Paris (AFP)

The weekend of football in Europe has already carried its share of strong emotions between the resumption of Serie A marked by silences and symbols, the Lewandowski record with King Bayern and the frustrated joy of Leicester.

- Rodgers, the emotional lift -

For its recovery, Leicester experienced a crazy end of the match on the lawn of Watford (1-1). The Foxes thought they prevailed over a sublime shot from Ben Chilwell at the start of additional time (90th) but Craig Dawson, also defender, replied with an aerobatic return just as aesthetic (90th + 3).

Third in the Premier League, the Midlands club therefore missed two important points in the race for the Champions League, which will not delight Brendan Rodgers. The Leicester coach, hit by the Covid-19 during the truce - "I could barely walk, it reminded me of when I climbed Kilimanjaro" -, raised his arms in the air on the opening score, displaying a broad smile. But three minutes later, it was the cheering supporters of Watford that we saw on television, via the webcams installed in their living rooms.

- Calcio and "heroes" -

One hundred and three days after the Sassuolo-Brescia match of March 9, the Italian championship resumed its race on Saturday, with a duel between Torino and Parma loaded with symbols. The players and referees first observed a minute of silence in memory of the more than 34,000 victims of the coronavirus in the Boot. On the shirt of the Torino, we could read this inscription: "Thank you to all our heroes".

After a false start at kick-off, the fault of an apparently badly inflated ball, the game went without a hitch until its end (1-1). The first goal in this new Serie A phase was scored by Turin's Nicolas Nkoulou header in the 16th minute. As a celebration, the Cameroonian defender pointed a finger and the eyes towards the sky before putting a knee on the ground, in homage to George Floyd, the African-American whose death after his arrest by the police on May 25 protests against racism around the world.

- Bayern at the party -

Sacred Tuesday for the eighth consecutive time, Bayern Munich has swapped the traditional beer shower, Bavarian celebration of the title banned by the German League, with a new victory against Freiburg (3-1), with a record for the star attack. At 31, Pole Robert Lewandowski scored twice in the first period and broke the goal record in a Bundesliga season for a foreigner with 33 goals.

Saturday, "Lewy" was not the only scorer to smile on the meadows of Germany. Erling Braut Haaland, the 19-year-old Norwegian phenomenon, definitively secured Dortmund's second place with a brace against Leipzig (2-0). Arrived last winter at Borussia, the ex-striker from Salzburg in Austria already has 13 league goals. We call it a good pick!

- Cursed takeover at Arsenal -

Severely defeated 3-0 Wednesday by Manchester City, with two injured (Granit Xhaka and Pablo Mari) as a bonus, Arsenal repeated in misfortune on Saturday at the low-ranked Brighton: 2-1 loss with a goal conceded in additional time and serious injury to goalkeeper Bernd Leno. The return to the lawns rhymes with "lose" for the Londoners, not far from falling into the second half of the ranking.

This weekend, Neal Maupay donned the hangman costume. The ex-French striker from Nice and Saint-Etienne first caused Leno's injury by jostling slightly in the air the goalkeeper, released on a stretcher after a bad reception of the right knee. And it was he who broke the Gunners with the winning goal scored in the 95th minute.

© 2020 AFP