The end of the Liverpool series and the rescue of Chelsea
The main event of the 28th round of the English Premier League was the sensational defeat of Liverpool from Watford, which interrupted the 44-match unbeaten run of Jurgen Klopp's wards in the national championship. The last time the Reds conceded in January 2019 in a match with Manchester City with a score of 1: 2.
This time, Alisson Becker had three goals at once. For this, the “hornets" had only 18 minutes, during which Ishmael Sarr scored a double, and another goal was recorded by Troy Dini. At the same time, one of the best attacking lines in Europe was not only unable to respond with a single exact shot, but in the first half, it was only once struck on goal. During the stay of a German specialist at the helm of the team, this happened only once - in a duel with Chelsea in January 2017.
It is noteworthy that over the past 35 years, not one of the nuclear submarine leaders has conceded so large to the team located in the relegation zone at the time of the start of the meeting. In 1985, Manchester United suffered a similar failure, and Leicester City appeared as the offender.
This day was not the most successful for Chelsea. Frank Lampard's wards could not recover after a fiasco in the confrontation with Bayern and nearly lost to Bournemouth. “Aristocrats” opened the account thanks to the blow of Marcos Alonso, but in the debut of the second half were in the role of catching up. It only took Jefferson Lerma and Joshua King three minutes to push his team forward and make him think about another sensation.
Alonso, who scored his 19th goal with Chelsea in the Premier League, acted as the blue savior. However, the Londoners extended their unbeaten run to four meetings and only slightly reduced the backlog of Leicester.
Six goals of Bayern and scandalous banner
In the 24th round of the Bundesliga, the reigning champion did not leave a chance to Hoffenheim, having shipped six unanswered goals at his goal. At the end of a quarter of an hour, Bayern became the first team in the history of the German championship, which managed to score at least three times in five away games in a row. And by the 62nd minute the score was tennis. The double was designed by Philippe Coutinho, also Josua Kimmich, Joshua Zirksee, Leon Goretzka and Serge Gnabry lit their name on the scoreboard. It is noteworthy that the last one of them once again confirmed the status of a football player, who acts as productively as possible outside the Alliance Arena. This season he scored 18 goals, with 14 of them visiting.
However, the vivid success of Bayern was overshadowed by the behavior of its fans. They posted an insulting banner to the president of Hoffenheim, Dietmar Hopp, which caused the suspension of the match. Footballers, coaches and guests' management, in turn, appealed to the fans to remove the banner, but they did not attach any importance to this. As a result, the chief referee Christian Dingert decided to take the teams to the tribune room. The pause lasted about a third of the hour, and the game resumed from the 78th minute. At the same time, the athletes defiantly refused to attack each other's goal and the rest of the time they rolled the ball in midfield.
The main pursuers of Bavaria were also successful and did not allow the Munich team to increase the lead. The Dortmund Borussia beat Freiburg in their home field with a minimum score, and Erling Holland was unable to replenish his scorer. The Norwegian appeared on the field only in the 63rd minute and was not marked by productive actions. In his absence, Jadon Sancho took on the role of leader. The Englishman scored in the seventh home game in a row and approached the record of Pierre-Emerick Obameyang. A native of Gabon delighted his fans in 11 meetings in a row.
At the same time, the Borussia from Monchengladbach took over the Augsburg. The teams scored five goals for two, and they all fell in the second 45 minutes. As part of the guests, the main character was Lars Stindl. The German midfielder scored twice and assisted Rami Bensebaini.
The victory of “Valencia” and goal “drought” of Smolov
“Bats” interrupted the three-match losing streak in the Example, taking over Betis. The hosts scored a beautiful long-range shot by Kevin Gameiro, and Dani Parejo doubled the lead. The guests had only a prestige goal by Lorenzo Moron in the 93rd minute. As for Denis Cheryshev, the Russian midfielder appeared on the field in the 74th minute and even was in the penalty area during the second goal scoring, but was not marked by effective actions.
The same applies to Fedor Smolov. He went to the game with Granada in the starting lineup of Celta, but did not help the Vigo team succeed. The attacker acted mainly in the game and struck only one shot on goal Rui Silva, but the goalkeeper managed. In the 57th minute, head coach Oscar Garcia replaced the Russian with Santi Mina, but this did not help the guests snatch three points. The meeting ended in a goalless draw.
Lazio Leadership and Napoli Series
Five matches of the 26th round of the Italian football championship were postponed due to coronavirus, one of which was a meeting between the leader of the championship Juventus and one of his main pursuers in the person of Inter. In view of this, the chance to take first place in the standings was given to Lazio, who needed to beat the modest Bologna for this.
With this "Bianchelo" confidently managed. At the same time, the main scorer of the team, Ciro Immobile, did not add to his track record, and the authors of the exact shots were Luis Alberto and Joaquin Correa. Lazio scored at least two goals per match for the 19th time of the season and came close to European leaders in this regard. More often than not, Paris Saint-Germain (20), Manchester City (21) and Liverpool (22) succeeded.
If Lazio is seriously fighting for the Scudetto, then Napoli hopes to get into the Champions League. After coming to the coaching bridge Gennaro Gattuso, the team perked up and in full steam moves to the coveted fourth line. In this round, the Azzurri dealt with Torino and won for the third time in a row. Suffice it to say that earlier this season they could not boast of such a long successful series.
Double Mbappe and the unsuccessful Monaco series
Paris Saint-Germain defeated Dijon and extended the unbeaten run in the French Championship to 15 matches. In addition, the metropolitan team set a performance record, scoring four goals for the first time in its history in four championship matches in a row. It is noteworthy that in the 21st century only one team and also from League 1 succeeded in this. In the 2009/10 season, Lille demonstrated a similar rate of fire.
The main character was Kilian Mbappe, who chalked up a double and an assist. Given last season, for the Frenchman this goal was 51st, which allowed him to get closer to the main scorer of the top 5 championships of the Old World. He is the forward of “Barcelona” Lionel Messi (54), and the third place is taken by the forward of “Bavaria” Robert Lewandowski (47).
At the same time, in 2020 Mbappe is only in second place in terms of the number of goals among teammates. Like Neymar, he scored seven accurate punches and was two behind the leader in the person of Pablo Sarabia. It was the Spaniard who opened the account in the confrontation with Dijon, and the author of another ball was Mauro Icardi.
Unlike PSG, Monaco could not succeed and shared points with Reims. Wissam Ben-Yedder scored a penalty and put the hosts ahead, but Hassan Camara regained parity. At the same time, Alexander Golovin spent all 90 minutes on the field, but could not replenish his scorer. Monegasques lost points in the second match in a row and missed the opportunity to approach the Europa League zone. At the moment, they are separated from the fourth “Lille” by three points, but the “dogs” have one meeting in reserve.