England World Cup 2022 squad guide: Full fixtures, group, ones to watch, odds and more

 

Can Harry Kane lead England to World Cup success? (REUTERS)

Expectations are high, and hopes even higher, that England can pull off another superb run at a major tournament after reaching the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup and the final of Euro 2020. Manager Gareth Southgate has instilled a confidence in his squad which has brought a belief that England can finally win the World Cup again. That confidence is also reflected in the betting markets with the Three Lions third favourites to lift the trophy behind Brazil and France.

Yet faith in Southgate and his squad is not as strong as it was after England stumbled through this year’s Nations League campaign. No wins in six games with two defeats to Hungary and relegation from League A has put a sour note on Southgate’s time in charge and sends England heading into this important World Cup campaign on rocky footing. The pressure to perform well has increased and the manager’s decision-making, on and off the field, will be more firmly under the spotlight.

No more so than when he names the 26-man squad he will be taking to Qatar. Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling are dead certs and will be hoping to replicate their form from the past two tournaments with Jordan Pickford also secure of a starting place in goal. Jude Bellingham is pushing to tie down a starting berth but the question of where Phil Foden’s best position in the team is hasn’t been answered. Calls to start Trent Alexander-Arnold at right-back have gone unheeded with Reece James and Kyle Walker preferred and the England boss has stuck with Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw despite their limited playing time with Manchester United.

Going in England’s favour is the group they’ve been drawn in. The expectation is that the Three Lions will win Group B featuring Iran, USA, and Wales – although Scotland proved at the Euros that Home Nations matches at major tournaments can be challenging. Things get trickier in the knockout rounds, and should England top the group they’ll likely face the African champions, Senegal, in the last-16 before a possible clash with current World champions France in the quarters. Belgium and Portugal are potential semi-final contenders before one of Spain, Germany, or Brazil await in the final, probably. It looks set to be the most difficult run England have had so far under Southgate but if they get through it, they’ll have guaranteed their spots in history.

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Here is everything you need to know:

Can Gareth Southgate take England on another memorable World Cup run? (Action Images via Reuters)

Group fixtures (all times GMT)

Monday 21 November: England vs Iran – 13:00

Friday 25 November: England vs USA – 19:00

Tuesday 29 November: Wales vs England – 19:00

Predicted squad

Goalkeepers: Jordan Pickford (Everton), Aaron Ramsdale (Arsenal), Nick Pope (Newcastle)

Defenders: Ben Chilwell (Chelsea), Eric Dier (Tottenham), Marc Guéhi (Crystal Palace), Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool), Harry Maguire (Manchester United), Luke Shaw (Manchester United), John Stones (Manchester City), Fikayo Tomori (AC Milan), Kieran Trippier (Newcastle), Kyle Walker (Manchester City)

Midfielders: Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund), Jordan Henderson (Liverpool), Mason Mount (Chelsea), Kalvin Phillips (Manchester City), Declan Rice (West Ham United), James Ward-Prowse (Southampton)

Forwards: Tammy Abraham (Roma), Phil Foden (Manchester City), Jack Grealish (Manchester City), Harry Kane (Tottenham), Bukayo Saka (Arsenal), Marcus Rashford (Manchester United), Raheem Sterling (Chelsea)

Ones to watch

Star – Harry Kane: England’s captain and main striker, Kane won the golden boot in the last World Cup and is guaranteed his spot in the starting XI. He’s hitting form at the right time scoring close to a goal per game for Tottenham in the Premier League this season. The 29-year-old can also drop deep and pick out passes through the lines for his speedier teammates which will prove useful against strong defences.

Teenager Jude Bellingham hopes to thrive in England’s midfield (The FA via Getty Images)

Breakout talent – Jude Bellingham: The question was whether Gareth Southgate would give him enough minutes to show off his talent at the World Cup but England’s recent 3-3 draw with Germany changed that. At 2-0 down 19-year-old Bellingham took control of midfield and launched the Three Lions into a counter assault. He broke up play, made runs into the box, slipped in quaint through balls and won a penalty, all but nailing down a spot in the starting XI in the process. Add on that Bellingham is only the third teenager to score in four consecutive Champions League appearances after Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappé and England have got themselves a real talent.

