What a weekend! European soccer didn't disappoint, per usual, with a ton of talking points to discuss after a captivating slate of games. Barcelona thumped Clasico rivals Real Madrid to win the Spanish Supercopa, but more than the result, it showed how Hansi Flick's side can bridge the gap in LaLiga while Carlo Ancelotti must fix his star-studded team. In the English FA Cup, Man United advanced over Arsenal on penalties to reach the fourth round, but both teams got what they needed from Sunday's fiery, full-blooded clash.
Elsewhere, we have plenty to break down from Milan's wobbly win at Venezia, Trent-Alexander's performance for Liverpool in the FA Cup, João Félix's flashes of brilliance for Chelsea, Bayern Munich's labored win over Borussia Monchengladbach. Oh, and Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid and even Jack Grealish.
Let's get to it. Here are musings and reactions to the most memorable moments of the weekend.
Clasico beatdown must have consequences, more for Real Madrid than for Barcelona
Maybe there's a parallel universe where Rodrygo's shot caroms in off the woodwork early in the second half, Barca don't go up the pitch to score directly afterwards, Wojciech Szczesny still gets sent off, Madrid score another and it's 4-4, and the sponsors/everyone marvels at both the spectacle of Barca's talents and Madrid's never-say-die attitude.
The worst thing Real Madrid could do right now is tell themselves that they have anything whatsoever to do with that parallel universe. Instead, after the 5-2 shellacking, coming on the back of a 4-0 humiliation at the Bernabeu in October and with another Clasico coming up in Barcelona towards the end of the season, the best thing to do is engage in some accountability.
It necessarily starts with Carlo Ancelotti, of course. He sets the team and sends them out; thinking you could cram Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius, Rodrygo and Jude Bellingham into some sort of 4-2-4 against this Barcelona side right now was a massive blunder. Having gone more conservative in the prior Clasico, he went out guns blazing in this one and got his backside handed to him from the start -- let's not forget the two huge early Thibaut Courtois saves.
Ancelotti will bear the brunt of the criticism and, to be fair, he's used to it. But let's not forget the elephant in the room: how this team was put together.
We've touched on it before. You're one of the best-resourced clubs in the world and you go into the season with a squad whose three best forwards are all natural left-wingers (and whose main midfield attacking threat, Bellingham, also gravitates to the left). Toni Kroos, your midfield general, retires and you think you can be competitive with a guy who turns 40 in September (Luka Modric) and another guy who is, well, Dani Ceballos. You've got two central defenders coming off season-ending ACL injuries, and it doesn't occur to you to add another centre-back to the squad.
This is classic "Panini sticker" approach: bring in the big names and let the coach figure it out. Mbappe is the most coveted player in the world? Got to have him -- no matter that Vinicius plays the same position. I'm out of central defenders? No sweat: Aurélien Tchouaméni is tallish, so he can play at the back. That Endrick kid who's the next big thing? Bring him in as well, even though he'll never get playing time.
Ancelotti may have solved these tactical conundrums in the past -- sometimes through strokes of genius, sometimes because it's football and you'll beat most opponents if you have better players and a standout keeper -- but it doesn't mean he (or anyone else) can do so in perpetuity. And it certainly doesn't mean it makes sense to continue building squads like this one, even if they do end up with silverware at the end of the campaign.
There's another negative side effect to the superstar-driven approach too. When they struggle, it's harder to make adjustments. That's why, you presume, Vinicius stayed out there for 76 minutes despite enduring one of his worst performances in recent memory. The guy is already banned in LaLiga for the red card he picked up against Valencia; he has been coddled and told the ban was unfair, so what would taking him off earlier have done for his state of mind? I can't say for sure, but I imagine that's precisely what went through Ancelotti's head.
Word from the club is that they won't acquire anyone new in January. If you're a Madrid fan, you hope Sunday changed their mind.
As for Barcelona, Madrid's deficiencies and self-inflicted wounds should not take anything away from their performance. However much Madrid played into their hands, Barca's stars performed. Raphinha, Robert Lewandowski and, of course, Lamine Yamal will get the headlines -- righty so, given the technical quality they showed -- but credit has to go to the middle of the park. Marc Casadó, Gavi and Pedri played with an intensity and an intelligence that gave Barca the necessary platform to perform the way they did.
