1. PSG are doing it again
Before becoming champions of Europe, PSG lost three of their first five Champions League games and managed to sneak into the playoff round last season. From Nov. 6 to Dec. 6, they posted two wins, two losses and two draws in six Ligue 1 and Champions League games. They were by no means a dominant force for the entire campaign, but it’s hard to argue anyone else was the best team in the world by the end.
This season, PSG won just one of their final five Champions League league phase contests and still have work to do to clinch the Ligue 1 title. It has often looked like their grueling schedule has caught up with them. Not against Bayern Munich though. They looked like the best team in the world. Luis Enrique has figured out how to get the most out of his team at the most important time of the season, and the performance against Bayern across both legs was the latest example.
2. Real Madrid have an accountability problem
It’s always someone else’s fault at Real Madrid. The club uses its TV channel to blame the refs. When players aren’t happy, they blame the coach. If it’s not the coach, then it’s a teammate who’s the problem. That’s how you get three separate sets of incidents involving five different players in the leadup to an El Clásico that could decide La Liga. Even Carlo Ancelotti struggled to manage everything at the end.
Classifying what is happening as a player issue is an oversimplification. It is a cultural issue within the club. When players refused to embrace the changes Xabi Alonso wanted to make, Florentino Pérez and the rest of club leadership could have supported their manager. They let the players win instead. It’s only natural for players to follow suit when excuse-making is normalized. Good luck to any manager trying to keep players in check until that changes.
3. Once again, VAR’s flaws got exposed
It is only fitting that the Premier League title race shifted – and may ultimately be decided – by a foul on Arsenal’s goalkeeper following a set piece. The Gunners have been deploying similar tactics all season and generally get away with it. There were multiple Arsenal players potentially committing fouls in the box at the same time David Raya was adjudged to have been impeded, after all. Reviews that take that long are by definition not clear and obvious either.
It was probably both a foul and an inconsistent application of the rules regarding contact in the box on set pieces. Neither side of the argument is really wrong, which is where the problem lies. If referees are going to allow grabbing, tackling and pulling on every set piece, they can’t suddenly stop doing so in one of the defining moments of the season. They did get the call “right.” Whether that is the appropriate way to use VAR and discuss controversial decisions is a different question altogether.
4. MLS is going backward
There have been four Champions Cup final games (a two-legged tie plus two single legs) played since the Seattle Sounders won the competition in 2022. Liga MX clubs have beaten Major League Soccer clubs in all of them, scoring 11 goals while conceding just one. MLS sent two of its very best teams – LAFC and Nashville – to the semifinals this year. Both were defeated on aggregate by multiple goals with Nashville losing both legs without finding the back of the net.
That same Nashville team knocked out Lionel Messi and Inter Miami. Last year, it was the Vancouver Whitecaps who handled the Herons and then got hammered in the final. This is the first time since 2021 MLS failed to get a team to the final. Seattle's triumph in 2022 remains the high point for the league, not the start of a new, more balanced era of the Champions Cup. Excellent MLS sides keep making deep runs and coming up short. Very short. It is an extremely troubling trend.
5. The Mexican federation has zero time or respect for its domestic league
The Mexico Football Federation (FMF) didn’t just threaten players with missing out on the World Cup if they failed to report to a camp outside the FIFA-designated international window. They threatened a specific set of players: ones from Liga MX, many of whom are still in the middle of the playoffs. Some are missing the remainder of the playoffs and a continental cup final, also known as the most important games of the season.
Compare that to the situations of strikers Santiago Giménez and Raúl Jiménez. Giménez has played a limited role for an AC Milan team in a Champions League spot despite Sunday’s loss. Jiménez and Fulham are on the outskirts of the fight for the Premier League’s European places. Allowing them to stay while wreaking havoc on Liga MX is a massive slap in the face to the league. The federation knew it had all the leverage and capitalized on it. It had better be worth it.