European soccer review: Are the Premier League’s best burnt out?

It was anything but business as usual in the Premier League or Bundesliga this weekend. Some of the biggest clubs in England and Germany dropped points while others laboured to claim what would’ve been run-of-the-mill wins.

In Spain, Barcelona sat out of the action, mourning the death of their team doctor. Though they sat idle, their LaLiga title rivals were in action.

And in Italy, Christian Pulisic might have saved his manager’s job. Sam Tighe, Alex Kirkland and Constantin Eckner look across Europe for the big takeaways and highlights from the weekend.

Premier League

Top takeaway: Are the Premier League’s best burnt out?

The Premier League has hit the home stretch. The vast majority of teams have just 10 games left, news that will be welcome to those who, this weekend, showed serious signs of burnout.

Liverpool were the perfect example of this, playing so wretchedly in the first half against 20th-placed Southampton (and falling behind) that Arne Slot could not hide his disgust. The following day, Chelsea huffed, puffed and missed a penalty en route to a 1-0 win over relegation-bound Leicester City. And Arsenal quickly ran out of ideas at Old Trafford, with exasperated faces the visual hallmark of their afternoon.

Elite football’s fixture congestion crisis is nothing new — managers and players have spent years complaining about it — and it’s early March when you typically see the results of it. Right on cue, this weekend Cole Palmer missed from 12 yards (ending a 12-for-12 record from the spot in his Premier League career), Diogo Dalot hammered a cross into the second tier and Ryan Gravenberch exhaustedly ran the ball out of play.

There’s no letup for these teams — each will play a high-stakes European game this week — nor for the others affected, such as Tottenham Hotspur, whose season rests on the UEFA Europa League, or Aston Villa, who put everything into a 1-0 win at Brentford on Saturday.

Best match: Tottenham 2-2 AFC Bournemouth

Tottenham is always in this section. Their commitment to entertaining the football masses is hugely appreciated. They were lucky not to be trailing 1-0 after 15 seconds, lucky to be down only 1-0 at half-time, deservedly down 2-0 after 65 minutes … then fought back to earn a draw. The Cherries will feel extremely hard done by, but missed chances and a goalkeeping error cost them dearly.

Best goal: Marcus Tavernier at Tottenham

Tavernier was the goal scorer, but this move was all about Milos Kerkez. The £50m-rated Bournemouth full-back intercepted a pass intended for Brennan Johnson, sprinted up the pitch on the counterattack, then slowed to compose himself before sending one of the best crosses all season to the back post for an easy finish.

MVP of the weekend: Ismaïla Sarr, Crystal Palace

Sarr was the star at both ends Saturday, not only scoring the only goal of the game to earn Palace a 1-0 win over Ipswich Town — and what a calm, dinked finish it was — but popping up with a goal-line clearance in the aftermath of a corner, too. No one did more to earn their team three points than the Senegal international. — Tighe

LaLiga

Top takeaway: Barça match postponed after club doctor’s death

Barcelona’s game with Osasuna was just 20 minutes from kicking off at Montjuic on Saturday when it was confirmed the match would not be played. Barcelona’s club doctor, Carles Miñarro, 53, was found dead at the team hotel. Players and staff had arrived at the stadium and begun preparing for the game, unaware of what had happened.

“FC Barcelona is deeply saddened to announce the passing of first-team doctor Carles Miñarro Garcia this evening,” the club said in a statement. “For this reason, the match has been postponed to a later date.”

A similar message appeared on the stadium’s big screens, telling fans to make their way home. FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta called Miñarro “a man who was much-loved by everyone” and “a great professional, a great doctor.” The squad were “in a state of shock,” Laporta said, adding that the decision was inevitable given the players’ reaction to the news.

Miñarro had been at Barcelona for eight years, becoming part of the first-team setup last summer, and working closely with the squad since then.

“I still can’t believe it,” defender Ronald Araújo said. “Rest in peace, Doc.”

“I don’t have the words,” goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen said. “We’ll miss you.”

“Thank you for all your help this year, and throughout my career,” Dani Olmo — whose family knew Miñarro well — said.

The cause of death has not yet been made public.

Best match: Getafe 2-1 Atlético Madrid

For 75 minutes, this wasn’t a great game. For late drama with huge, title-race altering implications, though, this was the LaLiga game of the weekend.

Atlético’s trip to Getafe was supposed to be the easy one in a stretch that includes two matches against Real Madrid and three versus Barcelona in little more than a month, but there’s nothing easy about visiting the Coliseum. Atlético were poor throughout, but Alexander Sørloth’s penalty — his first in LaLiga — put the then-leaders ahead. What happened next was inexplicable.

Ángel Correa was sent off. Mauro Arambarri levelled for Getafe. And then, in 10 minutes of added time, Arambarri — a holding midfielder, remember — added a second. It was Getafe’s first win over Atlético in 14 years.

Best goal: Pedro Díaz at Real Madrid

Real Madrid looked to be cruising to a straightforward victory at the Santiago Bernabéu — Kylian Mbappé and Vinícius Júnior had put them 2-0 up in the first half — when a rocket from Rayo Vallecano’s Díaz got the visitors back into the game. Díaz followed a cool one-two on the edge of the box by firing past Andriy Lunin, the ball twice bouncing off the crossbar, before VAR confirmed it had also crossed the line. It made for a nervous second half at the Bernabéu, with Madrid hanging on for a valuable 2-1 win.

