Qatar in the foot – Newspaper Kommersant No. 17 (7462) of 01/31/2023

After the restart of the “big five” championships, following the pause for the world championship in Qatar, some of them are experiencing curious events related primarily to the problems of the giants – Real Madrid, PSG, Bayern.

Spanish Championship

It is likely that Real Madrid managers are now quietly cursing the Qatari World Cup. It is unlikely that there is at least one top club that would not experience problems with the restoration of players who returned from it, who were forced to join domestic tournaments almost without interruption, but the Madrid club has very serious problems. After the world championship, he played four matches in the Spanish championship, winning only two victories in them and consistently showing lackluster football. And in the final of the Super Cup in Saudi Arabia, he hopelessly lost to Barcelona.

The match of the 19th round of the championship fit perfectly into the trend. With Real Sociedad fighting for a prize-winning place, the Madrid players played at home in a terribly dreary mode. True, in the second half they managed – mainly thanks to Vinicius – to create a couple of good chances, but in general, a goalless draw seemed to be a fairly fair result. And after it, the backlog of “Real” from the leader in the championship “Barcelona” has grown to five points. And this is already a huge distance, hinting that the intrigue in the “gold race” is about to be killed.

French Championship

However, Real Madrid’s competition in terms of the severity of the torment after the World Cup in Qatar is the French football giant PSG. Something completely incomprehensible is going on with him now. In theory, the championship of France for the Parisians should be a warm-up tournament. But you can’t say the same about the segment that fell at the end of December and January.

After the championship resumed, PSG spent five meetings in it and lost eight points in them – twice as many as in the fifteen that preceded them! Moreover, the situation was not corrected by the return of Lionel Messi from vacation in mid-January. PSG lost to Lance and Rennes, and on Sunday at home they broke the world – 1: 1 – with Reims, which was also not at all afraid of the presence of all superstars in the hosts – Messi, Kylian Mbappe, and Neymar.

The most interesting thing in this match happened in the second half. Neymar opened the scoring. But everything was turned upside down by the removal of Marco Verratti, after which Reims came to life and restored the balance in the end.

Unlike Real Madrid, however, the losses do not prevent PSG from continuing to top the league table. He is three points ahead of Lance.

Italian Championship

In the Italian championship, Napoli is getting closer to the title. After the next round, in which the Neapolitans defeated – 2: 1 – Roma, their gap from the closest pursuer – Inter – has already reached 13 points.

At the same time, Juventus is getting closer to a grandiose disaster. The week before last, he was stripped of 15 points for all sorts of fraudulent activities in the implementation of transfers and bookkeeping. And purely sports slaps were superimposed on this slap in the face. At the beginning of the year, Juventus are failing after failure. In mid-January, he was smashed to smithereens – 5: 1 – by Napoli. The rout was followed by a draw – 3:3 – with Atalanta, and in the last round, the Turin team flew into the home stadium – 0:2 – Monza. Their fans should not look at the classification of the Italian championship once again. In it, Juventus is now 13th.

German Championship

Curious things are happening in Germany, whose championship restarted much later than the rest of the Big Five championships – on January 20th. Three rounds were played after it, and in all of them Bayern drew with the same score 1:1. Thus ended her meetings with Leipzig, and Cologne, and Eintracht. Meanwhile, Union is already breathing in the back of the flagship: he won all three of his matches – with Hoffenheim, Werder Bremen and Hertha – and is only a point behind the Munich team. And next to him are Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund with Freiburg. In general, the intrigue burns with a bright fire.

FA Cup

The past weekend in England was given over to the matches of the fourth round of the Cup of the country, and their most notable event was the loss of Liverpool – 1:2 – to Brighton. It is remarkable because it corresponds to a sad trend for those who are worried about the Liverpool. They are not doing well this season. A little over a month ago, there was a relegation from the English League Cup, and in the championship, Liverpool are only ninth. Moreover, in this tournament two weeks ago, Brighton inflicted an even more painful defeat on the crisis-ridden giant – 3:0.

Arnold Kabanov