The Athletic FC ⚽ is The Athletic’s daily football (or soccer, if you prefer) newsletter. Sign up to receive it directly to your inbox.
Hello! It’s another Clasico spanking for Real Madrid. And two big names want out of their clubs.
Coming up:
😢 A fresh night of Ancelotti pain
🥊 Arsenal and Arteta on the ropes
🙏 Walker seeks Man City exit
🌁 Football in the fog
Battered by Barca: Flick’s side make history with latest rout of Real
(Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“A clear assessment” is what Carlo Ancelotti said Real Madrid made of the season’s first Clasico, a 4-0 defeat by Barcelona in October. He must have forgotten to turn the windscreen wipers on because last night’s Supercopa de Espana final was every bit as chastening.
More than that, it was record-breaking. Barca’s 5-2 rout of Ancelotti’s side means they have scored four or more goals in consecutive matches for the first time in El Clasico history. This Catalan crew are Real’s kryptonite. It was lucky for Ancelotti that Barca’s goalkeeper, Wojciech Szczesny, drew a red card with the score at 5-1 because the Italian was nearing sackable territory.
Perhaps he’s in that ballpark anyway. This season has been far from a disaster for Real but Ancelotti’s powers of control are diminishing, and so is his spirit. Every time Real look to have sorted themselves out, the wheels drop off again.
“I don’t have anything to take from this game,” Ancelotti said, and so much of his rhetoric over the past six months has sounded like a lament. “With sadness, we go home.”
Not so Barca, who left out Dani Olmo, dropped their first-choice ’keeper but smacked Real out of the park regardless. It keeps the wolf from the door of president Joan Laporta, who is under fire for his management of the club but made sure he got in amongst the players’ celebrations at full time.
The only sad thing from a Barca standpoint? That fewer of their hardcore fans could watch in the flesh — because the Supercopa has comprehensively sold its soul to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi money talks
Like every year since 2020, this season’s Supercopa de Espana was staged in Saudi, in the city of Jeddah. It’s not alone in that respect. The Supercoppa Italiana — recently won by Christian Pulisic and Milan — was also fought out there, for transparently commercial reasons.
It’s part and parcel of the infiltration of Saudi money into the game. Some call it sportswashing but Spanish football has been more than happy to cash in. Not everybody is pleased, of course. Mallorca defender Pablo Maffeo, whose team lost to Real in the semis, said he would “like to play the Spanish Supercopa in Spain.” Fair comment.
But the die is cast, and the arrangement means an epic Clasico like last night’s (Barca skinning Real in transition, Jules Kounde providing a cross from heaven for Raphinha, above, and Kylian Mbappe trying in vain to carry the hopes of Madrid) plays out 4,000 kilometres from home. Not that a venue off the beaten track gave Ancelotti anywhere to hide.
News round-up
Gunners not firing: Havertz and co lose to United as slump deepens
Arsenal didn’t throw hundreds of millions behind Mikel Arteta in the hope of amassing FA Cups — they’re trying to fry bigger fish — but the manager is at that stage where a meaningful trophy would buy him some breathing space.
He and Arsenal have won nothing of note since their FA Cup in 2020, a fact that is increasingly being held against him. They are out of this season’s competition after losing to Manchester United yesterday. They’re 2-0 down on aggregate in the semis of the Carabao Cup. They’re six points off the pace in the Premier League, and they’ve lost their sense of adventure.
Against United, they had half an hour of normal time and the whole of extra time to beat a side with 10 men after Diogo Dalot’s red card. They failed, partly because Kai Havertz couldn’t score a piece of meat (more grist to the mill of the demands for Arteta to sign a finisher). The German’s penalty shootout miss was crucial, inviting the Emirates to empty and Joshua Zirkzee to send United through.
In contrast, Ruben Amorim is finding signs of life in United. Over the past month, they’ve won away at Manchester City, they’ve given Liverpool a scare at Anfield and they’ve turned Arsenal over in a thriller in north London. False dawns are rife at Old Trafford but maybe the sun is rising slowly.
🎙️ You can listen to our writers dissect United’s resistance on the Talk of the Devils podcast.
Transfer talk: Walker and Kvaratskhelia ask for moves
Two major transfer developments over the weekend, neither of which we truly saw coming.
First, Kyle Walker has asked to leave Manchester City after seven and a half years there. Pep Guardiola left him out of City’s 8-0 FA Cup mashing of Salford City because Walker asked to “explore options to play abroad”. Pep doesn’t sound like he’ll stand in his way.
Between poor form and issues in his personal life, Walker has been having a time of it. And as TAFC pointed out last week, the 34-year-old is part of a host of fine servants at City who are going over the hill.
It’s why 20-year-old Abdukodir Khusanov and other similar signings are on the way to the Etihad. Khusanov’s fee is agreed at £33.5million.
Second, and even more intriguing, was Khvicha Kvaratskhelia banging in a transfer request at Napoli; or, to quote boss Antonio Conte, asking to be sold “without beating around the bush”. This has gone from nought to 100 since we linked Kvaratskhelia with Liverpool last week. He’s the hipster’s choice and a cracking player. Don’t go anywhere…
📲 Our live transfer blog will keep you posted on all this and more.
Around The Athletic FC
Quiz answer
So, Friday’s list of events in chronological order from earliest to most recent — and trebles all around if you nailed this:
E) The first Premier League season without Newcastle, 1992-93; B) A player scoring five goals in a Premier League match for the first time (Andy Cole for Manchester United against Ipswich Town, 1995); A) the last time a Premier League team fielded an all-English XI (Aston Villa, 1999); Paul Gascoigne’s last Premier League game (for Everton, 2002); and D) the first Premier League hat-trick against Manchester United (David Bentley for Blackburn Rovers, 2006).
Catch a match
(Eastern Time/UK time)
Serie A: Monza vs Fiorentina, 2.45pm/7.45pm — CBS, Paramount+, Amazon Prime/OneFootball.
La Liga: Real Sociedad vs Villareal, 3pm/8pm — ESPN+, Fubo/Premier Sports.
And finally… spot the ball
As if defenders don’t have it hard enough, this is Leicester City scoring during Saturday’s FA Cup tie with Queens Park Rangers on Saturday. James Justin claimed the honours. We’ll take his word for it.
(Top photo: Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