Odds to win the World Cup (taken from Betfair)

13/2

Prediction

England should have enough quality and depth in their squad to breeze through the group stages with Wales, buoyed by reaching the World Cup for the first time in 64 years and motivated by inspiring speeches from Michael Sheen, the biggest threat. Results elsewhere may give England an easier route to the latter stages of the tournament but if things fall out as predicted getting past the quarterfinals will be good going for Gareth Southgate’s side. Knocked out in the quarter/semi-finals.

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Traits that made Cristiano Ronaldo great now hasten his painful decline

 

Cristiano Ronaldo trained alone on Friday. In a way it was the perfect image: a footballer who perhaps more than any other embodies the trope of the individual superstar, the idea that one man can do it on his own, doing it on his own. The television cameras were there to film his arrival and they were there a few hours later to film Erik ten Hag as he weathered a squall of Cristiano-related questions. The soap opera continues. But for now the football career is on hold.

Ronaldo will not feature for Manchester United against Chelsea on Saturday afternoon. He has been suspended for storming down the tunnel after refusing to come on as a substitute against Tottenham on Wednesday. The word is that United will again try to move him on in the January transfer window, and may even pay him to leave.

Perhaps we should have known that this was how it would end from the moment Ronaldo returned last autumn in a blizzard of ticker-tape and social media numbers. But nobody involved – not United, and certainly not Ronaldo himself – was prepared to shake themselves from a shared reverie that would disintegrate upon its first contact with reality.

Fans gather by the huge banner on the front of Old Trafford to celebrate the return of Cristiano Ronaldo before before his return match against Newcastle United in September 2021. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

For United, it was a reality borne out in results and dysfunction. For Ronaldo himself, reality has taken the form of time. The fact that he is 37 years of age is no barrier in itself: Thiago Silva is still turning out for Chelsea at 38, Fabio Quagliarella and Pepe are doing it at 39 for Sampdoria and Porto respectively, Joaquín is pounding up and down the wing for Real Betis at the age of 41. Ronaldo remains in excellent physical shape, and as he proved against Everton a fortnight ago, there are still few deadlier finishers. He ended last season with six goals in five appearances.

But what has changed is the game around him: a sport in which players are covering ever greater distances, at an ever higher intensity, to an ever more intricate and complex series of technical instructions. What has changed is the concept that one player, however talented or driven, can be given free rein or have a team built around him. The very principles upon which Ronaldo built not just his game but his fame, not just his career but his entire psyche, are eroding in front of his eyes.

What must this feel like? How is Ronaldo experiencing the world right now? In part these are questions that are impossible to answer, and so for various reasons people have stopped bothering to try. Far easier to paint him in broad primary colours, as either a cartoon villain or a vengeful demigod, to reduce his human complexity to numbers, his human emotions to ciphers. Fans who just months ago hailed his second coming as the second coming are now urging United to sweep him aside, to cast him adrift.

In April, Ronaldo and his partner Georgina Rodríguez lost their newborn son in childbirth. He was one of twins; their daughter survived. Rodríguez would later describe this tragedy as “the worst moment of her life”. For Ronaldo it was “the greatest sadness”. In the subsequent days the world of football rallied around Ronaldo at this most awful of times. Then, as the world of football is wont to do, it moved on to other things.

Did Ronaldo move on to other things? Nobody on the outside can say with any great certainty how this tragedy might have affected him. Every family processes grief in its own way. But anybody who has lost a child will tell you that it is a life-changing moment: a sadness that defies words or solace, whose vapour trail is felt not simply for weeks or months but for years, and for ever.

