Calm in France and England
The season that began in the leading European championships gave the fans a lot of surprises. Perhaps, noticeable changes from last season are not observed only in France, where PSG is still unattainable to competitors. Given the already pretty decent lead (seven points if the Parisians have one more game in reserve) from the closest pursuers from Marseille's Olimpik, the capital's club is unlikely to miss the next gold medals of the national championship, while such world superstars as Kilian Mbappe remain in it and Neymar.
Usually pleasing the fight for the championship until the last round, England this year is accustoming to the “1 + 19” model, more familiar to the Italian Serie A, where the champion in the person of the Turin Juventus is known long before the end of the gold race. Judging by the results of Liverpool this season (16 wins and one draw in 17 matches and a ten-point lead over the second Lester), the Merseysiders will finally be able to regain the title that they have been waiting for almost 30 years.
Liverpool could not have achieved today's super-high results without the presence of certain problems for Manchester City - the main competitor of the team Jürgen Klopp in the fight for the champion trophy in the past few seasons. Manchester players have recently lost several main players: defenders Emerik Laporta and Alexander Zinchenko, winger Leroy Sane and striker Sergio Aguero. Also, the problems of the City can be attributed to the far from ideal implementation of scoring chances and banal bad luck.
Fever and the rest of the traditional English grandees. Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal have already managed to change their head coaches during the season due to rather mediocre results. The mentor of “Manchester United” Ole-Gunnar Solskher may suffer the same fate in the future, despite the victory over the “City” in early December. At the same time, Frank Lampard, located in fourth place at Chelsea, from which the Sports Arbitration Court (CAS) recently lifted the ban on transfers, will allow a good club with good reinforcements this winter, with not always positive results.
Liverpool, in turn, finally acquired one of the basic characteristics of the “champion” team - the ability to use the maximum of its capabilities and gnaw victory in almost every match. The attacking three Mohammed Salah - Sadio Mane - Roberto Firmino shows the phenomenal level of the game, having issued 22 goals for three in 17 rounds and given 15 assists. And Liverpool’s defense is all right: thanks to the best defender of the world Virgil van Dyck and the best goalkeeper of the planet Alison Becker, only Leicester missed fewer Merseysides.
This club is still the main sensation of the season, ranking second in the standings. Strongly updated over the past year, the composition of the team, along with the top scorer of the English Premier League this season, Jamie Vardi, who scored goals in eight of the last nine matches, and another veteran goalkeeper Casper Schmeichel, shows a very high-quality game in defense and in attack . Thus, Leicester can, if not repeat the champion success of the 2015/2016 season, then definitely compete for the first four, giving the right to play in the Champions League next year.
Two teams of Spain against all
In the Spanish Example, the current state of affairs seems quite familiar. “Barcelona” and “Real” share the first line in the table after the confrontation in the capital of Catalonia, which ended in a draw. This result somewhat disappointed the fans, as both teams gained a good shape in anticipation of “El Classico”. Barcelona leaders Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez score one goal after another, and the main striker of Real Madrid Karim Benzema does not lag behind them.
It should be noted that the presence or absence of Gareth Bale in the Madrid team has practically no effect on its results: in seven championship matches without it, the Real Madrid scored 16 points (five wins, one draw, one defeat), nine matches with him - 19 points, that is, there is essentially no difference. Eden Hazard, who transferred to the “creamy” Belgian midfielder this summer, shows himself well, but the injury he received in a recent league champions match with PSG so far puts an end to his coaching staff’s plans to turn the midfielder into a team leader who can replace Cristiano Ronaldo in the future.
Atletico Madrid under the leadership of Diego Simeone, formerly the main rival of Real Madrid and Barca in the fight for the first line in the table, continues to digest its own “defensive-bus” football, which he used to play over the past years. Attacking the team is not so good: it has so far scored the least goals from the clubs of the top ten of the Spanish championship and is in fifth place in the standings. The situation is aggravated by the injury of the main striker Diego Costa, which he received in mid-November.
Bundesliga Five
Things are much more interesting in the German Bundesliga, where at least five clubs fight for the champion trophy after 16 rounds played. To the usual applicants for the “silver salad bowl” of recent years - the Munich “Bavaria” and the Dortmund “Borussia” - the leading “Leipzig”, “Borussia” from Monchengladbach and “Schalke” were added.
Bavaria continues to be in a fever after the change of head coach: in early November, Croatian specialist Niko Kovacs was dismissed for unsatisfactory results, German Hans-Dieter Flick, who had previously been Kovac’s assistant, was dismissed. Munchentsev brings inadequate realization of moments in matches against direct competitors, which is especially clearly seen in the recent games against Bayer and Mönchengladbach. However, “Bavaria” and in the last season harnessed for a long time, but eventually became the champion.
In fact, the current situation in the Bundesliga is not out of the ordinary. The Dortmund Borussia strengthened quite well during the off-season (one of the best defenders in the world, German Mats Hummels and a good Spanish striker Paco Alcacer returned to the team, the Belgian winger Torgan Azar also strengthened the team) and Leipzig, who matched under the leadership of Julian Nagelsmann, naturally won . The presence of the Mönchengladbach Borussia in the top five also looks quite logical, given its traditionally high ambitions in the German championship.
Quite unexpected is the presence in the Schalke group of leaders, who performed not in the best way last season - only 14th place. However, far-reaching conclusions regarding his champion claims are too early to take into account that so far less than half of the championship matches have been played, and the quality of the team’s game has not grown so significantly over half a year.
Replacing Napoli with Inter
In Italy, after 16 rounds, Juventus and Inter take the first place. True, according to the lost points - the current champion spent one game more.
The leader of the Turin team, Cristiano Ronaldo, plays with varying success, but his role is increasingly being tried on by Argentinean supertalent Paulo Dybala, scoring crucial goals in a number of matches. So, fans of “Old Signora” should not be upset: “Juve” is still the most preferred contender for the championship, given his experience in victories in the last eight seasons of Serie A in a row. And with the composition of the Turin all is in order. The main defender Giorgio Chiellini should soon recover from an injury to the cruciate ligaments, and the ligament Matteis De Ligt - Leonardo Bonucci is doing well. Midfield, led by Mirale Pianic, also does not give much reason to doubt himself, like Gonzalo Higuain at the tip of the attack.
The composition of Milan's Inter has not changed much compared to last season: the Croatian midfielder Ivan Perisic left the base, who transferred to Bayern on loan, and the Brazilian defender Miranda, who became a player in the Chinese club Jiangsu Sunin. At the same time, Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku came to Inter to literally tear apart almost all of Serie A along with Lautaro Martinez: in the first 16 rounds, they scored 18 goals for two. Yes, and the 3-5-2 scheme, proposed by the new head coach Antonio Conte, is working fine in the Milan club so far.
As the main rival of Juventus in the fight for the league title, Inter replaced Napoli, who will get stuck in the middle of the table due to problems with the roster. The club needs personnel reinforcements in almost all lines. Of the surprises of the Italian season, the Sardinian “Cagliari” should be noted, showing very entertaining football thanks to the arrival of one of the best central midfielders of Serie A Raja Nainggolan and promising young striker Giovanni Simeone in the summer transfer window. So the Cagliari will be quite able to compete for the first three.