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Why Real Madrid-Manchester City remains a ‘modern Clasico’ – despite mixed fortunes this season

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Why Real Madrid-Manchester City remains a ‘modern Clasico’ – despite mixed fortunes this season

This is an updated version of a piece that was originally published in April 2024.

“Real Madrid vs Manchester City is a modern Clasico,” former Real Madrid coach Jorge Valdano said last April, previewing the two clubs’ 2023-24 Champions League quarter-final first leg at the Bernabeu.

The tie that followed did not disappoint. Madrid and City drew 3-3 in the Spanish capital before a 1-1 draw at the Etihad led to a penalty shootout that Los Blancos won en route to lifting a record-extending 15th European Cup/Champions League title.

The sides have experienced mixed fortunes in this season’s competition — but even meeting in the new play-off round cannot dull the rivalry’s shine. Madrid came from behind at the Etihad late on to beat City 3-2 last week, meaning they have now exchanged 30 goals in their past seven meetings. It also sets up an intriguing second leg at the Bernabeu tomorrow (Wednesday).

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This season is the fourth in a row that Madrid and City have met in the knockout stages of Europe’s elite club competition. Fans continue to be gripped, with that first play-off game setting a new streaming record for Amazon’s Prime Video service in the UK with figures of well over four million viewers.

There was an extra layer of intrigue in that match. City fans held up a banner that read, “Stop crying your heart out” in reference to Madrid forward Vinicius Junior being beaten to the Ballon d’Or award by Rodri and Madrid snubbing the ceremony in October. The Brazil international played a key part in the win and afterwards told Spanish TV station Movistar that the banner had given him “more strength to play a great game”.

In 2021-22, Madrid’s magical comeback in the semi-final second leg at the Bernabeu drove them into the final, where Liverpool were defeated 1-0. The following season, at the same stage of the competition, City produced a dominant home display to beat Carlo Ancelotti’s side 4-0 in the second leg before claiming their first Champions League title against Inter. Then there was that epic win on penalties for Madrid in the quarter-final at the Etihad last season.

The circumstances are different this campaign, with a win in this tie granting progress to the round of 16. Madrid only made the play-offs after finishing 11th in the inaugural league phase following defeats to Lille, Milan and Liverpool. City have struggled throughout the season and scraped through in 22nd place.

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Madrid have long held European success in the highest possible regard, perhaps at times to the detriment of their domestic progress (for example, they have won the Copa del Rey, Spain’s equivalent of the FA Cup in England, just three times since lifting the trophy in 1993).

The story the club like to tell about themselves centres around this more than anything. Madrid have suffered damaging defeats to Barcelona in La Liga (4-0) and the Supercopa de Espana (5-2) this season — but those would surely be forgotten if they lifted another Champions League trophy at Munich’s Allianz Arena in May.

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Valdano’s point was not to totally discount the history of Madrid’s rivalry with Barcelona; he believes the recent meetings with City have taken on a greater importance recently in part because of familiar connections. It is also true that Barca appear better placed than either side to go all the way this season after finishing second in the league phase, automatically qualifying for the round of 16.

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“Clasicos are built on rivalry and (City’s manager and former Barcelona player and coach Pep) Guardiola is the favourite enemy of Madridismo (Madrid fans),” Valdano told The Athletic last year. “It was enough to hear the response from the fans at the Santiago Bernabeu (in the 2023-24 first leg) after the speaker announced his name over the PA system. He was the most whistled.

“But 10 years ago and five years ago, we were all talking about Barcelona-Madrid. Now the footballing importance leads us to talk about Madrid-City as the best in the world.

“It’s very good, because history is being renewed. City are getting to know glory, which is difficult without having a previous context. City are new and economically influenced. Madrid are new in any era. They can always adapt to hitch a ride.”


Guardiola usually gets a hostile reception at the Bernabeu (Angel Martinez/Getty Images)

Since Guardiola arrived in Manchester in summer 2016, the two teams have met a total of nine times (Wednesday’s game will be the 10th), with Madrid winning three to City’s four.

City’s sole Champions League triumph is dwarfed by Madrid’s 15. But Madrid still see City as one of their main rivals for European success.

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“Surely, in the last seven or eight years, Madrid and City were the two most successful teams,” said a dressing-room source — who, like others cited here, preferred to remain anonymous because they did not have permission to speak.

“It’s true that City only won it (in 2023), but they came close to winning it many more times.”

Those behind the scenes at Madrid saw the play-off draw against City as an “early final”. Ancelotti’s coaching staff see Guardiola as very difficult to analyse and they rarely trust the line-ups and systems he uses in the weeks leading up to their encounters. City are fourth in the Premier League and Madrid’s coaches have been surprised by how much the loss of Ballon d’Or-winning midfielder Rodri to an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury has affected them.

Vicente del Bosque, another former Madrid head coach and a World Cup-winning manager with Spain in 2010, agrees that Madrid and City have become the biggest draw in European football.

“I think both teams have dominated football in recent years and Madrid have maintained an extraordinary level,” Del Bosque says. “I remember 2022, with the 14th title and the comeback against City as the most spectacular.

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“City are one of the few teams that dominate Madrid with the ball, even though they have players to counter-attack. And Madrid look comfortable without the ball, taking advantage of transitions, even though they have players to control possession.

“Now there is a debate about the European Super League, I think playing these games as a knockout is better. I look at the sporting aspect, not the economic aspect, and it makes it more entertaining and more of a rivalry.


Madrid’s Champions League comeback in 2022 made for spectacular viewing (Angel Martinez/Getty Images)

“When I was a player, and also as a coach, the great opponent was Bayern Munich. The Netherlands, with Ajax, and Italy, with Milan, also had teams that rivalled us, but not so much any more. Now the range has opened up.”

For their part, sources on Madrid’s board still see City as the team to beat. This is also due to the fact that, since the arrivals of Ferran Soriano as chief executive and Txiki Begiristain as sporting director (both, like Guardiola, formerly of Barcelona), City have grown as a club and earned the respect of Madrid, with whom they maintain a relationship of great admiration.

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In this sense, Valdano dares to draw another parallel in the way both teams are structured centrally around one figure.

“Both at Madrid and at City, it is clear who is in charge,” he concludes.

“At Madrid, it’s (club president) Florentino Perez. At City, everybody knows it and nobody says it — but Guardiola won’t find he can work without a boss at any other club.”

(Top photo: Carl Recine/Getty Images)

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Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit

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Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit

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A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue. 

Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June. 

Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male. 

 

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Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports. 

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling. 

“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.

Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case. 

(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)

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“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital. 

“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13. 

Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters. 

With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.

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Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college. 

President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice. 

Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”

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SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)

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SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.

“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said. 

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Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush

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Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush

Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.

“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.

Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.

On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.

The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.

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Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.

Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.

(Lindsey Wasson / AP)

The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.

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Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.

His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”

Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.

Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.

A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.

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Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.

A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.

The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.

He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.

“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”

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Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.

“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.

“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”

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Keith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death

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Keith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death

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Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead. 

“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights. 

Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.

 

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“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann. 

One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”

Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”

Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif.  (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.

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After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.

In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.

Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020.  (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post. 

In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. 

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Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”

Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States. 

After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media. 

Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.

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Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)

At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background. 

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death. 

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