Culture

Champions League: Man City have Madrid mountain to climb, are PSG better minus Mbappe?

Published

1 month ago

February 12, 2025

Press Room

Champions League: Man City have Madrid mountain to climb, are PSG better minus Mbappe?

Erling Haaland scored against Real Madrid for the first time in his career.

And then scored another.

But Manchester City still lost at home to the Champions League holders.

It will have felt all too familiar for Pep Guardiola and his team as they threw away a 2-1 lead with four minutes of normal time to play at the Etihad, being stung first by one of their former players, Brahim Diaz, and then the tireless Jude Bellingham, who steered the ball home from close range in added time.

Oh, and earlier in the game Kylian Mbappe had scored with his shin.

Carlo Ancelotti’s side take a 3-2 advantage into the playoff second leg next Wednesday at the Bernabeu, with a place in the Champions League last 16 at stake.

Elsewhere in Europe’s elite club competition, a rocket from Weston McKennie helped Juventus beat PSV, Borussia Dortmund thrashed Sporting CP in Lisbon and Ousmane Dembele continued his ludicrous start to 2025 with two goals as Paris Saint-Germain beat Brest 3-0.

Elias Burke and Seb Stafford-Bloor analyse the key moments from all the Champions League action on Tuesday night…

Typical City… and typical Madrid?

In the battle between the Champions League’s perennial comeback kings Real Madrid, and City, who have made a habit of getting pegged back this season, it should come as no surprise it ended the way it did.

GO DEEPER

The Briefing: Man City 2 Real Madrid 3 – Bellingham’s late, late winner and another City collapse

After an exceptional assist for Mbappe’s goal, Dani Ceballos went from hero to villain 20 minutes later, tripping Phil Foden just inside the box in the 80th minute. Haaland tucked away the resulting penalty, his 49th goal in 48 Champions League games.

Fortunately for Ceballos, two errors in quick succession from Ederson allowed Diaz, who has a Premier League medal with City from their centurion 2017-18 season, to level the scores at 2-2.

Then, after Vinicius Junior went through and lifted a shot/pass over Ederson’s head, Bellingham gambled to tap in a stoppage-time winner from close range to put Madrid 3-2 up ahead of the second leg in Spain.

For City, it was yet another disastrous late collapse after the Feyenoord and PSG debacles in the league phase. Now, they have given themselves a mountain to climb in overturning the deficit at the hardest place to win at in the Champions League.

Are PSG actually better without Mbappe?

Few would have expected PSG to improve when Mbappe left for Real Madrid last summer. But, judging from their comfortable 3-0 win against Brest and impressive form in 2025, coach Luis Enrique appears to have found a harmony in Paris that he struggled to create when the France superstar was leading the line.

As it’s transpired, Ousmane Dembele, 27, once considered a talent so promising that Barcelona paid a fee rising to £135 million, reported by BBC, to sign him as a 20-year-old from Borussia Dortmund in 2017, has more than filled his shoes after an inspired tactical switch from the coach.

Since Enrique brought Dembele into the central striker role from the wings, the position he has fulfilled since emerging as a talented youngster, his goalscoring production has exploded — and his two goals against Brest were another example. His first demonstrated his confidence, dribbling into the box before whipping a left-footed effort into the near post. His second, a deflected finish with his right foot after reacting quicker to a loose ball than the Brest defenders, highlighted his anticipation as a goalscorer. Scoring with both feet is not an unfamiliar feat for Dembele, who famously does not know which is his stronger foot.

Ousmane Dembéle since the middle of December…
Ridiculous form 😂#UCL pic.twitter.com/pgpgXXY4Nd
— Opta Analyst (@OptaAnalyst) February 11, 2025
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It was his third brace of the year to go along with two hat-tricks and 15 goals in total — already more than his entire tally in 2024. This switch has given PSG a fresh attacking verve and resulted in a more balanced unit.

Who knows, it might be enough to push the French champions from a side that was teetering above the elimination zone for much of the league phase to contenders for the trophy.

USMNT midfielder McKennie sprinkles some magic for Juventus

McKennie dedicated his celebration to Harry Potter but it was his wand of a right boot that provided the magic as he opened the scoring for Juventus against PSV.

