European Newspaper Review

In Spain, AS reports that Neymar is set to miss Barcelona’s European Super Cup tie against Seville in Tiblisi after he contracted mumps. Barça’s communications staff are bang up to date with issuing medical conditions of the players and said the Brazilian is expected to be out for 15 days. Barça otherwise have a full squad including Pedro, who coach Luis Enrique wanted to keep at the club until the Super Cup matches. The Canarian intends to move to Manchester United, who want him. United just need to pay his €30 million release clause.

Marca focused on Real Madrid legend Iker Casillas making a positive impression at his new club FC Porto, plus Spanish international goalkeepers David de Gea and Victor Valdes being banished to the stands at Old Trafford for Manchester United’s opening game of the season against Tottenham.

In Germany, despite the 2. Bundesliga already being into its second week, including another heavy defeat for promoted Duisburg away at Bochum (3-0) and a thriller in Sandhausen (the hosts beating Union Berlin 4-3), Sunday’s Spiegel Online started far further down the football pyramid, reporting on HFC Falke’s opening league match in the 11th tier. Falke were formed by Hamburger SV fans angry at the re-classification of HSV’s footballing division as a separate entity, making it exempt from Germany’s 50+1% ownership rule. Falke won 9-0.

German pre-season reached its climax in a series of mini tournaments. The Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger reported on the Colonia Cup, featuring Stoke City and attracting just over 1,000 travelling English fans, whilst Sport1.de lead with the Supercup, where Wolfsburg equalised late on against Bayern Munich before claiming the first silverware of the season on penalties.

Kicker’s Monday morning print edition described Wolfsburg as the new, temporary challengers to Bayern Munich, whilst Die Welt’s Tim Röhn produced the first of a series of articles which appeared across Europe this week on the FIFA corruption scandal and Michel Platini’s decision to stand for the presidency. Röhn, who has delved deep into to the scandal, attacked Platini as “just another name for Blatter” who has fought by the Swiss leader’s side for decades and is not the man to clean to up FIFA. In a related story in France on Thursday, Le Monde reported the arrest of two Argentinian businessmen accused of paying bribes to FIFA officials, and who are now refusing extradition to the United States. The story continued on Friday when, after France24 wrote that Platini had now secured the support of South America’s CONMEBOL, Röhn revealed that FIFA was waging a smear campaign against Platini. An article attacking the Frenchmen was passed to several Swiss newspapers directly from FIFA headquarters, it was reported. The papers are refusing to print it.

Despite the recent success of the German national team, DFL chief Christian Seifert told SPORTBILD on Tuesday that he is frustrated that the country’s youth teams haven’t picked up the baton. Meanwhile, Die Zeit questioned where the Bundesliga now stands in 2015. Unable to compete with Premier League TV money, the paper criticised German football as complacent, lacking in ambition and quietly overly-satisfied with its brief period of success.

Further down the leagues, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk reported that 59 referees are refusing to arbitrate games involving non-league club 1.FC Ostelbien Dornburg, whose playing and coaching staff allegedly include 15 neo-Nazis under government surveillance.

There was confusion in BILD on Wednesday as Kevin-Prince Boateng’s move from Schalke to Sporting Lisbon unexpectedly fell through. Sporting claimed Boateng had failed a medical, which was first denied by Schalke and then by the player’s agent who claimed there had been disagreement over image rights. The latter turned out to be true and Boateng will stay at Schalke, where he’s nevertheless been suspended due to his poor attitude last season.

Finally on Friday, Die Zeit produced an A-Z of Manchester for the benefit of Bastian Schweinsteiger. Whilst “Glazer”, “Hacienda” and “Marx” seemed logical enough, Mancunians are apparently also well known for having “carpet in their bathrooms”.

Saturday morning’s Parisien reported that Angel Di Maria was in Lille as Paris Saint-Germain won away at Lille OSC, despite going down to 10 men midway through the first half. Later in the day came the shock news of the weekend was Marcelo Bielsa resigning as coach of Olympique Marseille only minutes after their opening league game (a 0-1 home defeat to Caen) weeks after agreeing a new contract. The Argentine is an intense genius who isn’t called the madman for nothing. He also doesn’t stay at clubs for long, though Marseille is not a club renown for stability.

L’Equipe speculated that Zinedine Zidane and Jurgen Klopp might be the men to take over France’s best-supported club Marseille. For now, Franck Passi, who spent two years at Bolton, is in charge. Bielsa’s departure shadowed Ligue 2 getting underway and, for the first time in over 30 years, it featured 3 Parisian clubs – US Créteil, Red Star Paris and Paris FC. FranceFootball reported on Red Star’s defeat to Créteil and Le Figaro ran a feature on the 3 clubs entitled “living in the shadow of PSG”.