I spent my Sunday evening sifting through a mailbox packed with legal threats and demands from various RTÉ correspondents to have references to them removed from TFK. In the course of this chore I happened upon a couple of pleas from fans of our site who wanted a little more in the way of quality sports writing, and a little less in the way of edgy banter about recent murders in Dublin. We are very obliging here, so after spending a good 10 minutes reading some results from the weekend, I have cobbled together this poorly written, ill-researched and desperately humourless bluffer’s guide to European football from the weekend just gone.
Spain
The first 3 horse race for the La Liga title in living memory, assuming your memory has been reduced to a couple of years by overindulgence in your early 20s, shows no signs of being reduced to 2 just yet. It still feels inevitable that Atlético Madrid will fall away at some stage, but there were no signs of nerves on Saturday afternoon when Raul Garcia and Diego Costa put them 2-0 up over Valladolid inside 4 minutes en route to a 3-0 win. This was a much needed return to form for Atlético who had lost 3 matches in a row and are in a crucial spell of their season. Next up is a visit to Milan in the Champions League on either Tuesday or Wednesday evening (whichever one is the 19th) before a game against Osasuna and then a home league derby against Real Madrid in a fortnight’s time. For the casual soccer fan who is growing bored of Barcelona, Atlético have been a real breath of fresh air this season – if you like swift attacking football and racist fans you need look no further.
That early victory for Atlético[SIZE=2]B[/B][/SIZE] put pressure on their more illustrious rivals and Barcelona responded emphatically with a 6-0 hammering of Rayo Vallecano. Messi helped himself to a brace and either equalled or surpassed Raúl’s La Liga scoring record on Satuday evening (I was tired and can’t remember) in far fewer games and is now only 8 goals off Hugo Sanchez’s total. All trail an older Basque gentleman who/whom you should at least feign some awareness of, by quite a distance[SIZE=2]B[/B][/SIZE]. The Catalans travel to Manchester tomorrow for a very appealing Round of 16 game against City.
http://giant.gfycat.com/CreamyHelpfulBedlingtonterrier.gif
It was Real’s turn on Sunday to take on a relegation candidate and they were comfortable 0-3 winners over Getafe – Jesé, Benzema and Modric all scoring. All 3 teams are now tied on 60 points with 14 games remaining. The resumption of the Champions League will likely result in a few more dropped points but it’s hard to look past the various top 3 clashes to forecast the eventual winners.
The big remaining fixtures are the aforementioned Madrid derby on 2nd March and 3 weeks later a Madrid hosted Classico. Then there is a mouthwatering matchup on the final day of the season when Atlético travel to Barcelona. All 3 title contenders have to play each of the other teams once. All 3 play once at home and once away[SIZE=2]B.[/B][/SIZE] It could hardly be more evenly balanced. And yet it’s hard to see Atlético winning from here.
SIZE=2 I’m assuming the order of games I’m looking at reflects the order they were played in on the day in question, not just alphabetical order
(2) Telmo Zarra things you should know. He played for Athletic Bilbao, he scored far more than anyone else and he only had 20 caps but scored 20 goals. It’s probably worth opining that his low caps total is related to his Basque heritage and a Madrid bias. I haven’t had a chance to check that last bit but it certainly sounds plausible.
(3) I haven’t checked that thoroughly so be careful using that in water cooler conversation[/SIZE]
Germany
Those who jumped onto the Bundesliga bandwagon at the start of this season may be finding it all a little boring. The epic battles between Bayern and Dortmund from recent years have been replaced with a juggernaut from Bavaria blowing every other team away while Dortmund’s young guns struggle for consistency and form.
The Westphalians (that’s Dortmund by the way) have been badly hampered by injuries this season. They have nothing like the squad depth of their great southern rivals and have been forced to play with makeshift defences all season. On Saturday they had the recently unretired Manuel Friedrich partnering Sokratis in central defence (Subotic is out for the season and Hummels is just moving from injury to injury at the moment), while squad players Kehl and Grosskreutz are fairly underwhelming replacements for the likes of Reus, Gundogan and Blaszcykowski in midfield. In other words they weren’t a team of young guns at all.
It’s very unclear just when Gundogan will be back. He’s been out with a back injury since August and there are persistently conflicting reports about his scheduled return showing up any time I google him. He is this season’s high profile Dortmund star transfer target for any number of clubs and they have indicated an intention to sell if he doesn’t sign a new deal by the summer.
None of which is particularly relevant in the context of this weekend’s match when they were very comfortable 4-0 winners over Eintracht Frankfurt. Aubameyang has shown some good form following the resumption from the winter break and he grabbed 2 goals before a Lewandowski penalty extended the lead. Milos Jojic (another Partizan Belgrade starlet) came off the bench for his first appearance for Dortmund and he took less than 20 seconds to score with his first touch.
The mood around Dortmund will have been lifted further on Saturday evening when Schalke won at Leverkusen to reduce the gap between second-placed Leverkusen and Dortmund to just 1 point. That result still leaves Schalke within 2 points of Dortmund, so on second thoughts maybe Dortmund won’t be happy at all and would have preferred to have been comfortably entrenched in third rather than within striking distance of either second or fourth. In any event, that was an impressive win for Schalke at Leverkusen. 18 year old Wunderkind Leon Goretzka[SIZE=2]B[/B][/SIZE] scored the opener before Santana put through his own net and then Huntelaar won it for the Gelsenkirchen side.
Bayern won’t have spent too much time worrying about the jostling for Champions League places behind them. They are 16 points clear at the top of the table, have only conceded 9 goals, remain undefeated[SIZE=2]B[/B][/SIZE], have won every home match and haven’t dropped points at all since the 3rd of October. In February (including cup matches) they have won 5-0, 0-2, 0-5 and now 4-0. Their goal difference since losing (irrelevantly) to Manchester City in December is F31 A2.
