The Rebound - Worldwide: Kobel clanger gives Tuchel a winning start as Spanish relegation battle heats up

Welcome back to the worldwide edition of The Rebound, where we unearth the best and strangest stories from around the footballing world for you to pore over, and then show off a few of the very best goals from the global game that you might have missed this weekend.

Let’s start today in Germany, where Thomas Tuchel’s sudden appointment as Bayern Munich manager has got off to a pretty much perfect start. With Tuchel’s side starting the weekend a point behind Borussia Dortmund, they won 4-2 to take back control of a title race that now looks like it’s down to three runners and riders.

Thomas Muller hit two to give the repeat German champions a healthy 3-0 lead, but it was the first goal of the night which will live longest in the memory – and probably too long in the memory for the unfortunate Gregor Kobel in the Dortmund net. If anyone wants to watch the Swiss stopper have the worst moment of his professional life, just click play below…

Elsewhere, Union Berlin kept themselves in the conversation with a 3-0 win over VfB Stuttgart, a result which puts Stuttgart rock bottom and saw them sack their coach. Union, the clear romantic’s choice for the title, are four points behind Bayern. Rather less likely to lift the title are RB Leipzig, who seem to have imploded somewhat, going down 3-0 at home to Mainz. That second straight defeat leaves them dead in the water and even out of the Champions League spots, while keeping Mainz in contention for a European place of their own.

Meanwhile, over in France, we reported a fortnight ago that there were just some slight signs of Paris Saint Germain losing their grip on a title race that had looked like a foregone conclusion – and in their first game back after the international break, they opened the door a little further with a 1-0 home defeat to Lyon.

To make matters worse, the PSG support took the opportunity to boo Lionel Messi – you know, the official best player in the world – over reports that he wants to go back to Barcelona. Not sure that’s an especially effective way of persuading a player to stay at your club, but to each their own. PSG can take some solace in Marseille failing to take more than a point from Montpellier, meaning that the south coast side are now six points behind the Parisiens along with Lens. Still, that gap is rather closer than it was a month or so ago, and with PSG losing twice on the bounce, we may not be done with the Ligue 1 title race just yet.

Down in Spain, the relegation battle has developed a few new twists and turns. Sevilla have appointed Jose Luis Mendilibar, a hugely experienced coach who’s been in a fair few relegation battles before – although his last couple haven’t been too successful, having taken Eibar down in 2021 before being sacked the following season by Alaves, who eventually finished dead last. He did get off to a better start in Seville however, with a 2-0 win over Cadiz putting four points between the serial Europa League winners and the dreaded drop.

Valencia, another giant in mortal danger, scraped a 1-1 draw against Rayo Vallecano on Monday night, a result which lifts them out of the bottom three on goal difference – and puts Espanyol into the red zone after their 2-1 defeat to Girona, their fourth reverse in a row. That’s caused the Catalans to fire manager Diego Martinez and appoint club legend Luis Garcia, despite Garcia having no senior management experience. That’s not the Liverpool Luis Garcia, just to clear up any confusion. Anyway, with just four points between 13^th and 19^th place, the Spanish relegation battle is shaping up to be just as tense as the Premier League’s basement bun fight – albeit with one team, Elche, who look very, very doomed indeed.

Finally a brief word from the United States, where the MLS season is half a dozen games old and shiny new franchise St Louis SC are having a very smooth start to life as a professional football club, leading the Western Conference with five wins in their first six matches. Please try not to be confused by the fact that St Louis isn’t remotely in the Western half of America – as any NFL fans reading will know, geography always has to take back seat when it comes to sporting orchestration. Not that we English can talk – take a look at Gloucester on a map and tell me that their football team should be in the National League North. Anyway, we digress…

There are two other good reasons to mention the MLS this week, and one of them is to marvel at LA Galaxy – or rather, to marvel at how unexpectedly bad they are. With a starry side including Javier Hernandez, Martin Caceres, Douglas Costa and recent Barcelona starlet Riqui Puig, they look on paper like they should be carving the Western Conference up - but instead are winless after five and find themselves 12^th out of 14 teams. The other good reason to mention the MLS is that one of Italy’s Euro 2020 winners, Federico Bernadeschi, scored direct from a corner for Toronto, and who doesn’t want to see that?

Snapshots

Before sharing a few screamers from around the world, a quick word on an intriguing development at the top of the Belgian league. Current leaders Racing Genk, who have a three-point advantage over Union Saint-Gilloise, have been hit with a mammoth tax bill that puts the club in a very serious situation indeed.

You see, Genk are operated as a non-profit organisation, and have been so for some time. But the Belgian taxman has decided to disagree with the assessment that they are anything other than a for-profit professional football team and have whacked the club with a €39.4m bill. For a club which has registered substantial financial losses over the past two seasons, this can safely be described as very bad news indeed. Expect court battles, of course, but the 2019 champions have had a very sudden cloud dangled over a very good season.

There was also some rather more pleasing news from Brazil, where €60m superstar-in-the-making Endrick finally ended a tear-inducing goal drought, scoring for Palmeiras in the first leg of the Campeonato Paulista final against Agua Santa - the first goal for the wonderkid in twelve games. Unfortunately, his side lost 2-1, but the immense weight on a talented young man’s shoulders probably feels just that little bit lighter now - and the weight he carries will be lessened further by the Madrid press getting off his back for five minutes.

Anyway, from bills to bangers – let’s start with La Liga F, where Real Madrid’s Caroline Moller was given a bit of space and decided to do something absolutely outrageous with the football:

And if you like a long-range cracker, you’ll also take some joy from this peach from Salvador Agra for Boavista – a rare example of a fancy free-kick routine actually amounting to something. Not that it amounted to any points – Maritimo won 4-2.

Wait, you still need more long-range crackers? Will you be happy if we give you one which comes after a mazy dribble through the middle of the park? Will you be even happier if we tell you it was by former Southampton winger Nathan Redmond, currently plying his trade in Turkey with Besiktas? You’d better be:

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Finally, let’s take what is rapidly becoming a regular visit to Poland. The Ekstraklasa doesn’t have a particular reputation for quality, but there always seems to be a stunner in there somewhere – and this time it came from the dancing feet of Mateusz Mak, who conjured this up for Stal Mielec against Jagionella…