DORTMUND, Germany: Bayern Munich have won their 11th straight Bundesliga title, a 90th minute goal from Jamal Musiala sealing a late 2-1 win at Cologne after Borussia Dortmund were held 2-2 at home to Mainz.
With Bayern needing a win to overtake Dortmund, the England-raised Germany forward hammered home with the clock winding down, ensuring the Bavarians keep their grip on the title for another season.
Dortmund knew a win would guarantee a title, but were 2-0 down after just 25 minutes, with striker Sebastien Haller also having missed a penalty.
Dortmund scored two second half goals to draw the game but the point was not enough, Bayern winning the title on goal difference.
Heading into the final matchday, with Dortmund two clear atop the table, Bayern knew only a win would give them hope of a title, while hoping for a Dortmund collapse.
France forward Kingsley Coman struck after eight minutes to set down the gauntlet to Dortmund, playing one hour to the north.
Despite a bright start, Dortmund soon found themselves behind 1-0 after 15 minutes, Andreas Hanche-Olsen tapping in from a corner.
Dortmund were handed a lifeline when Raphael Guerreiro was brought down in the box, but Sebastien Haller failed to convert the penalty.
Mainz doubled their lead shortly after, Karim Onisiwo heading in from close range as the visitors began tearing up the home fans’ script.
The home side, who had scored 15 goals in their past three home games, grew nervous and lacked potency in front of goal, while Mainz grew bullish and had several chances on the counter.
With time winding down, Guerreiro gave the home side hope, scoring with 20 minutes remaining.
Word filtered around the ground that Cologne had equalized with ten minutes remaining, Dejan Ljubicic converting from the spot, but Musiala’s strike again took Bayern atop the table.
Niklas Suele added another in the sixth minute of injury time, but Dortmund were unable to conjure the comeback which would have broken Bayern’s hold on the German title.
Meanwhile, minutes after Bayern Munich clinched their Bundesliga league title, the club said they had decided to fire chairman Oliver Kahn and sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic.
“You have probably heard what we have decided with the supervisory board,” club president Herbert Hainer told media in the mixed zone in Cologne where, the club salvaged their 33rd German league title when Jamal Musiala hit an 89th-minute winner.
One bright spot for the disappointed home side was that arch rivals Schalke were relegated, after a 4-2 loss at RB Leipzig.
Schalke had fought back to equalize from two goals down, but Leipzig scored twice in the final ten minutes to secure Schalke’s fate.
Elsewhere, Union Berlin secured Champions League football for the first time with a 1-0 home win over Werder Bremen.
Union captain Rani Khedira scored a goal with nine minutes remaining, ensuring victory for the home side and keeping alive a remarkable fourth season in the top division.
Also on track for a first ever Champions League berth but needing Union to slip up, Freiburg lost 2-1 away at Frankfurt. Leading 1-0 after a Vincenzo Grifo strike, Freiburg conceded two goals in the last 10 minutes and will instead play Europa League next season.
Stuttgart’s 1-1 draw at Hoffenheim means they finish third last, ensuring a shot at staying in the second division through the relegation playoff.
Bochum’s 3-0 win at Leverkusen also ensures they will play top division football for another season, taking them from second last to the safety of 14th.
A ten-man Augsburg lost 2-0 at Borussia Moenchengladbach but will also stay up, having finished 15th.
Relegated Hertha Berlin won 2-1 away at Wolfsburg, denying the hosts a chance at leapfrogging Leverkusen into Europe.
Musiala takes Bayern to 11th straight title after Dortmund held
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Musiala takes Bayern to 11th straight title after Dortmund held
- Dortmund scored two second half goals to draw the game but the point was not enough, Bayern winning the title on goal difference
- Minutes after Bayern Munich clinched their Bundesliga league title, the club said they had decided to fire chairman Oliver Kahn and sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic
Simeone stays calm despite Atletico’s woeful start to the season
- Simeone’s side now face the tricky task of visiting ninth-placed Alaves on Saturday
- “It’s always difficult to give scores to the work being done with so many new people,” he said
MADRID: Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simeone is keeping his cool despite his team’s disastrous start in their bid to end a five-year LaLiga title drought, with the under-fire coach hoping to strengthen his squad before Monday’s transfer deadline.
