Champions League: Lille v Betis, Dortmund v Villarreal
Carabao Cup: Palace v Middlesbrough, Sunderland v Hull
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1h agoLet's have some teams...
And off we go in Madrid.
I’m watching Madrid v Inter, Dortmund v Villarreal and Millwall v Newcastle. Niall McVeigh has you covered for Porto v Man City.
A moment is taken to remember those who died in the awful floods in Nepal. Godspeed.
I guess the existing structure was pretty special, so it didn’t need much work beyond the modernisation, but even so, they clearly did an outrageously good job. Camp Nou, on the other hand, was just a concrete bowl with, in some parts of the ground, plastic sets dumped into stone; there’s a lot more work to do making that good.
Our teams are out in our various grounds, thus a question: I’ve not yet been, but is the Bernabeu the best ground refurb we’ve seen?
Right, we’re back. Ryan Christie has given Bournemouth the lead against Lincoln.
My computer is playing up so, to ensure we’re not interrupted once our feature games get going, i’m going to restart; see you on the other side in a few.
Our Carabao Cup fixtures are:
Leyton Orient v Bradford City
The first three kick-off at 7.45, so in a minute from now, the fourth at 8pm.
Villa have won 3-2 at Brugge, and looked pretty good in so doing. Nicolas Jackson played really well, and strikes me as an Unai Emery type of player: underrated but, if he can sort out his major flaw, that being shooting, he can grow into a really serious striker. Everything else is in place.
So, where is the game? Once upon a time, what Madrid did was largely up to Madrid players, but under Mourinho, it ain’t going out like that. Against a back three, the space tends to be behind the wing-backs and down the sides of the outside centre-backs, so I’d expect to see Dumfries and Alexander-Arnold ganging up on Bastoni and dragging him away from the middle, while Cucurella and Vinicius do the same on the other side, freeing up space for Mbappe and whichever of Bellingham and Valverde are box-crashing.
Inter, meanwhile, will want their wing-backs targeting the space Madrid’s full-backs vacate, with their two up front looking to take advantage of Konate and Huijsen’s respective impetuousness and inexperience. This could be a really fun game.
Inter, meanwhile, look solid. They’ve won three from three in Serie A, and will, I think, look to clutter the centre of the pitch. That’s another reason I’d like to have seen Diomande on from the start, but Mourinho has – unusually for him – done without a defensively-minded midfielder. I’m looking forward to seeing how Curtis Jones does, as I think he’s a good player who’ll thrive with regular selection and greater responsibility. And there’s no disputing the danger Inter offer up front; I don’t fancy either Madrid centre-back against Thuram and Martinez.
Our main focus here, though, will be on Madrid v Inter. Mourinho’s men lost at Betis last weekend, and are without the suspended Eduardo Camvinga, Bernardo Silva and Arda Guler. As such Trent Alexander-Arnold comes in on the right of the central three – a move I doubt Aurelien Tchouameni likes all that much. I can’t say I think Alexander-Arnold is much use in that position – as Gary Neville once noted, most right-backs are failed midfielders – but he’s capable of creating something from nothing. I guess I’d quite like to see Yan Diomande on the right, but i’m not surprised Mourinho wants the extra body in midfield that Brahim Diaz can become.
Brugge have pulled a goal back against Villa – they now trail 3-2. Elsewhere, meanwhile, it’s AEK 1-0 LASK in what internet bores are calling the Upper Case derby.
There’s a lot to dig into there, right? It’s always interesting when new managers take over established teams, because chances are they’ll see things differently from their predecessors. City, for example, are now playing 4-2-3-1, not 4-3-3, and it doesn’t seem like Enzo Maresca fancies Rayan Ait-Nouri. Otherwise, Ayyoub Bouaddi makes his first start – he’s alongside Enzo Fernandez in a double pivot which lacks a bit of p&p – and a front four of Samenyo, Cherki, Foden, Haaland looks not bad.
Borussia Dortmund (3-4-2-1): Kobel; Gadou, Anton, Svensson; Ryerson, Sabitzer, Veerman, Beier; Karetsas, Nmecha; Guirassy. Subs: Drewes, Meyer, Bellingham, Chukwuemeka, Nwaneri, Fabio Silva, Kaua Prates, Inacio, Albert, Reggiani.
