We are back! The first weekend of the 2025-26 European club soccer season — though only three of the big leagues, the English Premier League, Spanish LaLiga and French Ligue 1, have officially kicked off — has delivered a bounty of talking points and drama for us to unpack, with Italy’s Serie A and the German Bundesliga joining the fun this coming week. We got a big clash in England that saw Arsenal escape Manchester United with a 1-0 win and three points to begin their campaign — and more woe for Ruben Amorim.
We got a dominant start for Barcelona against nine-man Mallorca (though Hansi Flick still found something to be upset about), as well as Bayern Munich claiming the Supercup over Stuttgart in the traditional curtain-raiser to the German season. Liverpool began their title defense with a 4-2 win over Bournemouth in which it’s clear their defending is a work in progress, Tijjani Reijnders put on a show for new club Manchester City, and Chelsea look a little tired (and no wonder, given their Club World Cup exertions) in a scoreless draw with Crystal Palace.
– The best tifos of the Premier League weekend
– Reaction: Arsenal beat Man United in clash of depth, errors
– Liverpool overcome emotional night to beat Bournemouth
Here is the first wave of Gab Marcotti’s musings and reactions to the most memorable moments of the weekend, with the remaining items to follow — reaction to Arsenal’s win at Man United, quick hits about PSG and Atletico Madrid — after the Gab & Juls Podcast.
Hansi Flick’s criticism of his own players after 3-0 win feels over the top: there’s no point in running up the score
Barcelona began their LaLiga campaign with a 3-0 away win against Mallorca on Saturday, but boss Hansi Flick wasn’t happy with the way they played. “I didn’t like the game,” he said. “The points are important, but I didn’t like the way we played at 50-percent intensity with two extra men and the two-goal advantage.”
Now, I’m all for coaches demanding 110 percent and all that jazz, and I get that Flick knows his players and what motivates them best, but this felt weird. Barca scored early with Lamine Yamal’s surgical pass finding Raphinha, and then went 2-0 up with Ferran Torres in the 23rd minute. (They got more than a bit lucky with that second goal, which came with play continuing despite Mallorca’s Antonio Raíllo getting struck in the head by a Yamal shot and collapsing to the ground … so much for head injury protocols.) By the 39th minute, Mallorca had two players sent off and it was, evidently, game over.
Now, 11 vs. 9 — especially when you’re already two goals up — isn’t football. It’s a whole other thing. And demanding that your players execute and run into the ground in those conditions — when it’s August in Mallorca — is a little silly. You’re not going to drop points, and you’re not really going to learn anything because you won’t probably play 11 vs. 9 again this season. Why not take your foot off the gas a little, conserve energy and avoid injury?
And, maybe, while you’re at it, celebrate some of the good things we saw at 11 vs. 11? Like Yamal already in top form. Or Torres showing (again) he can do the job as stand-in for the absent Robert Lewandowski. Or Ronald Araújo — who is tapped for more minutes than many would like after Iñigo Martínez’s departure — looking competent against Vedat Muriqi.
Bayern Munich win German Supercup, but there’s plenty of work to do
They celebrated with gusto, which is what teams managed by Vincent Kompany tend to do when they win. But the fact is this 2-1 win could have easily gone either way, with Deniz Undav and Nick Woltemade coming very close for Stuttgart. When your 39-year-old keeper has to come up huge more than once — well, that’s suboptimal. Especially when said keeper (Manuel Neuer, in case you’ve been living under a rock) has started fewer than half of Bayern’s league games over the past three seasons for one reason or another.
There’s an issue at right back, whether it’s Sacha Boey or Konrad Laimer who should start, and of course, Josip Stanisic is a center back masquerading as a left back down the other flank. (Alphonso Davies will be back from injury, yes, but that won’t be until December at the earliest), but the real issues are in the front four, where there’s a Jamal Musiala-sized hole to be filled. Michael Olise can do a job there, but the pieces around that part of the pitch have to work, and there’s little reason to think Serge Gnabry has much of anything left. I guess that’s why Bayern have been so aggressive in their pursuit of Woltemade, though Stuttgart appear to have shut the door on that effort.
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How will Bayern fix it? Well, if Woltemade (or another signing such as Christopher Nkunku) doesn’t materialize, you’re either looking at one of the youngsters (such as Tom Bischof or Lennart Karl) or, once Aleksandar Pavlovic is fit, you adjust your team into a formation that’s something closer to a 4-3-3. After all, it’s not written in stone that you have to go 4-2-3-1 even when Musiala isn’t there.
