However, Bayern Munich maintained their flawless start to the defence of their Bundesliga crown by hammering Werder Bremen on Friday evening, with Harry Kane making more history in the process, while French titleholders Paris Saint-Germain returned to winning ways after losing their perfect record in Marseille last week by cruising past Auxerre at the Parc des Princes.
Of course, these weren’t the only major talking points of the latest round of matches across the continent. Below, BALLGM runs through the biggest winners and losers from this weekend’s action in Europe’s top leagues…
However, Bayern Munich maintained their flawless start to the defence of their Bundesliga crown by hammering Werder Bremen on Friday evening, with Harry Kane making more history in the process, while French titleholders Paris Saint-Germain returned to winning ways after losing their perfect record in Marseille last week by cruising past Auxerre at the Parc des Princes.
Of course, these weren’t the only major talking points of the latest round of matches across the continent. Below, BALLGM runs through the biggest winners and losers from this weekend’s action in Europe’s top leagues…
Julian Alvarez certainly doesn’t lack bottle. He didn’t think twice about stepping up to the mark when Atletico Madrid were awarded a spot-kick early in the second half of Saturday’s dramatic derby at the Metropolitano.
The last time he had taken a penalty against Real, his desperately unfortunate ‘double-touch’ had effectively cost Atletico a place in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. On this occasion, though, Alvarez kept his footing – and his cool – to put his side 3-2 ahead.
Twelve minutes later, Alvarez struck again – this time from a fantastic free-kick to make it five goals in two Liga games for a striker that had drawn a blank in his four previous outings.
“I had been getting chances,” the Argentine pointed out after Atletic’s stunning 5-2 triumph. “It would have been more worrying if I hadn’t been, so I was relaxed. I just had to work on being more efficient, take the chances that came.”
He certainly did that against both Real and Rayo Vallecano, resulting in Atletico doubling their points haul to climb to fourth in the table. Perhaps even more significantly, Alvarez’s spectacular return to form also went a long way towards quelling speculation that he is unhappy at Atleti.
“I feel very looked after,” he insisted on Saturday. “I just work every day to improve and help the team. The season is very long, still a lot to play for.” However, the World Cup winner did also add: “I just think short-term, and no further.”
Alvarez, then, remains a player well worth watching – for a variety of reasons.
Diego Simeone was overcome with emotion after Atletico’s derby demolition of Real Madrid. With less than 10 minutes to go in Wednesday’s clash with Rayo Vallecano, the Rojiblancos were 2-1 down and in very real danger of extending their worst-ever start to a season under Simeone. However, after an Alvarez-inspired late comeback against Rayo, and a historic rout of Real, Simeone was shedding happy tears on Saturday night.
“I cried at the end because there were many emotions inside me,”the notoriously aggressive Argentine admitted. “The season started in a very complicated fashion and there is a lot of effort from many people who are not seen, so this felt wonderful.”
Inevitably, Xabi Alonso was experiencing very different emotions after he and his players suffered a humiliating derby drubbing.
“We are hurting, as are the fans,” the former Bayer Leverkusen boss said.”It was a derby and it’s a deserved defeat. It was a bad game. We didn’t start well, we didn’t play well collectively, with and without the ball.”
Alonso had, of course, won his first six Liga games as Real’s new boss but there had been a nagging suspicion that the brilliance of Kylian Mbappe up front was papering over the cracks in Madrid’s midfield and defence; the derby illustrated why.
The French forward drew los Blancos level with a characteristically clinical first-half finish but stormed down the tunnel at full-time, clearly and understandably frustrated with a dreadfully disjointed display from the visitors.
Restoring the fit-again but tactically ill-disciplined Jude Bellingham to the starting line-up was, in hindsight, a very premature decision – one that Alonso had to defend in his post-match press conference – while Madrid’s obvious vulnerability in the air was belatedly and brutally exposed by Atleti.
Alonso was right to point out that Real remain in “a construction phase” – but it’s clear that the project is not quite as far along as some pundits and supporters had initially claimed.
There has been a lot of talk in recent days about Harry Kane returning to Tottenham Hotspur. However, while Thomas Frank publicly admitted that he “would like to see Kane back”in north London, he also predicted that the England captain would “probably stay at Bayern and continue performing well” – and it’s difficult to disagree, on either count. Kane looks happy in Munich, because he’s playing brilliantly in Munich.
As well as finally ending his trophy drought by firing Bayern to last season’s Bundesliga title, Kane has also smashed a succession of goalscoring records. He broke another on Friday night – and it might just be his most impressive to date.
With his brace in the 4-0 win over Werder Bremen, Kane made it 100 goals for Bayern in just 104 appearances. No player across Europe’s ‘Big 5′ leagues has become a centurion at a single club in fewer matches since 2000 – not even Cristiano or Erling Haaland (both of whom achieved the feat in 105 games, for Real Madrid and Manchester City, respectively).
“From a personal point of view, 100 goals for Bayern Munich, I’m extremely proud of that,” Kane wrote on Instagram.”I’m privileged to play for this great club and to do it in record time, 104 games as well, is for sure something I’m proud of.”
Even more encouragingly for Bayern, Kane insisted the idea of rejoining Spurs hadn’t entered his mind. “I’m really happy here,” he stated. “I have two years left on my contract. I’m enjoying every moment. [Returning to England] is not in my thought process.