Atletico are in 14th place after managing one point from their opening two LaLiga matches — a 2-1 loss at Espanyol and a disappointing 1-1 home draw against promoted Elche.
Simeone’s side now face the tricky task of visiting ninth-placed Alaves on Saturday, with their Basque opponents buoyed by three points from last week’s victory over Levante.
When asked at Friday’s press conference about his team’s struggles, Simeone remained philosophical.
“It’s always difficult to give scores to the work being done with so many new people,” he said, referring to the arrival of the likes of Thiago Almada, Johnny Cardoso, David Hancko and Alex Baena in the close season.
“The team has worked well in these matches, with areas for improvement, especially defensively,” added the Argentine, who acknowledged the pressure but insisted on staying calm.
“Anything less than picking up points is not positive, especially in our position,” Simeone said.
“We have to focus on improvements, on continuing to build on what went well and, above all, on staying calm. In difficult times, we have to face them calmly in order to play the game the way we want to.”
Simeone added that Atletico remain active in the transfer market with just days remaining before the window shuts.
“As always at the end of the transfer window, we are keeping an eye on everything until the last day,” he said.
“I’m completely open at this stage to someone coming in or leaving, always with tension and talking daily with the board to finalize the squad as we need to.”
Looking ahead to Saturday’s clash, Simeone praised Alaves.
“They have a strong pace and they are very strong on their home turf. They have played two good matches, their coach (fellow Argentine Eduardo Coudet) has very clear ideas, and we hope to take the match where we believe we can do damage.”
Conference League draw includes two-time finalist Fiorentina and reluctant Crystal Palace
- Fiorentina’s slate of six opponents through mid-December was completed by Rapid Vienna, AEK Athens, Sigma Olomouc and Lausanne
- UEFA aims to confirm the fixture schedule by Sunday
MONACO: Fiorentina’s quest to win the Conference League enters a fourth straight season with opponents including Mainz and Dynamo Kyiv from the draw ceremony on Friday.
The Italian club were top ranked in the 36-team draw after being twice a beaten finalist — against West Ham and Olympiakos in back-to-back years — and losing in the semifinals last season.
Fiorentina’s slate of six opponents through mid-December was completed by Rapid Vienna, AEK Athens, Sigma Olomouc and Lausanne. UEFA aims to confirm the fixture schedule by Sunday.
Crystal Palace make their European debut only reluctantly in the third-tier Conference League after a complex legal fight with UEFA.
The English FA Cup winner were demoted by UEFA from the Europa League for a breach of rules limiting investors having a significant stake in multiple clubs who qualify for the same competition. Lyon, majority owned by American businessman John Textor, stayed in the Europa League instead of Palace.
Palace get home games against Alkmaar, KuPS Kuopio of Finland and AEK Larnaca from Cyprus. Palace will go to Poland to play Dynamo Kyiv and also visit Strasbourg and Ireland’s Shelbourne.
Four clubs from Poland were in the draw, while Dynamo also has been playing games there — in Lublin — while Ukraine is unable to stage European games during the Russian military invasion.
Rapid Vienna will make two trips to Poland to play at Lech Poznan and Rakow Czestochowa.
Shakhtar Donetsk are having a rare season outside the Champions League, and will have trips to Ireland, Malta and Scotland to play Shamrock Rovers, Hamrun Spartans and Aberdeen.
Hamrun Spartans are the first club from Malta to qualify for the main phase of a European competition and also will host Switzerland’s Lausanne and Gibraltar’s Lincoln Red Imps.
Political football
UEFA kept Lincoln separate in the draw from Rayo Vallecano because of political tensions between Gibraltar and Spain. Drita of Kosovo were kept apart from Zrinjski Mostar of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
All the Polish teams, also including Legia Warsaw and Jagiellonia, were kept apart in the draw and cannot play each other until the knockout stage next year.
Format and prize money
Conference League teams play six different opponents and are ranked in a single-standings format.
The top eight teams go directly to the round of 16 in March. Teams placed ninth to 24th advance to the knockout playoffs in February. The bottom 12 teams are eliminated.