There were bright spots. Jonathan Tah has fit in seamlessly at the back and Dayot Upamecano showed why he’s a good match against someone like Woltemade. Harry Kane scored, Luis Díaz looks sharp and motivated (and also scored, commemorating it with his former teammate Diogo Jota’s PlayStation celebration) and the oft-criticised Leon Goretzka linked well with Joshua Kimmich in midfield. But there’s no escaping that with Thomas Mueller, Kingsley Coman and Leroy Sané gone and only Diaz coming in so far, they’re down several bodies in the final third.
Quick hits
1:15
Will Tijjani Reijnders be the signing of the season?
Gab Marcotti and Julien Laurens debate if Tijjani Reijnders will be the signing of the season after scoring on his Manchester City debut.
10. Tijjani Reijnders shines in Man City’s demolition of Wolves: Tijjani Reijnders was one of the best players in Serie A last season with Milan, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that he would notch a goal and an assist — and, really, the way he set up Oscar Bobb for Erling Haaland’s opener ought to be worth one more assist — in Saturday’s 4-0 win. Conventional wisdom in Italy (and among some of the analytics guys) was that however gifted and productive, Reijnders was a “tweener” — not quite a midfield playmaker, not quite a guy who can play in the hole. I’m glad Pep Guardiola saw right through this. Reijnders adds dynamism to a City side that already look more sprightly than it did last season. (Pep’s decision to start Bobb and Jérémy Doku wide also suggests he’s looking for directness.) Haaland getting off the mark straight out of the gate is also a good sign. Now just wait until Rodri comes back, which is expected after the September international break.
9. Nico Williams on fire to start the season for Athletic Club: He had the world at his feet after the Euros, but Bilbao watchers will tell you last season wasn’t Nico Williams’ finest. Maybe it was the crazy transfer valuations and the links away from the club; maybe it was just the fact that he was a 22-year-old who, in many ways, is still unpolished. That said, he delivered a statement performance in Athletic’s 3-2 win over Sevilla. He won and converted a (generous, to say the least) penalty, delivered two assists and was a constant menace while on the pitch. It seems clear that Bilbao are making him the centerpiece of their attack (at least while Oihan Sancet is out) and he is seizing the opportunity. It’s early, but this could be the year he consolidates his status.
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FRIDAY, AUG. 15 (all times ET)
• Girona vs. Rayo Vallecano (12:50 p.m.)
• Arminia vs. Bremen (2:40 p.m.)
• Villarreal vs. Real Oviedo (3:20 p.m.)
SATURDAY, AUG. 16 (all times ET)
• Sandhausen vs. RB Leipzig (9:25 a.m.)
• Mallorca vs. FC Barcelona (1:00 p.m.)
• Stuttgart vs. Bayern Munich (2:25 p.m.)
SUNDAY, AUG. 17 (all times ET)
• Athletic Club vs. Sevilla (1:20 p.m.)
• Espanyol vs. Atlético Madrid (3:00 p.m.)
8. Despite 0-0 draw, Newcastle are well ahead of Villa in clash of wannabe party-crashers: The Premier League’s traditional “Big Six” have such a built-in advantage in terms of revenue and clout that it takes a superhuman effort or a superhuman screw-up (or both) for some other team to break into the mix. Both Aston Villa and Newcastle United managed it last season, and both have had a rough transfer summer (the former with a “dead” transfer window, the latter with the Alexander Isak saga). Performance-wise, Newcastle looked streets ahead when they met at Villa Park on Saturday. Villa couldn’t manage a single shot at home in the first half. Morgan Rogers was off the pace, Youri Tielemans served up a reminder of why he’s an 8 (or a 6) and not a 10, and Ezri Konsa foolishly got himself sent off. Unai Emery’s side simply doesn’t look right. Contrast this with Newcastle, who responded in the best possible way to Isak’s absence. They deployed Anthony Gordon up front, they ran their hearts out, they could and should have scored a couple of goals.
7. Christian Pulisic and Rafael Leão on the mark for Milan as Max Allegri era begins: This is important because one of the keys you want when you bring in a new coach (especially one as highly paid as Allegri) is that your big players respond to him. Well, Pulisic and Leão are two of Milan’s biggest and the early signs are positive. They teamed up up front in a 3-5-2 formation, and both scored (Pulisic also hit the crossbar) in the 2-0 Coppa Italia win over Bari at a sold-out San Siro on Sunday night. There are a ton of question marks over this Milan side — their choice of Allegri, the arrival of Igli Tare as sporting director and plenty more known unknowns — but what seems evident is that these two have to be at the center of the project and get along with the new boss. Leão (who came off with a muscular injury, although it seems to be just a precaution) had an exceptional preseason and you wonder if, with this scheme in place, the club really needs to go out and get another top-shelf forward when it already has Santi Gimenez.