“I’m enjoying it with the team, with the coach, and hopefully we continue to be successful.” If Kane keeps scoring at this ridiculous rate, there’s every chance they will be.
Massimiliano Allegri’s ‘the ends justifies the means’ approach to football is not for everyone. Even at Juventus, where the mantra is ‘winning is the only thing that counts’, many supporters were glad to see the back of the coach after his dreadfully dull second spell in Turin. Consequently, some Milan fans were unsure about their club’s decision to rehire Allegri during the summer. As the old Italian saying goes, ‘Reheated soup is never good.’
However, 14 years after Allegri won a Scudetto with Milan, there’s now talk of him repeating the feat – which is remarkable, really, given he oversaw an embarrassing loss at home to Cremonese on the opening weekend of the new Serie A season.
Since then, though, the Rossoneri have reeled off four successive wins, including a wonderfully spirited 2-1 victory over Napoli on Sunday night that saw Milan move ahead of the Italian champions on goal difference at the summit of the Serie A standings.
It’s still very early days, of course, but credit where it’s due, Milan were as good going forward during the first half of their fully-deserved victory over Antonio Conte’s side as they were stubborn in the second – particularly after the dismissal of Pervis Estupinan.
So, while doubts remain over the true strength of Allegri’s new side, it’s well worth remembering that Milan don’t have any European football to worry about this term, meaning talk of a title challenge maybe isn’t that fanciful…
On what was billed as a ‘night of stars’ at football’s answer to La Scala, Christian Pulisic shone brighter than most, creating Milan’s opener against Napoli before scoring the second himself.
Kevin De Bruyne, though, looked capable of upstaging the American only to make a surprisingly early exit. After halving Milan’s deficit with a calmly-taken penalty, the Belgian veteran was taken off – along with Scott McTominay and Rasmus Hojlund – with 18 minutes still to go at San Siro.
While Hojlund’s withdrawal may have been justified, given the Dane’s struggles up top, the decision to remove McTominay, last season’s Serie A MVP, and De Bruyne certainly raised eyebrows.
Antonio Conte, who was also criticised for giving summer signings Luca Marianucci and Miguel Gutierrez their debuts in such an important fixture, defended his substitutions by telling DAZN “I tried to introduce fresh legs, as Milan were clamming up, and we needed something different. I think those were the right changes to make at that time.”
De Bruyne definitely disagreed, though. He was visibly annoyed by his substitution but Conte issued a stark warning to the Manchester City legend. “I hope he was irritated at the result, because if he was irritated about something else, he is dealing with the wrong person,” the Napoli coach stated.
As we flagged last week, Paris Saint-Germain’s participation in the Club World Cup may well come back to haunt them due to their complete lack of a pre-season.
Luis Enrique has already lost Ousmane Dembele, Desire Doue, Joao Neves and Marquinhos to injury this season, while both Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Vitinha were forced off in Saturday’s 2-0 win over Auxerre, meaning PSG could be without six first-team players for Wednesday’s Champions League showdown with Barcelona.
Still, if there was one positive to come out of the weekend – other than former Bournemouth defender Illia Zabarnyi scoring his first goal for the club – it was the debuts for Quentin Ndjantou and Mathis Jangeal, whom Luis Enrique referees to as ‘The Titis’.
The 18-year-old Ndjantou came on just after the hour mark for Senny Mayulu – yet another PSG academy product – while Jangeal was introduced in place of Lee Kang-in with just over 10 minutes to go.
“I’m very happy to have been able to make my debut with the club I love, to come on like that at the Parc des Princes,” the 17-year-old told PSG’s official website.”It’s a day that will stay in my memory forever. Seeing Quentin come on gave me confidence.”
Indeed, for all of the massive amounts of oil money being splashed on players in Paris, it’s clear that the club’s under-age stars are taking great encouragement out of the club’s investment and faith in young players.
Luis Enrique’s hand may have been a tad forced on Saturday by a shortage of senior personnel but Ndjantou made a point of thanking his coach “for the confidence he showed in us” and, going by their promising cameos at the Parc des Princes, ‘The Titis’ clearly have the potential to repay that show of faith by providing in-house solutions to PSG’s injury problems.
Having either scored or assisted in his first three games of the new Liga season, Lamine Yamal picked up a groin problem that ruled him out of action for a month. Barcelona may have won four consecutive matches in all competitions without Yamal but they’re just not quite the same side without their Ballon d’Or runner-up, as we saw against Real Sociedad on Sunday evening.
The Blaugrana were being held at home, and thus in real danger of blowing the chance to replace Real Madrid at the top of the table, when Hansi Flick brought the fit-again Yamal off the bench. Almost exactly a minute later,the 18-year-old set up the game’s deciding goal for Robert Lewandowski.
“It was a team victory,” Flick said after Barca’s hard-fought 2-1 win. “But it’s great that Yamal is back. Everyone saw what a fantastic player he is.”
Barca are obviously not short on attacking talent. La Masia also keeps churning out potential stars, as underlined by the 17-year-old Dro Fernandez making his senior debut at Monjuic.
However, there’s just no getting away from the fact that Barca haven’t produced a player like Yamal since Lionel Messi, so we probably shouldn’t be surprised that the winger is now making an immediate impact every single time he sets foot on the pitch.
Yamal really is only going to get better and better, then – which is great news for both Barca and Spain, but an ominous development for anyone with aspirations of winning the 2026 Ballon d’Or. If Yamal stays fit, next year’s vote won’t even be close.
