After a weekend of shocks, controversy, and goals, it’s fair to say that European football is fully back in the swing of things after the Christmas break.
In La Liga, Real Madrid and Barcelona both won dramatic games on Sunday.
In Serie A, Juventus continued to put the pressure on Inter at the top of the table.
And in Germany, Bayern Munich oddly continued to falter despite literally having Harry Kane.
Here’s 90min’s main takeaways from an enthralling weekend of European football:
Real Madrid sure made hard work of beating a team who haven’t won a single game all season, huh?
Two down heading into half-time following a rancid first half showing – in which they managed zero shots on target – Madrid came out with renewed vigour after the interval, and eventually went on to win the game thanks to a 99th minute winner from Dani Carvajal…but not without a lot of help from controversial refereeing decisions.
The first produced their opening goal, an Almeria handball which led to Jude Bellingham’s penalty kick, the second chalked off what would’ve been the visitors third goal for a rather nothing foul in the build-up and the third, well, the third was the worst of all.
Vinicius Junior’s equalising goal, scored by stabbing the ball into the net with the upper part of his arm, was amazingly allowed to stand despite being a very, very clear handball.
All of that controversy gave Madrid the platform to go and win the game, and stay within touching distance of surprise La Liga leaders Girona.
*Not literally as Fabrizio Romano would have you believe about so many footballers.
This time last season things weren’t exactly going to plan for Dusan Vlahovic at Juventus.
The Serbian was notably struggling in front of goal, and was set to embark upon a run of 14 Serie A games in which he’d score just two goals.
Fast forward one year, however, and things are very different for Vlahovic at Juve.
With five goals in five games already in 2024 – including four in his last two games – Vlahovic is showing exactly why Juventus forked out a whopping £62.8m for his services two years ago. The 23-year-old is scored every type of goal imaginable right now, and firing his club to a first genuine Scudetto challenge in quite a few years.
At about 7pm GMT on Sunday, Barcelona were probably preparing a ‘comunicado oficial’ to announce that Xavi Hernandez had left the club after the club spurned a 2-0 lead away at Real Betis.
Xavi’s job was saved by rather unlikely sources by 8pm: Ferran Torres and Joao Felix.
Ferran bagged a hat-trick and an assist to almost double his La Liga goal contributions tally, and Joao Felix – dropped by Xavi due to his woeful recent performances – scored a stunning goal late to secure a 4-2 win.
It was a much needed win, but Xavi needs to build on it if he’s going to be La Blaugrana’s manager next season.
One UEFA Champions League, two Ligue 1 titles, one Bundesliga title, one DFB-Pokal.
It’s not a bad list of honours by any means.
However, not winning the Bundesliga title after adding one of the best strikers in the world (Harry Kane) and one of the best defenders in the world (Kim Min-jae) to a team that’s won 11 consecutive league titles would call Thomas Tuchel’s credentials into question.
And rightly so.
There’s simply no excuse for the current Bayern team, filled with a gluttony of world class players, to have lost 5-1 to Eintracht Frankfurt before the Christmas break, and 1-0 to Werder Bremen shortly after. And yet, Tuchel has managed to do both…somehow.
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