Lille's gold, Milan's silver and Liverpool's bronze: how the championships of France, Italy and England ended

An incredible denouement in the fight for European competition

Despite the fact that the winners of gold and silver medals were determined in advance in the English Championship, the fans were waiting for the last round with great interest. First, Chelsea, Liverpool and Leicester had to decide on the odd third in the fight to get into the Champions League zone. At the same time, the Londoners were ahead of both pursuers by one point. Secondly, West Ham, Tottenham and Arsenal fought for tickets to the Europa League and the Conference League.

In fact, the central match of the tour took place at the King Power - Walkers stadium, where Leicester hosted Tottenham. The hosts were leading most of the meeting thanks to two penalties implemented by Jamie Vardy and, it seemed, almost secured a place for themselves in the main European Cup. However, Brendan Rogers' charges failed the ending of the game. First, Kasper Schmeichel cut the ball into his own net after a corner kick. And then Gareth Bale came to the fore, thrown into the fight by Ryan Mason in the middle of the second half. The Welshman scored a double in ten minutes and left the FA Cup winner without the Champions League. This season, Leicester were the most in the top 4 of the Premier League standings (242 days), but managed to finish fifth.

In turn, Tottenham nevertheless made it to the Conference League, leaving behind Arsenal, which finished eighth and for the first time since 1995 did not make it to the European competition.

Harry Kane, with 23 goals and 14 assists, became both the top scorer and the best assistant in the tournament, repeating Andy Cole's achievement 17 years ago.

Along the way, the "Spurs" actually dragged Chelsea to fourth place, which sensationally lost on the road to the unmotivated Aston Villa - 1: 2.

In addition, the Blues have lost main goalkeeper Edouard Mendy less than a week before the Champions League final.

The Senegalese was forced to ask for a replacement due to injury.

On the final third place, taking advantage of the misfires of competitors, climbed "Liverpool", which beat Crystal Palace at home - 2: 0.

In February-March, when Jurgen Klopp's wards suffered defeat after defeat in the Premier League, few could have imagined that in the end they would take medals.

But the finishing spurt of five victories in a row provided them with bronze medals and a direct ticket to the Champions League group stage.

If Chelsea suffered an inexplicable defeat ahead of the Champions League final, Manchester City ended the Premier League season on a positive note.

The champion sent five unanswered goals against Everton and inflicted the biggest defeat of his coaching career for Carlo Ancelotti.

One of the main heroes of the confrontation was the leaving club Sergio Aguero.

The striker came on as a substitute in the second half and managed to score twice in five minutes.

Thus, he set a new record for the most goals in the Premier League for a single team - 184, ahead of Wayne Rooney (183).

After the final whistle, the fans gave the Argentinean a standing ovation.

Many had tears in their eyes.

Even Josep Guardiola could not resist at the post-match press conference.

The footballer himself, in order to leave really beautifully, has only to win the main European Cup.

Finally, the achievement of Manchester United should be noted.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's squad beat Wolverhampton away and finished the Premier League season unbeaten.

This is only the fourth such case in history and the first in 17 years.

A generous gift to Juventus from Napoli

In the Italian championship, the fate of the title was also decided in advance.

Inter secured gold medals ahead of schedule, and in the last round defeated Udinese - 5: 1.

“Atalanta”, which came to the final match with 78 points, would not have dropped out of the top four even if they were defeated.

And the remaining two tickets to the Champions League were claimed by Napoli (76), Milan (76) and Juventus (75).

As a result, the Bergamaski failed to properly tune in to the match with Milan and were defeated - 0: 2.

The Rossoneri scored both of their goals from the penalty spot.

In the ended Serie A season, the team performed 20 penalty kicks, beating their own achievement 70 years ago.

Milan climbed to second place at the last moment and for the first time since 2013 made it to the Champions League.

As for Alexey Miranchuk, he appeared on the field only in the 87th minute and could not be remembered for anything. But the Russian managed, together with his team, to break into the Champions League again, and also to become the owner of the bronze medals of the Italian championship.

For this, the domestic midfielder, first of all, should thank Napoli. The Neapolitans, who took the third place, took the modest "Verona" in the last round and simply had to win, but managed to break up with their rival in the world - 1: 1. Gennaro Gattuso's wards could not open an account for a long time, until Amir Rrahmani did it in the 60th minute. But almost immediately, the hosts allowed the opponent to counterattack and level the score. More teams failed to score. The disappointment of the management of the club from the south of Italy turned out to be so strong that immediately after the final whistle, it was announced that cooperation with the head coach was terminated.

