Leicester City, the champions of England still rolls strangely off the tongue. Leicester’s players standing in a line whilst the Champions League theme rings out around the King Power Stadium is an even stranger sight. But Leicester belong. Two wins from their first two Champions League games is the best any English team has ever done.
We saw some fabulous Champions League games last week, which clearly took their toll on some of the bigger teams across the continent this weekend: a bumper Champions League programme led to a bumper domestic league programme around Europe as Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City, Manchester United, Barcelona and Real Madrid all failed to win. Kudos to you if you can remember the last time that happened!
This week’s Euro Roundup is trying to suck every last bit of juice out of this weekend’s fixtures: the international break means there’s no *real* football to speak of this week, so those siestas will have to last a little longer than usual….
France
There are only 30 miles or so between them and their hatred of each other is palpable, but they are also both two of the most successful teams in France: St Etienne have won more league titles than anyone else in French history, whilst Lyon’s seven league victories in a row is the sequential record to beat. Lyon v St Etienne, you know it’s always going to be special – especially when it’s the first ever derby at Lyon’s new Parc OL stadium.
This was St Etienne midfielder Bryan Dabo’s first experience of a Rhone derby, and it doesn’t look like he’ll forget the atmosphere in a hurry – this is the arrival of the St Etienne team bus the day before the game:
Whilst this was the scene at Lyon’s training ground… again, the day before the game!
The game lived up to the hype as both teams went for it, but Lyon won 2-0 to get back on track after two straight defeats. For St Etienne, meanwhile, it’s only their first loss in 11 games.
Elsewhere, PSG are back to normal after their defeat last week, a victory over Ludogorets Razgrad in the Champions League was followed by three points again in the league:
Top of the table, remain Nice, who were inspired to victory by this Mario Balotelli strike:
Though the resulting yellow card for taking off his shirt was crucial: the Italian was sent off only minutes later for a second yellow for squaring up to Lorient’s Steven Moreira.
Monaco are keeping the pace just behind Lucien Favre’s side, though, and a seven-goal thrashing of Metz this week kept the momentum after Kamil Glik’s last-minute equaliser in midweek in the Champions League.
Marseille, meanwhile, find themselves closer to the bottom than the top once again with a draw against lowly Angers, but shout out of the week must go to Vannes goalkeeper Jean-Francois Bedenik for the save of the week!
Germany
Bayern Munich can afford to slip up and still stay three points clear at the top of the table, such is their dominance of German football these days. It’s two games without a win for Carlo Ancelotti’s side, and they must be glad of the international break to give them a week off from thinking about club football. Their 1-1 draw with high-flying Cologne sees the Billy Goats’ excellent start to the season continue.
Meanwhile, Borussia Dortmund also failed to win this weekend, losing 2-0 to Bayer Leverkusen. Javier Hernandez’s fifth goal of the Bundesliga season condemned Dortmund to defeat after a sapping game against Real Madrid in midweek. They needed a goal to spark them into life on Saturday afternoon. They didn’t get one.
Elsewhere, there was a first win of the season for Schalke 04. They lost their first five games of the season, but at 24.9 years, their squad is the youngest average age in the BL this season. That might go some way to explaining their slow start, though this weekend they thumped Monchengladbach 4-0 – perhaps this is the start of something beautiful for Schalke.
Italy
They say that in Rome, there is Totti, there is the Pope and that’s it. Well, this week there was a hell of a football game, too.
Though perhaps it was Milan who brought the style: Roma beat Inter 2-1 in a fabulous game on Sunday night – including a save of the season contender – but just hours before, back home in the San Siro, Inter’s cross City rivals AC beat Sassuolo 4-3 – it was all too much for 18 year-old Manuel Locatelli who scored his first Serie A goal for Milan, and what a goal it was! Who says Serie A is defensive and boring?
Meanwhile, Juventus’s march to this season’s Scudetto took yet another step forward as they dispatched of Empoli with three goals in five minutes, before standing back to admire their work, but even more importantly, Napoli lost away to Atalanta, leaving them four points back already.
Spain
The real winners in Spain this weekend were Atletico Madrid. Of La Liga’s top three they surely had the toughest fixture, yet they were the only one to win.
Real Madrid were held at home to Eibar, whilst Barcelona were 3-0 down to Celta Vigo at half time, losing 4-3 in the end – though two goals from Gerard Pique brought them back into the game, and he very nearly scored a hat-trick to equalise in the last minute! It was their defensive performance that let them down, however. Errors gifted Celta their goals, and another own goal from Jeremy Mathieu gives him an unwanted stat, whilst Barcelona conceded three goals in the first half of a La Liga game for the first time since 2007 when they played Villarreal.
Atletico’s 2-0 victory over Valencia sounds comfortable and when you factor in their two missed penalties it sounds like it could have been 4-0. But watching the game would have shown you a completely different story – Atletico looks sluggish and Valencia could have taken advantage if Rodrigo had been more accurate in front of goal.
It wasn’t Atletico’s worst performance of the weekend, though. Their English Twitter account is perhaps the biggest must-follow on social media for their English gaffes, whilst the whole team arrived in the same hideous getup: club issue double denim. What more can you say?
It’s a familiar story for Valencia, however, as they continue to play well and lose, whilst when they play badly, they scrape wins.
They have their goalkeeper to thank, though: Diego Alves continues his reign as the penalty kick king, saving another two this weekend. That means he’s saved 19 of the 41 penalties he’s faced. Some of the other 21, of course, missed the target, too. That means Diego Alves has conceded fewer than half of the La Liga penalty kicks he’s faced. Maybe their new defensive tactic should be to foul the opposition in the box.