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The European Leagues & Competitions Thread V2


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11 hours ago, Atomiswave said:

8 fucking times in a row speaks for itself....it should be renamed to Bayern league. To have 9 titles yes so young is crazy though.

and if he had not gotten injured he would have a WC winners medal too

he was only 23 until 5 days ago

if Bayern wins the Pokal (they are in the July 4th final versus Bayer Leverkusen) and the CL this year

he will have 20 major trophies already, lolololol

that is two more major trophies than he has career league goals atm

and only 12 less than he has topflight goals all comps in his career

he was the CL assist leader overall in 2015-2016 though

lucky charm he is

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How Flick saved Bayern’s season and won their eighth Bundesliga title in a row

https://theathletic.com/1869187/2020/06/16/bayern-bundesliga-champions-hansi-flick-lewandowski/

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Before he took charge at the Allianz Arena in summer 2016, Carlo Ancelotti famously observed that Bayern Munich could win the German championship “with their hands in their pockets”, such was their financial and qualitative superiority in the Bundesliga.

But it was not too long ago that the 2019-20 campaign was heading towards being a Black Swan-type exception. Bayern were just seventh in the table before a home game against Werder Bremen in mid-December. A 6-1 demolition of Bremen that day proved the starting point of an invincible run of 22 wins and only one draw under Hansi Flick in all competitions, culminating in Tuesday’s 1-0 win over the same opponents that clinched their eighth successive title.

A fifth double in those eight seasons now beckons, and maybe more. Bayern don’t just win a ton of games under Flick, they do so while playing a brand of shiny, cohesive attacking football that has their hierarchy dreaming of a sixth European Cup.

The renaissance of the Bundesliga’s flagship club is a remarkable achievement for Flick, a quiet, unassuming man who had never been in charge of a top-flight team before and whose biggest success as a head coach had been winning the fourth division with a nascent Hoffenheim 20 years ago.

His near-total lack of experience at this level was one of the reasons Bayern kept looking for a more prominent replacement for Niko Kovac while he was entrusted with caretaker duties in November. Bayern wanted a glamorous manager and the degree of security that comes with hiring proven silverware hoarders. Flick’s low profile — he won the 2014 World Cup as Joachim Low’s assistant but mostly worked in the shadows — had some at the club worried he wouldn’t command enough authority to rescue a season in danger of being a total write-off.

The 55-year-old was initially hired as Kovac’s assistant last summer, “at the express wish” of the incumbent manager, as Bayern’s press release put it. In truth, it was a little different.

The bosses hadn’t failed to notice that many players had struggled with Kovac’s negative tactics and his self-serving propensity to talk down the team’s quality, despite winning the double in his first season. It was then-club president Uli Hoeness’s idea to install Flick, a former midfield water-carrier at Bayern in the mid-1980s, as a possible stop-gap solution in case the Croatian lost the dressing room altogether in his second year. When Kovac lost 5-1 at his former club Eintracht Frankfurt in early November, his time was over and Flick’s had come.

Beating Dortmund 4-0 in his first game in charge gave the club confidence he could at the very least continue to manage until a bigger name was acquired. By Christmas, he was confirmed as caretaker until the end of the season. Not long after, Bayern realised that things were going so well there was no longer a real need to look for a better solution. They named him head coach until 2023.

Bayern, Dortmund

“Le Flick, C’est Chic,” 11 Freunde magazine wrote about him this week but there has been nothing particularly flashy or gimmicky about his reign. Flick doesn’t do big, memorable speeches, either in the dressing room or in front of the media. Those who have watched him closely over the last few months will tell you he has succeeded by simply being himself, a genuine man who treats everybody with respect and understands what a team of Bayern’s qualities needs to thrive: simple, clear instructions and a basic set-up that brings out their best.

His leadership style is an inclusive one. After taking over from Kovac, he sounded out the views of key members of the team. What did they think about the way Bayern should play? Feedback suggested the team favoured a much more attacking style than the one Kovac had overseen, frustrating them with his reactive tactics. “We would sit back, win back the ball near our own box but then had 80 metres to go to get to the opposition goal,” a senior player tells The Athletic. “We weren’t playing our football.”

A return to pressing principles and a higher defensive line was universally welcomed. The majority view was neatly in line with Flick’s own ideas but it had been important to him that the team felt they were being heard. “His empathy is his greatest asset, he’s reminiscent of Jupp Heynckes in that respect,” a source close to the dressing room tells The Athletic. Like 2013’s saintly treble-winner before him, Flick has shown a talent for making everyone feel valued, whether they are seasoned superstars or youngsters on the fringe of the team. “Players like the way he talks to them. He’s honest with them, true to his word. They like him and play for him.”

When Javi Martinez was going through such a difficult spell he cried on the bench in October, it was Flick who offered the Spanish midfielder a hug and a sympathetic ear.

