Beat Real Madrid 4-1 and we're out. 4-4 on aggregate. Away goals. Hoyos got a hat-trick, 27, 79 and a penalty on 86 that made it four and made it pointless. Mangala had us level on 18. The goal that knocked us out was Elsebrock's on 14 minutes of the first leg, three weeks ago, and nobody thought anything of it at the time. 46,000 stayed behind to applaud. I'd rather they'd gone home angry.
600 games. Ten league titles, twenty-four cups. The piece mentions in passing that Real Madrid was my first non-playing job. I've never coached anywhere else. I've never coached anywhere smaller. 39 caps, 3 goals, and then straight to the Bernabeu.
Board expectation for the Italian Cup: "reach the semi final (minimum)". Lazio 1-0. Inter 5-3. Milan away 2-1. Milan again at home 2-1. Napoli 3-1 in the final. 33,565 a week, 91% of the ground full. Minimum achieved.
Three Premierships in a row. Scottish Cup and Betfred Cup last year. Four years ago I was at Falkirk. Before that, Stenhousemuir. I still hesitate before saying "Rangers" out loud.
Three things I'm keeping from this season. Havertz put Paris two up inside 17 at their place. De Jong got both back, Lucca won it on 80. 3-2 away in the Champions Cup. Pisa 9-0. Papetti, still a centre back, got three of them. And Mangala from 30 yards against Venezia, which the game has decided is our goal of the season and which I have now watched an unreasonable number of times.
Leipzig at home. Every player between 97 and 100% condition, morale green the whole way down the list, body language reading "nothing specific noted" for all eighteen of them. The game has offered me a talk about how we're 1st and they're 3rd on form. Also one about owing them for last time. Thorup has the armband and doesn't need either of those. Assertive, and out the door.
Haaland's won the World Golden Ball. Again. 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029. Eight in a row, all of them here. Mbappe finished second and outscored him, 62 to 61, with 22 assists to his 12. I've had to explain that to Erling this morning and neither of us enjoyed it. Before this run the list reads Lewandowski, then a year where they didn't give it to anybody, then Messi.
15 games. 12 won, 3 drawn, 0 lost. 39 points, top of the league. Today's question was whether I take pride in us being one of the best tackling sides in the division. Yes. Winning tackles means winning the ball back, which means we get to play with it. Glad we covered that. When I started, the reputation on this page said "national". It says "worldwide" now. Same office, same walk to work.
Beat Bayern 2-1 at the Fritz-Walter. 49,850 in and I don't think any of them sat down. Willian 89. Everton Sidnei 90+3. 13 games, 10 wins, 3 draws, unbeaten. Leipzig are a point ahead and welcome to it.
478 games in charge. 400 won. 34 drawn, 44 lost. 1,487 scored, 298 conceded. Looked at that this morning and genuinely checked whether the screen had loaded properly.
Quiet window, and I'd argue that's the point. Timmermans from Salzburg at 45.5. He's 23, elite, and gave us 10 goals and 15 assists at 7.39 in his first year. Miguelito from Bayern at 61 to sort the back line out. That's the window. Two players. The board graded the Timmermans deal a B+, mostly because he took less money than he could have got elsewhere.
Champions of Spain. They gave me Head Coach of the Year the next morning, which I'll take, although the players did rather more of the work than I did.
Two down inside 20 at Atalanta. Won 4-2. Lucca hat-trick from the 57th minute onwards and a 9.6, Cipot got the fourth on 89. Staff report says we "did not perform" because our xG was 1.88 to their 2.21. Sorry, shall I hand the three points back
Real Madrid 0 Athletic 2. Salazar 7, Arrieta 54. 19 shots each. 12 of ours on target, 6 of theirs. Arrieta won every tackle he attempted, got an 8.7, and it was his 100th for this club. Their keeper hadn't conceded in 184 minutes before Salazar's. Match report: "I expected a close game with the most likely winners being R. Madrid, so for A. Bilbao to win is really something." I'll take really something.
1st in the Spanish First Division. I've read that line four times this morning. Athletic Bilbao. Top. In September. The social feed is meanwhile 541 likes deep on somebody asking "what sort of deal is that?" about one of my signings, so the mood is roughly normal. Zaragoza away tomorrow.
Asked today why I've brought Martin Merquelanz back when I was the one who let him go. Fair question, annoyingly. He's 27, influential in that dressing room, morale good, and I've got him listed as a fringe player, which he is going to love reading. I said circumstances change and that he's improved immeasurably. Both true. The third true thing is that I was 22 when I made the first decision.
Hlozek equalised on 86 and for about seven minutes I genuinely believed we were knocking Zebre out. Lost 5-3 in extra time. Lucca got two, 18 and 41, finished on 8.8. Vlahovic two including the penalty. Then two more in extra time once we had nothing left in the legs. 28 shots to our 22, against the best team in Italy, 120 minutes. I told them all that afterwards. Did not touch the sides. What do you actually say after one like that
5th. 9th in October. 4th from January. 4th with ten to play. Finished 5th. I have opened the league positions graph an unhealthy number of times this week.
Derby. Two down inside 16 minutes, penalty conceded, sat there watching the season walk out. Won 5-2. Arribas 22 and 41, both from Hansen-Aaroen. Moro 65 and 87. Schmidt in added time. Arribas also missed a penalty on 83 and still finished on 9.4. 19 shots to 5. xG 3.90 to 1.07. Genoa had two shots on target all afternoon and scored both of them, because obviously.
Milan 0-4. At the San Siro. Arribas 39, Papetti 43, Moro in first half stoppage time, Papetti again 51. Four goals in twelve minutes either side of the break. Papetti is a centre back. He got two of them and a 9.1. Rodrygo went off on 42 for a second yellow and Milan finished on 23 fouls, so I think they enjoyed the second half about as much as I did.
