Football news - The Warm-Up: Is the Clasico on the move?
/dnl.eurosport.com/sd/img/placeholder/eurosport_logo_1x1.png){kind=logo}
Updated 17/10/2019 at 07:53 GMT
It's a good Thursday for the Lionesses, but an awkward one for La Liga...
Gerard Pique of Barcelona at the Camp Nou
Image credit: Getty Images
THURSDAY’S BIG STORIES
The old clásico flip-reverse
Those of you that have been keeping an eye on the actual, real life, non-football news will be aware that a wave of protests and disruption has been sweeping Catalonia after nine separatist leaders were jailed for terms of between nine and 13 years. A major protest and general strike are planned for Friday.
And in just nine days, on 26 October, Real Madrid are due to visit the Camp Nou to play Barcelona in the first clásico of the season.
You can see why La Liga might be a little leery of dropping a clásico — with all its political and symbolic resonance — into the middle of everything else. So the league have asked the Spanish football federation to relocate the fixture to the Bernabéu in Madrid. And… well, you can see how that might not go down well either.
Both clubs have rejected the idea: Barcelona want it to go ahead, while Madrid are taking the view that if there’s a problem, then there should be a postponement. But it’s not up to them.
According to Marca:
Irrespective of the opposition both Barcelona and Real Madrid have to the plans to switch the venue of the first Clasico of the season, they will not be part of the voting committee which is split into three deciding votes. The outcome will ultimately be decided by the RFEF, La Liga and an independent adjudicator, with the clubs having next to no say, despite registering their dismay at the plans on Wednesday morning.
One to watch. And one, we suspect, in which every possible answer is going to land badly with somebody.
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2019/08/24/2661003-55042370-2560-1440.jpg)
Santiago-Bernabeu
Image credit: Getty Images
The Lionesses sell out Wembley
On Tuesday, England captain Steph Houghton asked a question:
And on Wednesday, the FA jumped in with the answer:
Assuming almost everybody turns up on 9 November, then the near-as-dammit 90,000 crowd will almost double the previous record for an England Women’s home game, 45,619, which was set back in 2014 against the same opponents.
53,512 watched England lose their World Cup semi-final to the USA in Lyon last summer, though the majority of those were supporting the Americans. And just over 80,000 watched the USA beat Japan at Wembley in the final of the 2012 Olympics. But soon, all these records will be as dust beneath Fran Kirby’s boots.
Fair to say that the women’s game in England is going from strength to thrilling strength. And it’ll take more than a couple of weird interviews from Phil Neville to change that.
Collar feeling
The fallout from England’s toxic qualifier against Bulgaria continues to, er, fall out. On Wednesday, six arrests were made by Bulgarian police, with more to come. According to the authorities:
15 participants were identified in the unlawful event. Six of them have been detained and three are wanted, two have been summoned and are expected to report to the police to testify.
This follows Tuesday’s resignation of the president of the Bulgaria Football Union, Borislav Mihaylov, who stepped down after the country’s prime minister gave him a very clear ultimatum:
After yesterday’s shameful loss of the Bulgarian National Team and given the bad results of our football, I ordered to end any relationship with BFU, including financial, until the withdrawal of Borislav Mihaylov from the post.
Tough to come back from that. Now, everybody start staring hard at UEFA.
IN OTHER NEWS
Well, this is pretty swish.
Obviously the players are all getting actual ones, right? Fans wear replica shirts; players wear real ones. Them’s the rules. Shirts off, lads.
RETRO CORNER
Bulgarian football and Barcelona in the same Warm-Up? Probably time to look up some old Hristo Stoichkov videos. Here he is playing for Johan Cruyff’s Dream Team, leading a 4-0 rout of Manchester United.
Bonus content! UEFA’s three-foreigners rule meant Gary Walsh was in goal that night. 15 years later, he looked back on the thrashing. Apparently the whole enterprise was doomed from the start:
The night before Mick Hucknall had joined in with us during shooting practice and he’d actually scored past me. His shot went right through me. It was really embarrassing. I don’t think Alex Ferguson saw it. He might have played Schmeichel if he had.
HAT TIP
In other news from the nexus of sport and politics, North Korea and South Korea played out a goalless draw in front of an empty stadium: no fans, no media. Just two teams, support staff, and — of course — Gianni Infantino.
Though as the Guardian notes, “national anthems of both sides were played before the match kicked off at the Kim Il Sung Stadium and the flags of the two countries were on display”. Got to observe the forms.
Kudos, then, to football.london’s Joe Doyle, who broke new ground in football coverage by liveblogging a game that neither he nor anybody else could see.
COMING UP
Most of the games were played yesterday, but there’s one Women’s Champions League game coming this evening, as Barcelona Femenino take on ZFK Minsk. You can blame the international break for the lack of action on the men’s side of things.
Warming you up tomorrow like a pair of furry mittens and a cup of hot chocolate, Tom Adams...
Scan me
Related Topics
Share this article
Advertisement
Advertisement