Jerome Boateng and Thomas Muller, two big players who had found themselves ignominiously sidelined by Kovac, were brought back into the fold by Flick, too. Both have been playing their best football for years in the second half of the season, buoyed by the reintroduction of a possession/pressing system that keeps the distance between Bayern’s lines short and the pressure on their opposition intolerably high. The club also love that Flick has been willing to give young players, such as teenage forwards Joshua Zirkzee and Oliver Batista Maier, a chance.

It would be wrong to paint him as a mere Mr Nice Guy, though. Flick’s charisma-lite media personality hides a fierce ambition. Working as Low’s assistant with Germany, he used to challenge younger members of the staff to impromptu push-up contests and didn’t talk to one of them for a couple of days after getting beaten at backgammon. Bayern officials, too, were slightly taken aback that Flick had very firm ideas about the way he wanted the team’s affairs run and stood his ground unless there were very good arguments to do things differently.

Flick has taken to power very naturally. He’s a benign ruler and avowed team-worker but has clear views. And he doesn’t shy away from voicing them.

Players’ ears pricked up when he publicly demanded the signing of a new right-back during the winter break in spite of opposition from sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic, who pointedly told Flick that squad composition shouldn’t be done via the media. Flick stood his ground. Real Madrid’s Alvaro Odriozola was duly brought in on loan. Flick and Salihamidzic have since made up.

Flick, Bayern, Muller, Boateng

“People tend to underestimate him because he’s never cared about putting himself in the spotlight,” a long-time friend tells The Athletic. “But he knows both football and his own mind. During his many years under Low, he’s travelled all around Europe and frequently talked at length about the game with the likes of Klopp, Guardiola, Tuchel and Nagelsmann… There’s a deep well of know-how there.”

Manuel Neuer, Muller and Boateng knew as much from working with him at national team level. Serge Gnabry has been a fan since Flick had played a role in furthering the former Arsenal player’s career by bringing him to Hoffenheim when working as their sporting director in 2017. Others who hadn’t had dealings with him quickly realised his human touch was complemented by well-defined tactical plans that helped the team play much better. The dressing room was almost instantly his. “When you have the veterans on your side, the team follow suit,” a source close to the dressing room says.

Flick, Bayern

Members of the 2014 World Cup squad privately go as far saying Germany wouldn’t have won that tournament without him. Flick was Low’s details man. In the spring of that year, he wrote down the team’s exact training regime for every single day in a black booklet that was hundreds of pages thick. He was also instrumental in convincing Low to devote more time to dead-ball situations, an area the national team manager had neglected in the past. Only five goals out of their 53 scored in the 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012 tournaments had come from free kicks or corners, and Germany had conceded pivotal goals from or after set-pieces in 2006, 2010 and 2012.

Dead-balls, known as “Standards” in Germany, were practised more extensively than ever since Germany’s reboot as a team had begun under Jurgen Klinsmann in 2004. Flick felt it made good sense to do so, in anticipation of a hot, sticky World Cup in Brazil in which clear goalscoring chances from open play might be at a premium. He had noticed that Freiburg, Low’s club when he was a second division striker in the 1980s, had an above-average success rate from set-pieces, so Flick instructed Lars Vossler, the assistant coach responsible for Standards at Freiburg, to present his ideas at a coaching workshop.

Inspiration also came from more far-flung places. In order to get the team’s creative juices flowing, he showed them a series of videos of novel dead-ball ideas, which included a Maldives international feigning a stumble in the run-up of a penalty. Muller and Toni Kroos unsuccessfully adapted the routine for a comically inept free kick against Algeria in the last 16 but they didn’t mind the world-wide schadenfreude.

This new focus on Standards ended up being a key factor in Germany lifting the trophy. They scored five goals from set-pieces in Brazil, including four from their 32 corners, a sensational return of one in eight. At the top level, the usual rate is 1:50. “We have become the kings of set-pieces,” Muller said at the time.

Germany’s set-piece excellence was a triumph of preparation and a culture of collective responsibility. Flick had split the squad in two and made scoring goals from set-pieces a mini-competition after every training session, fostering a spirit of innovation, fun and productive rivalry in the camp. “He made the players partners in the process,” a member of the entourage in Brazil tells The Athletic. “They weren’t just following orders but were entrusted to come up with their own solutions. They felt respected and taken seriously as a result.”

It’s exactly the same at Bayern now. The club could not be happier.

“Hansi has really done well in promoting the team’s strengths of playing attacking football and keeping a well-balanced defence at the same time,” Salihamidzic tells The Athletic. “He communicates really well with the players; practice sessions have been hard work, but also fun, and he really prepared the team well for every game. Hansi is hungry for success, and so are the players. It’s a great fit.”

There’s no arguing with that assessment.