Fans at Anfield applaud on the seventh minute for Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo and his family in April following the death of his newborn son. Photograph: Peter Powell/EPA

Again, nobody here has a direct portal into Ronaldo’s brain, and ultimately we must all bear responsibility for our own actions. But I suppose the point here is that if one were to cast judgment on a man making a seemingly irrational emotional outburst – say, on the touchline during a televised football game – might this be the sort of thing you would want to take into account? If only a little, if only for reasons of simple compassion? Or is six months beyond the statute of limitations for these things?

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And then of course you can throw in the sense of athletic decline, which is often described as a form of sporting death, a brutal reacquaintance with one’s own mortality. For Ronaldo it is reasonable to presume that this reckoning will hit him harder than most, given the peaks he scaled and the levels of self-belief required to sustain them. Ronaldo will never be remotely as good at anything else as he is at football. Now, with decades of life to live, this thing is slipping away from him.

Cristiano Ronaldo looks on as he warms up on the touchline in Manchester United’s victory over Tottenham Hotspur. Photograph: Matt West/Shutterstock

United knew this, or at least should have done. Instead, they chose to sink more than £60m in fees and wages into a 36-year-old striker with seemingly no idea of what their exit strategy might be. In a way both United and Ronaldo were happy to indulge in the same delusion: that the good times would simply keep on rolling, that reality could simply be wished away through branding, star magnetism and sheer will. It was the ultimate marriage: a company convinced of its own immortal pre -eminence and a player convinced of his.

But of course companies can pivot, remake and reinvent themselves. Humans are stuck with the body they have. Even now, there are choices to be made. Ronaldo could simply knuckle down, take his medicine, accept a diminished role in an evolving team, acknowledge his limits. But to do so would be to go against every trait and instinct that drove him to the top in the first place. And so as United forge ahead, Ronaldo simply waits: alone, imprisoned by time, quietly going the way of all flesh.

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Ballon d'Or: Karim Benzema wins award as best player in world football for first time

 

Real Madrid and France forward Karim Benzema has won the Ballon d'Or - awarded to the best footballer of the year - for the first time.

Benzema scored 44 goals in 46 games as he helped Real win the Champions League and La Liga in 2021-22.

Lionel Messi (seven) and Cristiano Ronaldo (five) had won the award on 12 of the previous 13 occasions.

Bayern Munich's Sadio Mane, who was at Liverpool in 2021-22, was second ahead of Manchester City's Kevin de Bruyne.

Barcelona's Alexia Putellas retained the Women's Ballon d'Or, awarded to the best best female footballer of 2022.

England Euro 2022 winner and Arsenal forward Beth Mead was second.

Premier League champions Manchester City, who had six nominees at the ceremony, were awarded Club of the Year ahead of Liverpool.

The Ballon d'Or is awarded to the best footballer of the year, based on performance over the 2021-22 season.

Zinedine Zidane (right) was the last Frenchman to win the Ballon d'Or First Frenchman to win prize since 1998

Monday's ceremony in Paris saw French F1 driver Esteban Ocon arrive at the Theatre du Chatelet with the Ballon d'Or trophy in a racing car.

Benzema is the first Frenchman to win the prestigious award since Zinedine Zidane in 1998. Zidane was at the event to present his countryman with the prize.

"This prize in front of me makes me really proud," said Benzema. "When I was small, it was a childhood dream, I never gave up. Anything is possible.

"I'm really proud of my journey here. It wasn't easy, it was a difficult time for my family as well."

Benzema was the overwhelming favourite to win this year's award.

His 44 goals included a hat-trick in 17 second-half minutes against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League, and another away to Chelsea in the quarter-final first leg.

He also scored three more goals over two legs of the semi-final against Manchester City.

The 34-year-old, who has been at Real Madrid since 2009, is expected to play a key role for France at the World Cup in Qatar which starts on 20 November.

The Ballon d'Or is voted for by 100 journalists from around the world.

