UEFA Champions League (Soccer)
How Real Madrid Beat Manchester City
Pep Guardiola’s team is not the first to experience that, of course. It is hard to tell whether it is something about the Bernabéu that does it, or whether it is the effect of feeling like you are living in a self-fulfilling prophecy, but this place has an unrivaled ability to unsettle even the greatest […]
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With 10 Straight Titles, Has Bayern Munich Broken the Bundesliga?
That success is, of course, to Bayern’s great credit. It has long been Germany’s biggest, richest, most glamorous team, but for years was held back by its supernova streak. Its combustible blend of powerful players, superstar managers and squabbling executives would self-destruct so reliably that the club became known as F.C. Hollywood. Consumed by infighting, […]
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Manchester City Fights Off Atlético Madrid in Champions League
MADRID — Many things happened at the Wanda Metropolitano in the final 10 or 20 minutes, the ones that seemed to stretch on and on, long past the final whistle, until they almost constituted another self-contained bonus game, a separate third installment of a scheduled two-part drama. There was some hair-pulling. There was quite a […]
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Real Madrid Edges Chelsea to Reach Champions League Semifinals
MADRID — The noise rose and swelled with every second that ticked, changing timbre and tone as it did so. It started with whistles, desperate and urgent, only to turn into something closer to a roar, formless and elemental, filled with angst and anticipation, as if the sound itself could ward off any more suffering. […]
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Karim Benzema Carries Real Madrid Over Chelsea
LONDON — Luka Modric has, by this stage, seen pretty much all there is to see. He has won four Champions League titles. He has played in a World Cup final. He has spent a decade at Real Madrid, embedded among some of the finest players of his generation. He is one of the finest […]
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Russia, Soccer and a Line Drawn Too Late
Everton and Chelsea, for example, have significant financial ties to Russian oligarchs who were named by a British lawmaker this week as suitable targets for sanctions; or Manchester United, studiously quiet on its sponsorship deal with Aeroflot, the state-backed Russian airline, until suddenly dropping it Friday. Still, what do you expect, when the very bodies […]
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Champions League Final Will Be Played in Paris, Not Russia
European soccer’s governing body on Friday voted to move this season’s Champions League final, the showcase game on the continent’s sporting calendar, to Paris as punishment for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The game, on May 28, had been scheduled to be played in St. Petersburg, in a stadium built for 2018 World Cup and financed […]
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How Sanctions on Russia Could Affect Champions League and Top Soccer Clubs
Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has exposed fissures in European soccer that are threatening multimillion-dollar sponsorship agreements and have led to calls to move the biggest game on this season’s calendar, the Champions League final, out of its scheduled host city, St. Petersburg. UEFA, the governing body for soccer in Europe and the organizer of the […]
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