Madrid derby draw yields drama, Man United misery, more: Marcotti recaps the weekend

Another weekend of European soccer, and another boatload of talking points to unpack. In LaLiga, the biggest game of the season so far ended with controversy and points shared as Atlético Madrid and Real Madrid endured a 20-minute stoppage in play and a 1-1 draw. In the Premier League, Tottenham took advantage of a Man United side in disarray to rack up a 3-0 victory, and Bayer Leverkusen turned in a surprisingly cautious performance while drawing at Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga‘s clash of presumed title contenders.

Elsewhere, there’s lots to discuss about Liverpool (who beat Wolves to go top of the Premier League), Manchester City (who drew at Newcastle in their first big game without Rodri), Barcelona (who rotated too many stars in a shock 4-2 defeat at Girona), and Napoli (who went top of Serie A as Antonio Conte’s methods finally look like they’re working).

It’s Monday. Gab Marcotti reacts to the biggest moments in the world of football.

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Real Madrid pegged back in injury time by Atlético as crowd issues temporarily halt game

Let’s get the football out of the way first. A Madrid derby is always a high-stakes game, even more so with Barcelona losing the day before, and it was interesting how the two coaches approached it. With Kylian Mbappé unavailable, Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti largely went back to last year’s blueprint, with Vinícius and Rodrygo as the front two and Jude Bellingham given licence to roam behind, while Luka Modric slotted in to provide creativity as Toni Kroos did a year ago.

Diego Simeone, on the other hand, who isn’t shy about chopping and changing, drew up an entirely new look for Atleti, introducing a back four, dropping his playmaker Koke and shoehorning Antoine Griezmann, Julián Álvarez and Alexander Sørloth into the lineup. Maybe it was meant to be a curveball, but given how cautious both teams were in the first half, it had little effect as both teams evidently saw this more as a “can’t lose” than a “must win.”

Simeone’s decision to introduce Koke at half-time opened things up somewhat, and the game came to life shortly before Éder Militão gave Real Madrid the lead. Ancelotti’s team grew after the break, with Vinícius and Bellingham dialing back the clock to last season. (Rodrygo? Less so, and if he turns in a few more performances like Sunday night, he’ll be the one missing out when Mbappé returns.)

The long break for the objects thrown by Atlético fans at Madrid keeper Thibaut Courtois killed some of the momentum of the match. Simeone made his usual gaggle of substitutions, and two such replacements, Javi Galán and Ángel Correa combined to score an improbable (but not undeserved) equalizer deep in injury time.

Maybe one day Simeone will tell us whether his substitutions (or, for that matter, his starting lineups) are all based on intuition or whether there’s a science behind it that only he understands. Either way, it worked. Gaining three points on Barcelona would have been huge, but both sides took a step closer to the league leaders with the draw. And in Real Madrid’s case, the Clasico in four weeks (Stream LIVE on ESPN+) looms even larger.

As for the suspension of play, which turned out to be a whopping 20 minutes, it came about when Atlético’s ultras behind Courtois’ goal started pelting the pitch with projectiles, everything from lighters to coins. The referee applied the protocol, stopping play and warning fans that the game would be abandoned if the throwing of objects continued. Fair enough.

Obviously you can condemn the culpable fans — Atleti have already issued a permanent ban to one supporter for their part in Sunday’s disruption — but postgame, Simeone and others extended the blame to Courtois. He’d been getting abuse all match long (perhaps understandable given his Atleti past), but things really came to a head after Real Madrid’s goal when he turned to the ultras and appeared to gesture “bring it on” with his team 1-0 up.

Simeone said that “we” (as in players and coaches) are also to blame when they goad the crowd. He included himself in that, as he’s done it before, but it felt a bit tone deaf considering that the fan unrest is what disrupted the biggest LaLiga game of the season to date, not the players.

Needless to say, Atlético will likely face a fine plus a stand closure as a result.

Ten Hag takes Spurs humiliation on the chin, but someone should speak up to stop club’s sense of drift, one way or another

To his credit, Erik Ten Hag didn’t hide behind Bruno Fernandes‘ red card — which, by any vantage point, was harsh and unnecessary — to explain Sunday’s humiliating 3-0 defeat at home to Tottenham.

“What I saw in the first 30 minutes [with Bruno on the pitch] is below the level of what we can expect from a Man United team and even when you concede so early, you should stay calm and just stick to the plan … then you have a foothold in the game. We didn’t have this,” he said.

And that’s sort of where the credit runs out. Six weeks into the 2024-25 season, and United have already lost half their league games and produced a wretched performance in the Europa League. The latest defeat, against a Spurs team who weren’t exactly pulling up trees and were missing their best player, is exactly the sort of outing that destroys whatever shreds of confidence you might have built up. Especially since, for the first time, Ten Hag sent out what was likely his best XI, with the possible exception of Luke Shaw (who hasn’t played for the club since February) and Rasmus Højlund (but he was on the bench, so that was the coach’s decision).

It’s not just his best XI, either: it’s Ten Hag’s XI. Other than Marcus Rashford and Diogo Dalot, these are his guys, people he either signed or elevated from the academy (like Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo).

