There was no football across Great Britain this weekend following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, meaning the action from elsewhere took centre stage. There were lots of intriguing fixtures, results and storylines across Europe, and the world, including Real Madrid’s perfect start to the season, Marco Rose’s Bundesliga return and Argentina’s fiercest derby. We will be going over all of that and more in this week’s edition of Last Weekend.
By Neel Shelat
🇪🇸 Spain: Real Madrid 4-1 Mallorca
Going into the weekend, there was just one side across Europe’s top-five leagues that had a 100% record in 2022/23. That team was Real Madrid, and they preserved their record after surviving a slight scare against Mallorca on Sunday.
Mallorca delivered a resolute defensive performance in the first half and did a great job of keeping them out of their penalty area, forcing Madrid to take a lot of shots from range. At the other end, the visitors took the lead through Vedat Muriqi’s header from a set-piece in the 35th minute with what was their second goalscoring opportunity of the match.
Real Madrid looked set to be trailing at the half-time break, but Federico Valverde had other ideas. In the last minute of stoppage-time, he picked up the ball deep inside his own half and drove forward all the way to the edge of the box before finding the top corner with a curling finish on his weaker foot.
The home side continued to struggle to create good chances in the second half in their striker-less system without the injured Karim Benzema, but they finally broke through in the 72nd minute when Rodrygo slipped Vinícius Júnior through on goal, and the 22-year-old Brazilian winger applied a smart finish, making it five goals in his last five matches in all competitions. Rodrygo went on to score a nice solo goal to make it 11 goal involvements in his last 11 appearances for him, which shows just how consistent he has been. In stoppage time, Antonio Rüdiger added a little more gloss to the scoreline by scoring his first goal for his new club.
Real Madrid were frustrated for large periods of this match and had to resort to long shots as aforementioned, so they will be pleased with this result. When they did manage to create chances in the box, they made sure of taking them, which is always an encouraging sign for a side missing its star striker.
🇩🇪 Germany: RB Leipzig 3-0 Borussia Dortmund
We are barely a month and a half into the new season, but the Bundesliga’s managerial merry-go-round is spinning again. RB Leipzig relieved Domenico Tedesco of his duties after their loss to Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League in midweek and proceeded to replace him with Marco Rose, who was out of a job since the summer after parting ways with Borussia Dortmund. That could only mean one thing: his first match in charge of Leipzig would fall against Dortmund.
Leipzig’s league season had also gotten off to a terrible start as they just had one win in five games and were seven points adrift of their opponents going into this match, so Tedesco’s dismissal was certainly justified. Rose made an instant impact after arriving, changing the team’s formation to a 4-2-3-1 and adopting a more transition-based approach in this match. That yielded results just six minutes into the match, as a counterattack from Christopher Nkunku and Timo Werner led to a corner, which was then headed home by Willi Orbán.
Leipzig also looked very good defensively as they completely contained Dortmund in an interesting 4-3-1-2 shape out of possession, leading to the visitors failing to register a single shot on target in a league match for the first time in three years.
A superb strike from Dominik Szoboszlai just before half-time doubled their lead, and Amadou Haidara made it 3-0 in the 84th minute to seal a resounding win for RB Leipzig. The Marco Rose-era has gotten off to the perfect start, and if they can keep this up, they could easily be in with a shout in the race for the best of the rest spot.
🇦🇷 Argentina: Boca Juniors 1-0 River Plate
Over in Argentina, a packed La Bombonera played host to what is among the fiercest derbies in world football – the Superclásico. Boca Juniors and River Plate squared off in a derby that could have huge implications on the title race, as the two sides were five points behind league-leaders Atlético Tucumán going into this match.
In the Boca Juniors dugout was Hugo Ibarra, who was overseeing his first Superclásico as a manager, although he had participated in 13 derbies as a player. On the other bench, Marcelo Gallardo sprung a bit of a tactical surprise as he switched to a back-three system having used a back-four throughout the season.
