Nil-nil is a scoreline that can tell you a lot or a little.
Another week in Spain, another Barca-Madrid showdown, another post-match spat.
GERMANY’S football season restarted dramatically on Friday night after their six-week break and the victims were Bayern Munich, still league leaders but only on goal difference ahead of Borussia Dortmund and Schalke, with the other Borussia just a point behind in fourth place.
IT may have been seniors week inthe Premier League, but you canforget about Thierry Henry and Paul Scholes for the veteran of the year award.
IT was derby day in Barcelona on Sunday just as it was in Manchester.
AS Christmas approaches, European football has a reassuringly traditional feel.
IT has been said of the Bundesliga that it’s the most exciting competition in the world, except when Bayern Munich are playing well, and a look at the table seems to confirm it.
IF THERE are gods of football, justice, then on Sunday they were surely smiling down on Naples.
EUROPE’S title winners are decided, more or less.
THIRTY seconds from the end of the game in the Bernabeu stadium on Saturday, with Real Madrid trailing 3-2 to Zaragoza, the fourth official flashed up a board indicating there would be 100 minutes of added time.
THERE are few neutrals in Spain when Barcelona play Madrid, and the newspapers usually react accordingly.
A LITTLE bit of football history will be made today when Michel Platini hands over the Europa League trophy in Dublin. A first for Ireland and also a first for Portugal.
PAMPLONA is no city for old men — or faint hearts. The favoured local entertainment is when they release the bulls into the streets every morning during the Fiesta of San Fermín.
IF there was one certainty aboutthe first games of the New Year it was that Barcelona would win, and win handsomely.
THERE is something about Christmas that brings out the best in us, and the worst.
BARCELONA — Real Madrid is definitely the biggest match in Europe – and thus the world – and the Spanish won’t let anyone forget it.
POLISH football has endured its fair share of agony in the past few years, including a serious betting and match-fixing scandal, but a couple of games in the past week suggest that a revival might be on the cards.
FIFTEEN months after celebrating the greatest spending spree in football history, Real Madrid fans are having to face the fact their club will almost certainly have nothing to show for it.
THE Germans call it schadenfreude, meaning the pleasure you get from someone else’s misfortune, or literally “damage joy”.
LYON against Bayern is a semi-final clash no one expected, and so far it has lived down to expectations.
THE Champions League is known for its reunions but Barcelona managers Pep Guardiola might have wished for an easier trip to meet up with a former colleague.
BAYERN are notgood enough.Franck Ribery’s blunt verdict on his own team back in December may have seemed overly pessimistic as they embarked on a run of nine league wins in a row and went top of the Bundesliga for the first time in two years.
When two teams share 10 goals in The Match of the Decade you can usually bet that the return game will finish 0-0.
“I TURNED off the TV when we went 2-0 down. I couldn’t watch any more.”
IF there is one thing that captures the Spanish soul for us foreigners it’s flamenco.
ATLETICO MADRID are known as ‘Los Colchoneros’ — mattress makers — because of their red-and-white striped shirts, but there have been times when their supporters believed it was because they provided a comfortable rest for the opposition.
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