Championships are not won in the first week of April, but all five of Europe’s big leagues took decisive turns over the weekend.
Manchester United came from two goals down to win, 4-2, at West Ham on Saturday and became the odds-on favorite to recapture the Premier League title in England.
Barcelona, winning on the road at Villarreal, took full advantage of Real Madrid’s first home defeat in any competition this season.
Borussia Dortmund moved resolutely toward the Bundesliga crown. Lille, attacking in style, is now clear in France. And the battle of the two Milans was so emphatically won, 3-0, by A.C. Milan that Inter’s five-year hold on the Italian title looks to be on its last legs.
Barring some unprecedented mishaps, the champions’ colors are already set.
“It starts with the manager,” Manchester’s veteran winger, Ryan Giggs, said of Alex Ferguson after the Reds’ second-half comeback. “He was calm. He made changes. He said we were playing some good stuff and we could win this. We never give up, no matter the score.”
Giggs has spent his entire 21-season career getting to know the driving force of Ferguson. He might have been mildly surprised when Ferguson indicated in the locker room at halftime that he was taking off his left back and putting in an extra attacker, so Giggs was required to play the defensive role.
Those familiar with Ferguson’s firebrand nature could read the script. The team is down, the two penalty-kick goals that put them there were undeserved, but we’re better than them. “So play,” Ferguson instructed his team. “Just go out and play.”
The old boy is mellowing. Fergie is 69, and the young Ferguson always told players, “Go for their bloody throats.” These days, temporarily barred from the sideline because of his criticisms of referees, he gets a word with his players only at halftime.
That was enough on Saturday. The extra forward at halftime, Javier Hernández, and then the addition of another attacker, Dimitar Berbatov, early in the second half created time and space for Wayne Rooney to score three goals.
Rooney spoiled it all later; he is likely to be charged with bringing the sport into disrepute because of a foul-mouthed rant he made into a TV microphone.
Sometimes, the winners never acquire grace. José Mourinho lost his extraordinary record of not losing a home game in nine years when his team, Real Madrid, succumbed in a 1-0 loss against Sporting Gijon at the Bernabéu on Saturday.
Mourinho is the coach who called himself the Special One. His last league home defeat was with Porto, in February 2002. He never lost on home soil with Chelsea, never lost with Inter, and Real had won every match in Madrid during his tenure until Saturday.
The goal that ended all that was, coincidentally, scored by Miguel de las Cuevas, a former Atlético Madrid striker. A fine goal it was, with de las Cuevas cutting in from the left and with a sudden, flick-knife shot, scoring off the inside of the post from 12 yards.
Real Madrid, without Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Xabi Alonso and Marcelo, tried to reclaim the match, and Sporting’s defense at times led a charmed resilience. And Mourinho blamed the gods. “Luck,” he said, “is part of football; our opponents had it all, and we had none.”
Hours after Real Madrid lost, Barcelona triumphed in one of the toughest places to win, Villarreal’s El Madrigal stadium. Barça, too, has injuries and suspensions. It started Saturday without the key figure in each line of its team — Carles Puyol in defense, Xavi Hernández in midfield, Lionel Messi in attack.
It had other absentees: Éric Abidal, Pedro, Maxwell. And the perceived wisdom at the start of this season was that Barça’s reserves were less experienced than Real Madrid’s.
“What makes the difference is desire,” Barcelona’s coach, Josep Guardiola, said before the match. “People talk about tactics and fitness, but what matters most is the desire to be champion.”
Barcelona’s goal Saturday was scored by a defender, Gerard Piqué. Its defense was held together by three immaculate saves by Victor Valdés. But as Guardiola envisaged, his team did not make excuses of fatigue and distraction after last week’s national team duties. It had the desire to dominate a pure team like Villarreal, to the extent of 70 percent ball possession.
A champion wins when it must. Many had prophesied that Inter’s squad would still be the best in Italy, but A.C. Milan stunned Inter by scoring in the opening minute through Alexandre Pato. He scored again in the second half, and his pace was responsible for the red card shown to Inter’s Cristian Chivu when he chopped down Pato shortly after halftime.
The sending off was indicative of Inter’s inability to cope. “We stayed calm, we played good football, and we didn’t let Inter score,” Milan Coach Massimo Allegri said.
His job, taking over with finances trimmed back by the owner Silvio Berlusconi, is on a good path. The opposing coach, Leonardo, was a fine A.C. Milan player, and briefly its coach until Berlusconi lost faith in him.
Allegri was careful not to claim the Serie A title, and Leonardo insisted it was not yet lost. But the championship is in Milan’s sights after many years in its neighbor’s shadow.
