Culture
Champions League Briefing: Does this make Amorim the new Fergie? Why did Vinicius Jr. stand still?
Just when you thought the Champions League group stage was becoming predictable…
Manchester City and Real Madrid, the two teams mostly likely to win it all this season, took two beatings Tuesday night that shook the competition up.
New Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim quite possibly saved his best for last at Sporting CP, signing off from his final home game with a 4-1 victory over Manchester City. Meanwhile, AC Milan added to Madrid’s many problems in Spain’s capital with a 3-1 victory.
The third most likely team to win the 2024-25 Champions League? Liverpool. And they brushed aside Bayer Leverkusen and Xabi Alonso 4-0 at Anfield to reinforce their credentials.
These are the big talking points from Tuesday’s action.
Does this make Amorim the new Fergie?
“If we win they’ll think the new Alex Ferguson has arrived, which is very difficult to maintain,” Amorim said.
Arise, Sir Ruben. His words, spoken on the eve of his final home match in charge of Sporting, feel pretty pertinent, don’t they?
Manchester United are now favourites for the 2025-26 Premier League title and Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City dynasty is about to come crumbling down.
Okay, fine, let’s just calm down a bit. But also, let’s get massively carried away with this remarkable result.
Two years ago Manchester City blitzed the Portuguese team 5-0 on aggregate in the Champions League last 16, but on Tuesday they showcased just why United were so keen to land Amorim after his team walloped Guardiola’s shellshocked side.
It must have been an incredibly bittersweet night for Sporting’s fans, who celebrated one of the best victories in the club’s recent history knowing they may not see the like again for a while. They said goodbye with a huge tifo which read “Obrigada” (thank you) and Amorim returned the favour with a night to remember.
In the battle of the Nordic goal-loving strikers, the clear winner was Viktor Gyokeres, whose hat-trick took his tally to 23 goals in 15 matches for club and country this season. He has only failed to score in three games.
(Gualter Fatia/Getty Images)
Amorim will surely want to take Gyokeres with him to Old Trafford via a rumoured €100 million release clause, although with Ineos tightening the purse strings, perhaps the Etihad, with the soon-to-be director of football Hugo Viana, who leaves Sporting at the end of the season, might be a more likely destination. Gyokeres and Erling Haaland up front together? The nets will need reinforcing.
A perfectly placed ball from Geovany Quenda and a thumping finish from Viktor Gyökeres 😤
Sporting are level against Man City! pic.twitter.com/cg9rdzT1QU
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) November 5, 2024
There’s just no stopping Viktor Gyökeres in that position 🤖
21st goal of the campaign for the Sporting striker.
📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/uhgkDhbuuZ
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) November 5, 2024
The two managers won’t have to wait long for a rematch. If Amorim can do the same with Rasmus Hojlund or Joshua Zirkzee up front when his Manchester United team takes on City and Guardiola on December 15th, you can make plans for the statue already.
Inconsistent Milan turn it on at the Bernabeu
AC Milan’s 3-1 victory in the Bernabeu was as surprising and stunning as Sporting’s win.
Milan can be infuriatingly inconsistent – they’re a lowly seventh in Serie A, already eight points off leaders Napoli, albeit with a game in hand. They lost their first two Champions League matches (to Liverpool and Bayer Leverkusen) before struggling past 10-man Club Bruges to claim their first victory on Matchday 3.
Here, though, they were at their very best, and uncoincidentally so were Rafael Leao and Theo Hernandez, who on their day must be one of the most exciting left-sided pairs in European football.
New manager Paulo Fonseca boldly dropped both of them earlier in the season and Leao has been left on the bench in the league lately, but as Alvaro Morata told The Athletic last week, “He’s the best player on the team and just needs to keep doing what he’s doing.”
Morata restored Milan’s lead when putting them 2-1 up after Leao’s shot was saved. Leao then set up Dutch midfielder Tijjani Reijnders, who had scored twice against Bruges last time out, to seal a memorable victory in this clash of European football giants.
(Angel Martinez/Getty Images)
With AC Milan now facing Slovan Bratislava, Red Star Belgrade, Girona and Dinamo Zagreb in their final four matches, the path of progression to the last 16 via an automatic qualification spot should be straightforward.
