The Rebound: Worldwide - wasted chances in Germany, Lionel Messi magic and a Norwegian wondergoal
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Welcome to The Rebound: Worldwide, digesting the biggest news and strangest stories from around the world – and this week, we look back on a weekend of wasted chances in races for titles and European spots in the big five leagues as well as showing off some of the best bangers from Denmark and Japan. If you haven’t seen Amahl Pellegrino’s goal for Bodø/Glimt yet, do be sure to make it to the end… it’s a humdinger.
Let’s start in Germany, where Bayern Munich could only manage a 1-1 home draw against Hoffenheim despite dominating the match. That opened up a huge window of opportunity for Borussia Dortmund to reclaim the lead in the Bundesliga, an opportunity they blew in suitably spectacular fashion.
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Goals from Sebastian Haller and Donyell Malen put Dortmund 2-0 ahead against VfB Stuttgart before a second yellow for former Arsenal defender Konstantinos Mavropanos seemingly put the visitors in total control of a game with ramifications at both ends of the table – but Tanguy Coulibaly’s deflected effort in the 78th minute brought Stuttgart back into it before some comedic defending allowed Josha Vangoman to level six minutes later.
Happily for Dortmund, Gio Reyna scored two minutes into injury time to restore Dortmund’s lead and seemingly send them top. Unhappily, another demonstration of utterly hapless defending saw them gift wrap an equaliser for Silas Mvumpa with scant seconds left on the clock, and with Union Berlin also drawing, the title race ended up going nowhere.
At the other end of the Bundesliga table, there was a huge clash between the bottom two as Schalke hosted Hertha Berlin on Friday evening – and the home side ran out 5-2 winners in a remarkable game to edge themselves in the direction of safety and leave a bedraggled Hertha, who narrowly avoided relegation for the past two years, circling the drain. They’re still only two points shy of Stuttgart, who are third bottom and currently in line for a relegation play-off, so hope is far from lost, but it was a humbling defeat for a team in deep trouble.
Over in France, the big match of the weekend was second-placed Lens’ visit to Paris Saint-Germain. A couple of recent defeats had seen the title holders open up a slight window in the race for first place, a window which they slammed firmly shut in the first half.
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Hide AdAbdul Samed’s early red card for a bad challenge on Achraf Hakimi gave Lens a huge hill to climb, and they clearly left their crampons at home. Kylian Mbappe’s smart turn and shot opened the scoring, Vitinha rifled home from 25 yards to double the lead, and then Lionel Messi scored the pick of the goals after a beautiful backheeled assist from Mbappe:
Lens improved in the second period and even clawed one back from the penalty spot, but PSG held on comfortably enough to a 3-1 win which puts them nine points clear in the title race with seven left to play – a lead they are unlikely to blow, one would think.
Down in Italy there was yet another dramatic weekend as the race for top four took yet another series of twists and turns. Roma, who were going in the wrong direction a few weeks ago, beat Udinese 3-0 to give themselves a five-point buffer over fifth place as AC Milan drew with Bologna, Inter Milan lost at home to Monza and Juventus went down 1-0 away to Sassuolo, a result which leaves the Old Lady nine points shy of a Champions League spot with eight to play.
Napoli’s surprise draw at home to relegation-threatened Hellas Verona and Lazio’s routine win over Spezia means that the title race continues, just about, with Napoli wobbling very, very slightly to narrow the cavernous lead to “only” 14 points. Still done and dusted, one would think, with Lazio almost certain now to join the champions elect at Europe’s top table next season.
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Hide AdMeanwhile, over in Spain, there was a massive match at the wrong end of the table as Valencia took on Sevilla with both sides under very real threat of relegation from La Liga – and Sevilla built on their impressive comeback against Manchester United with a 2-0 away win which sees them surge up to 12th and leaves Valencia three points short of safety having failed to win in four. With Espanyol losing yet again, two of Spanish football’s most historic clubs are left dangling over the precipice.
Before we move on to the best goals of the weekend – and prepare ourselves for some gratuitous French nudity – a quick update on the latest happenings in Argentina, where football is noted for its calming qualities and relaxed atmosphere. Just kidding.
During Thursday’s match between Rosario Central and Independiente, the home side were winning 1-0 in the final minutes when centre-half Facundo Mallo went down with an apparent – read exaggerated – injury before an Independiente corner. So long did Mallo spend on the turf doing the writhing-around-in-agony bit that the referee ordered him off, with medical staff escorting him from the field, much to Rosario manager Miguel Angel Russo’s fury. A man down at the set piece, Independiente equalised and Russo went right off the reservation.
Remonstrating angrily with the medical staff at their cart, he got sufficiently riled up to punch one of the paramedics on standby in the face before being dragged away by his coaching staff – only to find out that VAR had disallowed the goal anyway. No word on potential sanctions for the 67 year-old manager, who is in his fifth spell in charge of Rosario. They won 1-0 in the end in any case, a result which leaves them sixth and the visitors 24th in the bloated 28-team table.
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Hide AdNot that one of Argentina’s most historic sides are in any great danger of relegation – demotion is determined by a points coefficient over the past three seasons, and Independiente would have to lose practically every game to get relegated this campaign. River Plate lead the way in the Primera Division with 10 wins from their opening 12 games, while eternal rivals Boca Junior are struggling in 18th, having lost four of their last five matches.
Snapshots
At the top of today’s article we mentioned in passing that Amahl Pellegrino scored a pretty nifty goal – one of three, as it happened, as Bodø/Glimt sank Stabæk 4-0 in the second round of games in Norway’s top tier. You’ll definitely want to watch this one:
On the subject of ridiculously good goals, let’s take a look at a couple of absolute peaches from Japan. First up, an off-balance Ryoma Watanabe of FC Tokyo improvised this piece of magic to square things up against Cerezo Osaka:
And speaking of equalisers involving teams from Osaka, Gamba’s Hideki Ishige levelled the game against Kyoto Sanga with this perfectly-struck pearler:
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Hide AdBoth goals ended up being in losing causes, sadly. You don’t always get what you deserve when you score a worldie. But you do often get what’s coming to you if you score an embarrassing own goal in the dying moments of the biggest game of the season, as the unfortunate Aiham Ousou discovered when he managed to find his own net in injury time to give Sparta Prague a 3-3 draw against rivals Slavia. To make matters worse, Slavia would have gone top had the Swedish defender managed to clear the ball rather than rattling it into his own goal. Ah well...
Lastly this week, let’s briefly head back to France, and please note that any younger or more sensitive readers should stop now unless they want to look at a row of bare male backsides.
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Relegation-bound Angers, who are a whopping 17 points adrift at the bottom (ha) of Ligue 1, were drawing 1-1 away to mid-table Clermont Foot when the home side were awarded a penalty. Facing the prospect of going behind (ha), Angers’ fans decided to try and put off Clermont’s Muhammed Cham with a rather cheeky (ha) display of their rear ends, collectively mooning the Austrian forward as he prepared himself to take the spot-kick.
It didn’t work, Cham scored, and Angers lost 2-1. But if for some reason you want to look at a (relatively non-obscene) photo of the incident, we do not see fit to stand in your way:
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