With the USMNT midfielder lurking on the edge of PSV’s box, the ball broke in his direction, bouncing at a good height to strike. McKennie, who is no stranger to scoring spectacular goals, approached the ball at an angle, allowing him to shift his body weight to the left to get over the shot and control his effort while striking through it.

The result was an unstoppable blend of control and power. His shot flew past Walter Benitez in the PSV net, inches below the crossbar. It’s probably a good thing the ball missed him, too, as it would have taken him with it into the back of the net if he was in the way.

Good luck saving that.
Weston McKennie’s shot flies past Walter Benitez, and gives Juventus the lead against PSV.#JUVPSV
🎥 @footballontnt pic.twitter.com/AZvhnFdiuH
— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) February 11, 2025

WESTON MCKENNIE NEARLY TORE THE COVER OFF THE BALL WITH THIS GOLAZO 🚀 pic.twitter.com/zFdXV6hSDE
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) February 11, 2025

McKennie, who is a huge Harry Potter fan, celebrated with an imitation of the “Expelliarmus” spell from the film and book franchise. He has a lightning bolt tattooed on his finger in tribute to the speedy Gryffindor seeker, and in 2023 he was pictured alongside Matthew Lewis, who plays Neville Longbottom in the films, posing with a USMNT shirt alongside Brenden Aaronson.

In December, club and national team-mate Timothy Weah joined in on the fun, celebrating together with the “Expelliarmus” after McKennie scored against City.

Rooney and Mbappe: masters of the shinned volley against Man City

Wayne Rooney’s brilliant overhead kick in Manchester United’s 2-1 win over City in 2011 will take some beating as the greatest shinned goal ever scored against City (and perhaps anyone), but Kylian Mbappe surely claimed the silver medal with his goal in the second half for Madrid.

Dani Ceballos, who was playing in his first Champions League knockout match for Real Madrid seven-and-a-half years after signing from Real Betis, played a perfectly weighted lofted pass in the danger area between City’s goalkeeper and defence, which Mbappe latched onto.

With an astoundingly similar technique to his second goal against Argentina in the 2022 World Cup final, Mbappe leapt and volleyed across the ball with his right foot while falling away to the left.

pic.twitter.com/Wl6TGCWYvp
— EuroFoot (@eurofootcom) February 11, 2025

While his effort in Qatar flew past Emi Martinez, the connection wasn’t so pure in this instance, the ball looping off his shin, over Ederson, and into the corner.

Rooney, watching from pitchside at the Etihad while working for Amazon Prime, must surely have been impressed.

Why did it take four minutes to award Haaland’s first goal?

Premier League fans are now accustomed to seeing footage of VAR officials in Stockley Park drawing lines to determine whether a player was offside, but things operate differently in the Champions League — and Manchester City fans found out the hard way.

The Etihad Stadium erupted after Haaland put the home side ahead with a left-footed finish from close range after Josko Gvardiol played a chested pass in his direction. Three minutes and 50 seconds later, another cheer went up around the stadium as the Champions League’s semi-automated offside technology confirmed the goal.

Gvardiol was visibly onside when the initial cross was played towards him, but he, and Haaland, had moved beyond the Madrid defence by the time the Croatian made contact. As long as Haaland was in line with or behind Gvardiol, he’d have been onside, but, as evidenced by the time it took for the technology to confirm, it was very tight.

As the name suggests, the technology eliminates the potential for human error, with the offside pictures taken from cameras in real time. It debuted in the Champions League in 2022-23 and was used at the 2022 World Cup. According to the Premier League, which has plans to bring in this technology this season, offside check delays should be reduced by 31 seconds.

In this case, however, the check took so long that Alan Shearer intimated the wait may have had some relation to Jack Grealish being replaced due to a non-impact injury 10 minutes later.

“It certainly doesn’t help when you’ve got elite athletes standing around for almost four minutes,” Shearer said on co-commentary during Amazon Prime’s UK coverage of the match. “It cannot help you, or your body. It’s not acceptable that players are having to wait around for that long.”

Judging by this incident those marginal calls will continue to take time. At least we got the right decision, eh?

