Hi, friends. I'll be commenting almost exclusively on the Italian Serie A season (I'm a dual citizen of Italy and the United States and a passionate AC Milan fan) but feel free to comment on the other leagues in England, Germany, Spain, France or anywhere else in Europe. Today my AC MIlan started its defense of the Scudetto, beating Udinese 4-2. We played sloppy football with some players visibly rusty like Tomori, Leão and even Maignan. Still, we found ways to score 4 goals and I think it bodes VERY well for our season. We won the Scudetto last season while having trouble in finding scoring opportunities and being largely outscored by Inter in full season stats (we won many games by a minimum score, unlike Inter). But today with the youngsters we've added to our team, despite not having flashy summer window signings such as Lukaku and Di Maria except for CDK, we were creative in offense and scored four times, making it look easy. Excellent performances by Theo, Kalulu and Bennacer. Rebic, back to form, scored two goals, confirming how he was already improving at the end of last season and had a good pre-season. Surprisingly, Brahim whose position is threatened by the signing of CDK, participated in 3 of the goals today, suffering the PK, scoring a goal, and producing a spectacular assist for another goal from the right wing. I wish he'd move to the RW permanently and leave the CAM position to CDK. He is small and easily bullied by big central backs, so he'd be much more comfortable in the RW which is still our weakest spot that hasn't been solved in the transfer window. Messias despite the great pre-season form played horribly today (he seems to have a ceiling so he plays well against poor teams but can't repeat it against better teams). Tomori had failures. Maignan had failures. Rafa was always kicking the ball too strongly with poor calibration. These failures were atypical. I think once they shake off the rust they'll go back to the fabulous form they exhibited last season. Calabria and Krunic were decent. The atmosphere at San Siro with 70,000 fans was great. I look forward to the continuation of the season. Meanwhile, Lukaku scored for Inter in the first 80 seconds of his return to Serie A, sending a strong message to the other teams (although it was against newly promoted Lecce, a team that everybody expects to be relegated this season).
Bundesliga. Bayern started out just great. Lewandovsky is now playing in Barca. That changed the whole game of Bayern, brought in some fresh wind. Bayern got with Mane a new fast attacker. The winner of the Lew change to Barca is Jamal Musaila, still a teen, but world class. The guy to watch in European Football. First game against Frankfurt was a Jamal show with 2 goals and contributed to all the other goals. Bayern scored 5 times in the first half and 1 time in the second half. That was a hard core beating for Frankfurt. Second game was against Wolfsburg a 2:0. Again Jamal and the ever-green Mueller. Mane with 2 offside goals, which were not given.
In Italy's Serie A, all 10 games of the first round ended with one of the teams winning. For only the 4th time in history (and first time in the 20-team era) the table shows the top 10 teams with 3 points each and the bottom 10 teams with 0 points each. No draws. The closest game to a draw was Inter vs. Lecce. The game was 1-1 until the last few seconds of stoppage time when Inter scored the winner. For me, the fact that all rivals won as well took away part of the joy of Milan's great start.
The Bundesliga plays on 3 days, Friday 1 game, then Saturday the rest and then 2 games on Sunday. I will keep track on the top 4 or 5 teams. Today Deortmund vs Bremen. Dortmund lost its top striker, Haarland and got Haller. Its a sad story because, Haller found out he had cancer. I wish him all the best luck, I cross my fingers for him, I had the same cancer and barely survived, 30 years ago. Dortmund looked good till the 2/3 second half, leading nicely 2:0. But then it went down the drain, rather fast. Bremen scored 3 times, 2 in the 5 minutes extra time. Bremen just got promoted from the second league. That is a major blow to Dortmund, loosing at home, against a promote. Number 2 of last season, Leipzig. Union Berlin against Leipzig.. Union Berlin is a former East German club, the only one in the 1. Bundesliga. I call it a true blue collar club. They play a scrapy, down to earth football. No stars just the old fashioned workers. They do not win big and they do not lose big. They beat Leipzig 2:1, a typical result for them. Note about Leipzig. Timo Werner is back in Leipzig. Chelsea never worked out for him, he did not fit in that team. Its always interesting to watch, how those first time big moves pan out. For Werner it was a catastrophe and he made the right move to go back to his roots I hope it works for him, because of the world cup. Tomorrow its Bayern time, my team, against Bochum, a away game. I need to keep track of Gladbach, they won all their games. Might be the surprise team of the season. But Bremens 2:3 was a real surprise.
I watched Man U hand Arsenal its first loss of the season Sunday (3-1) and Ronaldo & Co. look pretty solid. They also beat Liverpool a couple weeks ago. Manchester City is still the team to beat, and they appear to be even stronger with newly acquired Erling Haaland in the lineup...
Bundesliga has been strange over the last 2 weeks. Bayern started out great so fricking dominating it was scarry and then pfffffffff, only ties. Gladbach faded, too. Frankfurt had lost every game and then blew Leipzig with a dominant 4:0 out of the Stadium. That was a WOW. Leipzig lost 4:1 in the Champions League against the Ukraine team from Donesk. WOW Freiburg!!!!!!!!!! is on top of the charts. WOW
Watched PSG against Juventus. Mbabe was outstanding, I was disgusted with Neymar's injury showmanship, that was truly crappy. Messi, who is that, he just walked around the field, walked and did nothing but back and forth short passes and got substituted, 20 minutes before end. What is going on with him? The showman ship of the PSG squad was just disgusting, several of them died at least 3 times. PSG 2:1
English Premier League. Only 9 games in to the season. Leeds United in mid table with a game in hand. 3rd season since getting back into the top division after 16 years in the wilderness. Arsenal, Manchester city and Spurs up at the top with a small gap to Chelsea and Man Utd in 5th and 6th. Hero underdog winners a few years ago Leicester at the bottom propping it up. I have to listen on the radio if I want to follow the games live. Sky has all the broadcasting rights for TV so I don't get to see Leeds play. I got into hockey instead because I can see all the games for free.
