Manchester United 4-1 (agg. 5-2) Real Sociedad: Bruno Fernandes hit a hat-trick as Ruben Amorim’s men took a step closer to a final in Bilbao and the opportunity of securing a backdoor entry to next season’s Champions League
Ce jeudi en Argentine, les juges ont décidé d’écarter Rodolfo Baqué et Martin De Vargas du procès qui doit déterminer les circonstances de la mort «d’El Pibe de Oro», en 2020.
Manchester United’s trophy hopes live to fight on against Lyon in the Europa League quarter-final after a swaggering display that battered Real Sociedad and must be the Ruben Amorim blueprint.
From the moment they fell behind early on, his side was electrified, as if finally locating the high-voltage socket under Amorim and gleefully plugging themselves in. United came at Sociedad relentlessly, a whir of energy and creativity that is the best advertisement yet for where their head coach might take them.
It’s big night tonight for Højlund. He’s improved a bit in the last couple of games – he’s getting chances and missing them, rather than disappearing – and has done well in Europe since joining United. I think Amorim has him pegged, as it goes:
“We have to look at Rasmus as a player – he has the pace, he has the technique, he’s scored some goals that are really hard to score. Sometimes he doesn’t choose the better run, sometimes he’s so anxious to touch the ball and he moves away from the goal. We address that in training but sometimes it is the confidence of the player.”
Chelsea make five changes to the team that started in Denmark last week. Filip Jørgensen replaces Robert Sánchez in goal, while Pedro Neto, Enzo Fernández, Jadon Sancho and Joshua Acheampong also step up. Sánchez drops to the bench, as do Shumaira Mheuka, Cole Palmer and Reece James, the latter pair having been ill all week. Malo Gusto misses out altogether through injury.
Copenhagen make two changes from that game. Mohamed Elyounoussi, once of Southampton, and Rodrigo Huecas come in, while Giorgi Gocholeishvili and Amin Chiakha are benched.
Philippe Diallo, président de la Fédération française de football, a adressé une lettre au garde des sceaux pour dénoncer les multiples violences commises sur les arbitres de football dans l’Hexagone.
The Europa League is Manchester United’s last chance for silverware this season and only likely route back into the Champions League next year, with the final in May in Bilbao
Durant la séance de tirs au but face au Real Madrid en huitièmes de finale retour de Ligue des champions, l’Atlético Madrid a vu sa deuxième tentative être annulée après visionnage de la VAR. Ce qui a provoqué un scandale.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s company Compass is sadly symptomatic of what football has become
What’s this? A second article about the Ineos Compass in a week – it’s this kind of inefficiency that would never happen at Manchester United. But I have been staring at the Ineos Compass for the past 48 hours. For those of you fortunate enough not to have encountered it, according to Ineos’s website “the Ineos Compass was devised by chairman Sir Jim Ratcliffe as a fun way of attempting to capture how Ineos works, and why”.
To the untrained (and perhaps also to the trained) eye, it is just a circle with words in it. “Words we like” are in the top portion and “words we don’t like” in the bottom. We like “no human is limited” – despite Sir Jim highlighting the limitations of a number of first-team players on Monday.
On the podcast today; even for Real Madrid this felt like a particularly novel way to progress in the Champions League, with Atlético’s Julián Alvarez adjudged to have double-kicked his penalty in the shootout. Cue confusion on the pitch, in the dugout, the press box and at home. But, once the dust had settled, Carlo Ancelotti’s team were through … again.
Diego Simeone’s side lost to their city rivals yet again, in a fashion that was unbelievable and yet so very believable
One day, Diego Simeone said, in those quiet moments when they are alone with their thoughts and memories, Real Madrid’s players will think of Atlético Madrid and how they made them suffer. But the real trauma, he knows, will for ever be theirs. In the final moments before this latest European derby, the first at the Metropolitano, a huge mosaic had declared that following Atlético “kills me … and gives me life”. At the end of it, once fate had found another, still crueller way of twisting the knife, of delivering the inevitable, the coach pushed his footballers and his fans together, applauding so hard his hands hurt almost as much as their hearts.
“I am proud of them,” he said afterwards. “I am happy, honestly. I am happy. I am happy. Why? Because we competed in a way that was exemplary. We might not have been able to beat Real Madrid in the Champions League. Sure. Of course. We couldn’t. But they had a bad time of it, every time. They will remember us for a long time. While enjoying beating us, but knowing and saying to themselves: ‘Facing that lot was messed up, look how hard they made it for us, always.’ Our people leave with the pain of having been knocked out, of course, but knowing that their team gave everything. I go in peace. Losing, but in peace.”
Forward sounds urgent warning, discusses Manchester City upheaval and says she is starting to click with Khadija Shaw
Vivianne Miedema made her senior debut as a 15-year-old in the Netherlands, and 13 and a half years and more than 300 goals later there are few players better qualified to comment on the evolution of the women’s game than the Manchester City forward. She is deeply concerned by the growing number of incidents of so-called fans abusing players.
“We’re always saying we’re proud in the women’s game that we’re very inclusive but somehow that is starting to slip away a bit,” Miedema says. “If we don’t act really strongly right now then it might be too late.
In reaching the Champions League quarter-finals, Unai Emery’s side have taken a step closer to being immortalised
Glory comes in many forms. Perhaps the best Aston Villa could hope for on Wednesday was a game of little drama. They had in effect won the tie in Belgium last week; the last thing they wanted was to have to win it again. And yet, straightforward as it was, this was glorious, a night that in its outcome, if not the precise details, was epochal, marking Villa’s return to the European elite. Perhaps that will be a long‑term state, perhaps fleeting; either way, it is significant.
There is a tide in the affairs of clubs which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. For Villa this was one of the nights fans yearn for, a night of destiny, a night to be spoken of for a long time to come. Even five years ago it would have seemed absurd that all that they had to do to reach the Champions League quarter-finals was avoid a two-goal defeat against the Belgian champions.
Julian Alvarez was ruled to have hit the ball twice before scoring in Atletico’s penalty shootout defeat to Real Madrid, but only after VAR intervened to make the controversial judgement
Connexion
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