But only if they can find that elusive consistency.
Noel Gallagher was City’s best performer on the night
If you thought TNT Sports were dumbing down their coverage even more by inviting Oasis legend Noel Gallagher into the commentary box for City’s game at Sporting, well, you would be wrong.
In what probably says far more about the standard of punditry on English football screens, Gallagher was a breath of fresh air in that he spoke common sense. Yes, it’s a wacky concept, stick with us.
Sure, he said ‘we’ when talking about his beloved City, but this was no Sky Sports Fan Zone gimmick, nor was he overly biased. (He thought the decision to award City a penalty for handball was harsh and questioned things like bringing Kevin De Bruyne on for the final seven minutes, probably fearing for his hamstrings.)
There was no melodrama, silly noises, or horrible ‘banter’ like you get when certain other pundits talk about the teams they support.
But Gallagher is an actual fan (he was in the away end at Bournemouth on Saturday) and just says things like they are, backed here by insight and statistics, and even a foreshadowing of City wasting chances and needing to score a second goal — which came 37 seconds before Sporting equalised. It would be easy to ridicule his comments because he’s Noel Gallagher, like comparing Gyokeres’ penalty technique to Troy Deeney’s, until you stop and realise that it’s true.
He did let himself down by saying, “Some songwriting genius wrote once; ‘We see things they’ll never see’, and that’s Guardiola for ya,” leading to raucous laughter from commentator Darren Fletcher. But we’ll forgive him that one.
Anyway, Gallagher’s was probably the best City performance of the night as they suffered a third successive defeat in all competitions for the first time in six-and-a-half years.
They wasted chances in the opening half an hour, only having Phil Foden’s fourth-minute goal to show for their dominance, then Haaland blasted a penalty against the bar when he had the chance to pull it back to 3-2.
Injuries are clearly having an impact, particularly in defence with teenager Jahmai Simpson-Pusey making his first senior start at the back. With 73 per cent possession and 20 shots to nine, it’s not as if City were outplayed, far from it.
But they really are missing Rodri, who may become a more deserved winner of the Ballon d’Or in some people’s eyes by virtue of not playing.
Speaking of which…
Vinicius Jr. stood tall, then stood still
It was a mixed night for Vinicius Junior, who was having a good evening when he levelled things for Real Madrid with a Panenka penalty, minutes after the Bernabeu had booed the Champions League anthem to express their displeasure at him not winning the Ballon d’Or.
𝑪𝒐𝒐𝒍. 𝑨𝒔. 𝒀𝒐𝒖. 𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆. 🥶
Vinicius Jr sends Mike Maignan the wrong way with a classy panenka 😎
📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/IG9FFDZgVh
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) November 5, 2024
Vini Jr. goes for the Panenka vs. Mike Maignan 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/VkPPG2NOYN
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) November 5, 2024
Vinicius Jr had won the penalty himself from a foul by former Tottenham Hotspur defender Emerson Royal, but from then on Madrid melted and the sight of Vinicius Jr. stood completely still as an Aurelien Tchouameni pass didn’t reach him (seconds later Milan were 2-1 up) was one of the night’s defining images.
So too was Jude Bellingham kicking a water bottle in frustration after being substituted.
This was Madrid’s second defeat of the competition in four games (they also lost 1-0 at Lille) and, coming off the back of the 4-0 humiliation at home to Barcelona in their last league match, it encapsulates a season that is threatening to unravel.
They will surely still reach at least a play-off for the last 16 with ease, but with a trip to Liverpool next on Matchday 5, the usually composed Carlo Ancelotti may have to start sweating a little.
Alonso’s Leverkusen stumbling as Slot’s Liverpool fly
Anfield is not a place you want to have to go and get a result right now.
Liverpool maintained one of only two 100 per cent records in the new Champions League format (the other being *checks notes* Aston Villa, who visit Club Bruges on Wednesday) with a serene 4-0 victory over Bayer Leverkusen.
In contrast to Amorim, whose stock is sky high as he prepares to move to the Premier League, Xabi Alonso’s reputation is starting to take a little bit of a hit, just months after he was touted as the best thing since sliced bread but resisted the temptation of a Premier League move.
