POLISH football has endured its fair share of agony in the past few years, including a serious betting and match-fixing scandal, but a couple of games in the past week suggest that a revival might be on the cards.

FIFTEEN months after celebrating the greatest spending spree in football history, Real Madrid fans are having to face the fact their club will almost certainly have nothing to show for it.

THE Germans call it schadenfreude, meaning the pleasure you get from someone else’s misfortune, or literally “damage joy”.

LYON against Bayern is a semi-final clash no one expected, and so far it has lived down to expectations.

THE Champions League is known for its reunions but Barcelona managers Pep Guardiola might have wished for an easier trip to meet up with a former colleague.

BAYERN are notgood enough.Franck Ribery’s blunt verdict on his own team back in December may have seemed overly pessimistic as they embarked on a run of nine league wins in a row and went top of the Bundesliga for the first time in two years.

When two teams share 10 goals in The Match of the Decade you can usually bet that the return game will finish 0-0.

“I TURNED off the TV when we went 2-0 down. I couldn’t watch any more.”

IF there is one thing that captures the Spanish soul for us foreigners it’s flamenco.

ATLETICO MADRID are known as ‘Los Colchoneros’ — mattress makers — because of their red-and-white striped shirts, but there have been times when their supporters believed it was because they provided a comfortable rest for the opposition.