You can get hung up on results, but more telling when you’re rebuilding are the performances. And the uncomfortable question for Ten Hag is this: what is the pathway, and how often have you seen a performance that makes you think you’re heading in the right direction? Sure, the fact that four of the starters against Spurs were new can be a mitigating factor, but that’s about it.

You can blame some players for not being good enough, though I’m not sure that on the whole you can fault their effort. Nor can you fault the crowd at Old Trafford, who have been patient throughout. So, because nobody else at the club ever faces the media, you’re left with Ten Hag carrying the can.

The risk is that by continuing with him as manager, you get trapped in a cycle of negativity and waste the season. On the flip side, the newcomers (Dan Ashworth, Omar Berrada, Jason Wilcox, et al.) opted over the summer to keep him around and give him a new deal. Pulling the plug now would raise serious questions over their judgment. I think you reassess the situation on the eve of the next international break and, if things degenerate, you have little choice.

As for Tottenham? This was vintage Ange Postecoglou; there’s a reason they’re the hardest-pressing team in the league by some margin (a PPDA of 6.75). They play at a million miles an hour, and when that happens, it’s high risk/high reward. Postecoglou says he wants them to be brave, and they certainly were, especially without Son Heung-Min, whose intelligence off the ball papers over a lot of gaps left by the press.

That type of football isn’t for everyone, but he’s true to his message of empowering players. Not many central defenders would have licence to sprint the length of the pitch with the ball the way Micky van de Ven did, which led directly to Spurs’ opening goal. Not many natural wingers would allow themselves to be reinvented as central attacking midfielders like Dejan Kulusevski was, and not many No. 10s would be allowed to freelance all over the pitch like James Maddison gets to do.

For it to work consistently, it doesn’t just take bravery, though; it takes chemistry, intelligence, fitness and buy-in. Victories like this one no doubt help, especially when it comes to the latter.

Xabi Alonso goes blue collar/hard hat and holds Bayern to a draw away from home … but is that good or bad?

This is basically a philosophical question.

You have a young coach (Xabi Alonso) who is lionized for playing devastating attacking football, winning the domestic double, earning plaudits from everyone and getting himself linked to gigs at Liverpool and Real Madrid. He goes away to Bayern, his biggest domestic rival, and his team generate a grand total of three shots on goal with a cumulative xG of 0.15 and 31% possession en route to a 1-1 draw.

Pragmatists will love it. They’ll say that his team showed they can be humble and defensive when needed and that having kept just two clean sheets in all competitions this season (and having already twice conceded three goals, which happened just once last year), it made sense to park the bus against a side like Bayern, with their 33 goals in six games this season.

Purists, meanwhile, will turn up their noses. Yes, it’s Bayern away, but it’s also an untested coach like Vincent Kompany and they had not played any top sides yet. Kompany’s approach does give you opportunities if you’re brave and take the game to them, but this sort of Leverkusen performance sends the wrong message and undermines confidence.

Me? I’m somewhere in the middle, but probably closer to the latter and not just because, as a neutral, I wanted to be entertained. You can be hyper-defensive, but you have to do it well. Surely conceding 18 shots and 1.13 xG isn’t part of the plan. Both goals were long-range screamers for which, again, neither coach can legislate, but it would have been interesting to see what might have happened if Aleksandar Pavlovic‘s had come before Robert Andrich‘s.

As for Bayern, break it down and it feels like a win. Yes, it’s weird that Harry Kane should finish the game with zero (yes, zero) shots on goal, but the back line was in shutdown mode, Pavlovic (mistake for the goal aside) impressed beyond his long-range prowess, Michael Olise lived up to the billing, and there were more than enough chances to win this. Think back to the gap between these two sides a year ago and the fact that it was Leverkusen showing Bayern all this respect tells you how far (and how quickly) they have come.

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Quick hits

10 — Buying futures? Few better than Leipzig’s trio that dominated Augsburg: If you were picking an attacking trio for the next five years, there wouldn’t be many you’d take ahead of the Leipzig combination of Loïs Openda (24), Benjamin Sesko (21) and Xavi Simons (21, on loan from Paris Saint-Germain for the second straight year). Last season, they combined for 46 league goals (and 18 assists), and after Saturday’s 4-0 drubbing of Augsburg, they’re already up to six (and five). Leipzig might be inconsistent, but the SOS (see what I did there?) appear to have a nailed-on future.

9 — Palmer steals the show in wild Chelsea win: I’m all for being bold, but Chelsea and especially Brighton took this to an extreme, at one point looking like parodies of themselves. Brighton’s absurdly high line yielded chance upon chance for the home side, while Chelsea’s obsession with playing out from the back and inviting the press (with this set of players) could have cost them far more than it did. In the end, Chelsea won 4-2 because they varied the attack and because they have Cole Palmer, who was on another level, scoring all four goals. With better finishing (Enzo Maresca wasn’t lying when he said Palmer alone could have had six or seven), they might have hit double figures. This game was so odd that it’s hard to even analyse other than concluding that Palmer — who moved to Chelsea from Manchester City in a comparably paltry £40m ($53m) deal 13 months ago — might be worth more than anyone at his old club not named Erling, Rodri or Phil. It doesn’t reflect well on his previous employers.