Arne Slot got the Liverpool call instead and the above stats reflect, yet again, how he has got this Liverpool team purring very quickly.
Luis Diaz scored a second half hat-trick including a chip that could only have looked more delicious with a dollop of mayonnaise on the end.
The ball from Curtis Jones and the CHEEKY Luis Díaz finish 😳
Anfield loved that one 👏 pic.twitter.com/FebrhSqnYK
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) November 5, 2024
Liverpool v Leverkusen = The Luis Diaz Show ✨
All three goals from the Colombian in their 4-0 victory… ⚽️⚽️⚽️#UCLonPrime pic.twitter.com/fqh6uW0aQq
— Amazon Prime Video Sport (@primevideosport) November 5, 2024
Slot and Liverpool are flying at the top of the Premier League and the Champions League. Alonso and Leverkusen were never going to reach the impeccable heights of 2023-24, but the difficult second-season syndrome is kicking in.
Tuesday’s results
- PSV 4 Girona 0
- Slovan Bratislava 1 Dinamo Zagreb 4
- Bologna 0 Monaco 1
- Borussia Dortmund 1 Sturm Graz 0
- Celtic 3 RB Leipzig 1
- Lille 1 Juventus 1
- Liverpool 4 Bayer Leverkusen 0
- Real Madrid 1 AC Milan 3
- Sporting 4 Manchester City 1
What’s next?
The remaining nine fixtures for match-week four of the eight-round league phase take place on Wednesday.
- Club Bruges vs Aston Villa (5.45pm BST/12.45pm ET)
- Shakhtar Donetsk vs Young Boys (5.45pm BST/12.45pm ET)
- Bayern Munich vs Benfica (8pm BST/3pm ET)
- Feyenoord vs Red Bull Salzburg (8pm BST/3pm ET)
- Inter Milan vs Arsenal (8pm BST/3pm ET)
- Paris Saint-Germain vs Atletico Madrid (8pm BST/3pm ET)
- Red Star Belgrade vs Barcelona (8pm BST/3pm ET)
- Sparta Prague vs Brest (8pm BST/3pm ET)
- Stuttgart vs Atalanta (8pm BST/3pm ET)
(Gualter Fatia/Getty Images)
Whatever you do, don’t think of a bird.
Now: What kind of bird are you not thinking about? A pigeon? A bald eagle? Something more poetic, like a skylark or a nightingale? In any case, would you say that this bird you aren’t thinking about is real?
Before you answer, read this poem, which is quite literally about not thinking of a bird.
Human consciousness is full of riddles. Neuroscientists, philosophers and dorm-room stoners argue continually about what it is and whether it even exists. For Wallace Stevens, the experience of having a mind was a perpetual source of wonder, puzzlement and delight — perfectly ordinary and utterly transcendent at the same time. He explored the mysteries and pleasures of consciousness in countless poems over the course of his long poetic career. It was arguably his great theme.
Stevens was born in 1879 and published his first book, “Harmonium,” in 1923, making him something of a late bloomer among American modernists. For much of his adult life, he worked as an executive for the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, rising to the rank of vice president. He viewed insurance less as a day job to support his poetry than as a parallel vocation. He pursued both activities with quiet diligence, spending his days at the office and composing poems in his head as he walked to and from work.
As a young man, Stevens dreamed of traveling to Europe, though he never crossed the Atlantic. In middle age he made regular trips to Florida, and his poems are frequently infused with ideas of Paris and Rome and memories of Key West. Others partake of the stringent beauty of New England. But the landscapes he explores, wintry or tropical, provincial or cosmopolitan, are above all mental landscapes, created by and in the imagination.
Are those worlds real?
Let’s return to the palm tree and its avian inhabitant, in that tranquil Key West sunset of the mind.
Until then, we find consolation in fangles.
When the director Rob Reiner cast his leads in the 1986 film “Stand by Me,” he looked for young actors who were as close as possible to the personalities of the four children they’d be playing. There was the wise beyond his years kid from a rough family (River Phoenix), the slightly dim worrywart (Jerry O’Connell), the cutup with a temper (Corey Feldman) and the sensitive, bookish boy.