Warm reception for Haller

Borussia Dortmund's former West Ham striker Sebastien Haller, who has recently undergone chemotherapy for a testicular tumour, received warm applause from the audience when he walked on stage to present the Yashin Trophy to Real Madrid's Thibaut Courtois for best goalkeeper.

Liverpool's Alisson was second, with Ederson of Manchester City and Chelsea's Edouard Mendy third and fourth respectively. Tottenham's Hugo Lloris was 10th.

The Kopa Trophy, awarded to the best performing player under the age of 21, went to Barcelona and Spain midfielder Gavi, who turned 18 in August.

Sebastien Haller on stage at the Ballon d'Or awards ceremony

Borussia Dortmund midfielder Jude Bellingham, 19, was ranked fourth and England team-mate and Arsenal forward Bukayo Saka, 21, was eighth.

Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski won the Gerd Muller Trophy awarded to the best striker after scoring 57 goals for Bayern Munich and Poland in 2021-22.

The inaugural Socrates Award, a humanitarian prize, went to Mane for his charity work.

Five-time winner Ronaldo ranked 20th

Messi and Ronaldo have dominated the award in recent years, apart from in 2018 when Croatia midfielder Luka Modric won it.

Messi had already won the trophy more times than any other player and his seventh success in 2021 came after wins in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2019.

However, he was not nominated this time after an underwhelming first season at Paris St-Germain.

Manchester United's Ronaldo, who last won it in 2017, was placed 20th of the 30 players nominated, the Portuguese's lowest Ballon d'Or ranking since 2005.

Ballon d'Or results

1. Karim Benzema (Real Madrid, France).

2. Sadio Mane (Bayern Munich, Senegal).

3. Kevin de Bruyne (Manchester City, Belgium).

4. Robert Lewandowski (Barcelona, Poland).

5. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool, Egypt).

6. Kylian Mbappe (Paris St-Germain, France).

7. Thibaut Courtois (Real Madrid, Belgium).

8. Vinicius Junior (Real Madrid, Brazil).

9. Luka Modric (Real Madrid, Croatia).

10. Erling Haaland (Manchester City, Norway).

11. Son Heung-min (Tottenham Hotspur, South Korea)

12. Riyad Mahrez (Manchester City, Algeria).

13. Sebastien Haller (Borussia Dortmund, Ivory Coast).

14. Fabinho (Liverpool, Brazil) tied with Rafael Leao (AC Milan, Portugal).

16. Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool, Netherlands).

17. Luis Diaz (Liverpool, Colombia) tied with Dusan Vlahovic (Juventus, Serbia) and Casemiro (Manchester United, Brazil).

20. Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United, Portugal).

21. Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur, England).

22. Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool, England) tied with Phil Foden (Manchester City, England) and Bernardo Silva (Manchester City, Portugal).

25. Joao Cancelo (Manchester City, Portugal) tied with Joshua Kimmich (Bayern Munich, Germany), Mike Maignan (AC Milan, France), Antonio Rudiger (Real Madrid, Germany), Darwin Nunez (Liverpool, Uruguay) and Christopher Nkunku (RB Leipzig, France).

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Hasenhuttl accepts importance of midweek clash with rivals AFC Bournemouth

 

Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhuttl during the Premier League match between Southampton and West Ham at St Mary's Stadium. Photo by Stuart Martin..

RALPH Hasenhuttl accepted the importance of Wednesday’s clash with AFC Bournemouth but insisted he retains “all the belief” in what Saints are doing.

The St Mary’s side visit the Vitality Stadium five points behind their fellow south-coast Premier League rivals after 10 matches.

Bournemouth, first managed by Scott Parker before Gary O’Neil took over on an interim basis, were firm favourites for relegation before the season began.

They were defeated 9-0 by Liverpool but are the only team in the division to remain unbeaten since, despite a difficult summer of recruitment and many feeling they have a weaker squad.

Saints, who are in the bottom three with eight points, must start picking up victories and crucially against teams they are likely to be competing with come the end of the season.

