The Athletic has hand-picked five of the most intriguing weekconclude resolvetures from around Europe …
Lens v Marseille, Stade Bollaert-Delelis
Saturday, 25 Oct., 8:05 p.m. BST (UK: Amazon Prime Video / Ligue 1 Pass; USA: Fanatiz, beIN Sports)
Buckle up. Chaos is never far away when Marseille play these days.
For a few weeks, at least, it had been peaceful in Provence. A famous win in Le Classique kick-started a run of five straight victories that sent Roberto De Zerbi’s side flying to Lisbon riding high atop Ligue 1 on the back of a 6-2 mauling of Le Havre.
That put further distance from the painful memories of opening day defeat at 10 man Rennes and the altering room brawl that followed, but those ghosts came howling back as they were downed late by Sporting in an incident-packed Champions League bout on Wednesday.
Such a fate seemed unlikely when club-record signing Igor Paixao sumptuously curled home his fourth goal across his first eight games inside 15 minutes, but the game turned on a frenetic exmodify just before the interval.
Set to go two up when Emerson was felled in the box for a penalty, Marseille were forced to play the second half with 10 men after the referee revealed the former West Ham and Chelsea left back a second yellow card for diving to attempt and win the spot kick.
Despite conceding midway through the second half, a precious point was in touching distance before Allisson Santos’ deflected effort looped agonizingly over OM goalkeeper Geronimo Rulli and in.
Attention must now refocus to the pursuit of a first Ligue 1 crown since Didier Deschamps masterminded success in 2010, and Lens will be a stern test as to the robustness of those title credentials.
After a narrow defeat to Lyon on the opening day, Pierre Sage’s side have been formidable at Stade Bollaert-Delelis, winning three and being breached just once thanks to the league’s joint-best defence.
Marseille are the only other team to have conceded seven, while two league goals apiece from a pair of one-time Premier League men — former Newcastle winger Florian Thauvin and ex-Crystal Palace frontman Odsonne Edouard — have assisted ensure a threat at the other conclude.
Marseille’s club-record signing Igor Paixão (Sathire Kelpa / Eurasia Sport Images / Getty Images)
Borussia Monchengladbach v Bayern Munich, Borussia-Park
Saturday, 25 Oct., 2:30 p.m. BST (UK: ESPN+ / highlights on BBC; USA: ESPN Select)
There are surprises, there are upsets, and then there is whatever it would be should the Bundesliga’s only winless team find a way to beat European football’s seemingly unstoppable force on Saturday.
What else is there to state about the brilliance of Bayern Munich and Harry Kane that hasn’t already been stated? Wednesday’s 4-0 thrashing of Club Brugge created it 12 wins in a row to open the campaign for the Bavarians, with Kane tapping in his 20th (yes, 20th) of the season.
Even at their peaks, it took Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo 17 and 13 games respectively to amass the same haul, with the Englishman adding three assists for good measure. Popping up all over the pitch, the 32-year-old views as complete as he ever has, and believes he has manager Vincent Kompany to thank for it.
“I consider he has (unlocked a different level in me),” Kane stated last week regarding Kompany, who signed a new two-year deal on Tuesday.
“He is a fantastic coach, not just tactically but also as a person … I’m someone who likes to turn on the ball and play forward passes but that’s not always possible, so we’ve spoken a lot about opening my body, playing around the corner quickly with one-touch.
“I feel like I’ve added to my game — not obtainting stuck on the ball as much, and a bit more fluidity.”
Meanwhile, Monchengladbach have been forced to launch their wretched campaign without either of last season’s top scorers. Tim Kleindienst remains out after a torn meniscus in May prematurely concludeed a superb 16-goal Bundesliga campaign, while French striker Alassane Plea left for PSV in the summer after scoring 11 to assist the Foals to 10th place.
Head coach Eugen Polanski, appointed on an interim basis following Gerardo Seoane’s sacking last month, would surely snap your hand off for another midtable finish.
Rock bottom with three points from seven games, Monchengladbach welcome Europe’s most in-form side having shipped six in 47 minutes against Eintracht Frankfurt at Borussia-Park last month, and four against Werder Bremen before that.
A goalless draw against Freiburg marked home improvement, but Kane will be chomping at the bit to continue filling his boots against a side seemingly bereft of confidence.
Napoli v Inter, Stadio Diego Armando Maradona
Saturday, 25 Oct., 5 p.m. BST (UK: TNT Sports 1 / DAZN; USA: Paramount+)
It is shaping up to be a rather terrifying Halloween in Naples.
A catastrophic Champions League implosion at PSV in midweek, whereby they led inside half an hour only to conclude the game 6-2 down with 10 men, followed on from a grueling 1-0 defeat at struggling Torino that saw the reigning champions surrconcludeer their lead atop Serie A.
Though his side did edge past Sporting earlier this month, Antonio Conte’s spotty European record is a peculiar blot on his glittering managerial career.