That's about them, sure, but that's also about Hansi Flick. Game-planning for this second Clasico given the circumstances (the Dani Olmo situation, the legacy of the first Clasico meeting this season) could not have been easy and yet he got just about everything right. Barcelona aren't perfect and there are bound to be plenty more bumps along the way. It's still high risk/high reward with Flick, especially because they've struggled against smaller clubs that sit deep, though with Gavi now fully fit that might change. But this Clasico win is a massive confidence boost.
Making up the six-point gap in LaLiga -- especially because it's not just Real Madrid they'd have to catch, but Atletico too -- might be beyond them. Yet after days like this, you'd have to put them among the top two or three favourites for the Champions League.
Boost for Ruben Amorim goes way beyond Man United's place in the FA Cup fourth round
Craig Burley believes Arsenal are lacking a clinical edge up front following their FA Cup exit to Manchester United.
Ruben Amorim won on Sunday, and Mikel Arteta lost. That would also have been the case even if the spot kicks had gone the other way, and it was Arsenal who advanced to the next round. Why? Because of what we saw in the preceding 120 minutes, and because the prize -- staying alive in the FA Cup -- is worth less than what happened on the pitch.
I don't mean to gratuitously diss the competition here. Yes, it's a trophy and an important one, but it's not how either one of these managers is going to be judged. Don't believe me? Ask Erik ten Hag. He won it last year and is now unemployed (and largely unloved).
More important, for both these coaches, was to get an emotional boost and provide a sense that their club is moving in the right direction. That part was settled in the 120 minutes before any penalty was taken.
Arsenal might have created more chances and bossed the expected goals (3.22 to 0.27), but most of that came in the nearly one hour of football they played with a man advantage. Oh, and it was in that hour of football that they missed a penalty and failed to capitalise. The upshot? More doubt about what they can achieve with Kai Havertz at centre-forward. It's not a view I share: I'm a Havertz believer, though it would be nice to have another option off the bench -- and without Bukayo Saka on the pitch. Doubt isn't what Arteta needs right now, and a win on penalties wouldn't have changed that.
As for United, yes, they created very little before and after Diogo Dalot's red card, but they stayed in the game and played with intensity and purpose. A bit like the Liverpool game, they looked like a side that was growing into what the manager wanted them to do.
Random moments like the Matthijs De Ligt block achieve outsize significance. It felt as if little lightbulbs were going off up and down the lineup. They punished their opponent's mistakes, kept their tactical shape and grew more disciplined with a man down even as their foe grew more frantic. Confidence in your manager is a thing and once again, they showed it. And just as with Arsenal, the outcome of the spot kicks would not have impacted this.
One more thing on the penalty "won" by Havertz when he collided with Harry Maguire's arm. I accept that some folks hate VAR; well, we got to experience a game without VAR, and we didn't just see a player conning the referee into awarding a penalty (as Havertz did, I'm sorry to say) -- we also saw a full-on melee afterwards with little in the way of disciplinary action. Not because the referee was bad, but because it's simply impossible for one refereeing team to keep track of a 20-man brawl.
Did not having VAR (as is customary in the third round of the FA Cup) really make the game more enjoyable? Or did it offer an incentive for players to get away with stuff?
New coach, same old Milan? Maybe, but it's not necessarily a bad thing
The recent comeback wins against Juventus and Inter en route to the Super Cup were exhilarating, but it was obvious that Milan were going to be judged by how well they do the bread-and-butter of cranking out victories in the league and moving up the table. And that's where things under Sérgio Conceição felt like they did under Paulo Fonseca, which is probably why boos rang out at the end of Saturday's 1-1 draw at home to Cagliari.
Against an opponent that parked the proverbial bus -- and understandably so, considering that they're fighting to avoid relegation -- Milan had plenty of the ball and the chances, but failed to capitalise. Their 2.75 xG and 24 shots on goal (11 on target) end up meaning little when it's another two points missed. And adding insult to injury, there were no fewer than three distinct individual mistakes on Nadir Zortea's equalizer, from Youssouf Fofana's revolving door defending, to Theo Hernández getting lost, to Mike Maignan fumbling the shot.