"For us, it's a Premier League game and an important one,” Hasenhuttl said, asked if there is any added incentive given the locality and shared objectives of the clubs.

“We go there and I think we know that they are in good shape at the moment, but we go there like we have always gone into in the past with all the belief in what we are doing to make it a good evening for us.”

The meeting comes off the back of a 1-1 draw with West Ham United, at St Mary’s, that ended a run of four straight defeats in the Premier League for Hasenhuttl and Saints.

It could have been a first win since the August victory over Chelsea, after Romain Perraud put Saints ahead and Che Adams squandered two big chances.

"For everybody it is very frustrating because these are the moments where you can make a big step forward,” Hasenhuttl admitted.

“But it would still be a long way to go. There's no guarantee that you win games but it makes it a little bit easier. And then you can definitely play a little bit calmer but we are never in the situation."

He added: "Let's say every point we get is a point gained and we know that we need every point.

“We are now going to Bournemouth and then against Arsenal so another two games this week. We have to be ready for the Wednesday game, immediately focus is on the game and hopefully we can get a win there."

Story continues

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Barcelona's Xavi on Lionel Messi returning to club: 'Leave him in peace'

2:08 PM ET

Sam Marsden

Moises Llorens

Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez called for Lionel Messi to be left in peace as the Paris Saint-Germain forward continues to be linked with a return to Camp Nou.

Messi, 35, is out of contract with PSG at the end of the season and Barca vice president Eduard Romeu said last week it would be viable to bring him back to the club on a financial level.

- Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, MLS, more (U.S.)

Romeu's remarks came after president Joan Laporta opened the door to a sensational reunion with Messi in an interview with ESPN in the summer.

"With Leo, let's see, but it's not the moment to talk about it right now," Xavi said in a news conference ahead of Barca's Champions League game against Internazionale on Tuesday.

2dESPN

22hGab Marcotti

1 Related

"You know the love I have for him. He is a friend and I will always wish him the best. Barca is his home, but we're not doing him any favours speaking about [his future], either.

"Let's leave him in peace to enjoy his time in Paris and wish him all the best."

Talk of Messi's return comes as Barca finally appear to have turned the page on the Argentina forward, with Robert Lewandowski's goal in the weekend's win over Mallorca taking them to the top of LaLiga for the first time in over two years.

However, while they remain unbeaten domestically, Barca still have work to do to avoid being knocked out of the Champions League group stage for the second season running.

After Barca and Inter both lost to Bayern Munich, it looks like the upcoming meetings between the two sides -- at San Siro on Tuesday and Camp Nou next week -- will decide who advances with the German champions.

"It seems like that's the case," Xavi said when asked if Barca and Inter were now playing for second place. "We both lost to Bayern and beat Viktoria [Plzen], so Tuesday is a very important game -- and the one next week as well at home.

"Let's see how Bayern do on Tuesday [against Plzen], but we can't fail. We are in good form, but we have to keep demonstrating that. We have already let Bayern off in this competition. We have to match the way we played in Munich, but this time get the result.

"It's a confidence boost to be top of LaLiga, it shows we are doing things well, but Tuesday is another story. We didn't get any points in Munich so it's time to show we can compete in this competition. It's a huge game."

Both sides have injury problems going into the game. Barca are once again without Jules Kounde, Hector Bellerin, Ronald Araujo, Frenkie de Jong and Memphis Depay. Inter, meanwhile, will be missing Romelu Lukaku and Marcelo Brozovic, while a late decision will be made on Lautaro Martinez.

In addition to injury problems, Inter go into Tuesday's game on the back of a defeat to Roma, their fourth in eight Serie A games already this season.

"That is not significant, it's still Inter," Xavi added, playing down concerns about the Italian side's form. "They're a strong team. They have a different system to what we have faced so far, a really strong spine and a good coach [in Simone Inzaghi]. They are really tough opponents."