So "Napoli" personally gave a ticket to the Champions League to "Juventus", which had an extremely unsuccessful season.

The fans even joked that thanks to the constant misfires of Turinans, Cristiano Ronaldo will have the opportunity to win a trophy that is definitely not in his collection - the Conference League Cup.

By the way, the Portuguese remained on the bench for the match with Bologna.

According to media reports, the reason for this decision by Andrea Pirlo was the club leader's severe fatigue.

However, the team coped with the inferior opponent in the class even without him - 4: 1.

Alvaro Morata scored a double, while Federico Chiesa and Adrien Rabiot scored once.

Ronaldo, with 29 goals, still became the top scorer of the Italian championship for the first time in his career.

The Portuguese has become the author of a truly unique achievement.

He secured the laurels of the best sniper in three of the top five European championships: Serie A, Primera and Premier League.

In the end, Napoli and Lazio went to the Europa League, while Roma will play in the Conference League.

Moreover, until the last moment, Paulo Fonseca's wards were close to not getting into European cups at all.

After the first half, they lost to Spice (0: 2), while their main pursuer, Sassuolo, beat Lazio.

But in the second half of the meeting, Roma managed to make a comeback - 2: 2, and Henrikh Mkhitaryan scored the ball that brought the team to the LC.

At the end of the season, the Armenian has 13 goals and ten assists.

The end of PSG's hegemony

A significant event took place in France.

“Lille” managed to become the champion for the first time in ten years and broke the hegemony of PSG, which in the previous eight seasons became the first seven times.

Christophe Galtier's charges immediately broke into the group of leaders, but at first no one took them seriously.

However, after the 22nd round, they seized the leadership and practically did not concede it anymore.

By the last round, the "dogs" came up with a one point advantage over the Parisians.

At the same time, in personal meetings, they had an advantage over the opponent (0: 0, 1: 0).

Thus, in the event of a misfire of the reigning champion in the match against Brest, Lille was satisfied even with a defeat against Angers.

But the team did not play with fire and already in the tenth minute took the lead thanks to the accurate blow of Jonathan David.

And in the time added by the referee to the first half, Burak Yilmaz converted a penalty.

In the 92nd minute, Angelo Fulzhini managed to close the gap in the long run, but it didn't matter anymore - the gold went to the guests.

PSG also won in their meeting - 2: 0.

At the same time, Neymar in the 19th minute, in a curious way, did not convert the penalty.

Gaultier Larsonner tried to deceive the striker by moving to the right corner, and he succeeded.

The Brazilian struck the opposite low and missed the target.

But Kylian Mbappe scored once and with 27 goals for the third time in a row became the top scorer of Ligue 1, seven accurate hits ahead of Memphis Depay and Wissam Ben Yedder.

It is also worth noting Yilmaz, who, at the age of 35, was not afraid to go outside Turkey for the first time in his career and, as a result, scored 16 goals in Ligue 1, making a significant contribution to the Lille championship.

Until the last round, Monaco also retained theoretical chances for first place, but the victories of their competitors left the Monegasques third, especially since they themselves did not manage to beat Lance - 0: 0.

Nevertheless, Russian fans got a great reason to be proud, because Alexander Golovin, like Alexei Miranchuk, won a bronze medal. With nine assists, he tied for fourth place in the tournament's best assistants race with Angel Di Maria, Andi Delors and Jonatant Bamba. Above are only Depay (12), Dimitri Payet (10) and Zinedine Ferhat (10). In addition, the Russian scored five goals and, for the first time in his career, scored 14 points in a single season in the national championship.

Moreover, Monaco were very lucky to take third place and make their way to the Champions League qualification.

After all, Lyon could have bypassed them in case of their victory, but Rudy Garcia's team lost to Nice at home - 2: 3, although they led the score twice thanks to Karl Toko Ekambi's double.

Considering the disastrous start to the season, such a result for the Monegasques can be called more than successful.

Lyon will play in the Europa League and Marseille in the Conference League.

Nimes and Dijon flew directly from the elite division, while Nantes will take part in the transition matches.