7 d. ago Game is up for Inter after Champions League journey ends in bitter humiliation | Jonathan Liew

After losing two finals in three seasons to state-owned investment funds, this ageing team reduced their fans to tearsThey stay just long enough to see the trophy lifted. Most have discarded their losing medals by the time the pyrotechnics go off and Marquinhos raises the European Cup into the muggy Munich night. There is a watery smattering of applause. Then, with a turn of pace so sadly lacking during the game itself, they turn and head for the tunnel, past a battalion of photographers whose lenses are facing in the opposite direction.What does it feel like to lose a Champions League final 5-0? Right now, and possibly for many years to come, this Inter team will be the only ones who know. Many of their fans were weeping uncontrollably in the stands, in the concourses, all along the road that leads back to the Métro station. For the 22 players and thousands of supporters who crossed the Alps so full of dreams, this is the sort of sporting trauma that defines generations. Continue r...

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8 d. ago Football matchday live: PSG v Inter Champions League final buildup

All the buildup to the Munich final Jonathan Liew: PSG v Inter is clash of styles on and off pitchYou can email Barry | Kick-off is at 8pm BSTLuis Enrique: “It has been a very difficult journey, with some really high-level matches since the very beginning of the competition,” said the PSG manager in yesterday’s pre-match press conference. “We’re used to playing these kinds of matches, and I think that can be a strength for us. Now we’ll try to take to the pitch with our best weapons. It’s a final. We’ve prepared for it, and we’ll try to draw the game towards areas where we consider ourselves to be better. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”Paris Saint-Germain: Luis Enrique has given his star players a holiday since they wrapped up the French title 57 days ago, writes Luke Entwhistle in Munich. Is that how to prepare for a tough Champions League final against Inter? Continue reading...

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8 d. ago Despotism v capitalism: PSG v Inter is clash of styles on and off pitch | Jonathan Liew

Champions League final features opposing tactical approaches and two radically different ownership modelsIn 2021, Oaktree Capital quietly rebranded its “Distressed Debt” division as the “Opportunistic Credit” platform. For decades the LA-based investment fund had specialised in picking up what is known in the trade as distressed assets, a strategy it described as looking for “good companies with bad balance sheets”.So let’s say your company is screwed. You’re deep in debt, severely short of cash, perhaps even at risk of bankruptcy or default. In sweep Oaktree. They have a mosey around, shake down some creditors, restructure your cost base, perhaps offer you a high‑interest loan to stop the bleeding. Once they’ve got you battle-lean they find you a buyer, you sell up, and they take a fat cut. Four years ago, as they cast an eye over the Covid-emaciated carcass of Inter, this was exactly the strategy they had in mind. Continue reading...

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1 week ago Arsenal, Crystal Palace and Liverpool hold trophy celebrations and parades – live

Trophy winners are holding end-of-season celebrationsInside Arsenal’s WCL party | And get in touch via emailThe final at Estádio José Alvalade was a Renée Slegers masterpiece and showed how good Arsenal can be on their day. Those days have come in Europe this season but, as Jonathan Liew writes, Slegers needs backing with more strength in depth to compete with Chelsea:Gunnersaurus is out warming up the crowd but as we wait for the players to come onstage you can get a glimpse into the post-match celebrations with Tom Garry’s piece from Lisbon: Continue reading...

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2 w. ago Women’s Champions League triumph will redefine how Arsenal see themselves | Jonathan Liew

Gunners’ victory was built on a multi-layered courage that respected but was not overawed by Barcelona or by fatalismThere is always a little more time than you think. A red number 7 blinks across the pitch from the fourth official’s board. Seven minutes of injury time: it’s a lot. Against Barcelona, it’s an age. Against this Barcelona, in this heat, in this game, it may as well be all of eternity.But you push through. You pace yourself. Beth Mead goes down under a challenge; there’s 30 seconds right there. Kim Little rolls the ball up the left touchline to no one: eight seconds. Daphne van Domselaar hesitates over a free-kick, squeezing out those seconds like drops from a towel. You push through because whatever happens in these seven minutes, however those minutes make you suffer, seven minutes is still less than 18 years. Continue reading...

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2 w. ago Jack Grealish looks out of time at Manchester City now Guardiola has moved the goalposts | Jonathan Liew

In the Premier League’s shifting landscape, this struggling team can no longer carry a winger lacking straight-line pace and a goal threatJack Grealish is prowling. The wind tousling his hair, the ball at his feet, the way it was always meant to be. In front of him a wall of Bournemouth defenders jumpily stands guard, eyes wide like stags ready to bolt. Grealish shuffles inside, body feinting, hips dancing. You want to know what happens next. What happens next is that the referee blows for full time.It’s the 97th minute; Grealish came on in the 91st. In that time Bournemouth somehow managed to score a goal. It wasn’t Grealish’s fault, but it did eat up most of the time in which he was hoping to make an impression. No matter. As the game ends, the cameras hunt down a treble-winning City legend making what might well be his final appearance at the Etihad Stadium. Kevin De Bruyne takes his handshakes and his tributes. Grealish slips quietly down the tunnel. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Some guts, no glory: end of my amateur football career brings a painful realisation | Jonathan Liew

As my body begins to show undeniable signs of decay, it’s time to reflect on a profoundly underwhelming sporting lifeThere are the nights when the 10-minute walk to the tube station takes half an hour. There are the crossbow bolts of knee pain at 3am. There are the evenings when you convince yourself the recycling doesn’t actually need to be taken out tonight. We can wait a couple of days, squash it down a bit, crush that box flat. And secretly, it’s because you can’t handle the stairs.There are the mornings when the bus is coming and the kids shout “Come on!” and start running, but you can’t, you just can’t, and you don’t know how to tell them. There is the very particular indignity of the 39-year-old man crossing the road in socks because blisters and swellings have rendered his boots useless. There are the fitness fads – hot yoga, reformer pilates, cold plunge – adopted at great expense and with the sole purpose of pushing back oblivion, of rendering the intolerable fleetingly to...

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3 w. ago Beyond the runs: Virat Kohli’s obsessive intensity left indelible mark on Test cricket | Jonathan Liew

The retiree’s final innings may have been unremarkable but his entire career was a testament to his relentless pursuit of excellence which helped redefine Indian cricketAt dawn on a pale pastel morning in late January, thousands of fans started queueing outside the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. Before long the queues turned chaotic. Scuffles broke out. Three people were injured and a police motorcycle was damaged. Armed security personnel were deployed inside and outside the venue, occasionally stepping in front of the sightscreen and causing play to be stopped.But the consequences of Virat Kohli playing his first domestic red-ball game for Delhi in 12 years are less interesting than why he was there in the first place. Kohli rolled up in his Porsche two days before the game, arriving early to beat the crowds and so he could fit in a full gym session before team fitness drills and net practice. Desperately short of form, and yet a desperate romantic, Kohli had come to wor...

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