Wil Wheaton was perfect for that last one, Gordie Lachance, a doe-eyed child who is ignored by his family in favor of his late older brother. Now, 40 years later, he’s traveling the country to attend anniversary screenings of the film, alongside O’Connell and Feldman, which has thrown him back into the turmoil that he felt as an adolescent.
Wheaton has channeled those emotions and his on-set memories into his latest project: narrating a new audiobook version of “The Body,” the 1982 Stephen King novella on which the film was based.
A few years ago, Wheaton started to float the idea of returning to the story that gave him his big break — that of a quartet of boys in 1959 Oregon, in their last days before high school, setting out to find a classmate’s dead body. “I’ve been telling the story of ‘Stand By Me’ since I was 12 years old,” he said.
But this time was different. Wheaton, who has narrated dozens of audiobooks, including Andy Weir’s “The Martian” and Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One,” says he has come to enjoy narration more than screen acting. “I’m safe, I’m in the booth, nobody’s looking at me and I can just tell you a story.”
The fact that he, an older man looking back on his younger years, is narrating a story about an older man looking back on his younger years, is not lost on Wheaton. King’s original story is bathed in nostalgia. Coming to terms with death and loss is one of its primary themes.
Two days after appearing on stage at the Academy Awards as part of a tribute to Reiner — who was murdered in 2025 alongside his wife, Michele — Wheaton got on the phone to talk about recording the audiobook, reliving his favorite scenes from the film and reexamining a quintessential story of childhood loss through the lens of his own.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
“I felt really close to him, and my memory of him.”
Wheaton on channeling a co-star’s performance.
There’s this wonderful scene in “Stand By Me.” Gordie and Chris are walking down the tracks talking about junior high. Chris is telling Gordie, “I wish to hell I was your dad, because I care about you, and he obviously doesn’t.”
It’s just so honest and direct, in a way that kids talk to each other that adults don’t. And I think that one of the reasons that really sticks with people, and that piece really lands on a lot of audiences, and has for 40 years, is, just too many people have been Gordie in that scene.
That scene is virtually word for word taken from the text of the book. And when I was narrating that, I made a deliberate choice to do my best to recreate what River did in that scene.
“You’re just a kid,
Gordie–”
“I wish to fuck
I was your father!”
he said angrily.
“You wouldn’t go around
talking about takin those stupid shop courses if I was!
It’s like
God gave you something,
all those stories
you can make up, and He said:
This is what we got for you, kid.
Try not to lose it.
But kids lose everything
unless somebody looks out for them and if your folks
are too fucked up to do it
then maybe I ought to.”
I watched that scene a couple of times because I really wanted — I don’t know why it was so important to me to — well, I know: because I loved him, and I miss him. And I wanted to bring him into this as best as I could, right?
So I was reading that scene, and the words are identical to the script. And I had this very powerful flashback to being on the train tracks that day in Cottage Grove, Oregon. And I could see River standing next to them. They’re shooting my side of the scene and there’s River, right next to the camera, doing his off-camera dialogue, and there’s the sound guy, and there’s the boom operator. There’s my key light.
I could hear and feel it. It was the weirdest thing. It’s like I was right back there.
I was able to really take in the emotional memory of being Gordie in all of those scenes. So when I was narrating him and I’m me and I’m old with all of this experience, I just drew on what I remembered from being that little boy and what I remember of those friendships and what they meant to me and what they mean to me today.
“Rob gave me a gift. Rob gave me a career.”
Wheaton recalls the “Stand By Me” director’s way with kids on set, as well as his recent Oscars tribute.
Rob really encouraged us to be kids.
Jerry tells the most amazing story about that scene, where we were all sitting around, and doing our bit, and he improvised. He was just goofing around — we were just playing — and he said something about spitting water at the fat kid.
We get to the end of the scene, and he hears Rob. Rob comes around from behind the thing, and he goes, “Jerry!” And Jerry thinks, “Oh no, I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble because I improvised, and I’m not supposed to improvise.”
The context for Jerry is that he had been told by the adults in his life, “Sit on your hands and shut up. Stop trying to be a cutup. Stop trying to be funny. Stop disrupting people. Just be quiet.” And Jerry thinks, “Oh my God. I didn’t shut up. I’m in trouble. I’m gonna get fired.”
Rob leans in to all of us, and Rob says, “Hey, guys, do you see that? More of that. Do that!”