The Conference League has 285 million euros ($333 million) in UEFA prize money with each club getting a starting fee of 3.17 million euros ($3.7 million).
Europa League draw sets up rematch of 2 European Cup finals, Maccabi trips to Germany
- Roma will have two trips to Glasgow to play fierce Glasgow rivals Celtic and Rangers
- Villa’s slate of opponents includes a trip to Fenerbahce
MONACO: The Europa League draw on Friday set up two rematches of European Cup finals and two games in Germany for Israeli club Maccabi Tel-Aviv.
Feyenoord, the 1970 champion of Europe, will host Celtic in one of their league phase games and Nottingham Forest will have a home game against Swedish side Malmo, which were a semi-professional team in 1979 when they lost the European Cup title match to the English club.
Maccabi Tel-Aviv got away games in Germany against Stuttgart and Freiburg, and also will travel to play Aston Villa — in Birmingham, England — and PAOK in Greece.
Israeli clubs have been playing UEFA-organized games in neutral countries for security reasons during the conflict in Gaza, and Maccabi Tel-Aviv have hosted European games this season in Backa Topola, Serbia.
Maccabi Tel-Aviv’s home games are against Dinamo Zagreb, Lyon, Midtjylland and Bologna.
Roma — whose coach Gian Piero Gasperini won the Europa League with Atalanta two season ago — will have two trips to Glasgow to play fierce Glasgow rivals Celtic and Rangers among their eight opponents.
The Europa League uses the same 36-team league format as the Champions League. Teams play eight different opponents during the league phase and are ranked in a single-standings table.
Villa were one of 11 teams in Friday’s draw that played in the Champions League last season, though their coach Unai Emery is a four-time Europa League winner: three times with Sevilla and once with Villarreal.
Villa’s slate of opponents includes a trip to Fenerbahce, which parted ways with coach Jose Mourinho earlier Friday.
Forest are in the second-tier Europa League instead of Crystal Palace, the English FA Cup winner which was demoted by UEFA in a complex case relating to owners having stakes in multiple clubs. Palace will play in the Conference League instead.
Forest and their Portuguese coach Nuno Espirito Santo will play two opponents from Portugal, at home to Porto and away to Braga.
The top eight teams go directly to the round of 16 in March. Teams placed ninth to 24th advance to the knockout playoffs in February. The bottom 12 teams are eliminated.
The 36 Europa League teams will share a prize fund of 565 million euros ($659 million). Each club is guaranteed at least 4.3 million euros ($5 million).
Mourinho leaves Fenerbahce after Champions League failure in latest career blow to the ‘special one’
Mourinho leaves Fenerbahce after Champions League failure in latest career blow to the ‘special one’
- His latest short managerial spell leaves the 62-year-old Mourinho’s career at a crossroads
- Mourinho was considered one of the world’s best coaches
Jose Mourinho’s fall from grace in elite football accelerated Friday when the charismatic Portuguese coach left Turkish club Fenerbahce, two days after failing to get back into the Champions League after a long absence.
His latest short managerial spell – this one lasted barely a year, in a second-tier European league – leaves the 62-year-old Mourinho’s career at a crossroads, with top teams potentially no longer wanting to take a chance on a coach whose best days might be behind him.
Fenerbahce’s elimination at the hands of Benfica in a Champions League qualifying playoff on Wednesday was another blow to the status of Mourinho, who once was considered one of the world’s best coaches and famously had a heated rivalry with Pep Guardiola during their time in Spain with Real Madrid and Barcelona, respectively.
A Champions League winner with Porto and Inter Milan, Mourinho has not coached in the main stage of the marquee competition for six seasons. He won the third-tier Conference League with Roma in 2022 but his time at the Italian club from 2021-24 was pock-marked with squabbles that resurfaced in his brief and chaotic spell in Turkiye.
Turbulent times in Turkiye
There was an incident in April when he grabbed the nose of Galatasaray coach Okan Buruk in the Istanbul derby, earning a three-match ban and a fine.
Indeed, the fiery matches between the two local rivals brought out the worst in Mourinho. Two months earlier, he was handed a four-match ban after making an incendiary comment in the aftermath of a league match against Galatasaray, which announced its intention to start legal proceedings against Mourinho.
