that goal on the opposition was also striking....
Champions League defeat at the Bernabéu was a gladiatorial spectacle where the visitors left everything out on the fieldHow do you kill that which cannot be killed? Sanctioned, escrowed, hawked about the place like a bag of meat in a country pub: but still that self‑fuelling, indissoluble substance that is Chelsea Football Club continued to roll along on an extraordinary night at the Bernabéu.There was defeat with honour for Chelsea here, a 3-2 win over 120 thrilling, gruelling, relentlessly high‑craft minutes that translated into a 5-4 loss on aggregate. But the numbers hardly told the story, on an evening that felt also like a kind of farewell, a Viking funeral for an undeniably glorious part of this club’s history. Continue...
The quiet Italian is a born winner set to become a champion in a fifth country – and he may even add a fourth European CupIn 2016 Bayern Munich faced a very difficult task. The club had to find a successor for Pep Guardiola. Only one came into consideration: Carlo Ancelotti. For us players this meant a change on the one hand. What Ancelotti said in one week, Guardiola said in three hours. On the other hand, as was the case for his predecessor, it was also true for Ancelotti: as a player you feel comfortable because you sense that the coach is ready to make his methods available to the team. That is why he is successful everywhere.In a...
It was like looking through a window of the past at a squad full of familiar faces. They were still too strong for ChelseaThe world, we are told, is in a state of chaotic and unprecedented flux.Technology is changing our lives at a frightening rate. All across the globe, societies are fracturing and falling apart. The destruction of the planet is accelerating before our eyes. Every passing week seems to bring new ruptures, new shocks, new disfigurements. Continue reading...