The whole time when you’re a kid actor, you’re just around all these adults who are constantly telling you to grow up. They’re mad that you’re being a kid. Rob just created an environment where not only was it supported that we would be kids — and have fun, and follow those kid instincts and do what was natural — it was expected. It was encouraged. We were supposed to do it.
They chanted together:
“I don’t shut up,
I grow up.
And when I look at you I throw up.”
“Then your mother goes around the corner
and licks it up,”
I said, and hauled ass out of there,
giving them the finger over my shoulder as I went.
I never had any friends later on
like the ones I had when I was twelve.
Jesus, did you?
When we were at the Oscars, I looked at Jerry. And we looked at this remarkable assemblage of the most amazingly talented, beautiful artists and storytellers. We looked around, and Jerry leans down, and he said, “We all got our start with Rob Reiner. He trusted every single one of us.”
And to stand there for him, when I really thought that I would be standing with him to talk about this stuff — it was a lot.
“I was really really really excited — like jumping up and down.”
The scene Wheaton was most looking forward to narrating: the tale of Lard Ass Hogan.
I was so excited to narrate it. It’s a great story! It’s a funny story. It’s such a lovely break — it’s an emotional and tonal shift from what’s happening in the movie.
I know this as a writer: You work to increase and release tension throughout a narrative, and Stephen King uses humor really effectively to release that tension. But it also raises the stakes, because we have these moments of joy and these moments of things being very silly in the midst of a lot of intensity.
That’s why the story of Lard Ass Hogan is so fun for me to tell. Because in the middle of that, we stop to do something that’s very, very fun, and very silly and very celebratory.
“Will you shut up and let him tell it?”
Teddy hollered.
Vern blinked.
“Sure. Yeah.
Okay.”
“Go on, Gordie,”
Chris said. “It’s not really much—”
“Naw,
we don’t expect much from a wet end like you,”
Teddy said,
“but tell it anyway.”
I cleared my throat. “So anyway.
It’s Pioneer Days,
and on the last night
they have these three big events.
There’s an egg-roll for the little kids and a sack-race for kids that are like eight or nine,
and then there’s the pie-eating contest.
And the main guy of the story
is this fat kid nobody likes
named Davie Hogan.”
When I narrate this story — whenever there is a moment of levity or humor, whenever there are those brief little moments that are the seasoning of the meal that makes it all so real and relatable — yes, it was very important to me to capture those moments.
I’m shifting in my chair, so I can feel each of those characters. It’s something that doesn’t exist in live action. It doesn’t exist in any other media.
“I feel the loss.”
Wheaton remembers River Phoenix.
The novella “The Body” is very much about Gordie remembering Chris. It’s darker, and it’s more painful, than the movie is.
I’ve been watching the movie on this tour and seeing River a lot. I remember him as a 14- and 15-year-old kid who just seemed so much older, and so much more experienced and so much wiser than me, and I’m only a year younger than him.
What hurts me now, and what I really felt when I was narrating this, is knowing what River was going through then. We didn’t know. I still don’t know the extent of how he was mistreated, but I know that he was. I know that adults failed him. That he should have been protected in every way that matters. And he just wasn’t.
And I, like Gordie, remember a boy who was loving. So loving, and generous and cared deeply about everyone around him, all the time. Who deserved to live a full life. Who had so much to offer the world. And it’s so unfair that he’s gone and taken from us. I had to go through a decades-long grieving process to come to terms with him dying.
Near the end
of 1971,
Chris
went into a Chicken Delight in Portland
to get a three-piece Snack Bucket.
Just ahead of him,
two men started arguing
about which one had been first in line. One of them pulled a knife.
Chris,
who had always been the best of us
at making peace,
stepped between them and was stabbed in the throat.
The man with the knife had spent time in four different institutions;
he had been released from Shawshank State Prison
only the week before.
Chris died almost instantly.
It is a privilege that I was allowed to tell this story. I get to tell Gordie Lachance’s story as originally imagined by Stephen King, with all of the experience of having lived my whole adult life with the memory of spending three months in Gordie Lachance’s skin.
Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about printed works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge highlights offbeat television shows that began as comic books. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the comics and their screen versions.
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