The Fußball Chatter

Sevilla have done it again. They were crowned champions of the UEFA Europa League for a record-extending seventh time after defeating Jose Mourinho's AS Roma 4-1 on penalties after the game finished 1-1 after extra time at the Puska Arena in Budapest on May 31st. Paulo Dybala opened the scoring for Roma in the 34th minute before an own goal from Gianluca Mancini levelled the score. In a combative final, referee Anthony Taylor dished out fourteen yellow cards in the match, the most in a Europa League game . Argentine defender Gonzalo Montiel scored the winning penalty to give Sevilla the title and qualify for next year's Champions League. Sevilla, since 2000, has dominated Europe's second premier competition, winning it seven times in seven finals. Here is a rewind of Sevilla's six Europa League triumphs. SEVILLA 3-2 INTER MILAN (2020) Before their win on Wednesday night, Sevilla last won the competition in 2020 at the height of the Covid pandemic. Starting from the beg...

  Der Klassiker in the Bundesliga  36 goals were scored in the Bundesliga this past weekend with only two teams winning their games away from home in matchday 7 of the Bundesliga. One of those teams was defending champions Bayern Munich. They faced Borussia Dortmund in what is known as ' Der Klassiker' , the game between the biggest teams in Germany on Saturday at the Westfalenstadion. Bayern Munich came out on top, beating Dortmund 3-2 with goals coming from David Alaba, Robert Lewandowski, and Leroy Sané, who scored his first goal in this fixture. This means that Bayern has won their last three meetings against the Black and Yellow, putting Die Bayern  three points ahead of Dortmund. RB Leipzig moved to second in the Bundesliga table after beating Freiburg 3-0 while Bayer Leverkusen moved to fourth after beating Borussia Monchengladbach 4-3 with Lucas Alario scoring a brace. However, the pick of the goals from that game was Valentino Lazaro for Gladbach, scoring a ridic...

 First Weekend of the Premier League The Premier League made its return for the 2020/2021 season. Given how the 2019/2020 season ended, this coming season is going to be an odd one due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the tight fixture set-up of the new season. Nevertheless, we are all excited that the new season is underway. The first game of the season was Fulham hosting Arsenal at Craven where the Gunners blasted their opponents away with a 3-0 victory. Alexandre Lacazette scored the first goal of the season, putting the ball in the back of the net from two yards out after some heavy pressure that Fulham found it difficult to defend. New Arsenal signing Gabriel opened his Premier League account with a goal. The Brazilian scored from a set-piece early in the second half, with an Arsenal victory looking more imminent. Willian also had a good debut, creating two assists. The other was a long ball which found Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who put his shot in the top corner as Mikel Ar...

The 2019/2020 Spanish La Liga season ended on the 19th of July with Real Madrid winning the title, their 34th in history. Barcelona finished behind their rivals by five points while Atlético Madrid and Sevilla make up the final Champions League spots. Villarreal, Real Sociedad and Granada will play Europa League football next season but Espanyol, Mallorca and Leganes will be playing in the Segunda Division next season as they were relegated from La Liga this season. Lionel Messi finished as both top scorer and best provider this season with 25 goals and 21 assists while Thibaut Courtois won the Zamora Trophy for Best Goalkeeper. Here is a review of the recently concluded La Liga season. Best Player - Karim Benzema Real Madrid had a rock solid defence this season but you need goals to win games. Zidane's side scored 70 goals this season, 16 goals fewer than Barcelona. Karim Benzema has stepped up in terms of his goal output since the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo and this ...