Mourinho, who often railed against what he perceived to be poor refereeing in Turkiye, wore the look of a frustrated and unhappy man during his time with Fenerbahce.
Gone was the charm and self-confidence that oozed out of the self-styled “Special One” during the peak years at his first spell at Chelsea from 2004-07, for example.
In October, he even said: “I think the best thing I have to do is when I leave Fenerbahce I go to a club that doesn’t play UEFA competitions. So you find a club in England from the bottom of the table, needs a coach in two years, I am ready to go.”
Who knows, that might be where Mourinho ends up after his departure from Fenerbahce, whose own absence from the Champions League now stretches to 17 seasons.
“We have parted ways with Jose Mourinho,” Fenerbahce posted to its millions of followers in a short statement on its X and Instagram accounts. “We thank him for his efforts for our team and wish him success in his future career.”
There was no immediate statement on the club’s official website.
What next for Mourinho?
Mourinho was once a serial trophy winner, a guarantee of silverware.
Yet that’s now two clubs – Tottenham (from 2019-21) and Fenerbahce – where he hasn’t guided his team to a title. His career trajectory, meanwhile, is heading downwards: from Real Madrid, to Manchester United, to Tottenham, to Roma and then to Fenerbahce.
Coaching the national team of his native Portugal might be one future option for Mourinho, who established a strong reputation for being a pragmatic, tactically astute manager with an uncanny ability to win one-off matches. Those attributes might serve him well in international football.
The days of him leading teams to success in the Champions League or in the top European leagues seem a long way away, however.
Solskjaer also out in Turkiye
It hasn’t been a good couple of days for former Man United managers in Turkiye.
On Thursday, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who replaced Mourinho in charge of United in 2018, was fired by Besiktas hours after a loss to Swiss team Lausanne in the Conference League playoffs.
Solskjaer had been in charge since January.
Ivan Toney gives Al-Ahli opening-day win against newly promoted Neom
- England striker’s first-half goal is enough to give the reigning Asian champions all 3 points in a hard-fought victory
- In the day’s other games, Ettifaq defeat Al-Kholood 2-1, while Damac grab a goal deep into injury time to rescue a point in a 1-1 draw with Al-Hazm
Ivan Toney was the hero as Al-Ahli kicked off the new Saudi Pro League season on Thursday with a hard-fought 1-0 home win over newly promoted Neom. The England striker’s first-half goal was enough to give the reigning Asian champions all three points.
It was a tough introduction to the top flight for Neom, as the hosts enjoyed the better of the first half. More 50,000 fans seemed to shout as one for a penalty in the ninth minute when Ali Majrashi went down in the area under a challenge from Mohammed Al-Dossari, but the referee was having none of it and waved play on.
The home fans did not have to wait too much longer for the opener, however, as Toney delivered a fine goal midway through the first half. Enzo Millot, making his league debut after a move from Stuttgart, slid through a majestic pass from deep that split the visiting defense and gave the former Brentford forward the chance to fire a low shot home from just inside the area.
Eight minutes before the break, there was more good work from the French midfielder when he found Riyad Mahrez in the area, but the Algerian sent his shot wide. Soon after, Toney had a goal-bound shot blocked by Ahmed Hegazi.
Neom looked livelier after the restart and Alexandre Lacazette was able to break into the area, only for his low shot to be saved by Edouard Mendy. The former Chelsea goalkeeper was in action again soon after, getting down well to save a dangerous effort on the turn by Abdulmalik Al-Oyayari.
The visitors continued to pile on the pressure in hopes of a share of the points. Lacazette did have the ball in the net in the 90th minute, but it was ruled out for offside and Al-Ahli hung on for the win.
There were two other games on opening day. Ettifaq defeated Al-Kholood 2-1, with Mohau Nkota and Gini Wijnaldum the scorers for the victors, while John Buckley got the visitors’ goal.
Earlier, the first game of the season ended in a 1-1 draw between Damac and Al-Hazm. Fabio Martins fired home from the spot to give the visitors the lead shortly before the hour mark, but they were denied the three points when Moroccan Jamal Harkass grabbed the equalizer with 98 minutes on the clock.
