It's been another action-packed weekend in European soccer, so let's review. Sunday brought the Manchester derby and with it, a fresh reminder as to how far back Man United are from Pep Guardiola and Man City. Real Madrid returned to Valencia, where Vinicius was racially abused last season, and the 2-2 draw came with plenty of controversy on and off the pitch.
Premier League leaders Liverpool got a late, late goal to beat Nottingham Forest and remain top of the table -- also controversial -- and Bayer Leverkusen extended their lead in the German Bundesliga with a victory over Koln. Beyond that, there were talking points galore for Borussia Dortmund, Barcelona, Chelsea, Tottenham, Juventus, Atletico Madrid and more.
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It's Monday, and Gab Marcotti reacts to the biggest moments in the world of football.
Manchester derby confirms what we already know: There's a chasm between them, and Man United are no further forward
I don't blame Erik ten Hag for donning the rose-tinted spectacles once again when asked if Manchester United's 3-1 loss underscored the gap between them and Manchester City. "I don't think so, absolutely not," he said. "You can see we have may problems with injuries and still we had an opportunity. We could have scored the second goal ... when we have everyone on board, we can be competitive.
"But City is, at this moment, the best team in the world. Don't forget that."
There's doubtless a sporting multiverse where Kyle Walker gets sent off for the push on Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho wins a penalty from Éderson, or where Sofyan Amrabat doesn't give the ball away cheaply and Phil Foden doesn't score worldies. So yeah, United could have won this game, but they didn't and even if they had, based on what we saw, there's a veritable abyss between these two sides.
You want numbers? City had 74% possession, outshot United 27-8 (and 8-1 in shots on target) and recorded 2.79 expected goals to United's 0.21. United managed a single shot on goal after the 23rd minute -- it came deep in injury time -- and their goal came after a combination of a bad defensive error from City and Marcus Rashford belting the ball with precision and power from a zillion yards away.
Positivity and optimism are reasonable managerial techniques, but there's a fine line between that and delusion. Ten Hag has tried so many different things to turn the tide. On Sunday, he served up a system with Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho out wide and Bruno Fernandes floating behind them. It was ugly and defensive, but hey: you're playing Man City away. You can't blame him for trying, especially because his options were again limited.
We remarked in the past on the absurdity of Man United going into the season with two strikers (the injury-prone Antony Martial and Rasmus Hojlund, who's just 21 years of age) and with both unavailable, it was either stick Rashford central, where he's ineffective, or put him wide and try this newfangled striker-less system. He opted for the latter and it didn't work, but there's no evidence that the former would have worked either.
Sure, he's dealing with injuries. Would Luke Shaw, Lisandro Martínez, Harry Maguire and Hojlund have substantially moved the needle? I'd suggest no -- not with Ten Hag, anyway, and not in these circumstances.
As for City, Pep Guardiola was unflappable. They started playing their game and continued even as they went a goal down and kept missing chances -- the Erling Haaland one right before half-time was a "miss of the season" contender. He gets it. He knows that as long as you're creating opportunities, there's no need to tinker or flip out: at some point they'll go in, especially when the opposition serves up nothing.
If we're going to nitpick City -- and you can be sure that's what Guardiola is doing right now -- it will perhaps be some of the defensive wobbles: Rúben Dias's positioning ahead of the Rashford goal, United escaping on the counter a couple of times. But these are details, and when you have Rodri (immense, again) and Foden on this kind of form, it's scarcely going to matter.
LaLiga wanted no drama and no racism in Vinicius' return to Valencia ... and it got neither
Given what happened last time Real Madrid and Vinicius travelled to face Valencia away, and given the poisonous environment surrounding referees in LaLiga this season, you imagine Liga boss Javier Tebas had his fingers crossed for two things: no racist abuse towards Vinicius and no refereeing controversy.
It didn't work out that way. Vinicius got plenty of stick from the crowd -- none of it was audibly racist to those watching on TV, but sadly, there were monkey insults directed at him in the stands, as reported by our ESPN Brasil colleague Gustavo Hofman. The fact that it's a child calling him a name and that supporters threatened the young lady who recorded it on her phone only makes this more depressing.
LaLiga have already opened an investigation. Valencia can't preemptively control what their supporters do, but when they are caught on camera after the fact, they ought to know what the right thing to do is: ban them.
- Highlights: Vinicius rescues Real Madrid (U.S. only)
As for the officiating, the controversy is all about referee Jesus Gil Manzano's decision not to allow what would have been Jude Bellingham's headed winner. Until that point, there were no evident flash points, even after VAR correctly overturned a penalty he had awarded Valencia -- it was, objectively, tough to see Fran García's touch before Hugo Duro's whiff). We were well over the seven minutes of injury time when Real Madrid were awarded a corner kick. Valencia cleared it, but only as far as Brahim Díaz at the edge of the box. He found space on the wing, crossed it and Bellingham headed home ... except Gil Manzano whistled for the end of the game as Brahim hit the ball.
