Derbies, late drama, goal fests and upsets were all on the menu this weekend, so we have a vast selection of games to pick from for our weekly column. After much deliberation, we have narrowed it down to six matches from Europe’s major leagues.
By Neel Shelat
🇩🇪 Germany: Hertha 0-2 Union
The Berlin derby has been a regular fixture in the Bundesliga in recent seasons since Union Berlin’s promotion to the top-flight, but we might not see too many more of them. It’s not Union who are going down, though, but the big city club Hertha.
In spite of much investment since their last visit to the 2. Bundesliga in 2012/13, Hertha have not managed to establish themselves as a top-half team, let alone become European competition regulars. Of course, that is largely down to the fact that their investment has been rather unplanned and unguided, and that has led them to the verge of relegation.
Union, on the other hand, have made the most of a relatively tight budget to not just rise to the first tier, but even qualify for Europe last season. This time around, they have not only made it to the Europa League knockouts but have also been keeping step with Bayern at the top of the league.
With that context in mind, it should be easy to envision how this match went. Union were the better side right from the start, and they took the lead on the stroke of half-time with their 11th set-piece goal of the league season. They sealed the result in the 67th minute with a brilliant counterattack immediately after a fruitless penalty appeal from Hertha, which got a quick on-pitch review from the referee.
With their fifth-consecutive Berlin derby victory, Union closed the gap to Bayern down to just one point after the defending champions drew with Eintracht Frankfurt. Hertha, on the other hand, remain in the relegation zone.
🇫🇷 France: PSG 1-1 Stade Reims
Ligue 1 is the self-styled ‘League of Talents’, and while that phrase is designed to refer to players, it is true of certain managers too. Chief among those is 30-year-old Will Still, who is the youngest manager in Europe’s top five leagues by some margin, at the moment.
Still’s story is quite fascinating. Bitten by the bug of Football Manager alongside his brother Edward (who himself is a manager who was in charge of Eupen currently), Will decided to pursue football studies and worked in Preston North End’s youth academy at the time. Having been born and brought up in Belgium, he went back to the country after graduation and took up an internship at STVV, then in the second tier.
After that, he got opportunities in assistant managerial roles in a number of first and second-tier clubs, and also had a couple of brief spells as interim manager. Then, in 2021, he got a call from Reims to join Óscar García’s coaching staff. After a few months, he returned to Belgium to complete his coaching licenses but was back at Reims in 2022 after that was done.
García’s side got off to a terrible start in the 2022/23 season and found themselves in the relegation zone with just one win from nine games, so the Spanish manager was sacked. Still was promoted on an interim basis until the World Cup, and it is safe to say he did alright. After holding PSG to a goalless draw on his Ligue 1 debut, the young Englishman stayed unbeaten and oversaw three wins before mid-November.
That impressive run of results convinced the club to offer him the position till the end of the season, but since he is still studying for his UEFA Pro License, they will have to pay penalties worth €575,000 to the league.
That fine seems worth it already since Reims have remained unbeaten on the other side of the World Cup and have climbed up to 11th in the table. Their latest match saw Still and company visit the Parc de Princes, where Arsenal loanee Folarin Balogun’s stoppage-time equaliser earned them another thoroughly deserved point against the league leaders.
🇳🇱 Netherlands: AZ 5-5 Utrecht
Yes, you read that scoreline right.
The Eredivisie has been serving up some unbelievable drama since the World Cup break, and we were treated to the game of season on Saturday. Second-placed AZ took on European contenders Utrecht in a match where they knew they would temporarily go to the top of the table with a win.
They didn’t start well at all and found themselves two goals down after about a quarter of an hour as Greek striker Anastasios Douvikas struck twice in quick succession. Then, AZ turned the game around within the next twenty minutes thanks to goals from Maxim Dekker and a double from their own Greek striker – Evangelos Pavlidis. Utrecht quickly equalised, so it was 3-3 at half-time.
If anyone thought things would calm down after the half-time break, they would be quickly proven wrong. The visitors looked the better side in the opening exchanges of the period and thought they took the lead in about ten minutes, but VAR ruled it out for offside. Douvikas got his hat-trick eventually, but AZ turned the scoreline around again through Mees de Wit and Pavlidis’ own hat-trick goal. Utrecht made it 5-5 soon thereafter thanks to a brave header from Sander van de Streek, and that is how the match ended.
🏆 FA Cup: Wrexham 3-3 Sheffield United
It is too easy and quite a cliché to speak of any of Wrexham’s matches using the word ‘Hollywood’ as an adjective, but there is simply no way to accurately describe their most recent FA Cup tie other than by saying that you could not script it better.
