Olympique Marseille players celebrate. Photograph: Frank Perry/AFP
An eight-goal thriller, two refereeing cock-ups, late goals and a shockresult that no-one saw coming: Ligue 1 got off to a cracking start at the weekend, even if the name of the team at the top of the table has a familiar ring to it.
Grenoble, playing [...]

Clinton Toopi could be out for up to a year. Photograph: Matthew Lewis/Getty Images
Leeds’ hopes of retaining their Super League title have been hit by the loss of Ryan Hall and Clinton Toopi for the rest of the season. Winger Hall broke a bone in his foot during Saturday’s Challenge Cup semi-final defeat by St [...]

Franck Ribery and Luca Toni celebrate their one-two in the only awards that matter. Photograph: Oliver Lang AFP/Getty Images
Bayern Munich’s fourth-place finish in 2007 was always going to be bad news for the rest of the Bundesliga. General manager Uli Hoeness had an epiphany, suddenly realising the correlation between spending big money and signing quality [...]

Bayern Munich celebrate winning the Bundesliga. Photograph: Joerg Koch AFP/Getty Images
TV screens were getting positively drenched by salty bodily fluids on Saturday, you couldn’t move for all the money shots: everybody was crying, everywhere.
In Hamburg, Huub Stevens, the Bundesliga’s best-loved Dutch Gruffalo, shed a few tears after his last match in charge at Hamburg. His [...]