Villarreal (4-4-2): Gulácsi; Mouriño, Pau Navarro, Renato Veiga, Sergi Cardona; Buchanan, Gueye, Saliba, Comesaña; Oluwaseyi, Mikautadze. Subs: Luiz Junior, Ruben Gomez, Logan Costa, Freeman, Alassane, Gerard Moreno, Alberto Moleiro, Akhomach, Carlos Macia, Pepe, Ayoze Perez.
Porto (4-3-3): Diogo Costa; Varela, Perez, Kiwior, Alberto Costa; Rosario, Martim Fernandes, Veiga; Gomes, Silva, Pepe. Subs: Claudio Ramos, Joao Costa, Hwang, Sainz, Gimenez, Souza, Fofana, Cunha, Silva, L.Gomes, Moura.
Manchester City (4-2-3-1): Donnarumma; Nunes, Dias, Guehi Gvardiol; Bouaddi, Fernandez; Semenyo, Cherki, Foden; Haaland. Subs: Bettinelli, Rulli, Anderson, Ndiaye, Kovacic, Ait-Nouri, Reis,Allan, Khusanov, McAidoo, Lewis.
Real Madrid (4-3-3): Courtois; Dumfries, Konate, Huijsen, Cucurella; Alexander-Arnold, Valverde, Bellingham; Brahim Diaz, Mbappe, Vinicius Junior. Subs: Lunin, Sergio Mestre, Endrick, Tchouameni, Carreras, Carlos Espi, Rudiger, Diomande, Thiago Pitarch, Jorge Cestero, Mario Rivas.
Inter (3-5-2-): Martinez; Pavard, Bisseck, Bastoni; Diouf, Barella, Hakan Calhanoglu, Jones, Carlos Augusto; Lautaro, Thuram. Subs: Di Gennaro, Provedel, Stankovic, Stones, Zielinksi, Sucic, Luis Henrique, Bonny, Mkhitaryan, Akanji, Esposito.
And the race for the County Championship is intensifying.
There’s a classic in progress at Flushing Meadow…
Niall McVeigh has the build-up from Oporto…
Goodness me, there’s a lot going on. In Bruges, Villa are going nicely…
On 16 September 1987, Diego Maradona’s Napoli travelled to La Quinta del Buitre’s Real Madrid to play a first round, first leg match of the European Cup. Madrid won 2-0 with the return at the San Paolo drawn 1-1, meaning elimination for I Partenopei, gone from the competition almost before they arrived.
Silvio Berlusconi was not impressed, unhappy to lose one of the favourites were so early and also unwilling to risk similar happening to AC Milan, the club he owned. So he propagated the idea of a European super league and, though it never came to fruition, a spooked Uefa caved anyway and, five years later, the Champions League came into being.
But that was not enough, because it never is. First, it was more than one team from the richest countries – that’s now up to five in some cases – and now it’s the Swiss model format, which takes the Berlusconi rationale to it’s natural conclusion: lots of lucrative matches between the richest teams, without the jeopardy of elimination. Gabriel Hanot, who came up with the original idea of continental competition, would be crying bitter tears this very day, while the rest of us have no choice but to enjoy Real Madrid v Internazionale.
Which, of course, is ridiculously easily done, football a victim of its own nonpareil. There’s no shortage of interest in seeing whether José Mourinho, handed his latest last chance, has finally rediscovered the magic of his old self, while former acolyte, Cristian Chivu, is freshly installed at Inter, where his old boss did perhaps his best work
Nor is that all. We’ll also enjoy Dortmund – and, in particular, Konstantinos Karetsas, the 18-year-old midfielder who’s made a brilliant start to life at the Westfalen – against Villarreal, with updates from Porto v Manchester City and Lille v Real Betis. Quite what any of it means is unclear, but who needs context when you’ve got millions of eyeballs obsessing over potentially brilliant football?
And, on top of all that, we’ll keep you apprised of all the goings-on in the League Cup, so crack a can of Crypto, dip into your packet of energy, and settle in.
Kick-offs: League Cup 7.45pm/8pm BST, Champions League 8pm BST
