Josep Guardiola, known for his cool demeanor inside and outside of the technical area, channeled his feelings for all things Madrid when he refused to give Cristiano Ronaldo the ball for a throw-in on the half-hour mark. Unlike his outspoken and demonstrative counterpart José Mourinho, Guardiola usually keeps to himself, shouting and dictating to his […]

Tonight’s game promised to give one of the closest indications so far of who could become European champions this year, but in truth, nobody could’ve predicted what followed. Barcelona dissected their rivals with precise, incisive play that arguably would have torn absolutely any team in the world apart. In doing so, they confirmed their status […]

Under trainer Mauricio Pochettino, Espanyol has gone through one of these hot streaks in every season he has managed the club. After the club fired José Manuel Esnal "Mané" in the middle of the 2008-09 season, they hired Mauricio Pochettino to get out of the relegation zone. As late as Jornada 30 in that season, […]

Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo has been playing some of his best football since joining Real Madrid last season. Ronaldo has already scored 14 goals in just 12 matches in La Liga. Overall, the former Manchester United star has found the back of the net 18 times in just 19 games in all competitions. Ronaldo had […]

The José Mourinho – Pep Guardiola headline and the Lionel Messi – Cristiano Ronaldo headline have been covered and written many times over, so this preview of El Clásico will try to avoid these subjects and focus on the other, less talked about aspects of the biggest game in Spanish football this season. The man […]

Finally some positive news for Serie A and Italian football in general, this midweek, while some sides played in the Coppa Italia, Inter Milan, AC Milan, and Roma played and won in the Champions League. It was the penultimate matchday of the group stages, and although Roma haven't mathematically qualified yet, AC Milan have mathematically […]

In the first eight matches of this Champions League matchday, there was plenty of excitement to go around. Some sides like Chelsea have made sure that they're going through top of the group, while others like Arsenal have complicated their Champions League campaign terribly. In these eight games, there were 23 goals scored, making for […]

With Real Madrid already qualified for the knockout phase of the UEFA Champions League, Barcelona and Valencia could also seal their berths into the knockout round with wins in their group match this midweek. Barcelona will travel to Athens to face a Panathinaikos club that did not win either of their two previous home matches […]

For a club with an illustrious history, a three-year internment in the purgatory of the Segunda División almost erased the San Sebastián club from the collective consciousness. As with most historical clubs who end up falling to the second division in the past couple of decades (Leeds United, Napoli, Marseille, etc.), the main problem stemmed […]

The Valencian Derby between Villarreal and Valencia jumps out as the headline match of the weekend in La Liga. Since Villarreal rose to La Liga for the first time in 1998, their record at home against their neighbors Valencia is an impressive 7-2-2, including winning five of their last six meetings. While Villarreal lost 3-1 […]

A select few matches each season define the league in terms of pecking order and/or overall footballing ability. Obviously, the two editions of El Clásico between Real Madrid and Barcelona usually determine the fate of La Liga's crown. More specifically, in the past five seasons, the team that won the most points in El Clásico […]

The highlight match of the weekend will occur at the Camp Nou, where Villarreal will want to display their résumé as a legitimate threat to a dominion currently ruled by Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. After a topsy-turvy month of results where they looked somewhat hapless in away fixtures at Hércules and Sporting Gijón in […]

As with most local derbies (national derbies such as El Clásico between Real Madrid and Barcelona, Le Classique between Marseille and Paris Saint-Germain, De Klassieker between Ajax and Feyenoord, etc. excluded), the derby means a little more to one club than the other. While Arsenal always wants to defeat their north London neighbor Tottenham Hotspur, […]

In Atlético Madrid's 1-2 win in the UEFA Europa League over Rosenborg in Norway on Thursday, Rosenborg enjoyed long spells of dominance over their Spanish opponents but could not convert more than once on their many scoring opportunities. Atlético capitalized on two of their only three chances in the match and escaped with a valuable […]

This Champions League midweek had some highs and some lows for the Italian sides in the tournament. And if you're interested in awesome match reports and other Champions League news, be sure to visit my latest article on Champions League Talk regarding the midweek action! Let's start with the positives, Roma won 3-2 away from […]