The match was, as you might expect of such a derby, a pretty cagey affair with very few good chances. The first half ended goalless, and Gallardo reverted to a back-four for the second half. The decisive moment came in the 62nd minute when Darío Benedetto headed a corner home to make the capacity crowd erupt in celebration.
Boca Juniors held on to that lead, coming away with three huge points that take them to within touching distance of first place, along with the bragging rights of course. That makes it five teams placed within four points of Atlético Tucumán, and with nine rounds of fixtures left, an enthralling title race in Argentina is certain.
🇫🇷 France: Lorient 3-2 Nantes
If you take a peak at the league table in France, you will find a couple of surprises close to the top. Last season’s top two – Paris Saint-Germain and Marseille – are first and second again, but behind them are Lens and Lorient, who are just two and three points behind them respectively.
Our focus this week will be on Lorient, who have secured back-to-back wins against sides playing in European competitions this season. While everyone was watching the Champions League on Wednesday night, they put three past Lyon, and on Sunday, did the same to Coupe de France holders Nantes.
Ex-Lens striker Ignatius Ganago opened the scoring for the away side, but Dango Ouattara equalised from a free-kick soon thereafter. Goals from Yoann Cathline and Ibrahima Koné in the second half were enough for Lorient to secure the three points after an impressive performance where they defended well and created a good few chances.
It is far too early for Lorient to be getting carried away with a European dream, but they should certainly be targeting a first top-half finish in Ligue 1 since 2013/14.
🇮🇹 Italy: Juventus 2-2 Salernitana
If your football intake over the weekend didn’t feature a lot of last minute drama then you definitely didn’t watch the Serie A game between Juventus and Salernitana on Sunday night. All of this took place after the clock had struck 90 minutes at the Allianz Stadium:
Before we unpack all of that, first, a little bit of background. Juventus were booed off by their own fans at half-time after a dismal first-half performance that left them trailing by two goals, scored by Antonio Candreva (who broke a record by becoming the first player to score in Serie A for seven different clubs) and Krzysztof Piątek from the penalty spot. They responded well in the second half as Gleison Bremer pulled one back within six minutes, but they struggled to find an equaliser. Some puzzling substitutions, such as taking off Filip Kostić for Danilo, certainly did not help their cause, but that is a different story.
Now, onto the real drama. The fourth official lifted the board and showed four minutes of stoppage time in the 90th minute, but little did he know about what was to follow. Just a minute later, Salernitana conceded a penalty, which Leonardo Bonucci stepped up to take. His effort was saved, but he turned in the rebound. Then, just seconds after the match restarted, Juventus won a corner, which eventually ended up in the back of the net thanks to the head of Arkadiusz Milik. He picked up a second yellow card for taking his shirt off while celebrating, but there was a bigger twist in the tale. VAR found a case of offside in the goal and ruled it out, after which a great scuffle ensued. Federico Fazio, Juan Cuadrado and Massimiliano Allegri were all sent off.
All of that for the match to end without a winner. Although, the repercussions of that VAR decision are likely to rumble on and on.
🇸🇪 Sweden: Hammarby 0-0 Djurgården
There were some big derbies up north too. In Norway, Tromsø faced Bodø/Glimt in what could be the northernmost professional derby in the world. And over in Sweden, Hammarby faced Djurgården in a Stockholm derby that also had major implications on the title race.
Much like the Superclásico, both sides attempted 10 shots each, but the key difference was that there were no goals to speak of. That was a worse result for Hammarby, who are four points adrift of top spot in third. Things could have gotten worse for them, but AIK’s shock loss to Varbergs BoIS keeps them in the European spots.
The biggest winners, though, are Häcken, who have the chance to extend their lead to three points when they face Kalmar on Monday evening. The title race in Sweden is also set to go down to the wire, with eight rounds of fixtures left after this one.
Cover Image from IMAGO