Guardiola evidently had one eye on their Champions League clash with Arsenal when picking the team for Saturday’s encounter against Freiburg. Gotze, Alaba, Thiago and Boateng were all rested and Schweinsteiger was given just half an hour on his return from injury. Ribery missed out following surgery on his buttocks (that’s how it was reported but I’d imagine only one buttock was actually operated on) and midweek hat-trick hero Mandzukic was suspended. Despite this apparently weaker side (Rafinha and Contento won’t start many games as the two full backs) Bayern romped to a 4-0 win. Shaqiri was the star of the show with 2 goals capping an inventive performance – Dante and Pizarro were the other scorers.
At the other end of the table Hamburg’s misery continued as they were beaten 4-2 in Braunschweig and that loss put an end to Bert van Marwijk’s inglorious reign as manager. One of the few positive notes for HSV this season has been the form of on-loan striker Pierre-Michael Lasogga and he scored early to give Hamburg some hope but a hat trick from Dominik Kumbela and some other goals from Hamburg and Braunschweig players resulted in a 4-2 win for the league’s bottom side. They now lie just a point behind Hamburg with Freiburg and Stuttgart just above them.
SIZE=2 I believe it is mandatory to include the word Wunderkind when talking about a young German footballer. This lad is a class player though.
(5) Their last league loss was in October 2012 – a record 46 games ago.[/SIZE]
France
Ligue Un has a real image problem. It’s just not interesting. Despite being televised regularly here it suffers from a lack of familiarity and despite a host of really expensive talent it just can’t shake off the second tier, second class reputation.
PSG should be a global phenomenon, but they’re not. They have a blend of established superstars (Ibrahimovic, Thiago Silva, Cavani) and some of the most talented young footballers in the world (Lucas Moura, Pastore, Verratti) but they haven’t broken through to rival Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United etc for interest outside their local fanbase.SIZE=2[/SIZE] The road to prestige was much easier for the nouveaux-richesSIZE=2[/SIZE] Chelsea and Manchester City because they were following behind a path already established by compatriot clubs. PSG have had to fight to make French football credible on their own, only recently joined by Monaco and with only a couple of fixtures against Marseille to raise passions beyond the routine.
The Parisians remain 5 points clear of Monaco at the top of the league after 25 games. PSG won 3-0 on Valentine’s Night against Valenciennes (Lavezzi, Zlatan and an og) and Monaco responded the following day with a 0-2 win over Bastia thanks to a double from James Rodriguez. The loss of Falcao and the fact their creation of a star-studded squad is more of a work in progress than PSG’s project means Monaco were always unlikely to finish ahead of PSG this season. The 1-1 draw against the leaders last week has ostensibly kept Monaco in the title race, but a second placed finish has long looked inevitable.
SIZE=2 I haven’t been abroad in a couple of years apart from a couple of dull trips to Glasgow but I can’t imagine they’ve caught on in the way some English, Spanish and even German clubs have global followings.
(7) That pluralisation of nouveau and associated adjective ending may or may not be correct.[/SIZE]
Netherlands
A hat trick from Lasse Schone (two from spot kicks) secured a 3-0 win for defending champions Ajax over Heerenveen on Sunday. They retain a 4 point gap over Twente who won 2-0 – Luc Castaignos (who seems to have left Inter for Twente 2 years ago without me noticing until now) getting the first goal in that one. Feyenoord remain third, a further 3 points back, after an emphatic 5-1 win over NEC Nijmegen. Graziano Pelle’s very impressive season continued with 2 goals in that game - the Italian now has 20 goals in 22 matches. The fact he’s a 28 year old journeyman is really counting against him in pushing for a world cup squad place for Italy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9rks7dqLlE
Italy
Juventus march on inexorably. Their 100% home record remains intact after a 3-1 win over struggling Chievo Verona. A great goal from Asamoah, a less impressive rebound from Marchisio and a header from Llorente were enough to outscore an own goal deflected home by Caceres after Lichtsteiner panicked in his own area.
Roma remain 9 points behind (with a game behind) after cruising to a 3-0 win over Sampdoria. Destro helped himself to a brace either side of a strike from the very impressive Pjanic. They have some daylight over Napoli who were not troubled by bottom side Sassuolo. Milan’s dreary midtable gloom was lifted on Friday night by a terrific strike from Balotelli whose nonchalance at scoring a screamer was more than a match for the brilliance of the strike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnq2PvHFcg0
Portugal
The biggest fixture in Portugal last week was the midweek Lisbon derby. This is strictly a guide to football from Friday through Sunday so I won’t be providing details or even the result of that one. Sporting were first out on Saturday night and they put that two goal defeat to Benfica behind them with what was presumably a boring 1-0 over Olhanense who sound vaguely Danish but seem to play in the Portuguese league. Carlos Mané got the only goal of the game – he doesn’t seem to be too put out by his rumoured to move Celtic not materialising in January.
That result briefly lifted Sporting back into touching distance of the lead – touching distance being 2 points in this case. Porto had a chance to reclaim second place on Sunday and they managed that with a 1-2 win at Gil Vicente wherever or whoever that is. Varela got both those goals, boosting his chances of featuring in the Portuguese squad this summer where he will be completely overshadowed by a slightly more famous winger.
Benfica restored their 4 point advantage at the top of the table thanks to a 0-2 win over Pacos de Ferreira – only the very astute reader will have picked up on that table pun there: Pacos de Ferreira is, of course, well known as the furniture capital of Portugal.
