An early-season meeting between two teams suffering hangovers from relegation finds the home side also paying the price for mistakes committed long, long ago and distracted by a meddling council. Taylor Parkes reports

Airy, friendly and staunchly tolerant, Brighton is a magnet for those worn down by the dark heat and pace of denser, less liberal cities – the San Francisco of England, or close enough. It seems right that a team from such a self-consciously bohemian town should be too laid-back for the uptight glare of the top flight, but most inappropriate that they’ve become dependent on the approval of others.

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The fizz went out of football for a lot of fans in Salzburg, thanks to an energy-drink billionaire. In this update, Paul Joyce reports on the lower-league alternative to a team drained of its colour

The acquisition of SV Austria Salzburg by Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz in April 2005 reduced the 1994 UEFA Cup finalists to a mere marketing trinket. “There is no tradition, no history, no archive,” stated officials of the renamed “Red Bull Salzburg”, who initially claimed that the three-time national champions had been founded in 2005. The violet-and-white colours in which the team had played since 1933 were jettisoned in favour of the red and blue of the energy drink’s tin cans. “I can’t play with a purple bull if the brand is called Red Bull,” Mateschitz stated bluntly.

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Some people are never happy – take Bayern Munich. Dominant at home but toothless abroad, the German champions have taken out their frustration on Owen Hargreaves, as Karsten Blaas reports

When Bayern Munich secure yet another Bundesliga title, mostly with two or three games to spare, the players gather in the centre circle after the final whistle to celebrate. They start jumping up and down and wave at the crowd. One of them, usually Hasan Salihamidzic or Bastian Schweinsteiger, produces a large glass of wheat beer, a Bavarian speciality, and pours it over somebody else’s head. Oliver Kahn clenches his fists and grits his teeth at the supporters and throws his gloves into the crowd. After about 15 minutes, the players gradually disappear into the dressing room. It’s a dull procedure, probably even for those who feel affiliated to the club.

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As Juventus go kicking and screaming into Serie B, Matt Barker reports on the failure of the new board to realise just how seriously the Moggi match-fixing scandal has damaged the club's reputation

When, in July, the initial sentences in the Moggiopoli scandal were announced, Juventus appeared to take their punishments with reasonably good grace. They would, club officials claimed, co‑operate fully with the legal process and abide by whatever penalties were imposed. There was talk of a club reborn and, in the shadow of sporting director Gianluca Pess­otto’s attempted suicide, of a more humble side to La Vecchia Sig­nora. Some people even started to feel a little sympathy for them.

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Managers may not like it but there are legal limits to what a footballer can do to an opponent. As the police investigate Ben Thatcher's challenge on Pedro Mendes, Neil Rose looks at where the law stands

“Anything that happens on a football pitch should be governed by the FA and FIFA,” said Stuart Pearce following Ben Thatcher’s challenge on Pedro Mendes. “Once you start involving the police, the floodgates can open and you could end up with a situation where players are arrested during a game.”

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