da bwin：
da betway： Rejoice, friends, and be merry, for club football has returned.After the darkness of the international break, the light is very much back with us. All over Europe, the lights were turned back on from Friday evening, and football was the shining beacon of hope in all our lives. Yes, it’s that bad.This week too, the Champions League returns again, and it feels like it’s been away for far too long. It’s been three weeks since Europe’s elite club tournament graced our television screens, and there’s lots to look forward to this week, especially for Our Boys.Spurs are looking to batter some German giants into the ground to take their place in the last 16. Arsenal can stake a huge claim for top spot in their group with two victories over Ludogorets Razgrad in the next two matchdays. Manchester City face the toughest trip in European football as they travel to Barcelona, and could find themselves battling it out for second place in the group with Celtic if Brendan Rodgers’ side beats Borussia Monchengladbach. Whilst Leicester City could make it three from three as they face Copenhagen.This week’s Euro Roundup is so happy about the return of club football that it even watched the Premier League this week! (Hang on, when did Victor Moses happen again?!)
Germany
When Bayern Munich don’t win, it feels like the world is ending. And when Bayern Munich don’t win and Borussia Dortmund don’t win, you have to check the scorelines twice. But this week neither team won. And that makes it two weeks in a row where both Bayern and Dortmund have failed to win.
Germany’s weekend started with Dortmund’s home game against Hertha Berlin at the Signal Iduna Park. Coming back from the international break, it’s always hard to know what’s going to happen in the next league game. For Dortmund, they were held to a draw by Hertha Berlin who sit one place above them in the table. It was a game that featured two red cards and a missed penalty by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – not the only penalty of a tumultuous Bundesliga weekend, Mainz v Darmstadt had three of them by itself.
That draw was Dortmund’s 25th consecutive unbeaten home game, but although it leaves them trailing somewhat in the table, they can take heart from the fact that Bayern Munich also failed to capitalise the next day.
There is something different about this Bayern Munich team, and although they should have enough quality to win the league, you get the feeling that it won’t be quite as easy as last season. Carlo Ancelotti’s more relaxed style will perhaps help the players in the long run after three years of Pep Guardiola intensity, but it does breed complacency against the smaller teams. This week, Eintracht Frankfurt held the Bavarian beast to a 2-2 draw.
Elsewhere, Bayern have company at the top of the table in the form of two unfamiliar names. Cologne continued their fine start to the season with victory over bottom club Ingolstadt, whilst RB Leipzig are hot on their heels too – they beat Wolfsburg 1-0 on Sunday and are yet to lose in the Bundesliga.
At the bottom, though, things aren’t looking good for two of the more traditional giants of the German game: Hamburg and Schalke 04 both drew this weekend, leaving both teams second and third-bottom respectively and looking more towards keeping their status in the league this season than qualifying for Europe and winning silverware.
Perhaps the nicest story of the German weekend, though, was that of Ousman Manneh, a Gambian refugee who arrived in Germany two years ago. He scored his first Bundesliga goal just two years after coming to Europe – the winner in Werder Bremen’s victory over Bayer Leverkusen.
Italy
For a while, it looked like losing Gonzalo Higuain wasn’t going to be a huge deal for Napoli. They’d managed to negotiate a huge price for their huge player, but his replacement Arkadiusz Milik seemed to hit the ground running and find a way to replace some of those goals.
By now, though, it’s clear that in buying the best players in Serie A who didn’t already play for their club, Juventus were consolidating their power and probably making title victory something of a formality.
So, after Roma beat Napoli, and Juventus beat Udinese, Max Allegri’s side find themselves five points clear of Roma at the top of the table. They have a better goal difference than anyone else, have conceded the fewest number of goals in the league and are bested in the scoring department only by Roma themselves. It’s going to be a long old season if anyone wants to finish above Juventus and win the Scudetto.
One team who will probably be happy just to run Juve close, however, is AC Milan. After years in the wilderness, including no European football for the past two season, the Rossoneri sit third in the table and level on points with Roma after their victory over Chievo this weekend – no mean feat as Chievo were unbeaten in 12 home games until Milan showed up.
That was without their captain Riccardo Montolivo, who suffered a serious knee injury on duty with Italy last week.
Elsewhere, city rivals Inter are struggling once again in Serie A, and after some tense times with the Ultras this week, it wasn’t captain Mauro Icardi’s day.
France
Fans of Ligue 1 were royally treated on Friday night – a huge welcome back to club football was planned, it seemed, in the form of not one but two Friday night games!
Both games were hugely important for the weekend of football, and may yet be hugely important for the whole season.
PSG moved ominously into second place in the Ligue 1 standings, but remain four points behind Nice. And that’s because Mario Balotelli’s new side defeated Lyon 2-0, whilst Monaco slumped to a disappointing 3-1 defeat to high-flying Toulouse, who have now taken the scalps of both Monaco and PSG at home this season.
Lyon’s travails see them sit six points behind a Champions League spot already, and some of that might have to do with the fact that the talismanic Alexandre Lacazette has been missing from action. He could feature against Juventus this midweek, however, in the first of two huge clashes with the Italian giants for Lyon.
Elsewhere, St Etienne, Lille and Marseille continue to wobble to varying degrees. Lille’s sixth defeat of the season sees them remain in the relegation zone, worryingly. St Etienne needed a last-minute penalty to draw with newly-promoted Dijon, whilst Marseille’s victory over Metz lifted them in the table, though they remain in a dismal midtable position.
Spain
After some against-the-script results in La Liga this season, this first week back after the international break had something of a business as usual feel to it.
Just after the last international break, Barcelona came back to La Liga and lost 2-1 at home to Alaves. It was their first defeat of the season, and since then they’ve lost a second, too. But this week, Luis Enrique’s side found their scoring boots once again, beating Deportivo La Coruna 4-0 at the Camp Nou as Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez added to Rafinha’s brace to beat a 10-man Branquiazuis side. That’s 26 goals in only eight games for Barcelona, who look like they won’t be afraid of the midweek visit of Manchester City.
But whilst Barcelona were amongst the goals, their tally starts to look pretty meagre if you set it alongside the Madrid teams. Real beat Betis 6-1, whilst Atletico beat Granada 7-1, meaning the big three won their games this weekend by an aggregate of 17-2. That’s the ‘big three’ rather than the ‘top three’, however. Sevilla’s league form this season – they’ve only lost once – has seen them shoot into third place, ahead of Barcelona, and they themselves were amongst the goals this weekend, beating Leganes 3-2 as Samir Nasri scored his second goal in four games.
Elsewhere, Valencia’s good run continued this weekend. After sacking former Liverpool assistant manager Paco Ayestaran, Valencia have won three of their last four games, pulling themselves comfortably away from the relegation places they were inhabiting before, but that we all knew they’d stay away from. Mario Suarez, on loan from Watford, was the hero for new coach Cesare Prandelli who got off to a winning start as Valencia coach.