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Barcelona knew Robert Lewandowski was good. But not this good

 

Turns out the guy who had scored 618 career goals, and run at more than 25 a year every year for more than a decade, was quite good. There were plenty of players missing when La Liga returned from the international break this weekend, but not him. He, it seems, is inevitable. And so when they had finished, there he was, quietly standing above them all. Robert Lewandowski, the Polish Ian Rush and the Spanish Pichichi. And, who knows, perhaps something more: he, after all, has just taken his team to a place they hadn’t been in two and a half years.

This was the weekend the Williams brothers kept rolling, Nico and Inaki returning home from debuts with different countries to set each other up as Athletic scored four for the third time to go top of the everyone else league. The weekend in which Girona and Real Sociedad went wild, scoring eight between them, including one that was ridiculous from Rodrigo Riquelme and something a bit special from Alex Sorloth in a 5-3 away win. The weekend when so, unexpectedly, did Getafe and Valladolid: not normally Spain’s great entertainers, they served up the best show the Coliseum’s seen since 325AD.

This weekend had what was briefly the season’s silliest mistake from Espanyol goalkeeper Álvaro Fernández – until he went one worse three minutes later, letting in a 96th-minute equaliser against Valencia. It didn’t have much Iago Apas, sitting on the bench with a dodgy tummy, but it did have Gabri Veiga hitting an outrageous 30-yard winner for Celta against Betis, beaten on the road for the second time running and only the third all year. In all likelihood, it had Julen Lopetegui’s last stand, Sevilla a single point and a single place from the relegation spots, and the manager a single call from the sack after a 2-0 defeat by Atlético Madrid. And it had Osasuna at the Bernabéu, where Sergio Herrera’s strange grip over Karim Benzema tightened.

In a game nowhere near as good as any of those, it also had a goal from Robert Lewandowski, which isn’t really news any more but which is the point. You have to go back to the opening day of the season for the last time he didn’t score. “A killer,” Mallorca coach Javi Aguirre had called him in the hours before they met, and he knew. “There’s no dignity in defeat: they all hurt,” he said 24 hours later. It was late on Saturday at Son Moix, and his team had taken more shots than Barcelona, but had been beaten. Because if they had 13, Lewandowski had one – and that was enough.

Cutting inside, he bent a finish as perfectly placed as it was unfussy, excellence made to look easy. And that was pretty much that, the only goal. If he had led them in and benefited from a the team having a good night before – Barcelona had scored four, four, three, four, three in their previous five league games and put five past Viktoria Plzen – now he had seen them through a bad one. “Lewandowski, the Zahori,” AS called him. A water diviner, basically. Some sort of mystic, he had found an oasis in the desert, Santi Giménez wrote, “and when you’re dying of thirst and find water, you’ll believe in anything”. Even in Barcelona. This, one headline had it, was “Lewy’s Law”. No wonder Sport and Mundo Deportivo thought they could go one better than Thomas Müller.

They were wrong. So very, very wrong.

You may remember the delighted look on the Bayern midfielder’s face, all pleased with himself when he told the press: “We call him Lewangoalski … geddit, LewanGOALski” – a line full of fondness and so bad it was good. This Sunday, Sport splashed their front cover with Goalandowski, while Mundo Deportivo went for Lethaldowski – a pair of lines so bad they were just bad. And yet if they lacked the charm, warmth, or imagination of the original – and did they ever – it was understandable. This was Lewandowski’s ninth in seven league games – he is three ahead of Borja Iglesias, having not taken any penalties to Iglesias’s three – and his 12th in nine games over all. Only László Kubala, Alfredo Di Stefano and Christian Vieri had scored as many seven games into spells in Spain. He has scored in six league matches running. He is, Xavi says, a “guarantee of goals”.