Come August, Flick will lead Bayern into the final stages of the Champions League as one of the smallest names on the European stage but that’s immaterial in relation to the big impact he has had: thanks to him, Bayern’s football has a recognisable identity again.

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Worse defence, worse attack – but ‘elite’ Joao Felix can lift the Atletico gloom

https://theathletic.com/1873143/2020/06/19/joao-felix-atletico-madrid-la-liga/

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This has been the strangest season of Diego Simeone’s time in charge of Atletico Madrid while Joao Felix’s first year at the club has closely mirrored the team’s fortunes. Early excitement and optimism have been replaced with frustration and disappointment. Every time a corner seemed to have been turned, another roadblock appeared in the way.

The €126 million youngster’s clinically-taken goal double in a 5-0 La Liga win at Osasuna on Wednesday again showed just how crucial his own displays and state of mind have become for Atletico’s chances of success, less than a year after he arrived from Portugal’s Benfica.

The result — and their all-round performance — in Pamplona eased worries that Simeone’s team might miss out on Champions League qualification for next season, which would have very serious financial consequences for a club whose finances were stretched even before the COVID-19 shutdown.

Coming on the day that UEFA announced how this season’s Champions League would be decided, the manner of the victory at El Sadar raised hopes that Atletico can now push on and be well-placed for a run at winning that eight-team straight knockout tournament to be staged in Portugal in August.

That a team previously so reliant on collective effort has become dependent on just one clearly talented but still unproven 20-year-old is an unexpected turn but Simeone is nothing if not pragmatic, and these are unusual times for everyone.


Things appeared to be coming very easily to Joao Felix last summer when the Benfica starlet arrived in La Liga amid plenty of fanfare.

His official debut at home to Getafe featured a thrilling 60-yard run from his own half, hurdling four different attempts to take him out before he was finally brought down in the penalty area.

The second game, a local derby away at Leganes, brought his first assist in a 1-0 victory. In game three, he scored his first goal for his new club — a neat finish in a win over Eibar that put Atletico top of La Liga for the only time this season.

Reality soon bit though and a 2-0 defeat at Real Sociedad as the season resumed after the September internationals showed Simeone’s new-look team was still very much a work in progress. A run of only two La Liga wins in nine games saw them fall out of the title race well before the winter break, despite Barcelona and Real Madrid having far from vintage campaigns themselves. Simeone himself took to talking regularly of a “transitional season” following the summer exits of key players including Antoine Griezmann, Diego Godin and Rodri.

Felix was also struggling to meet the expectation of the public and his coaches, and an October ankle injury that led to a four-game lay-off stalled his tactical and physical integration. He completed the 90 minutes in just two of his first 16 La Liga games — frustrating both the player and Atletico fans, who knew their team was crying out for more creativity and flair.

There were also troubles throughout the team, including a concerning new tendency for Simeone’s previously rock-solid side to concede sloppy goals at set pieces, but the clearest problem was in attack. Diego Costa scored only twice in his first 19 appearances of another injury-ravaged season. Alvaro Morata had a purple patch, scoring in six consecutive matches in October and November but then went over 600 minutes without a goal in any competition through to early 2020.

A 1-0 defeat away to Real Madrid in February meant Atletico dropped to sixth with just 22 goals scored in their first 22 La Liga games — the worst record of Simeone’s nine seasons in charge. Their tally of 36 points at that stage was also the lowest of his reign.

There was also real concern over Felix’s adaptation, and questions over both Atletico’s huge investment and his choice of club to develop his career.

The now 20-year-old did not score or assist in 11 straight La Liga appearances from September to January and was often fielded on the right side of midfield, a role which involved a lot of chasing back off the ball, very far from the areas where he could really damage opponents. The team needed his ingenuity in attack but, even when fit and available, he was looking low on confidence and energy.

Such an adaptation should not have been a surprise, Felix’s former Benfica youth coach Joao Tralhao tells The Athletic.

“It was normal for Joao to need to adapt. For him to have some very good moments, some not so good moments, inconsistent performances,” Tralhao says. “Simeone demands that his players must be so good defensively. Joao needed to have enough energy to defend well, to run a lot, to work so hard off the ball. And on the other hand, he needed to be able to do what he knows best, to have the ball, to create chances, and to finish. The cost of his transfer was crazy numbers and maybe, in December or January, people thought he was not meeting expectations. (But) Simeone knew that he needed to prepare him for this level.”

Attempting such preparation on the fly was not ideal. When Felix missed the Champions League last-16 first-leg victory over Liverpool in mid-February with another minor injury, some wondered if his absence had actually been a benefit for his team, who refound their old grit and determination to score early and hang tough to win 1-0.