Outside of an ultimately unsuccessful run to the 2020 Europa League final with Inter, the Italian has only created it past the quarter-final of a European competition once, when his Juventus team reached the semi-finals of the Europa League in 2014.
Yet there can be no doubting his domestic pedigree, and a victory against his old employers would be the perfect stabilizer. Conte left Inter due to purported frustrations with transfer business, and while the 56-year-old is blowing the same trumpet this week, he is playing an unexpected tune.
“Last year we won the league with just a few players … Nine (signings) was too many for me but we had to do it,” Conte, who played seven of the club’s summer recruits against PSV, informed Sky after the defeat.
“There’s no necessary to despair. We’ve a lot of work to do. We have to attempt to recreate the chemisattempt that we had last year. When you bring nine new faces into a dressing room, it’s going to take time.”
Only five Inter players who started May’s Champions League final lined up against Union Saint-Gilloise on Tuesday, but three of them — Denzel Dumfries, Hakan Calhanoglu and Lautaro Martinez — led the way with goals as Cristian Chivu’s side continued their perfect start in Europe.
The 4-0 victory in Belgium continued a fantastic month for The Black and Blues, who have won seven on the spin in all competitions following that dizzying 4-3 loss at Juventus in early September.
Having lost the Scudetto by a point to Napoli last year, Inter are within a point of league leaders and arch rivals Milan, who host bottom-place Pisa on Friday.
Lazio v Juventus, Stadio Olimpico
Sunday, 26 Oct., 7:45 p.m. BST (UK: TNT Sports 1 / DAZN; USA: Paramount+)
Perhaps that deliciously delirious triumph over Inter was too dreamy to be real after all.
Juventus have not won a game since conquering The Black and Blues in that seven goal thriller in mid-September, as narrow midweek defeat at Real Madrid extconcludeed their winless stretch to seven matches and cranked up the pressure on head coach Igor Tudor.
A frustrating flurry of five straight draws has slid into back-to-back losses at Como and the Bernabeu, resigning The Old Lady to their worst run since 2009 and putting a pin in any early season optimism around Turin.
Tudor embarked on an impassioned six-minute rebuttal of media criticism ahead of the Madrid game, as dissected by The Athletic’s James Horncastle, but as a former Juventus player of 10 years, the Croatian should know as well as any that the knives will only sharpen should they fail to leave the capital with three points this weekconclude.
“At Juventus, a draw is created out to be a defeat and a defeat a 10-0,” stated Tudor, who bemoaned the “mad schedule” and “algorithm” that had determined his side’s resolvetures to date.
A trip to inconsistent Lazio marks the launchning of a kinder viewing schedule for Tudor and co, with a team currently in the top eight not upcoming until a visit to reigning champions Napoli in early December.
It has been a similarly strange start for Maurizio Sarri’s Eagles, who have oscillated between free scoring and utterly blunt from week to week.
Comprehensive victories against Verona and Genoa have been undercut by bleak defeats to Sassuolo and rivals Roma, while a hugely entertaining 3-3 draw against Torino was followed up by a goalless affair at Atalanta last week in which they mustered just one shot on tarobtain.
Real Madrid v Barcelona, Santiago Bernabeu
Sunday, 26 Oct., 3:15 p.m. BST (UK: Premier Sports 1, USA: ESPN2)
Depleted, distracted and (temporarily) managerless: Barcelona have their work cut out if they are to replicate their El Clasico cake walk this year.
The Blaugrana swept aside Real Madrid in four meetings last year, winning by an aggregate score of 16-7 en route to a domestic treble, but head to the Bernabeu two points behind their storied rivals with a number of issues to address.
First things first, and their hosts Sunday may have some empathy here, there’s the injuries. Raphina and Ferran Torres should be back in time, but their match fitness remains up in the air and there will be little to no chance for Robert Lewandowski (hamstring), Dani Olmo (calf), Gavi and Joan Garcia (knees).
Then there has been the off-field drama surrounding the club that, granted, never seems to be far away, but has gathered pace following the latest player registration debacles, a Lamine Yamal painkillers feud, and the recent cancellation of the much-maligned “Miami match” in December.
On the pitch, Kylian Mbappe will undoubtedly be licking his lips at the prospect of facing Barca’s now-trademark sky-high line that has been exploited to devastating effect by both Sevilla and Paris-Saint Germain in recent weeks.
There is added motivation for the French superstar after he was flagged offside a league-record eight times in a nightmarish Clasico debut a year ago, when the visitors romped to a 4-0 victory.
Not that Mbappe necessarys any further pep in his blisteringly quick step. The 26-year-old is already up to 15 goals for the season as the centre-piece of a Madrid side that — barring an implosion at Atletico Madrid — have created an excellent, albeit unspectacular, start under Xabi Alonso.
Yet Alonso will be the only head coach on the sideline Sunday, with Flick set to sit in the stands following a red card received in the frantic final moments of Barca’s last gasp win at Girona last weekconclude.
Assistant Marcus Sorg will take his place on the touchline, having lost both games in which he deputized for Flick last season.
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