Pitchside Europe
  • Events in the French capital last week during Paris Saint-Germain's Ligue 1 title celebrations were a serious blow to the prestige of the club's Qatari owners and brought the issue of football-related violence back to the top of the agenda in the country.

    Pictures of the destruction caused by troublemakers and of their clashes with riot police were seen all across the world last Monday night, completely removing the focus away from PSG's on-field success.

    What the bemused PSG players and staff must have thought as they were ushered away from the stage set up for them at Trocadéro, across the

    Read More »from The enemy within? Old problems return for PSG
  • Franck Ribery's virtuoso performance in Bayern Munich's win over Borussia Moenchengladbach sees the Frenchman make our European Team of the Week.

    Ribery scored a Zidane-esque volley for one of his two goals as Bayern came from 3-1 down to win 4-3 and also claimed two assists.

    Kevin De Bruyne, on loan with Werder Bremen from Chelsea, also chipped in with two Bundesliga goals while Serie A was strongly represented by Fiorentina, who have two players in the XI after a convincing win over Pescara.

    We couldn't ignore Kevin Nolan after he bagged a hat-trick in West Ham's win over Reading and Arsenal

    Read More »from European Team of the Week: May 17-19
  • Such has been Bayern Munich’s dominance of the 50th Bundesliga season that some might be surprised that a mere six of Jupp Heynckes’s men have made Eurosport’s team of the season.

    With the season drawing to a close, eight Eurosport Bundesliga commentators and correspondents picked their team of the season based on a 4-2-3-1 formation. They were also asked to name a coach of the season and flop of the campaign.

    With Bayern holding a record 22-point lead with one round of matches left, it was perhaps tempting to pick Bayern’s entire first XI. Record after record has fallen with Bayern garnering

    Read More »from Eurosport’s Bundesliga team of the year: Brilliant Bayern
  • European match of the weekend: Siena v AC Milan

    Massimiliano Allegri's future as AC Milan coach hangs in the balance as his side visit relegated Siena on the last day of the season on Sunday, still needing a win to clinch third place in Serie A and a berth in the Champions League playoff round.

    Allegri's players have voiced their support for the coach, who has overseen an impressive revival in the second half of the season with only one Serie A defeat since the winter break.

    The phlegmatic Allegri, who won the Serie A title in his first season at Milan and led them to second place last term, had to cope with a firesale of players in the

    Read More »from European match of the weekend: Siena v AC Milan
  • David Beckham was the first footballer to become a true global marketing phenomenon.

    Though he captained England, he was world famous and became a household name across the entire planet.

    We asked our European offices for their reaction to the news that Goldenballs has retired - surveying the correspondents on two questions.

    First, what they see as Beckham's defining moment.

    And second, whether his ability as a player matched the hype around this footballing superstar.

    For English football fans, the answers are fairly simple: his greatest moment was undeniably the free kick against Greece in 2001

    Read More »from David Beckham’s legacy: The view from Europe
  • Reda Maher at the Amsterdam ArenA - on Twitter @Reda_Eurosport

    As last acts go, Chelsea's Europa League final win over Benfica was pretty dramatic.

    Redemption for Fernando Torres after his general woes at the club, redemption for Branislav Ivanovic after he missed the Champions League final win in Munich, and a last-gasp vindication for the departing Rafael Benitez, who has once again showed himself to be a master of the cup final and gone some way to erasing that iffy spell at Inter Milan.

    It wasn’t quite a smash-and-grab affair, but Benfica defied the form and statistics to dominate the ball

    Read More »from Benitez makes final nod to Mourinho
  • Werder Bremen coach Thomas Schaaf (Reuters)Werder Bremen coach Thomas Schaaf (Reuters)

    Werder Bremen have sacked the closest thing German football has to Sir Alex Ferguson – their coach Thomas Schaaf.

    While Ferguson has spent 26 years at Old Trafford Schaff's has been at Bremen for an amazing 41 years – although only the last 14 of those as a manager.

    Schaaf truly is a one-club man, playing for the club as a youth before joining the professional ranks in 1978. The defender was assistant manager while still a player, retiring in 1995.

    He took over as the manager of the second team that same year, before being given the permanent job in 1999.

    Werder won the double under his

    Read More »from Bremen sack ‘German Fergie’ Schaaf after 41 years at club
  • Chelsea and Benfica’s break with tradition

    Jorge Jesus cuts an animated, almost rakish figure as he patrols the touchline for Benfica, and nothing we have seen so far this season hints that the flamboyant tactician will be anything other than strained during Wednesday’s Europa League final against Chelsea.

    Benfica have the illustrious history, both of free-flowing attacking football and of sustained European success, although their continental presence has diminished almost in tandem with Chelsea’s rise.

    The perceived wisdom is that the Portuguese giants are a dangerous attacking force who can cause Chelsea’s occasionally flaky defence

    Read More »from Chelsea and Benfica’s break with tradition
  • Racist abuse poisons Italian game

    Milan's Kevin Prince Boateng and Mario Balotelli

    A couple of years ago, Milan's yellow-tied chief executive Adriano Galliani lamented what had become of Serie A. "It's like with theatres and restaurants," he told the pink pages of La Gazzetta dello Sport. "There are beautiful theatres and ugly ones, luxury restaurants and pizzerias."

    That comment of his came to mind once again when reading the columns of one of Italy's great sportswriters, Gianni Mura, in La Repubblica on Monday morning. "Ask for the bill, get up and leave," he wrote. The plate he'd been served the night before, billed on the menu as a feast of football between Milan and

    Read More »from Racist abuse poisons Italian game
  • Drogba hits back at banana-waving fan with evolution pic

    Galatasaray striker Didier Drogba hit back at a Fenerbahce fan who waved a banana towards him and team mate Emmanuel Eboue during the weekend's league encounter by highlighting some home truths about racism.

    Ivory Coast players Eboue and Drogba, who was instrumental in Chelsea's run to the Champions League title last season, were heckled during Sunday's 2-1 league win by Fenerbahce in the high-octane encounter.

    A Fenerbahce fan was stabbed to death and more than 100 fans were detained following Turkey's most popular derby.

    Drogba, whose Galatasaray team have already secured the Turkish

    Read More »from Drogba hits back at banana-waving fan with evolution pic

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About Pitchside Europe

Pitchside Europe brings you the inside line on Europe"s major leagues. From Lisbon to Berlin, Glasgow to Naples, we look at the teams, players, coaches and fans making an impression across the Old Continent. Be it teenage sensations in La Liga, managerial outbursts in Ligue 1, improbable haircuts in the Bundesliga or innovative tactical trends in Serie A, if it's happening in Europe, you'll find out about it here.

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