In this week’s football review we congratulate all the title winners, commiserate with those teams that were relegated and sympathise with the pressure that managers face. To help with understanding you can find explanations of key vocabulary in bold below.This week’s football review – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Title Winners, Relegation and Managers
Good
A good weekend for many of the big sides in Europe. Chelsea, Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, Celtic, Bayern Munich, Juventus and Benfica were all able to celebrate in front of their home fans with their newly-won league titles from England, Spain, France, Scotland, Germany, Italy and Portugal respectively. In addition, Belgian side KAA Gent won their first ever title, Olympiakos won the double in Greece, while FC Salzburg won in Austria. Congratulations to them all.
Bad
It proved to be a bad week for Hull City in England as they went down to the second tier of English football one season after appearing in the FA Cup final. They will join QPR and Burnley in the Championship next season. It was also a bad weekend for Almeria and Eibar as they were relegated from La Liga and for Paderborn and Freiburg who will both play in the second tier of German football next season.
Ugly
Managers of football clubs are always under pressure but sometimes the way they are treated is not the nicest. Real Madrid boss Carlos Ancelotti’s position at Real Madrid is under threat despite having won the Champions League last season and guiding Los Blancos to a second place finish this season. At least he is (officially) still in his job which cannot be said of West Ham boss Sam Allardyce who announced he would leave the London club minutes after the final game of the season. This is the same manager who helped the club back to the Premier League and subsequently kept them there for the next three seasons which seems rather unfair on ‘Big Sam‘.
Vocabulary
the second tier: The second division
won the double: They won the League and the Cup
is under threat: He could lose his job
Los Blancos: The nickname of Real Madrid
Big Sam: The nickname of Sam Allardyce