MVP of the weekend: Diego López, Valencia

For the first time in a long time, Valencia are out of the relegation zone, thanks to Saturday’s 2-1 win over fellow strugglers Real Valladolid. Forward Umar Sadiq scored a scrappy winning goal, but academy product López, 22, deserves huge credit, too, after opening the scoring with his second goal in a week. López has now scored five league goals this season — two more than in all of the last campaign — and this one gives Valencia, a giant club in trouble, real hope of staying up. — Kirkland

Bundesliga

Top takeaway: Germany’s giants stumble on weekend of upsets

In between the most important games of German football, the UEFA Champions League round-of-16 tie between Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen, both teams had to fulfill their Bundesliga obligations. And they did so in surprising fashion, with both losing their Saturday afternoon games.

Bayern seemed to have a pretty easy job with VfL Bochum at Allianz Arena, but after João Palhinha was shown a red card for an unnecessary and painful tackle on Georgios Masouras shortly before the interval, things fell apart against a side currently in the relegation zone.

Meanwhile, Leverkusen were trying to get by with a few backup players in their starting XI against Werder Bremen but came up short against the struggling team from the north. Xabi Alonso brought on Florian Wirtz at half-time, although that was not the initial plan. Wirtz was fouled shortly after his introduction and had to leave BayArena on crutches. It has yet to be determined how serious his injury is.

With both Bayern and Leverkusen losing, the gap at the top of the Bundesliga table remains eight points. Several places below the two are Borussia Dortmund, who experienced yet another setback, falling 1-0 to FC Augsburg at home.

The game exemplified Dortmund’s league campaign. They controlled the ball for most of the contest without creating enough promising opportunities, only to concede from a simple free kick.

“The outing was horrible,” Dortmund captain Emre Can said afterward. “I can’t explain it. It hurts so much. We are not a top team.”

At the end of the game, a thunderous chorus of whistles accompanied Can and his teammates as they exited the pitch of Signal Iduna Park.

Best match: Bayern Munich 2-3 Bochum

If Bochum manage to avoid relegation, we might look back at this game as a pivotal point in the team’s campaign. Both fan groups showed a stadium-wide tifo before the game showcasing the longstanding friendship between Bayern and Bochum, celebrating 125 years since Bayern’s foundation. Things went pretty much as expected until the 30-minute mark. As Bayern were leading 2-0, Bochum defender Jakov Medic pulled one back before Palhinha was sent off. This allowed Bochum to turn the tide completely. One of the biggest surprises of the season.

Best goal: Nadiem Amiri at Borussia Monchengladbach

Mainz have more than a decent chance of qualifying for the Champions League for the first time. One of the key players has been Amiri, who was largely written off following his underwhelming stint at Leverkusen. He scored the deciding goal for a 3-1 win against Gladbach on Friday, and it happened at a point during the second half when the hosts were getting a grip on the game. Amiri exchanged passes with Lee Jae-Sung and converted with an unstoppable effort past goalkeeper Jonas Omlin from 18 yards out, showing once again Mainz’s brutal efficiency.

MVP of the weekend: Jeffrey Gouweleeuw, Augsburg

Augsburg’s captain not only scored the winning goal via a looping header, but he also organised his team’s steely backline against Dortmund’s countless attempts to find a way through it. Augsburg haven’t conceded a goal since early February, meaning in five consecutive games in which Gouweleeuw was on the pitch for every minute. — Eckner

What else you missed this weekend

Milan show life in Pulisic-led comeback win

Rumours that AC Milan manager Sérgio Conceição could already be out the door at the end of the season have ramped up in recent days. The 50-year-old took over from fellow Portuguese Paulo Fonseca in late December but has failed to breathe new life into the Milan dressing room. Instead, the Rossoneri are en route to missing out on qualifying for the Champions League or Europa League.

While Fonseca, now at Lyon, is in even more serious trouble given his nine-month ban for an altercation with a referee, his successor at Milan can at least continue to influence things from the sideline for the time being. He did so to an extent in the final half an hour against Lecce on Saturday.

Milan were down 2-0 but managed to turn the score around, with Christian Pulisic scoring twice — the equaliser from the penalty spot and the deciding third goal following an assist from Rafael Leão, who Conceição had brought on at half-time. Obviously, wins like these won’t save Conceição’s job but help to keep hopes alive that Milan won’t be stranded in the midfield of the Serie A table. — Eckner

Dembélé makes it 20 in 2025

Ousmane Dembélé warmed up for Tuesday’s monumental Champions League second-leg clash between Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool the only way he currently knows how: He scored, then he scored again.

Sent on in the 64th minute against Stade Rennais, he netted twice in stoppage time to complete a 4-1 win and take his personal goal tally this year to 20. That’s this year, as in, since 2025 began.

It extends a frankly incredible run of form that’s generated whispers around a potential run at the Ballon d’Or. They were quiet and half-joking at first, but the more he scores, the louder and more serious those whispers will get.

Netting at Anfield, turning around a 1-0 aggregate deficit against Liverpool and booking a place in the Champions League quarterfinals would go a long way to turning doubters into believers. He looks raring and ready to give that a go. — Tighe