Welcome back to The Corner. On Sunday the spotlight was on Stadion Feijenoord, in Rotterdam, where the Eredivisie ‘‘De Klassieker’‘ took place
ADVERTISEMENTWelcome back to The Corner. On Sunday the spotlight was on Stadion Feijenoord, in Rotterdam, where the Eredivisie ‘‘De Klassieker’‘ took place, between the home team and Ajax. But it was rivals PSV Eindhoven who took advantage of their 1-1 draw to insert themselves between the two in the standings. Meanwhile 250 km away, an unstoppable Borussia Dortmund won the Ruhr Derby.
The clash in De Kuip gave Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s men the chance to pull level with their fierce rivals Ajax at the top of the table and that looked likely after Sven van Beek’s first half strike gave them the lead.
However, Dutch international Davy Klaassen profited from a massive deflection in the second half, resulting in a 1-1 draw.
Unstoppable Dortmund
In neighbouring Germany Borussia Dortmund ramped up the pressure on Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich with a 3-2 victory against Shalke in the Ruhr derby.
The Japanese midfielder Shinji Kagawa opened the scoring in the 30th minute with a header off the defender Matthias Ginter’s cross but Klaas-Jan Huntelaar equalised three minutes later after Mats Hummels gave the ball away.
Ginter restored Dortmund’s lead in the 43rd minute with a header from Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s corner, before Aubameyang’s 14th goal of the season made it 3-1 in the 48th minute.
Borussia are now five points behind Bayern Munich and eight points clear of third place Wolfsburg.
Up and Down
This week on Up and Down, we’ve nominated three protaganists for you. One who continues to surprise us, another who’s stumbled for the first time, and finally someone who never stops disappointing us.
Going UP this week Paris Saint-Germain who stay top of the Ligue after a 5-0 victory over Toulouse. Having won 11 of their past 13 games and drawn two, PSG are now 11 points out in front of nearest their challenger, Caen.
Sliding DOWN are Spain’s Real Madrid who suffered their first La Liga defeat against 10th place Seville at the weekend. They have now ceded the top position to arch-rivals Barcelona, although only three points separate the two teams ahead of the ‘clasico’ showdown on November 21st.
And continuing his DOWNWARD slide is Chelsea manager Jose Mourihno. He’s now lost seven matches in a season for the first time in his career. Losing three fixtures in row is another first for the beleaguered trainer, whose position at the London club is under severe strain.
Road to Euro
In our road to Euros this week we’re stopping off in Belgrade, where the 5th final of the competition took place in 1976.
The 1976 European Football Championship final tournament was held in the former Yugoslavia with Czechoslovakia taking on West Germany in an exciting encounter.
The match ended in a 2-2 draw after extra time and went to penalties.
It was Czech midfielder Antonín Panenka’s high penalty that saved the day and secured the trophy for his nation – a perfect end to an outstanding tournament for the Czechs, who also saw off competition from Johan Cruyff’s Netherlands.
We might be wrong
There are still four names missing among the national teams who’re going to participate to Euro 2016. So who else will be booking a flight to France? Here’s what we think will happen in this week’s qualifiers. Leave a comment or send us your predictions, through the hashtag #TheCornerScores.
Norway 2-1 Hungary
Bosnia-Herzegovina 0-0 Ireland
Ukraine 2-0 Slovenia
Sweden 1-1 Denmark
The voice
And finallly we already know that Cristiano Ronaldo is a phenomenal talent with a ball. But we didn’t know that the Portuguese ace was gifted with his voice as well. He’s been showing off his singing in a new documentary about his life due to hit cinemas on Monday.
ADVERTISEMENTClick on the video above to see the whole programme and we’ll see you all again next week.