It was Andorra v Oviedo again, but this time Quique Setién wasn’t watching. He was busy and had better things to doQuique Setién started the season at Real Oviedo, where the football ground is overlooked by a 30-metre Jesus Christ. He hadn’t come to coach and had no intention of going anywhere else to do so either. Everyone knows there are cows in his tiny hometown of Liencres, human population 3,537; what fewer know is that there is a club there too and as far as the former Barcelona boss was concerned, Marina Sport Under-19s were his team now, the only place he wanted to be. The professional game was best left to other people, one man in particular, so...
Villarreal dominated half of the Champions League semi-final second leg but Reds found way to make it to Paris showpieceLuis Díaz revved the engine, priming the afterburners. He blazed up the left, taking Juan Foyth, the Villarreal right-back, with him. He slowed and then he went again, purring away from him. The Liverpool winger had just entered as a half-time substitute in his team’s Champions League semi-final, second leg at the Estadio de la Cerámica and he was testing his marker, working out whether he had the beating of him. The answer was emphatic. He did.Díaz knew it. So did everyone and, as Liverpool set about starting Tuesday night’s tie – albeit 45 minutes late – it felt as though...
Villarreal’s fans were starting to dream of Paris but the introduction of Luis Díaz changed the game“You suffer and then ...”, Jürgen Klopp clicked his fingers: “... you react.”It may not have been quite that simple, nor quite so instantaneous, and it certainly wasn’t as effortless as that, but as it turned out Liverpool’s manager wasn’t far off in his prediction. Continue reading...
Facing Liverpool was a quick-fire interrogation for the Spanish side, who suffered concussive red blows on a torrid nightVan Dijk to Konaté back to Van Dijk to Thiago and in a flash Thiago’s gone and he gives it to Fabinho Fabinho to Robertson and he’s running oh God he’s running and Díaz is making the run Henderson is making the run you see Salah out of the corner of your eye but Robertson is cutting inside and there’s a big space between Juan and Pau so you close it but now Mané is free and Robertson crosses Díaz goes for it plus some other red shirt is that Mané and the ball runs out for a goal-kick and breathe you...
As this week’s semi-finals lineup shows, the Champions League is no longer a fair competition but in the grip of a few franchisesThe two best teams in Europe, the most successful club in the history of the competition, a gritty outsider – in some ways the lineup for this week’s Champions League semi-finals is perfect. Each offers in addition an intriguing subplot: Pep Guardiola fighting the curse of overthought, Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool chasing an implausible quadruple, Luka Modric and Karim Benzema raging against the dying of the light, the frankly hilarious prospect of Unai Emery returning to Paris for the final and making a point to Paris Saint-Germain, a club that never took him seriously (perhaps he could have...