The kid himself did not share that idea, though, and returned looking more determined to make an impact. He scored in two of his first three games back from that injury, against top-four race rivals Villarreal and Sevilla, persuading Simeone to pick him for the decider against Liverpool. At Anfield, he put in a big shift off the ball as Atletico were often overrun but somehow stayed in the game. Still, he remained physically and mentally fresh enough, well into extra time, to provide the defence-splitting pass from which Marcos Llorente swung the tie back Atletico’s way.

Joao Felix, Atletico, Liverpool

“Since February, he came back better, with a different type of mentality,” Tralhao says. “(The game in Anfield) was a good example to show who Joao Felix is. He does not shake when the decisive moments come. He enjoys those moments. This is the difference between a good player and an elite player, and he is elite.

“He has needed time to adapt, of course — players are not machines. This shows what he is capable of doing in the future, how he will develop. He is still just 20 years old. I know him very well and in terms of mentality and attitude, he is very, very strong. He will always fight to be better, which is the best indicator for a youngster.”


The coronavirus lockdown came just as Atletico — and Felix — were on their biggest high of the season.

Three months off appeared to break their rhythm again, as the first game back brought more disappointment — a 1-1 away draw with Athletic Bilbao, which appeared to show all the familiar failings had returned. Although Costa took advantage of a defensive mistake to score, his team got only two shots on target all game and remained in sixth place. Their away woes also continued, with their 3-2 win at Anfield remaining, at the time, their only victory on the road in any competition this year.

The only potential bright spot before Wednesday’s return to the Basque country to face Osasuna was Felix being available again, having missed the trip to Bilbao due to suspension. Based as much on hope as past evidence, Madrid-based sports dailies AS and Marca both headlined previews “Joao Felix to the rescue”.

And so it came to pass.

Atletico began on the front foot and dominated possession but had still not managed a shot on target until the 27th minute, when Felix raced onto a loose ball in the penalty area and smashed it through a crowd of players into the net. Although they were playing well, a second shot on target did not come until early in the second half. Costa broke clear and squared for Felix to calmly and confidently knock home. From there, Osasuna’s resistance crumbled. Substitute Llorente made it 3-0 with 10 minutes left before setting up late finishes for Morata and Yannick Carrasco.

Osasuna, Joao Felix

The final 5-0 scoreline came as a relief for Atletico and lifted them up to fourth for at least 24 hours but was not fully representative of the game. Simeone’s side still had only 10 shots on goal, with the difference being that their best chances in key moments had fallen to a player who could put them away — as the man of the match himself pinpointed when speaking on Spanish TV afterwards.

“I am very happy with the win, to lift the group, and it is very good for me too personally,” Felix said. “We were together the whole game (and) played simply. We took the chances we had, which had not happened in many previous games. After three months away, to score twice is very good for me, for my confidence, and I hope to keep going now.”

Not usually one to gush with praise of any of his players, Simeone also pointed to the No 7’s decisive contribution.

“Joao is a decisive player,” he said. “Very dynamic. I always expect the best from my players. He took the first goal very well. He was well-positioned in the second. Today, we could link up very well, which allowed him to appear in the game. I’m happy that the team has made a step forward and we have to keep doing that, and create more.”


This could still be the worst-performing Atletico side of Simeone’s era; an inconsistent bunch who struggle to create and take chances, and have become worryingly unstable at the back. Or perhaps, they are an exciting, new-look team who have come through some understandable difficulties and are now looking to peak at just the right time.

What we can say is that this side has a new central figure.

Costa and Morata have both scored since the return to action but nobody would be surprised should they disappoint again in the upcoming games. Homegrown midfielders Koke and Saul Niguez have yet to really step up and replace past leaders Gabi and Godin in the team. Other new players, including Renan Lodi, Llorente and Kieran Trippier, are still finding their best roles. After less than a year at the club, Felix is already their key player.

This might seem a lot of pressure for a 20-year-old in a new country but those who know him best believe he is ready to rise to the challenge.

“Joao is still very calm. He wants to perform and help his team,” Tralhao says. “When we talk, he is focused on the essential, not the criticism or different rumours. He has always been like that, focused on how he wants to develop, how he wants to play. This step to Atletico was very important for him to develop some things he needed. Had he chosen a different club, probably he would not develop as much as he is developing this season. He is being challenged at Atletico, which is very important for this type of player. But he has shown what he is capable of, and will be in the future.”

Atletico’s season could still go one of two ways. Further inconsistency can be expected and their upcoming schedule includes a trip to Barcelona’s Nou Camp. Making the top four will still probably come down to their final two games, against rivals Getafe (away) and Real Sociedad (home), in mid-July.

How Felix’s fitness and form stand up to the accelerated schedule remains to be seen.

His process of adaptation to Atletico and preparation under Simeone is still far from complete but, given the circumstances, he has settled remarkably quickly, which brings optimism that Atletico’s strange 2019-20 season could still end very happily after all.

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