It's the sort of stuff that infuriates fans -- and probably Conceicao, too -- the kind of stuff that played a big part of what cost Fonseca his job at the end of December. That said, Milan were aggressive and front-footed, the opportunities were there (think of Christian Pulisic hitting the woodwork or Tammy Abraham's missed one-on-one) and they did more than enough to win. That's a sign the foundation is more solid than the table suggests. And it's OK if this looks like Fonseca's Milan because that team, despite the self-inflicted errors, got a lot of things right.
Conceicao doesn't need to tear it down; he just needs to iron out the kinks.
Quick hits
10. It's now 14 wins in a row for high-flying Atletico: The narrative out of Sunday's 1-0 win over Osasuna was that this was old-school Atletico Madrid: defending staunchly and not dominating, but taking their chances at the other end. I'm not sure I agree, and the xG (2.33) back me up on the attacking end. They weren't overwhelming, and Julián Álvarez's goal felt like a collective brain fart from Osasuna's back line -- despite having three central defenders, Alvarez is somehow left all on his own? -- but the opportunities they did create were high quality and they were stingy in their own box. They remain a point clear of Real Madrid at the top of LaLiga and their confidence is only growing.
Gab Marcotti and Julien Laurens question if Napoli's Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, another winger, is a smart signing for PSG.
9. Antonio Conte has his game face on as Napoli say goodbye to Kvaratskhelia: Sunday's 2-0 victory over Verona makes it five wins on the bounce for Napoli (in the league, that is, because that's the only competition they have left). It was dominant in a Conte way: an early goal, tight defending and then a second (gorgeous) goal from André-Frank Zambo Anguissa after the break for insurance purposes. More telling were his words on Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who is officially on his way out. Conte said he was disappointed that he wasn't able to persuade him to stay; Kvaratskhelia would have stayed, of course, if he had been able to get the pay rise everyone agreed he deserved. (What they disagreed on, of course, was the size of the pay bump.)
8. It's not the contract talks, it's Trent Alexander-Arnold: I made the point last week -- as did Arne Slot -- after the horror show against Manchester United, and it's valid this week after his surprise start against Accrington Stanley, in which he was the only holdover from last weekend's XI: you can't blame his contractual situation and the fact that he's a free agent in a few months when things are bad, because that same situation exists when things are good. And they were very good on Saturday as he led the team out as captain and notched a peach of a goal in a 4-0 drubbing. The reality is that Alexander-Arnold is exceptional going forward but sometimes suffers massive lapses defensively. That happened before his contract talks, and it will likely happen again after he signs a new deal, whether with Liverpool or anyone else.
Steve Nicol and Shaka Hislop react to Trent Alexander-Arnold's performance in Liverpool's 4-0 win vs. Accrington Stanley.
7. Inter's bounce-back win is important, but so too were the late wobbles: Sunday's 1-0 win at Venezia is significant because it keeps the team within four points of table-topping Napoli: that's manageable with two games in hand. More significant, I think, is the way they bounced back from the gut-punch of the Super Cup defeat to Milan, in which a 2-0 Inter lead turned into a 3-2 defeat. Despite further evidence that they're not the same team without Hakan Calhanoglu, they were largely in charge for much of the game -- at least until the last 15 minutes or so, when they conceded more chances than Simone Inzaghi would have liked. If there is a cause for concern right now, it's probably at the back.
6. Unlocking Joao Felix is a delight for the eyes: Imagine if you could do that. Imagine if you could get Joao Felix to regularly offer what we saw him give Chelsea in the 5-0 drubbing of Morecambe on Saturday. He was facing a side one spot above the bottom of the entire English Football League, but no, your eyes did not deceive you. In the beauty of his two goals, you saw his grace, touch, balance, finishing, creativity -- all the things that are supposed to add up to a superstar. Except in his case, they don't. He might be the most technically gifted player at the club, but 5½ years after his absurd €126 million to Atletico Madrid -- that's right, he's still the fourth-costliest player ever -- he still can't find a manager to give him regular playing time. (The most damning Joao Felix stat might be that since turning 21, he has never started more than 18 games in a season). Enzo Maresca would love to change that, but he's not so arrogant that he thinks he will succeed where so many others have failed.