8 — All hail the “Conte Effect” as Napoli go top of Serie A by beating Monza: We’ve seen this before. Give Antonio Conte a couple signings and a whole week between games and you’ll see dividends. Whatever else you think of him, few coaches worldwide have the sort of impact he can have. And it’s him more than the signings thus far. Alessandro Buongiorno and Scott McTominay have been solid, and Romelu Lukaku hasn’t quite found his footing yet, which means mostly it’s been about getting last year’s crew to do better. Conte himself has been the one pumping the brakes, pointing out that, other than Juventus, they haven’t had a particularly tough fixture list thus far. The man is playing the long game…

7 — Less is more working for Slot as Liverpool go top of Premier League: Liverpool were very rarely outhustled by opponents in the Jurgen Klopp era. Under Arne Slot, they can still put the hammer down, but they are also comfortable picking their spots and letting their possession game do the work. Rather than being drawn into a slugfest by a Wolves side who are far better than their record, they concentrated on the basics and keeping their shape, again letting Ryan Gravenberch grow into the midfield general role and running out 2-1 winners. Results-wise, they’re ahead of where they thought they’d be; performance-wise, they’re clearly growing. Which is what matters to a new coach.

6 — Vlahovic masterclass suggests Motta is pushing the right buttons at Juventus: A week ago, eyebrows were raised when Thiago Motta yanked Dusan Vlahovic for (of all people) Tim Weah at half-time in Juventus’ scoreless draw with Napoli. It would be silly to say that motivated the big Serb, but it certainly didn’t deter him on the pitch as evidenced by his two goals (the second, a stunner) in the 3-0 win over Genoa. When he’s like this, he’s close to unplayable, and if Motta can keep him scoring while maintaining the watertight back line (Juventus are the only side in Europe’s Big Five leagues who have yet to concede), they can start talking league title in Year One of his tenure.

5 — Leicester win should teach Arsenal that they just need to put games away: Weird things happen in this sport, sure, like James Justin getting a deflected goal and then scoring a worldie to make it 2-2, but this should have been out of sight well before that. Arsenal were rescued by a bit of fortune and the usual set-piece prowess, with Mikel Arteta understandably spinning it as best he could in public: “In theory, when you play like that you should never get to this point [allowing an opponent to come back from 0-2 to 2-2 at home], … but I’m even happier with how we dealt with the situations afterwards [and how we were] emotionally in control.” He’ll be happier still if he can turn this into a teachable moment: if you want to win the league and you’re this much in control, you need to kill games off.

4 — Lautaro comes alive at the right time as Inter cruise: The headline stat was that Lautaro Martínez had yet to score for Inter this season and, in fact, had scored just once for the Nerazzurri since last February. So much for stupid numbers (and these are particularly stupid, since he scored plenty for Argentina at the Copa America). It was reasonable, after the summer he had, that it would take him a while to get going. Against Udinese, Lautaro was back to his best in a 3-2 away win: two goals, an assist and several big chances. Inter have their attacking linchpin back, and the good news is that they’re deeper up front than they were last season.

3 — It’s not just about Rodri but Phil Foden too as Man City held to a draw: Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Newcastle makes it three straight games without a win for Manchester City (no, the League Cup doesn’t count) and the last time that happened was 2½ years ago. It’s easy to point to Rodri’s absence, but I thought the combination of Rico Lewis, Mateo Kovacic and Manuel Akanji stepping up worked well enough. More relevant were Newcastle’s performance, the defensive hiccup that led to Anthony Gordon‘s penalty, Erling Haaland‘s off day and, especially, Phil Foden. He wasn’t fully fit going into the season, but he has now appeared in four league and European games, all of them off the bench. This is the guy who had 19 goals and eight assists en route to being named Player of the Year last season. City are deep, yes, but probably not deep enough to cope with prolonged absences for Rodri and Kevin De Bruyne and a Foden who is there in body only.

2 — A rotation too far for Flick as Barça fall to Osasuna: Some will throw Hansi Flick under the bus in these circumstances. With eight senior players out, he still decided to leave Alejandro Balde, Raphinha, Lamine Yamal and Iñigo Martínez on the bench, stuffing the side with La Masia guys. I get the criticism, especially with more manageable games (like a Champions League date Young Boys at home in midweek) coming up ahead of the international break. Then again, he’s been preaching faith in the kids and the “next man up” ethos since he arrived, so maybe it’s not surprising that he would push it for one more game. When you have momentum, it’s hard to pump the brakes at the right time.

1 — Aston Villa miss their chance after second-half collapse at Ipswich: Unai Emery might be an acquired taste, but he’s pretty good at photographing situations. So when he notes how poor Villa were after the break, you tend to believe him. In fact, after going 2-1 up, they cobbled together just three shots for 0.20 xG and suffered against Ipswich’s intensity and movement. Liam Delap could have had a hat-trick, and Diego Carlos will get nightmares over the stepover that turned him inside out. Games (and performances) like this one can leave their mark, for better and for worse.