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It’s a full-on edition of Football Weekly, as James Richardson, Barry Glendenning, and Sean Ingle reflect on a remarkable few days in football.

Jonathan Wilson brings us the latest from Angola, where – despite the attack on the Togo team bus on Friday which put the tournament in jeopardy – the Africa Cup of Nations got under way with an astonishing opening game.

Kevin McCarra looks back on Arsenal’s latest failure to seize the advantage in the Premier League title race, as well as Manchester United’s continuing malaise, Birmingham City’s 12-match unbeaten streak, and Liverpool director Tom Hicks Jr’s foul-mouthed email exchange with a fan.

Finally, Sid Lowe reveals the Spanish for wunderkind as he marvels at Racing Santander’s Sergio Canales, and Paolo Bandini wraps up a stonking weekend in Serie A.

You know what to do. Have a listen and post your comments on the blog below, or find us on Facebook and Twitter. And if you want to waste time on YouTube, check out this rather splendid strike by Massimo Maccarone.

James RichardsonBen GreenSean IngleBarry GlendenningJonathan WilsonKevin McCarraSid LowePaolo Bandini

• ‘Fiorentina played an almost perfect game against Lyon’
• ‘Slow, unrecognisable’ Liverpool side ‘need to start over’

“Party-time, Florence,” says Guglielmo Buccheri in La Stampa today, and while the greater part of the Italian sports pages have been given over to Internazionale’s defeat by Barcelona there was still plenty of room to celebrate Fiorentina’s success in reaching the Champions League’s knock-out stages at Liverpool’s expense.

“A toast to arriving among the best 16 teams in Europe, 10 years after the golden days of Trapattoni,” continues Buccheri, noting that the return to such a stage was anything but inevitable for a club that was declared bankrupt and then re-formed in 2002. “This represents the end of a long path after that painful collapse which saw the ‘new’ Fiorentina make their debut away to Sangiovannese seven years ago.”

In Gazzetta dello Sport, Luca Calamai declares Fiorentina to be “among the great sides of of Europe”. “Fiorentina played an almost perfect game against Lyon – ‘almost’ only because of the way they were made to suffer at the end,” he says. “In the final 10 minutes, the legs of the players were paralysed by the fear of not reaching the end of such a splendid ride. But it ended well.”

Liverpool’s exit at such an early stage has been described across the board as “sensational”, but the consensus is that Rafael Benítez’s team deserved no better. “This is how it should be, a fact evinced even by Liverpool’s showing in Budapest,” says Fabio Bianchi in Gazzetta. “A slow, unrecognisable team, who won but only after nearly blowing it at the end, when [Adamo] Coulibaly had a one-on-one with [Pepe] Reina but shot straight at the keeper.

“Liverpool might not have a squad like Inter or Barça or Chelsea and the absences of certain players have weighed like boulders. But the team no longer has the grit and determination that were always their calling card. That is where they need to start over. In the Europa League.”

There are those, too, who have used the opportunity of Fiorentina’s win to take a shot at José Mourinho’s Inter. “Prandelli and Barça, lessons for Mourinho,” says Corriere dello Sport, referring to the Fiorentina coach Cesare Prandelli. “So far there is one Italian team in the last 16 of the Champions League. And it is the one who were least expected to get there.”

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