Boy, did this match need this. Today’s Champions League round-of-16 first leg between Chelsea and Atletico Madrid was a chore. Atletico can always be that, as their identity for the past decade has been to be defiantly, sneeringly obstinate. Chelsea are still finding their feet under new manager Thomas Tuchel, so… Read more…
Few fixtures suffer from the lack of fans more than the Milan derby, especially this latest iteration. A split stadium, 80,000 fans baying for blood and justice, tifos galore, all in service to a top of the table contest, it would have been an epic occasion. Inter Milan came into this leading Serie A by […]
It’s still a long way back to the Premier League for Sunderland, the club whose fall from the top flight to the third tier of English soccer was chronicled in the Netflix documentary Sunderland ’Til I Die. Read more…
It hasn’t been a vintage season for Juventus, who look like they might surrender the Serie A title for the first time in 10 years. Their pursuit of the Champions League the past few years has moved beyond obsession, which led them to pay $120 million for Christiano Ronaldo a few years ago. That has […]
There really isn’t a better wielder of the axe that struck the final blow on this era of Barcelona than Kylian Mbappé and his three-goal night. While it’s been Lionel Messi’s world for so long, any minute now it’s going to be Mbappé’s to do with how he sees fit. That is, if it isn’t […]
One of the rites of…well, not spring exactly, but a rite of reminding you that spring might actually arrive at some point before the light within you has completely extinguished, is the knockout stage of the Champions League. It drops into the sporting scene at the end of February, right after your NFL withdrawal… Read […]
Two and a half months ago or so, I wrote this. I certainly wasn’t the only one, and perhaps I let my red-colored view of the world get the better of me just a touch as well. While Pep Guardiola was coming under more fire than he ever had while in charge of Manchester City, […]
There’s a lot to pick through in the rubble of Liverpool’s season at the moment. It’s a good thing they’ve left so much rubble to house all of it. A team that was top of the Premier League on New Year’s Day has landed back to Earth with such a thud over the past month […]
The January transfer window closed yesterday — sometimes it closes in February, sometimes it snows in April — and a plethora of American players left their MLS digs behind for European riches. Some will be back, some are real longshots, some have very bright futures. The fact that this has become something of a ritual… […]