Frank Leboeuf reacts to Chelsea's 5-0 win over Morecambe in the FA Cup third round.
5. Harry Kane's penalty rescues wasteful Bayern Munich: Some in Bayern-land are so concerned about not killing every game early that Saturday's 1-0 win away to Borussia Monchengladbach was seen as a disappointment. Gladbach had a couple of chances after the break and it was 0-0 until Kane's spot kick with just over 20 minutes to go. Could Bayern have dropped points? Sure, but they also put together an xG of 4.28 (to 0.35) and didn't concede a single shot until the second half. That they created so much without Jamal Musiala against a midtable opponent isn't a bad thing. If you're going to worry as a Bayern fan, worry about free agents-to-be Joshua Kimmich and Alphonso Davies, both of whom were typically excellent.
4. Tottenham scrape past nonleague Tamworth, and it could be the end of extra time in the FA Cup: Tiny Tamworth away was exactly what Tottenham didn't want in the FA Cup: small ground, artificial pitch, a fired-up opponent, second-stringers not taking chances (read: Timo Werner), every neutral hoping for an upset in the name of the "Magic of the FA Cup." Tamworth kept it scoreless for 90 minutes, but the floodgates opened in extra time with an own goal paving the way to a 3-0 Spurs win. Maybe it's a coincidence, but The Times reported Monday that the Football Association was considering scrapping extra time and going straight to penalty kicks. With replays having already been eliminated, the traditionalists might be incensed, but the harsh truth is that the less actual football you play, the more chance the smaller club has of an upset, and going direct to spot kicks would have given a team like a Tamworth a better chance. As for the bigger clubs, you suspect the last thing they want to do is play an extra half hour on a frozen pitch in January.
3. Paris Saint-Germain reaping far less than they sow: It has been like this for a while now and theories vary, but Sunday's victory over Saint Etienne felt like peak Luis Enrique. The defending champions took 25 shots on goal and put together an xG of 4.07, but managed only to win 2-1. It's easy to point to the whole "recognised striker" trope, except for the fact that Gonçalo Ramos actually started in this game. (Randal Kolo Muani was elsewhere, presumably waiting to find a new home in the January transfer window.) With rumours that they're close to signing Kvaratskhelia, you wonder how many winger types are enough given that they already have Bradley Barcola, Lee Kang-in, Désiré Doué, Marco Asensio and Ousmane Dembélé.
Gab and Juls discuss the deal between Lens and Man City for 20-year-old Abdukodir Khusanov.
2. Let's all pick on Jack Grealish? It rather feels that way. You might have thought that his first goal for Manchester City since December 2023 (in Saturday's 8-0 demolition of Salford City in the FA Cup) would have earned Grealish some respite from the critics. Instead, we got plenty of reminders that it had been 392 days since the £100m man's last goal. (Heck, because it was a penalty, when he next scores from open play -- if he scores from open play -- we'll get a reminder that it's his first goal from open play since 2023. Won't that be droll?) There's no question that Grealish has been a bust and that there were far better ways for City to spend that money, but bringing up his lack of goals kinda feels like punching down. Grealish is what he is: a guy who was vastly overrated by one of the most successful coaches in history, who then couldn't fit him into his system in a productive way and who failed to live up to his transfer fee or massive contract. Plus, he has the look the sort of player opposing fans love to hate. But he can't be the only scapegoat here.
1. Juventus disappoint (again) in derby, but look hard and you'll find two bright spots: As dull as Juve were in the 1-1 draw with Torino, and as angry as Thiago Motta was -- he even got himself sent off, raging afterwards about how unhappy he was with his team's lack of aggression -- there are two points of light. One is Kenan Yildiz, who scored and was a constant thorn in Torino's side. I'll leave it to others to determine whether he's the best Turkish teenager around (or whether it's Arda Güler), but it's wild to me that some were linking him to an exit over doubts about whether he fit Motta's system. The other is Douglas Luiz, who made his first start since October and bossed the midfield. I have no idea how or why he ended up on Motta's naughty step after his big summer move, but it's evident he can contribute to this team. Beyond that, Juve showed all their limitations (Dusan Vlahovic's absence is not an excuse) en route to their 12th league draw in 19 games. Nobody in Europe's Big 5 leagues has drawn more.