The Serge is Cooking Serge Gnabry returned to North London but to face Spurs and possibly the beat performance of matchday 2, scoring four goals as Bayern hammered Tottenham 7-2 to continue their fine start to the season on Tuesday. It was the biggest clash in Group B and things started well for Spurs when Son Heung-Min put the hosts in front twelve minutes in but after three minutes,  Joshua Kimmich scored a screamer from 25 yards to level. At the stroke of halftime, Robert Lewandowski scored to give Bayern the at the break. Bayern took control in the second half as Gnabry scored twice in two minutes making the score 4-1. Harry Kane scored from the penalty spot after Spurs were awarded a penalty, giving the hosts some hope. It proved nothing more than a consolidation goal as Bayern scored three more goals with Lewandowski scoring one and Gnabry getting two more goals. A pulsating performance from the Bavarians and Gnabry but now more problems and questions for Spurs after a ...

Norwich get shock win over City Norwich City have pulled off one of the shocks of the season so far, beating the defending champions Manchester City 3-2 on Saturday at Carrow Road. Hit by an injury crisis, the Canaries didn't feel intimidated and went at City, a brave thing to do despite City's strengths. Kenny McLean and Todd Cantwell scored to give Norwich a two lead before Sergio Agüero halved their lead before halftime. Teemu Pukki scored his 7th goal of the season to put Norwich 3-1 up with Carrow Road feeling like dreamland. However, Rodri made it 3-2 in the last two minutes, bringing up the tension and with City's pressure in the last few moments of the game, the Canaries held on to a famous win as City have lost for the first time in the league since February against Newcastle. Barça score five past Valencia Barcelona got their league campaign back on track, beating Valencia 5-2 at the Camp Nou on Saturday. Ansu Fati started with Lionel Messi still ou...

La Liga, the Bundesliga and Serie A were in show this past weekend plus the fourth round of the FA Cup took place this past weekend with some interesting results. Here are some of the highlights. FA Cup action The fourth round of the FA Cup started on Friday with Manchester United knocking Arsenal out of the Cup with a 3-1 win. Tottenham's injury woes have come back to bite them as they lost to Crystal Palace 2-0 while Manchester City and Chelsea went through to the fifth round of the Cup. The shocks of the round were League 1 side AFC Wimbledon knocking out West Ham United 4-2 and Championship side Millwall eliminating Everton, beating them 3-2 at The Den. Wolves and Brighton will play replays after their games ended in a draw. Six in six for Barça Following their defeat in the Copa Del Rey against Sevilla on Wednesday, Barcelona went back to winning ways and made it six straight wins in La Liga after beating city rivals Girona 2-0 yesterday at the Montilivi. Nelson ...

The UEFA Champions League made its return for Gameweek 2. Group E to H were in action yesterday with teams looking to consolidate points or get their campaign on track. Title holders Real Madrid fell to a shock 1-0 defeat to CSKA Moscow while AS Roma got their first three points with a thumping 5-0 win at home against Viktoria Plzeñ. Manchester City left it late to get their first win against Hoffenheim, Benfica also won their game against AEK Athens while Juventus were fine without Cristiano Ronaldo beating BSC Young Boys 3-0. Bayern Munich and Ajax shared the points, Lyon earned a draw in a close encounter against Shakhtar Donetsk while Manchester United’s game against Valencia was the only goalless draw. Here are the three things from last night. Hat-trick heroes There were a lot of goals from yesterday. More specifically, 23 goals were scored from the eight games and there were some players that were clinical in front of goal, one of which is Paulo Dybala. The Argentine h...

The Spanish La Liga makes its return on Friday. Barcelona and Real Madrid will be at the top competing for the league title while Atletico Madrid could make a strong title challenge this season. Sevilla and Valencia would be competing for that final Champions League spot while the likes of Celta Vigo, Real Sociedad and Villarreal would be competing for a place in Europe this season. Athletic Bilbao will be looking to bounce back from their underwhelming season finishing 16th and can Girona stay up after a great first season finishing 10th?These are thoughts and questions we hope will be answered in May. Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid are no doubt the big guns as I look through their chances of winning the title this season. Barcelona The defending champions had a fairly successful season in 2017/2018 winning the league as well as the Copa del Rey. However, they blew their chance of making history as the only team in La Liga to go through a season unbeaten losing t...