The past few days have seen marquee signings announce their arrival in Major League Soccer whilst in Europe we’ve seen yet more the league seasons get underway and old rivalries renewed.
Those are just a few of the subjects on the agenda for this edition of Last Weekend.
🇨🇦 MLS: Toronto 4-0 Charlotte
Gareth Bale may have scored his first MLS goal against Sporting Kansas City, but elsewhere on Saturday night, two Italian wingers were causing quite a stir on their debut for Toronto FC.
Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Bernardeschi had been brought in from Napoli and Juventus in the last few weeks, and they were both selected from the start against Charlotte.
Before either of them could get involved Jonathan Osorio put the hosts in front in the fourth minute. Six minutes later, Toronto added a second, with Bernardeschi providing the assist from a corner.
But the party was just getting started. After the half-hour mark Bernardeschi found the bottom corner from distance to make it 3-0. And on the stroke of half-time Insigne notched up his first goal involvement with a clever flick to assist Michael Bradley. Neither of the Italians came out for the second half as Bob Bradley decided to rest his stars for tougher battles to come.
The hosts cruised through the second half to register their first win in six matches. They remain down in 13th in the Eastern Conference but there are positive signs that they will improve now.
Aside from the two Italian signings, Toronto FC’s terribly shaky defence seems to be stabilising, while their attack was gradually improving even before Insigne and Bernardeschi arrived.
If this trend continues, the Canadian club will certainly get themselves closer to the play-off spots.
🇦🇹 Austria: Salzburg 3-0 Austria Wien
Perennial champions Salzburg kicked off the 2022/23 Bundesliga season by hosting Austria Wien. The scoreline suggests that this was a routine victory for them — and it was — but there was some tactical intrigue involved in the performance.
Over the summer, Salzburg lost, among others, Brendan Aaronson, who was the first-choice starter in the attacking midfield position in their 4-3-1-2 system that has a sort of diamond shape in the midfield. They did not sign any like-for-like replacement – instead bringing in Shakhtar striker Fernando for under a quarter of the fee they received from Leeds United for Aaronson’s transfer.
The reason for this quickly became clear in the match against Austria Wien. Generally, such systems with a diamond in midfield see the two strikers stretch the opposition defence while the attacking midfielder operates between the lines. Matthias Jaissle had other ideas as he used Fernando in the attacking midfield position and asked him to push forward and join the two strikers to create a very narrow front-three.
Typically, for sides that like to keep possession this would be a problem as the big distance between the midfield and attack would make ball progression difficult. However, Salzburg’s style of play is very direct and transition-based so the usage of the front-three to overload the two opposition centre-backs worked pretty out well for them.
There were goals and assists for each player in the three-man attack, with Fernando earning a man of the match performance in his new hybrid role.
🇩🇪 Germany: Nürnburg 2-0 Greuther Fürth
With Greuther Fürth dropping down to the 2. Bundesliga, the Franconian derby – Germany’s biggest rivalry in terms of the number of fixtures played – was back. Both they and Nürnberg had failed to win on the opening weekend of the season so they were in search of their first three-point haul of the new campaign.
Having won nine of the last 15 fixtures prior to this one, Fürth have been the dominant side in this rivalry over the course of recent history. Indeed, they were unbeaten in their last five matches against their arch-rivals. Nürnberg looked determined to change that right from the get-go, and they took the lead at the quarter-hour mark through Christoph Daferner.
The visitors kept close to two-thirds of possession in this match but they failed to make much of it as they conceded twice as many shots as they themselves fired. Nürnberg’s main issue was the fact that they were failing to convert their chances to add a cushion to their lead. That was until the 81st minute when substitute Manuel Wintzheimer found the back of the net with a left-footed effort inside the penalty area.
With that, Nürnberg sealed their status as ‘Derbysieger’ (derby winners), which will certainly add a spring to their step for the next few weeks.
🇧🇪 Belgium: Anderlecht 2-0 Oostende
A week after the Super Cup, the Belgian top-flight was back for the 2022/23 season. Club Brugge’s last-gasp win over Genk in a five-goal thriller may have stolen most of the headlines, but since we already covered them and their star performer Andreas Skov Olsen a week ago, our focus will be on their rivals Anderlecht this time out.
It was the start of a new era for Belgium’s most successful club (in terms of league titles) as Felice Mazzù was taking charge of his first competitive match. The man who masterminded Union Saint-Gilloise’s fairytale rise for the last couple of years was brought in after Vincent Kompany left for Burnley and he wasted no time in implementing his preferred 3-5-2 formation.
It would be an exaggeration to say that Anderlecht looked as exciting as Union did under Mazzù last season but that is hardly a surprise as their players naturally need time to adjust to a new system. What they did quite well was ensure Oostende were not given any great opportunities while also nicking a crucial goal from a corner close to the half-time break.
There were some encouraging signs for the rest of the season too, as Wolves loanee Fábio Silva came off the bench for the last ten minutes and certainly made his presence felt before getting on the scoresheet just before full-time. Lukas Nmecha and Joshua Zirkzee are testaments to the fact that Anderlecht have a great track record with on-loan strikers of late so Silva will hope to get his career back on track in Belgium and has certainly started strong.
🇸🇪 Sweden: Häcken 1-2 Djurgården
The top two in Sweden crossed swords this weekend, as league-leaders Häcken hosted DjurgÃ¥rden – who sat just a point behind them, albeit having played a game more.
There weren’t many chances early on but Häcken took the lead after half an hour when Alexander Jeremejeff scored his 15th goal of the season from the penalty spot. DjurgÃ¥rden created a fair few chances to equalise before half-time but the scoreline remained 1-0.
However, after the break it took them just four minutes to get back on level terms through Emmanuel Banda, and about 15 minutes later, Elias Andersson put them in front. Djurg̴rden then held on for what was a deserved victory Рbased on the xG at least, as the xG scoreline read 1.32-2.13 in their favour.
Indeed, Djurgården are the best side in the league based on xGD (Expected Goal Difference — the difference between their expected goals accumulated and expected goals conceded), as their tally of +0.85 is the highest in the league. Their attack is among the best, but it is their defence that separates them from the rest of the sides in the running for the title.
The result meant that the visitors go top of the Allsvenskan, at least until Häcken play their game in hand.
🇧🇷 Brazil: Fluminense 2-1 Red Bull Bragantino
Alexander Jeremejeff is scoring goals at a scary rate in Sweden and over in Brazil Germán Cano is doing something similar.
The 34-year-old Argentine striker scored his fifth goal in five league matches to extend Fluminense’s lead against Red Bull Bragantino. This run of form has seen him shoot up the scoring charts and he has now become the outright top-scorer in the Brazilian top-flight. In this period of time, he has also notched up a couple of assists and scored in the Copo do Brasil.
His goals have helped Fluminense go unbeaten since mid-June and with six wins in their last seven league games – they have broken into the top-three and are within touching distance of leaders Palmeiras.
Written by Neel Shelat.
Cover Image from IMAGO