After a two-month layoff, the UEFA Champions League returns to action today with the first two of eight round of 16 first round ties.
One of the more highly anticipated matches of the round sees AC Milan host Manchester United, while Olympique Lyonnais welcomes Real Madrid to the Stade de Gerland.
The return leg of both ties [...]
Thanks to the international break, it’s been almost a month since our last ranking. In the interim, every team from our previous list has stumbled at least once. Even Barcelona – who has been number one since our first edition of the WSR World Club Top Ten – was tripped up. Twice.
That kind of [...]
The goals started flowing almost immediately after the opening whistle. A song in Barcelona. A stunner at the far post in Debrecen. Converting a set piece in Milan. It all happened within the first five minutes.
It was a welcome change from the first two match days in UEFA Champions League. [...]
Thanks to the international break, the UEFA Champions League has taken a long sojourn between match days two and three, allowing some supporters to forget their club’s dire straits.
“Their” might be an excessively generous term, as my eyes are cast on two specific sites: the San Siro and Anfield.
We start in Italy, where Internazionale [...]
The Spanish takeover of European football is happening, if World Soccer Reader’s Club Top Ten is any indication.
The rumored shift of power from England and Italy to Spain deserves more discussion (and data points), but the early season returns from the league’s top three clubs provide plenty of evidence for those arguing Spanish primacy. [...]
If it was Juventus or one of the Milans, there would be less surprise, but teams like Fiorentina are not supposed to beat the Liverpools of the world. With two goals from Stevan Jovetic, that’s what happened today in Florence: Fiorentina winning 2-0, knocking Liverpool to third place in their group through two [...]
Ten points is a common goal at the start of UEFA Champions League’s group stage. To get there, you need three wins (presumably at home) and a point on the road. The logic: your better than break-even record should put you in second place of your four team group.
Last season, every [...]
Nine of last week’s ten ranked teams return to WSR’s weekly club listing, with only previously tenth ranked Manchester City failing to return. If the list were one place longer, the Citizens would be on it, still holding strong (if now subdued) support amongst our writers.
If the list came out before Inter Milan’s most [...]
Between the international break and our decision to start releasing this article at the end of the week (to better fit against the Champions League schedule), it’s been a long time since we last released a WSR World Club Top Ten. With a nod to that delay, I’ll skip the expansive exposition and get [...]
The first two days of UEFA Champions League group play have featured an inordinate number of decisive goals in the last twenty minutes of matches, making for an exciting opening match day. But on Wednesday, despite that excitement, there were very few surprise results.
Instead, you had favorites like Arsenal, unexpectedly behind early, fighting in [...]
