Fernando Torres and Edinson Cavani — tonight’s match in Naples is packed with intriguing contrasts but none perhaps as telling as the contrasting fortunes of two strikers.

Football in Italy this winter has become as unpredictable as the weather, so unpredictable there are genuine doubts about which Milan team will face Arsenal tomorrow night.

Nil-nil is a scoreline that can tell you a lot or a little.

Another week in Spain, another Barca-Madrid showdown, another post-match spat.

GERMANY’S football season restarted dramatically on Friday night after their six-week break and the victims were Bayern Munich, still league leaders but only on goal difference ahead of Borussia Dortmund and Schalke, with the other Borussia just a point behind in fourth place.

IT may have been seniors week inthe Premier League, but you canforget about Thierry Henry and Paul Scholes for the veteran of the year award.

IT was derby day in Barcelona on Sunday just as it was in Manchester.

SIMONE FARINA is an unlikely football hero.

AS Christmas approaches, European football has a reassuringly traditional feel.

IT has been said of the Bundesliga that it’s the most exciting competition in the world, except when Bayern Munich are playing well, and a look at the table seems to confirm it.