Who exactly is Serhou Guirassy?

The Champions League has an unlikely top-scorer this season: Borussia Dortmund’s 28-year-old Guinean Serhou Guirassy. His tenth goal of the competition might have been his best; it was certainly the most important. An authoritative header that looped up and into the far corner, it settled a Dortmund team who, for much of the first half in Portugal, had had to withstand pressure.

That was vital, because Dortmund have endured a torrid season and are naturally fragile. They sit a distant 11th in the Bundesliga and are now coached by Niko Kovac, who was appointed to replaced the sacked Nuri Sahin two weeks ago.

This was Kovac’s first win. More importantly, it was a result (and performance) that Dortmund will feel they can build on in coming weeks — and that sense of a first step taken owes much to Guirassy.

He was signed from Stuttgart in the summer of 2024 after scoring 28 Bundesliga goals from 28 appearances last season. It was the first truly prolific top-flight season of his career, but at times the season he has laboured at the head of a team who do not create nearly enough chances. He can snatch at opportunities and drift out of games. So, while nine goals from 18 league appearances is hardly bad, it’s not quite what it could have been.

But Guirassy is an elegant, technical footballer rather than just a goalscorer. There were times in the first half when his languid skill on the ball seemed to reassure team-mates clearly short on confidence. And, having scored the goal which changed the entire complexion of the game — truly, an exemplary header — he created the second with a perfect cross for Pascal Gross, who kneed the ball in at the back-post to give Dortmund a 2-0 advantage on the night.

With 10 goals this campaign, Serhou Guirassy has now equalled the record for the most European Cup/Champions League goals scored in a single season by a Borussia Dortmund player
He shares that record with Erling Haaland (10 in 2020-21) and Robert Lewandowski (10 in 2012-13) #UCL pic.twitter.com/pShUgla74f
— Opta Analyst (@OptaAnalyst) February 11, 2025

Even before Karim Adeyemi had scored a third from a flowing counter attack to effectively finish the tie as a contest, Dortmund had started to play with a confidence and security that they have lacked for many months. Guirassy alone did not provide that. By full-time, this had become a commendable team performance. But goals so often change a side’s mood and that could not have been more the case for Kovac’s BVB than it was on Tuesday night.

There were plenty of individual contributions to that, but they followed Guirassy’s lead.

Seb Stafford-Bloor

What happens next?

Champions League playoffs

Tuesday’s results

Brest 0 Paris Saint-Germain 3
Juventus 2 PSV Eindhoven 1
Manchester City 2 Real Madrid 3
Sporting CP 0 Borussia Dortmund 3

Wednesday’s fixtures
(8pm BST, 3pm ET unless stated)

Club Bruges v Atalanta (5.45pm BST, 12.45pm ET)
Celtic v Bayern Munich
Feyenoord v Milan
Monaco v Benfica

The second legs will be played on February 18/19.

Eight teams will advance to the last 16, to join Liverpool, Barcelona, Arsenal, Inter, Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Lille and Aston Villa.

The draw for the last 16, quarter-final and semi-final will take place on Friday February 21.

(Top photo: Carl Recine/Getty Images)

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Culture

Book Review: ‘The Fisherman’s Gift,’ by Julia R. Kelly

Published

11 hours ago

March 17, 2025

Press Room

THE FISHERMAN’S GIFT, by Julia R. Kelly

“The Fisherman’s Gift” begins with a child washed up on a Scottish beach after a storm in 1900. A fisherman, Joseph, finds the boy, and carries him through the local village, Skerry Sands, past the shop where the novel’s Greek chorus of housewives gather, to the minister, who in time entrusts the boy to the schoolteacher Dorothy. Dorothy’s own son, Moses, disappeared in a similar storm several years earlier when he was just 6 years old. In an early sign of the novel’s difficulties, this stranger child is sometimes uncannily like and at other moments obviously different from Moses.

While the boy is with Dorothy, the story of Moses’ conception, birth and disappearance returns to the center of village life and conversation. Dorothy is not a Skerry native; she moved to the fishing village to teach, and her limited social skills and professional status meant that she has remained an outsider, especially after the breakdown of her marriage to a village man, and after she raised and lost her child in the community. She has remained aloof from the village women; in turn they regard her with suspicion and resentment, particularly for her ambiguous relationship with the otherwise eligible Joseph.