A melee ensued, with a furious Bellingham getting sent off for shouting "It's a f---ing goal!" Carlo Ancelotti said he'd never seen anything like it.
Cue the conspiracy theorists.
Should Gil Manzano have waited for the ball to go out of play or, at least, Valencia to get possession? Possibly, but then we were already past the end of injury time (which, of course, is just a minimum) and he had told the players he would end the game after the corner kick. So what defines the "end of a phase of play," and does he even need to wait for the end of the phase of play? Had he blown his whistle the moment Valencia keeper Giorgi Mamardashvili had punched the ball away, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
The truth is that there's no hard and fast rule here, just common sense. Maybe there should be a rule, especially since just such a call famously cost Brazil a World Cup final back in 1978. (Actually, that one was far more extreme.)
As for the game itself, Real Madrid looked very sluggish in the first half, with Valencia pouncing on individual errors to race to a 2-0 lead before Vinicius pulled one back just before the break. Vinicius then equalised after some sterling work from Luka Modric and Brahim in the second half, doing a great job of insulating himself from the treatment he was getting from the crowd.
It wasn't a great performance from Ancelotti's crew, with Bellingham looking especially subdued (and possibly carrying an injury, too). But with Barcelona and Girona both dropping points, there's no real damage done as long as Bellingham's red card is rescinded, which it should be.
Liverpool running on fumes and with more drama, controversy in late win at Forest
Nothing is straightforward or simple for Liverpool these days. Blame lists: the fixture one, which is irremediably congested and the injury one, which may be thinning but is still significant.
After snatching the League Cup a week ago with a gaggle of debutants and then watching that same group of youngsters (augmented by others) beat Southampton in the FA Cup in midweek, we saw a hybrid team -- in the sense that there were some grown-ups, like Alexis Mac Allister, Andy Robertson and the center-backs, in the mix -- Liverpool found a Darwin Núñez winner in the ninth minute of injury time away to Nottingham Forest.
It wasn't without controversy, so let's get that out of the way first.
Referee Paul Tierney stopped play for a suspected head injury (though he might have done it for a VAR check, too) and restarted with an uncontested dropped ball. Law 8, paragraph 2 of the "Laws of the Game" seems pretty clear: unless the ball is in the penalty area (or the last touch was in the penalty area) you give the uncontested dropped ball to the team which last touched the ball wherever it was last touched. In this case, it's pretty obvious that play is stopped when the ball is with Forest's Callum Hudson-Odoi in a left-wing position. Tierney, however, restarted with a dropped ball for Liverpool keeper Caoimhín Kelleher. Two minutes later, Mac Allister teed up Nunez for the winner.
Players make mistakes, referees make mistakes, media make mistakes, we all make mistakes: I get it. But when it's a technical error involving the freaking "Laws of the Game," we're in a wholly different category. This is the same category as the Luis Díaz disallowed goal against Tottenham.
This isn't a matter of not observing something or interpreting something incorrectly. This is ignoring one of the Laws of the Game. It's like a priest not knowing the third commandment, or an Elvis impersonator not knowing "Suspicious Minds." It can't happen. Forest were furious, as you'd expect, and we'll never know to what degree it impacted Nunez's winner.
As for Liverpool, they created plenty of chances -- especially in a frenzied second half -- but simply put, they don't look like Liverpool and, given the absentees, especially in midfield, it's understandable. All Jurgen Klopp can do right now is hold things together and get results, one way or another, while he waits for the cavalry.
The good news is that Nunez and Dominik Szoboszlai were fit enough to come off the bench. Both are desperately needed from the start, while the return of Curtis Jones, Mohamed Salah and Ryan Gravenberch isn't far off either. Until then, Klopp will need his weekly mini-miracles.
Maybe it doesn't pay for Juventus to play well as they fall to Napoli, whose Champions League dreams are back on
There's a certain irony in the fact that Juventus delivered arguably their best performance of the season in the 2-1 loss to Napoli on Sunday night. The worst thing that can happen is manager Max Allegri convincing himself that they're better off being slow and defensive and waiting for some improbable, against-the-run-of-play late goal, which is how they won a bunch of their games this season.
Nope, the blueprint is what we saw, especially in the first half: intensity, cutting edge and creativity. And the fact that they did it with a starting XI missing two thirds of the starting defence, and without Weston McKennie and Adrien Rabiot, shows it can be done.