Wrexham’s story is quite well-documented now. Having previously gone on European adventures, the third-oldest professional football club in the world was in turmoil since the turn of the century after years of mismanagement. But, there was light at the end of the tunnel in 2020, when Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney took over the club.
Of course, there was some scepticism initially as to just how invested the new owners would be, but that question was answered pretty quickly. They immediately aimed to end their 14-year absence from the EFL and reached the promotion play-off last season, but fell short at the final hurdle. That story is depicted very well by the ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ series that you might have heard of once or twice.
This season, Wrexham are aiming to go up through the one automatic promotion spot in the National League, but have gone on quite an incredible side-quest in the FA Cup. They put at least three goals past each of their opponents in the first three rounds, which included Championship side Coventry City.
Next came Sheffield United, who look on course to return to the Premier League next season. They needed just over a minute to open the scoring at the Racecourse Ground, and then it really felt that the home side were punching way too far above their weight. However, they used the great leveller called set-pieces to turn the game around in the second half, but were pegged back quite quickly.
Then came a big twist as Sheffield United had a player sent off in the 71st minute. This was Wrexham’s golden chance to extend this already-incredible cup run, but they had to do the job in normal time in order to avoid a replay. It looked as though they would do it when star striker Paul Mullin restored their lead in the 86th minute.
The Racecourse Ground had almost already started celebrating what would have been a thoroughly deserved victory, but it was not to be. Deep into stoppage time, Wrexham got a taste of their own medicine when John Egan equalised from a corner tp set up a replay at Bramall Lane.
Not all movies have happy endings, but this one will get a sequel.
🇮🇹 Italy: Juventus 0-2 Monza
We have covered Juventus in the last couple of editions of this column so we would have quite liked to pick a match between any two other Serie A sides, but Monza have made that rather tough for us.
Let us focus on the Lombardian outfit then. Monza’s football club’s history can be traced back to 1910, but it has never previously been represented in the Italian top-flight in spite of a very lengthy stay in Serie B. In recent times, the club has endured a lot of financial turmoil, most recently going bankrupt in 2015. They then started afresh in Serie D, going up a tier in 2017.
The real turning point came in 2018 when the club was purchased by Fininvest, led by former Italian Prime Minister and AC Milan President Silvio Berlusconi. They went up to Serie B in 2020 and immediately started challenging for promotion. The promotion play-offs proved cruel to them in 2021, but they were the reason they finally achieved their 110-year target last year.
Getting promoted is one thing but staying up is another, as Monza learnt quite quickly when they found themselves plum last after six matches with just one point. It was time to bring in a new manager, and their pick was 38-year-old Raffaele Palladino, who took up his first senior role in such a position.
His first assignment saw his side host Juventus and come away with a crucial one-nil win, which proved to be the spark for an upturn in fortunes. They have gone on to win six matches since, climbing well clear of the relegation zone. Before their reverse fixture against the now-fallen Old Lady, they were unbeaten in five league matches.
That streak has quite deservedly been extended. While lots of questions can be asked of Massimiliano Allegri’s choice of tactics, Monza deserve plaudits for a superb performance at the Allianz Stadium, especially in the first half when they bounced back from the disappointment of having an early goal ruled out by VAR to take a two-goal lead into the break.
By holding on to that lead, Monza became the first newly-promoted side to do the double over Juventus in Serie A since the inaugural season of the competition. Thanks to Juventus’ points deduction, they have also been leapfrogged in the table by their visitors, who are now just three points off seventh place and well clear of the drop zone.
🇪🇸 Spain: Celta Vigo 1-0 Athletic Club
There were some interesting matches and results in Spain this weekend, but the game we have picked does not necessarily stand out in either of those categories. However, it could well be the most well-remembered match of this round, and the reason behind that has something to do with one player.
In fact, the big story is about a player who was not even there. We are, of course, talking about Iñaki Williams, whose incredible streak of 251 consecutive La Liga appearances has finally come to an end due to an injury. He sustained that in midweek while helping his side beat Valencia and advance to the Copa del Rey semi-finals, but at the time, it did not seem too severe so his absence here was rather unexpected.
Of course, Williams’ appearance streak is a league record. It started way back in April 2016, a time when Leicester City were beginning to believe the unthinkable, and the wider world was concerned with the Panama Papers leak. In this age of about 50 matches per season where squad rotation is a necessity, it seems incredibly unlikely that anyone can take this record away from the Ghanaian international.
Athletic Club will certainly want him back quickly, though, since they drew yet another blank in the league and lost to a relegation-battling Celta side, whom we gave a little more attention to last week.
Cover Image from IMAGO