The novel’s plot is simple: A stranger comes to town, and then a stranger child comes to town. It’s a good engine for unraveling the stories buried in an isolated village, and in “The Fisherman’s Gift” there are many tales lurking underneath the animating mystery. They include the daughter of a violent marriage resisting her own violent husband; several women more and less maddened by grief for sons and brothers lost at sea; mothers with too many children and some with children lost; men struggling to fulfill their required roles on land and sea.

The village of Skerry is nicely realized, and Kelly describes the sea and weather vividly. The story is well paced and the dialogue strong, always a challenge with dialect speech from long ago.

But there are flaws in craft and focus. The omniscient narrator treads heavily, often in prominent sentence fragments pointing out the obvious. A chapter begins, “And there are other things she must face in this moment of truth in her life.” A paragraph between two reflections is, “How much has happened since.” These things shouldn’t, and in fact don’t, need flagging. And there are repetitions of images and phrases, to which we are all prone but they shouldn’t make it to publication. Three times someone’s instinct for mishap is compared to “the way you know when you knock at a door that no one’s home.” Small matters, maybe, but the cumulative effect is a distracting clumsiness.

Furthermore, there is fundamental indecision about what kind of book this is. The novel gestures toward fable and fantasy, first hinted at with an epigraph from Yeats’s “The Stolen Child.” Fine; there are some excellent recent novels that play with North Atlantic folklore to explore community, individualism and the powers of the natural world.

But “The Fisherman’s Gift” invokes the supernatural and then strives to provide realist explanations at every turn. The story depends heavily on coincidences, including a minor character apparently brought in solely to fall off a bicycle with an important telegram as Dorothy happens to be passing. A full investment in folklore would obviate the need for such far-fetched events. And still there are clunky omens (lucky wedding salt spilled as Dorothy’s ill-fated husband carries her over the threshold on her wedding day, dreams and sleepwalking that foreshadow disaster) and a central resolution in supernatural terms.

This feels, in the end, like a promising novel that needed more conviction. It is not without strengths — the characters and setting are memorable — but the magic and rationalism undermine each other, leaving the reader frustrated by both.

THE FISHERMAN’S GIFT | By Julia R. Kelly | Simon & Schuster | 355 pp. | $28.99

Culture

The funniest 2025 March Madness bracket names: Picking our favorites

Published

22 hours ago

March 16, 2025

Press Room

The funniest 2025 March Madness bracket names: Picking our favorites

There’s not too much shame in a botched March Madness bracket. The NCAA Tournament is compressed chaos in single elimination, upsets are part of the game, and only one entrant can actually win it all.

What we can’t forgive is a lazy, uninspired bracket name.

The men’s and women’s tournaments give us a wealth of punnable school, player and coach names to choose from — even an arena or two. Here are this correspondent’s favorite puns and frivolities for 2025 bracket names. Give us yours in the comments below.

Men’s

Ok, Broomer — For those who see Auburn as an inevitability, go with their star, Johni Broome. These are not your postwar Tigers.

Green Flaggs — A lot of folks will swipe right on the Blue Devils if their megastar Cooper Flagg is healthy.

Lipsey’s Hustle — The marathon continues for Tamin Lipsey, Iowa State and the Fightin’ Otzelbergers.

Knuck If You Buzz — Texas A&M head coach Buzz Williams has the sheer intensity and righteous passion of prime Lil Scrappy.

Let’s Get Oweh From It All — To Kentucky’s Otega Oweh: “Let’s take a boat to Bermuda, let’s take a plane to Lexington.”

Yes, UConn — For the Huskies believers.

No, UConn’t — For people who actually watched UConn this season.

Creighton for a Star to Fall — The name whispered on the wind was, in fact, “Ryan Kalkbrenner.”

Caleb Love and Basketball — For what? Our hearts, of course. And an Arizona run.

Caleb Grillz — Missouri bucket-getter Caleb Grill has his whole top diamond and the bottom row gold … we think.

