Last Wednesday, El Salvador’s Alianza FC upset Tigres 2-1 in the most eye-catching result of the CONCACAF Champions League Round of 16 first legs. Playing the reverse fixture at El Volcán in Mexico tonight, Tigres’ wrath seemed unavoidable. After all, the Liga MX club has finished runner-up three of the last four years and has a favorable route to this year’s final as the only Mexican team on its side of the bracket.
Heading into Wednesday’s Champions League Round of 16 first leg between Real Madrid and Manchester City, the narrative centered around the contrasting styles of managers Zinedine Zidane and Pep Guardiola. In essence, how would the laissez-faire approach of Zidane, which yielded back-to-back-to-back titles in this competition between 2016 and 2018, fare against the meticulous neuroticism of Guardiola, which hasn’t earned the Spaniard Old Big Ears since 2011.
When Pablo Fornals steered his volley beyond Alisson to give West Ham a 2-1 lead over Liverpool with 35 minutes remaining, there was a sense that David Moyes would finally have his day at Anfield while bringing a close to a host of historic Liverpool ambitions.
Alas, the man with the football genius moniker will be left cursing his goalkeeper following a remarkable Liverpool turnaround that keeps the Reds 22 points clear at the top while the Hammers remain rooted in the relegation zone.
It’s hard to remember a time without Lukas Podolski. He burst onto the scene as an 18-year-old after scoring 10 goals in his first 19 Bundesliga appearances with FC Köln . . . that was 16 years ago.
He’s since gone on to play for Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Inter Milan, Galatasaray and Vissel Kobe, as well as representing Germany 130 times before announcing his international retirement after Euro 2016.
After failing to come off the bench in PSG’s 2-1 Champions League defeat to Borussia Dortmund, Edinson Cavani was handed a start against Bordeaux in Ligue 1 action Sunday and scored his landmark 200th goal for the club.
Cavani was already PSG’s all-time leading scorer (Zlatan Ibrahimović is second with 156), but it’s a special milestone for the 33-year-old as his seventh season in Paris figures to be his last.
Anthony Martial's not the sort of forward you’d associate with winning the ball back in the attacking third after a demonstration of single-minded counter pressing. He’s not a target man, but he’s also not going to thrive when shunted out wide and asked to perform industriously.
Jesse Marsch's RB Salzburg entered its Europa League Round of 32 first leg against Eintracht Frankfurt looking to rebound from a loss against LASK this past weekend which cost Salzburg first place in the Austrian Bundesliga. Frankfurt came into the game having won four of its last six games, most recently putting five goals past Augsburg. Only Bayern Munich has racked up more points than Frankfurt since the Bundesliga's winter break.
In terms of a 1-0 scoreline, there’s no greater beatdown than the one RB Leipzig just administered to Tottenham in London on Wednesday. The difference on the scoreboard was Timo Werner’s 58th-minute penalty, but the difference on the pitch was an incredible gulf in tempo, build-up play and variation in attack.
Diego Simeone once summed up his coaching philosophy in one brief sentence: “Effort is non-negotiable.”
On Tuesday, the Atlético team on the pitch at the Wanda Metropolitano fully embodied its manager in a heroic 1-0 Champions League Round of 16 first-leg victory over defending champion Liverpool.