Football (Soccer) News
Bayern Munich’s Josip Stanisic said it was “stupid” of him to push a ballboy off his stool after he tossed the ball away in stoppage time of their Champions League match against Inter on Wednesday.
A 2-2 draw in the second leg at San Siro enabled Inter to advance to the semi-finals 4-3 on aggregate.
Continue reading...When Eddie Howe fell ill last week and it became clear Newcastle’s manager could be absent for some time, the team’s captain, Bruno Guimarães, convened an emergency meeting of senior players.
According to Guimarães, everyone resolved to “keep our standards as high as ever” and subsequent actions have shown they really meant it.
Continue reading...Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli scored as Arsenal laughed in the face of the remontada
“Is there really any point watching this game?” asks Matt Dony. “I mean, is there really any point even playing it in the first place? It’s Madrid in Europe. We all know what’s going to happen. They’ll have a blindingly good 10-minute spell towards the end of the first half, where they score two goals. There’ll be a scruffy third goal around the 70th minute, then they’ll willpower a winner sometime after the 87th minute. And there is nothing Arsenal can do about it.”
The emergence of the Arsenal players for their warm-up is the cue for the home fans to pay tribute to Joe Root. The noise is quite something, especially as we’re still half an hour away from kick off.
Continue reading...Luis Enrique’s fearlessness sets apart arguably the most watchable team in Europe after years of disappointment
Luis Enrique had one word to describe Gianluigi Donnarumma. “Sensationnel,” the Paris Saint-Germain manager said, switching briefly into French from his native Spanish; no translation required.
Donnarumma was the difference for PSG against Aston Villa on Tuesday night, the goalkeeper making five saves in the Champions League quarter-final second leg at Villa Park, three of them, well, sensational, as his team just about got the job done, losing 3-2 on the night having been 2-0 up but advancing 5-4 on aggregate.
Continue reading...Villa fell just short of completing one of the great European comebacks with a rousing second-half display
1 min: McGinn loops a pass down the left for Rashford to chase. Hakimi shepherds the ball back to Donnarumma, who blooters clear. From the resulting throw, McGinn wins the first corner of the evening.
Villa kick off. They’re kicking towards the Holte End in this first half. It’s tipping down in Birmingham.
Continue reading...Serhou Guirassy’s hat-trick gave Barcelona a scare but they held on to reach their first Champions League semi-final since 2019
The players gather round the centre circle to pay tribute to Dortmund legend Wilhelm Burgsmuller, who died last week aged 93.
A reminder of the teams
Continue reading...The Galaxy are off to a dreadful start on the heels of winning the MLS Cup title. Will they be able to revive their season and make the playoffs?
Christian Polanco and Alexis Guerreros react to the news that MLS voted down the possibility of moving to the European calendar after the 2026 World Cup. Is this a missed opportunity for the league to expand their fanbase by immediately following the World Cup? Christian and Alexis then give us their thoughts on Ruben Amorim benching Andre Onana over the weekend. Later, Christian and Alexis break down the newest Italian gambling probe that includes the UMSNT’s own Weston McKennie.
Frank Lampard watched on from the stands as his playoff-chasing Coventry side were held to a 1-1 draw at struggling Hull. Lampard served a one-match touchline ban at the MKM Stadium and was fined £2,000 after his sending off at the end of the defeat by Burnley earlier this month for an outburst at referee James Bell.
While Coventry largely dominated Hull and went ahead through a deflected strike from Matt Grimes, who earlier produced two goalline blocks to deny Kasey Palmer, substitute Abu Kamara equalised. Lampard’s side therefore stay sixth, moving three points clear of seventh-placed West Brom, and the manager may rue his team’s lack of a clinical edge as Hull goalkeeper Ivor Pandur made several important saves.
Continue reading...Napoli cruised to a 3-0 home win over Empoli on Monday, with Scott McTominay striking twice and Romelu Lukaku also on target as the hosts kept pace with Inter. Antonio Conte’s side were feeling the pressure after Inter’s 3-1 home win against Cagliari on Saturday, but they cut the gap back to three points with six matches to go. Napoli are seven points clear of Atalanta in third as the Serie A title battle narrows to a two-horse race.
