Welcome back to The Corner, our weekly visit to the world of football. We start this edition with the Manchester derby.
The Citizens beat Louis Van Gaal’s Manchester United for their 4th consecutive derby victory, a first since 1970.
City continue derby dominance
Manchester City won the Manchester bragging rights after beating a ten-man United 1-0 at the Etihad.
Defender Chris Smalling was sent off seven minutes before halftime after collecting a second yellow card for a wild challenge on James Milner.
Just after the hour mark Sergio Aguero struck his 10th Premier League goal of the season to hand City a deserved sixth win in the last seven Manchester derbies.
Manuel Pellegrini’s men are now third six points behind leaders Chelsea and seven clear of United who slipped to down to ninth.
Bayern add to Dortmund’s misery
Bayern Munich continued their fine start to their Bundesliga title defence with a 2-1 comeback win against Borussia Dortmund.
Marco Reus headed in the opener for the visiting Dortmund on 31 minutes.
Robert Lewandowski snatched a 72nd minute equalizer while a late penalty from Arjen Robben completed Bayern’s dramatic comeback which left them with seven wins and three draws from their opening ten league fixtures.
Bayern are now four points clear of Wolfsburg at the top while Dortmund’s fifth straight league defeat has left Jurgen Klopp’s men second from bottom.
Up and Down
Let’s now see who has made our ‘Up and Down’ list this week.
Southampton are definitely on the up – The south coast side beat Hull 1-0 to continue their dazzling start to the Premier League season under new coach Ronald Koeman.
After seven wins from ten matches – six without conceding – the Saint’s are second four points off leaders Chelsea.
Catalan giants Barcelona make the down list this week. Lionel Messi and company suffered their second consecutive league defeat.
After being beaten by Real Madrid 3-1 in the El Clasico last weekend Barca lost 1-0 at home to coach Luis Enrique’s former team Celta Vigo.
Also on the down is Maradona, who has come under heavy criticism after a video emerged of him allegedly striking his former fiancee.
The former Argentina international has already started to dribble his way out of this one by saying he was trying to throw her mobile phone (from which she was filming at the time) and denied hitting his now-ex.
Shotstopper across the codes
Paul Huia is definitely not a household name, but he’s is a goalkeeper that has made football history.
On 3 November 2012, Solomon Islands keeper Huia became the first person to compete at international level in all three FIFA sports.
He started his road to his historic treble by representing the Solomon Islands at the 2006 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup, where, despite serving as the back-up to starting keeper Fred Hale, he appeared in all three matches.
In September 2012, he added a second sport by playing in the Solomon Islands’ third-round loss to New Zealand in a qualifier for the 2014 World Cup.
The third piece of the puzzle fell into place two months later when he represented his country in their opening game of the 2012 Futsal World Cup. Unfortunately, they lost to Russia 16-0.
We might be wrong
It’s hard for all to agree when it comes to football predictions.
Most of the time we get it wrong but we’ll continue to try. Send us your predictions across the social networks, using #TheCornerScores.
Here are our predictions for some selected results across Europe.
Liverpool 1-3 Chelsea
Paris Saint Germain 1-1 Marseille
Borussia Dortmund 1-2 Borussia Monchengladbach
Dinamo Moscow 1-2 CSKA Moscow