But then you knew that, and so did Xavi. There is a reason Barcelona kept pushing even when Bayern pushed back, why they saw through their commitment to him even when the price went to twice, three times what they had excepted to pay. Just look at his club totals over the last seven seasons: 42, 43, 41, 40, 55, 48, 50, for goodness’ sake. Whatever the reason – they said it was all down to eating pudding before his main course, always putting sweets first, but that’s rubbish, this column has been trying for years – he has always scored goals. This is nothing new: it’s nine years since he put four past Real Madrid, almost as long since Madrid made the first of many attempts to sign him, and that Polish Ian Rush thing goes back to Lech Poznan. His success doesn’t surprise.

Except it sort of does. “He goes into the area, a pool of crocodiles, like it was his own home,” Jorge Valdano writes. “Calling him a goalscorer is reductionist like all he knows how to do is the hardest thing of all. And anyway before a goalscorer, he is a player. Someone you can give the ball to and he never lets you down.” That’s part of it: you never know if it will work out for any footballer, and even if the productivity might not have surprised some of the play has: the intelligence, the touch, the movement, the subtlety, the vision and variety. The timing, which is not just about being there at the finish. After he produced a gorgeous back-heeled assist to Pedri, Eric García insisted, impressed: “I can’t see that pass from the bench and he can see it on the pitch.” Xavi says “he understands the game”, knows what to do and when.

Robert Lewandowski (centre) celebrates with Jordi Alba after scoring the only goal in the 1-0 win at Mallorca. Photograph: Soccrates Images/Getty Images

Then there’s the personality, a natural ascendency over others carried lightly, not eroded over the years. “He feels comfortable, he adapts, he’s aware of his responsibility coming here,” Xavi says. “He has maturity, he talk to the young players, he’s humble and hard working. He’s calm, he has confidence in himself, and he’s a natural leader for the team.”

You can know a footballer is good but not how good; you can see him somewhere else, but it’s not the same as when he turns up at your team, your league. There’s always a discovery, even of the known. There are also always doubts, the hint of risk, and when a player arrives into an environment where there are enough doubts already, then all the more so. Lewandowski came at 34 on a four-year deal, Bayern refusing to offer more than one. And he admitted having seen firsthand some of the issues Barcelona had last season when he was on the other side; he also, though, insisted that he focused on where they were going, not where they had come from, a calm authority about him. If a good player can always be brought down, a really good one can bring those around him up.

Which is why what happened in Mallorca impressed less than other nights but mattered more, symbolising something significant.

Quick Guide La Liga results Show

Real Mallorca 0-1 Barcelona, Sevilla 0-2 Atlético Madrid, Getafe 2-3 Real Valladolid, Cádiz 0-0 Villarreal, Real Madrid 1-1 Osasuna, Girona 3-5 Real Sociedad, Celta Vigo 1-0 Real Betis, Espanyol 2-2 Valencia

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On Sunday, a wild weekend ended with Osasuna, this season’s revelation so far, holding Madrid to a 1-1 draw. Kike García headed in a goal that Antonio Rüdiger called “one in a million” and then Benzema hit the bar with a penalty 10 minutes from time – the fourth he has missed in six, three of them against Herrera. It was the first time Madrid had failed to win all season, but enough to allow Lewandowski’s goal to take his team top.

It is very early still, the clásico is coming soon, injuries and the fixture list suggests they will be vulnerable this month, and Barcelona haven’t beaten the most illustrious of opponents: Mallorca, Elche, Cádiz, Valladolid and Sevilla are all bottom half. Their run of six wins and a draw hasn’t been all about Lewandowski either – Marc André ter Stegen extended his run without conceding a goal to a personal best 534 minutes and that’s 18 away games without defeat under Xavi, stretching back to last season. But this is the first time they have been top since June 2020 – when Quique Setién was in charge and stadiums were still empty, 91 matches ago. Valencia, Granada, Betis, Madrid, Getafe, Real Sociedad and Atlético have all been there since but Barcelona haven’t. Lewandowski has, and now he’s back again in a position to compete for his ninth league title in a row, his 11th in 13 years.

“Lewandowski is a blessing,” Xavi says.

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