The Fußball Chatter

The draw for the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League took place on Monday with the Round of 16 games taking place in February 2021. Here's a reaction from the draw plus who's likely to go through from these match-ups. Borussia Mönchengladbach v Manchester City  Borussia Mönchengladbach shocked many in qualifying for the knockout stages of the Champions League, getting points off Real Madrid and Inter Milan. However, their reward will be facing Manchester City in the Round of 16. The Germans will have it difficult to do against Pep Guardiola's team despite going to the Etihad in the second leg. As for Manchester City, this is a favourable draw but will be cautious of Gladbach's aggressive pressing play, which was brought in by their manager Marco Rose. Despite their struggles in the Premier League this season, they walked through their Champions League groups, conceding just one goal. Manchester City should have enough to go through and advance into the quarterf...

  Liverpool run riot at Bergamo Liverpool, after winning their first two games in the Champions League, travelled to Bergamo to face Serie A side Atalanta in a clash that would be decisive for both teams and their clashes to go through. With players unavailable for both sides due to injury, the game looked pretty with some fancying Gasperini's side to take the win over Jurgen Klopp. Liverpool eventually won the game, and it was not even close. The Reds spanked Atalanta 5-0 with goals from Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, and a hat-trick from Diogo Jota, who came in for Roberto Firmino. Jurgen Klopp's side exploited so much space that came from Atalanta, taking 15 shots with 12 on target. Despite that, Atalanta still managed to find some chances with Duvan Zapata having the best chance for the Bergamo side whose shot hit the post. However, Liverpool took much control of the game and left Italy with their best performance of the season so far. This puts them top of Group D with nine po...

  Premier League Recap The Premier League returned following the international break with eight games played from the weekend, with 27 goals scored and only two teams from matchday 5 kept a clean sheet. The biggest game from the Premier League was the Merseyside Derby between Everton and Liverpool at Goodison Park on Saturday. The game ended 2-2 with Mohamed Salah scoring his 100th goal for the Reds  while Dominic Calvert-Lewin continued his goal-scoring form for the Toffees. The game was marred with controversy, particularly from Liverpool's standpoint. Firstly, the third 'goal' which was scored by Jordan Henderson was ruled out for offside as Sadio Mané was placed in an offside position. The other was Jordan Pickford's challenge on Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk. The Everton keeper lunged in on the Dutchman, resulting in an early substitution. As of now, van Dijk has been ruled out for a considerable point of time as he sustained an ACL injury, altering Liverpool...

The 2020/2021 Football season has gone underway with the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, and Serie A all in action. The Premier League has been covered, so this is on the Bundesliga, La Liga, and Serie A to look at how this season will pan out from the title race to the race for European places.  La Liga The 2020/2021 La Liga season started on the 12th of September with Eibar playing against Celta Vigo, which ended in a goalless draw. The likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Atlético Madrid rested on the first weekend due to their participation in the latter stages of the Champions League last season. Barcelona has dominated La Liga over the past decade, winning six titles between 2011 to 2020. However, the Blaugrana missed out on the title last season to Real Madrid, with Zidane's side favourites to retain La Liga this season. Barcelona's troubles both on and off the field have not made things a lot easier, with heavy surgery required to get close to their main rivals. Al...

Premier League Action The Premier League is slowly reaching its conclusion with the race for Champions League football and the battle for relegation survival heating up. Norwich City were officially relegated from the Premier League after a 4-0 defeat to West Ham United. The Canaries have found the jump from the Championship difficult losing 24 of their 35 games played, conceding 67 goals. Watford beat Newcastle 2-1, boosting their survival chances. Liverpool dropped points at home for the first time this season after a 1-1 draw against Burnley with Jay Rodriguez scoring the equalizer. Raheem Sterling scored a hat-trick as Manchester City hammered Brighton. Sheffield United threw a spanner at Chelsea's Champions Leagues hopes, defeating the Blues 3-0 at Bramall Lane. Wolves defeated Everton 3-0 to keep their slim chances of finishing 4th alive while Trézéguet scored a brace to give Aston Villa an important 2-0 win against Crystal Palace to, keeping their survival hopes alive. ...

Premier League Returns The Premier League returned in midweek as some teams returned after three months of inactivity. On Friday, Norwich's drop to the Championship looks inevitable after a 3-0 defeat to Southampton while Tottenham could only muster a point against Manchester United as Paul Pogba and Bruno Fernandes played together for the first time. Both Watford and Brighton were able to gain points in their hopes of survival on Saturday with Watford gaining a point against Leicester City while Brighton beat Arsenal 2-1 with Neal Maupay scoring after a controversial challenge on Arsenal keeper Bernd Leno in the first half. West Ham and Bournemouth are in the other hand, lost  their games to Wolves and Crystal Palace respectively, as their poor form continues after the break. Chelsea looks to be consolidating their place in the top four after a 2-1 win away at Aston Villa while is bad news for Villa as they remain 19th and need to do better in holding on to a lead. The Merse...

The Italian top flight will make its return on the 20th of June with Torino facing Parma and Verona hosting Cagliari. The Serie A was suspended in early March following the coronavirus outbreak, which hit Italy hard as the country was the first in Europe to be affected by the pandemic. Now, after the resumption and conclusion of the Coppa Italia, Serie A return with a title race for the Scudetto and the race for the Champions League next season. Here's where we left off. Battle for Survival  It looks grim for the likes of Brescia and SPAL. Brescia, returning from Serie B, are rooted at the bottom of the table with only 16 points. Nine points away from safety. SPAL are 19th with just 18 points from 26 games as both sides looking more than likely to go down this season. Lecce round off the bottom three sitting in 18th with 25 points. Genoa sit above Lecce just on goal difference while the likes of Sampdoria, Torino and Udinese are not safe with the gap between Udinese to Le...

After the completion of the playoff rounds, the UEFA Champions League draw for the group stages where done yesterday as the road to Istanbul, the venue of this season's final has began with the first round of games starting on the 16th and 17th of September. Let's see all eight groups and see who are likely to go through to the knockout stages. Group A: Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Club Brugge and Galatasaray PSG and Real Madrid are heavy favourites to go through with Club Brugge and Galatasaray having a very thin chance of going through. For PSG and Real, it's who that will top the group. Both teams underwhelmed last season getting eliminated in the Round of 16 in incredible fashion. Madrid have brought Zidane back to shake up the squad while the Parisians still have the Neymar situation going on with his future still uncertain. With Zidane's experience and wealth of talent at his disposal, Madrid will top the group with PSG going through as well. Fina...

The football season is over with the Europa League and Champions League Final the only games left to see from the season that just concluded. The teams that won their leagues last season defended their titles. However, let's look at the teams that achieved more than what many expected. AFC Ajax It has been a remarkable season for Ajax Amsterdam but many forget how the Dutch side have struggled before now in Europe and at home. They haven't won the Eredivisie since 2014 seeing their rivals PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord win it since and haven't played in the knockout stages of the Champions League since 2005/06. Changes were made behind the scenes with former players Edwin van der Sar and Marc Overmars appointed as CEO and Technical Director. This season, the Dutch side rolled back the years with some fantastic football that the late Johan Cryuff will be proud of. Under the guidance of coach Erik Ten Hag, with a blend of youth in Matthijs de Ligt and Frenkie de Jong and ...