1:38
Why Hislop still favours Liverpool over Man City to be champions
Shaka Hislop explains why he’s predicted Liverpool to be crowned Premier League champions again.
6. Bournemouth game confirms Arne Slot will have a big call to make at Liverpool: Last season, Liverpool’s lone newcomer (Federico Chiesa) played a grand total of 108 league minutes. This season, Arne Slot has new fullbacks (Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong) and new attackers (Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike) in his starting XI. And because the new starters have different skill sets to the ones (Trent Alexander-Arnold, Darwin Núñez, Luis Diaz) they replaced, the style and approach is being tweaked too. Some of it makes sense and is inevitable. Frimpong is a north-to-south recycled winger, not the creative recycled midfielder that Alexander-Arnold was. Kerkez doesn’t have the defensive wiles of Andrew Robertson (at least not yet: he’s only 21). But sticking Wirtz at No. 10 in a 4-2-3-1 seems more like a high-risk/high-reward roll of the dice. It’s not where he played most of his career, and certainly not with fullbacks like these. Crucially, it leaves Liverpool with two midfielders to patrol the middle of the field and provide cover for the marauding wide defenders, which is a huge ask. We saw it against Palace in the Community Shield and, again, Friday night in the 4-2 win. Slot might be able to make it work — and it might all be fine once Ryan Gravenberch returns — but it’s going to take time to build the sort of chemistry and there are no guarantees. The question is how long he devotes to this “project” if the performances aren’t immediately forthcoming.
5. We get confirmation that Thomas Frank’s Tottenham will be shape-shifting this season: Against mighty Paris Saint-Germain in the Super Cup last midweek, Frank played only two attacking players, gave up possession and parked the bus. At home to overmatched Burnley, Frank replaced a center back with a forward, switched from a 5-3-2 formation to 4-3-3 and had 67% of the ball in a 3-0 win. We saw Frank do this at Brentford last season — conservative against the big clubs, marauding against his peers — and this would suggest we’ll see it this season. While some managers at big clubs do make tweaks based on the opposition, you don’t see such radical changes often from heavyweights (or, after last season’s 17th-place finish, would-be heavyweights). Partly because they value chemistry, partly — you suspect — because they see adjusting to the other teams a sign of weakness. Frank, who started his career at 21 coaching an Under-8s team, has no such hang-ups. In that sense, he’s a model of humility relative to some of his peers.
1:38
Hislop: Burnley didn’t do enough to deal with Kudus
Shaka Hislop and Mark Donaldson discuss Mohammed Kudus’ performance in Tottenhams 3-0 win over Burnley, in which he contributed with 2 assists.
4. Atletico Madrid: Copy to follow …
3. Antoine Semenyo is racially abused and immediate action is taken, which is how it’s supposed to work: It’s obviously not something to celebrate or accept in any way, but since these things do happen, the next best thing is that they be dealt with immediately. And that’s what occurred when Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo was racially abused by someone in the stands half an hour into their game at Anfield on Friday. He alerted referee Anthony Taylor, who applied the protocol. The game was stopped, an anti-racism message came over the loudspeakers, and the abuser was apprehended (police arrested him on “suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offence”). Semenyo himself said: “Last night at Anfield will stay with me forever not because of one person’s words, but because how the entire football family stood together.” He’s right. Let’s leave the discourse about societal problems to one side for a minute (that’s not football’s job) and focus instead on what we can do — and what we should demand — in our stadiums: clear rules against racist abuse that get applied swiftly and effectively. That’s what happened at Anfield, and that sends a message.
2. Paris Saint-Germain: Copy to follow…
1:21
Do Chelsea still need to add more signings?
Steve Nicol gives his thoughts on where Chelsea still need to improve following their 0-0 draw with Crystal Palace.
1. After a flat Chelsea are held in opener by Crystal Palace, should we blame the Club World Cup? Or maybe we should praise Crystal Palace, who showed against Liverpool in the Community Shield what they can do when they have their big stars in place? (However, it might not be the case for much longer, given rumors surrounding Eberechi Eze and Marc Guéhi.) It’s probably a bit of both. It can’t be a coincidence that Bayern, Paris Saint-Germain and now Chelsea — all of whom went deep in the Club World Cup — all looked off the mark in their early outings. Preseason training has been compressed, and you pay a price for that. In Chelsea’s case, you also pay a price for the fact that you have brand-new wingers and center forwards and you run into a well-drilled team that could have won this game if Eze’s free kick hadn’t been (correctly) disallowed. A bit like last season, it’s going to take manager Enzo Maresca a while to give Chelsea their identity. Unlike last season, he has a deeper squad with fewer holes in it.
