September Report - European Football

With September drawing to a close, the European football season has started off on a rather interesting note.

Ok, French league title looks set to stay in the capital again with Paris Saint Germain off to their best start to a league campaign in recent times, and powerhouses Marseille and Lyon nowhere on the table, having lost a manager, Marco Bielsa and best player, Nabil Fekir at the start of the season respectively. At least, Angers are making waves with their flying start to their first season in the top flight in many years, while fellow newcomers, Gazalec Ajaccio could potentially be the worst team ever to play in any top European league.

Then there’s Bayern Munich who are running away with the German title as usual this time on the back of their tall Pole, Robert Lewandowski’s goals – he scored 6 in the last two games and notched his 100^th Bundesliga goal on the weekend. Mind you, Borussia Dortmund seem back to their best after an astonishing start to the season but have just went a little bit off the rails after two consecutive draws against Hoffenheim and newcomers Darmstadt.  

Of interest was the departure of respected coach, Lucien Favre, from Borussia Moenchengladbach after a horror start to the season which saw the Manchester City’s rivals in the Champions League at the bottom of the league table. The northerners won their first game following Favre’s resignation but have a long way to catch up with the likes of Wolfsburg and Bayer Leverkusen.

The most interesting scenarios are definitely in the traditional big 3 leagues of England, Spain and Italy.

In Spain, there are signs that Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid could be joined at the top by several other contenders, with Villarreal a shock leader of La Liga at the moment, and Celta Vigo in 4^th – the Gallician club were of course managed by current Barca coach, Luis Enrique before the ex-Spanish midfielder headed to the Camp Nou. Deportivo la Coruna, Spanish champions in 2000, seemed to have brought back the good times of early in the last decade, sitting in 6^th on the table in their first season back in the top flight.

Across the Mediterranean, Juventus are nowhere to be seen after a stuttering start to the defence of their umpteenth Scudetto title. AS Roma, their usual challengers of the last few seasons, have also stuttered after a decent start, ceding top spot to Internazionale, who have not seen better times since Jose Mourinho led the Nerrazzurri to Champions League glory in 2010.

Former City boss, Roberto Mancini is back at the San Siro to guide the blue half of Milan back to the title winning ways he experienced pre-City days and after this start, who wouldn’t bet against him repeating history? The challengers are being led by Fiorentina, Torino and recent surprise packages, Sassuolo, one of three little Italian clubs from Italy’s industrious centre – the others are Carpi and Frosinone – playing in the top flight.

With Serie A climbing up the UEFA rankings and pushing the Premier League for 3^rd spot, it’s safe to say that Italian football is making a great recovery after some very lean years.

As for the Premier League, chaos and excitement sum it up. Mancini’s old club sparkled at the start but after two consecutive defeats to West Ham and Tottenham, question marks have again been raised of Manuel Pellegrini’s side especially with those defeats coming after the home defeat to out of form Juventus. At least they’re in a better position than Chelsea who are in the bottom half of the table and struggling for some consistency with Mourinho’s excuses for defeat making more headlines than the team itself.

All this has left Manchester United to lead the table. Amidst the arrival of experienced internationals, Schneiderlin and Schweinsteiger, it’s a virtually unknown teenager called Martial who is creating huge waves at Old Trafford. Signed from Monaco, the French teenager wasn’t really expected to feature in van Gaal’s plans this season but with van Persie now in Turkey and Rooney a bit goal shy, it’s been Martial’s form that has really caught the eye and led the Red Devils back to familiar ground.

Behind Manchester, it’s West Ham United leading fellow Londoners Arsenal, Tottenham and surprise package, Crystal Palace, albeit no thanks to their home form which has been poor in what is their last season at Upton Park before moving to The Stadium. Slaven Bilic could take some inspiration from Namibia who recently took centre stage at their new home against the All Blacks.

Behind them, Leicester City have been providing all the thrills under the man known as the Tinkerman. Claudio Ranieri is still a long way from achieving the status Martin O’Neill had with the club in the 1990s but the Foxes certainly have never played this well since their move to the new stadium 12 years ago, and top ten is a realistic goal for a side that were bottom of the table 9 months ago and set for relegation.

There is one more round of games to go before the international break but one could say this is one of the best football seasons in a while.