Littlejohn and the Eastside Boyz — Chase Hunter and Clemson have forced their tourney seeding to Get Low. Looking to bring some hardware back to Littlejohn Coliseum.

Frankie Fidler on the Roof — To life, to life, to Sparty. Tevye would’ve trusted Michigan State’s Tom Izzo in March.

Love (Ma)shack — It’s a lil’ old place where we can get together … and make Alabama really upset. Tennessee’s Jahmai Mashack had one of the coolest moments of this college season.

LJ Cryer and the Infinite Sadness — A [Houston] Cougar with Butterfly Wings. Underestimate whatever that is at your own peril.

Queen’s Gambit — Maryland’s freshman center Derik Queen is the tallest, fleetest turtle we’ve ever seen.

Kameron Presents…the (Golden) Diplomats — Based on Marquette’s guard Kameron Jones. Does that make David Joplin Juelz Santana?

Silkk Da Shaka — Another great Marquette play.

Toppin My Collar — For those both appreciating Texas Tech’s resurgence (and star JT Toppin) and wishing it was 2005 again.

“What Are You Doing in My Swamp?!”— The Florida Gators would win and cover against Lord Farquaad.

Rick Pitino’s Bodega Corner — The Johnnies have taken New York by (red) storm.

Throw it Down, Big Man —For those wanting to honor the late Bill Walton.

One Shining Moment — For those wanting to honor the late Greg Gumbel.

Grant Nelson’s Mustache — In celebration of the sport’s modern canon.

The Parentheses Preferers — Who needs brackets? Proper punctuation prevents poor performance.

Tar Heels and Glass Slippers — Maybe, just maybe, there’s someone out there who has UNC making a Cinderella turn.

The Floor Slappers Federation — Yup, it’s about that time.

Women’s

Elementary, My Dear Watkins — For those who fashion JuJu Watkins and the Trojans as “A Study in Scarlet.”

JuJu Fruit — We’re sweet on JuJu and USC.

For Bueckers or Worse — Paige Bueckers is the superstar, but Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd also balled out this year.

For Auriemma, Forever Ago — Do we think UConn’s iconic coach, Geno Auriemma, knows who or what Bon Iver is?

Place Your Betts — UCLA and Lauren Betts could certainly cash out after their inspired Big Ten tourney performance.

Dawn and On — South Carolina and Dawn Staley pursue their fourth national title of this era. We’ll take every opportunity to hear more Erykah Badu.

Boom Boom Paopao — The WNBA-bound Gamecock Te-Hina Paopao is so 3008.

The Van, The Lith, The Legend — TCU’s superstar Hailey Van Lith just put in work as the MVP of the Big 12 Tournament.

Hidalgo To Bed — Don’t sleep on Notre Dame (or Hannah Hidalgo) despite the late-season slump.

Came Out a Beast — Flau’jae Johnson is nice on the boards and in the booth.

Taylor Jones’ Block Party — Everyone’s invited. Texas is tough in the frontcourt.

Wes is Moore — A guiding mantra. NC State’s sideline strategist Wes Moore is the ACC’s Coach of the Year.

Lawson’s Creek — For those switching over to Duke (coached by Kara Lawson) after their conference tournament title. Casting recommendation: Michelle Williams as Toby Fournier.

O.K., Sooner — We brought it back one time for those rolling with Raegan Beers and Oklahoma.

(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Harry How / Getty Images, Grant Halverson / Getty Images, Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

Culture

Book Review: ‘The Buffalo Hunter Hunter,’ by Stephen Graham Jones

Published

1 day ago

March 16, 2025

Press Room

THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER, by Stephen Graham Jones

Stephen Graham Jones’s new novel would give Gen. Philip Sheridan fits. The Civil War officer is often cited as the source of one of the most infamous sayings in American history, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” and there are dozens if not hundreds of dead Indians in “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter.” There’s also a very long-living or, more accurately, undead one who opines: “What I am is the Indian who can’t die. I’m the worst dream America ever had.” Take that, General!

Good Stab is an Indigenous man from the Blackfeet tribe living in Montana around the time of the 1870 Marias Massacre, when U.S. Army troops killed nearly 200 unarmed women, children and elderly members of the Blackfeet Nation, a tragedy that figures in a multitude of ways throughout this gruesome joyride of a novel.