It took 18 minutes for Napoli to open the scoring as Lukaku battled free in midfield and passed to McTominay, whose low long-range shot bounced over Devis Vásquez’s outstretched hand and into the corner of the net.
Continue reading...Antoine Semenyo’s classy first-minute goal gave Bournemouth a vital victory that moved them above Fulham into eighth
3 min Antonee Robinson has got a heap of assists this season so he’s still well in credit. Even so that was an untimely slip, especially given Bournemouth’s fragile morale going into the game.
Antoine Semenyo has put Bournemouth ahead inside 60 seconds. Bournemouth broke through Scott, who lost his balance as he tried to push a pass out to Semenyo on the right. It was intercepted by Robinson – but then he was robbed by Semenyo, who cut inside Andersen on the edge of the area and shaped an excellent left-foot shot into the far corner. That’s a really good finish, although Robinson will know that his mistake led to the goal.
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The Scottish Grand National, the Hell of the North that is the Paris-Roubaix bicycle race and the Masters at Augusta were among the sporting spectacles which Football Daily watched over the weekend while also keeping an eye on goings-on in the Premier League. And while we are happy to applaud the spirited efforts of also-rans such as – deep breath – Our Power, Grozni, Rock My Way, Mads Pederson, Wout van Aert, Florian Vermesch, Patrick Reed, Scottie Scheffler and Im Sung-jae, our interest in these not-football contests was certainly not piqued by the prospect of seeing who would finish third, fourth and fifth.
Continue reading...Unai Emery urged his Aston Villa players to “write history” by recording a memorable comeback victory over Paris Saint-Germain to advance to the semi-finals of the Champions League. Villa must overturn a two-goal deficit after a first-leg defeat in France and the Villa manager doubled down on his belief that his side can cause a shock, with Emery adamant the “fortress” atmosphere at Villa Park on Tuesday can help his players find a winning formula.
Emery said PSG’s 3-1 lead does not alter the task at hand. “I have experiences coming back from results, positively and negatively,” he said. “Now it is something different, we want to write here the history with Aston Villa. Last year [we played] in the Conference League and this year in the Champions League and [now] hopefully for a long time in Europe. My experiences before were different … sometimes losing away and winning at home, sometimes losing at home and winning away. More winning than losing … but I had some negative experiences as well.”
Continue reading...Pep Guardiola’s side appear to have corrected the worst of their problems but the days when they conquered all before them are probably over
There was something very familiar about Manchester City’s 5-2 win over Crystal Palace on Saturday. In August 2022, Palace went 2-0 up at the Etihad, the second goal a header from a corner but City came back to win 4-2, Erling Haaland scoring a hat-trick in a dominant second-half performance. Saturday’s game followed a similar path, with the exception that the City comeback began before half-time. This time the key figure wasn’t Haaland, but Kevin De Bruyne, who produced a display to remind everybody just how worthy he was of the tributes that have followed the announcement that he will leave the club in the summer.
Does this, then, mean that City are somehow suddenly back? They’re unbeaten in five games, three of them won. The January signings, Omar Marmoush in particular, have enabled them to stabilise. They are back in the top five and should qualify for the Champions League next season (with all the usual caveats about the Premier League charges they are facing, which they deny). That is a significant step as they look to rebuild, not only in terms of being to attract players but for future PSR calculations.
This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.
Continue reading...‘As a fan it’s beautiful to finish undefeated,’ said retiring Roma head coach after 1-1 draw with city rivals Lazio
Perhaps we ought not to believe Claudio Ranieri when he tells us that this the last time. He announced his retirement from club management last May, delivering what seemed like a perfect storybook ending, saving Cagliari from relegation. The club where he made his name three decades earlier, raising them from Serie C to the top-flight. An island, Sardinia, where the locals think him as one of their own.
Yet Ranieri’s first love has always been the city he grew up in and the team he supported, Roma. He had managed them twice before, but when they called for a third time in November he found himself unable to say no. The club was a mess, having already fired Daniele De Rossi and Ivan Juric 12 games into this Serie A season. They had won only three of those.
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