One day, Good Stab is caught in a violent encounter with a wagon train of white settlers holding a supernatural being in a cage. The strange, humanish creature is bloodthirsty, death-defying, antagonistic, charismatic and chatty. He’s called the Cat Man, and he’s a centuries-old vampire. During an ensuing skirmish with the white settlers, the Cat Man is freed and his blood gets mixed into a wounded Good Stab, who then becomes a bloodsucker as well.

Now released, the Cat Man preys on Good Stab’s tribe, which enrages Good Stab, leading to decades of conflict between the two. All the while, each is on a near-perpetual quest for vengeance against white settlers and for survival in 19th-century Montana.

None of this will be any surprise to readers of Jones’s past fiction, which has confidently mashed up various horror genres with pointed explorations of Native American experience. But two features stand out with his latest: first, the particular terms of vampiric living.

Rather than cloaked, castled mystery and wealthy Eurotrash vibes (familiar features of the vampire story, from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” in 1897 through to Robert Eggers’s remake of “Nosferatu” in 2024), the monsters in “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter” are High Plains eternal drifters who have to drain their victims completely to remain vital. Moreover, in a mordant deep joke on the saying that you are what you eat, Cat Man and Good Stab inevitably take on the attributes of their victims, whether humans or animals.

Dante would be pleased with the situation Jones has created, though social justice-oriented readers looking for an easy-to-cheer-for BIPOC vigilante be warned: Good Stab can only defend his people and carry out vengeance on behalf of the Blackfeet by, as the novel’s title suggests, killing and feeding on lots and lots of Native Americans himself.

And his Blackfeet victims aren’t just fellow warriors in the midst of battles, either. In one case, Good Stab gorges on a child after crawling into the lodge of a sleeping family. First he quietly bites into her throat. “I didn’t think she could scream anymore, but I didn’t want her mother to have to see this,” he observes. But his remorse means little compared with his sudden insight: The younger the person he blood-sucks dry, the stronger he becomes. Cat Man already knows this, which leads to a wrenching climactic encounter with Good Stab that recalls the awful dilemma at the center of Ursula K. Le Guin’s story “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.”

The consequences of this showdown stay with Good Stab forevermore. He unpacks his unquiet heart decades later, and his doing so plays out through the second distinctive feature of Jones’s novel: its story-within-story-within-story structure.

The novel opens with a discovery — in 2012, a book hidden in the wall of an old parsonage is found by an unnamed construction worker. It turns out to be a journal, written in 1912 and belonging to Arthur Beaucarne, the pastor of the local Lutheran congregation. Inside it contains the story of his strange encounters with Good Stab, who, after years of carnage, has seemingly come to him to confess.

In the novel’s 1912 sections, Jones adeptly plays into the expectations we have of horror tales. Good Stab appears and disappears in the church at will; people in town are being killed inexplicably; the sheriff doesn’t believe Beaucarne when he tries to tell him his suspicions about Good Stab; and Beaucarne himself has a secret past, which makes his vow to listen to Good Stab’s confession with “a good heart” increasingly suspect. Jones creates and builds a strong sense of suspense and mystery in the 1912 sections, whereas the Good Stab passages are comparatively loose and repetitively graphic, to the point of tedium.

This all comes to us through yet another frame narrative — at the beginning of the novel, Etsy Beaucarne, a flailing academic and descendant of Arthur, acquires the journal. Reading it, she’s curious about what she learns of her ancestor and his undead companion. As the novel unfolds, Jones moves back and forth between Beaucarne’s haunting in 1912 and Good Stab’s hunting in the years before, reserving Etsy’s discovery of her family connection to a strange and supernatural past for the opening and closing segments of the book.

What is Jones doing here, with this trifold narrative structure? He has created a novel that invites us to reflect on how the stories we tell about ourselves can be at once confessions and concealments. At the same time, he’s using this framework to set up some scary, big reveals. Do the vampire math, people: The story Etsy’s reading from a hundred years ago isn’t finished yet.

THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER | By Stephen Graham Jones | Saga Press | 435 pp. | $29