champions-league Page 9 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
We all know Liverpool can’t win the Quadruple, but what my book presupposes…
To say winning the Quadruple–the League Cup, the FA Cup, the Champions League, and the Premier League–is a dream isn’t accurate. No fan ever really thinks of it before a season starts, or really before even February. It’s beyond fantasy. It’s not something you’d ever give the time of day. Perhaps En...
I MF’d Barcelona
There’s no hiding, not after yesterday. Not after Barcelona, just months ago the biggest figure of fun in world soccer, waltzed into the Bernabeu, and kicked eight different kinds of shit out Madrid to the tune of 4-0. It could have been 8-0 or 10-0. It probably should have been 5-0 or 6-0. This was...
That was some fiendish Atlético Madrid treachery
You’re not supposed to miss a blister. You’re not supposed to get nostalgic about a paper cut on that webby part between your thumb and forefinger. You shouldn’t smile at stubbing your toe against the bed or couch that causes you to limp for an hour....
Everton can’t really get themselves relegated, can they?
In the previous decade, we could have asked this question about Aston Villa, West Ham, or Newcastle. All of those clubs are of the same size as Everton, all should be comfortably in the second tier of the Premier League behind the big six, if not breaking into the big six themselves. And yet, the la...
He’s Joe Bucks now
Joe Buck, the longtime voice of Fox Sports, is bolting for the greener pastures of ESPN, signing a lucrative five-year deal in the $60-$75 million range, according to the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand....
U.K. finally gets around to sanctioning Chelsea’s Roman Abramovich
Roman’s got to go. Hand in your keys to the club before you do more damage to those who don’t deserve it. As it turns out, plenty of people who said politics had no place in sports really meant politics that they don’t agree with had no room at the table. Loud banishment of policy came at the inters...
Kylian Mbappé passes the audition but PSG spectacularly fail another test
While the word “narrative” has become something of a cinder block sitting in the intestines of sports, sometimes you just can’t avoid how much it’s beating you over the head. Kylian Mbappé lining up against Real Madrid in the round of 16 in the Champions League was one of those times. Mbappé is stil...
With Weston McKennie done for the season… now what?
For as much excitement as this batch of the USMNT has generated, most of that has been tempered by the fact that A) they’ve rarely actually played all that well together and B) they’ve rarely all been together and in anything near top form. There will be those, the most rose-colored glasses-adorned ...
What is it Manchester United are trying to do?
At the end of Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s run as Manchester United, they got absolutely dog-walked by Liverpool and Manchester City at home. The combined score was 7-1, but no one would have been surprised had it ended up 17-0. Plenty will tell you it should have. Even for the notoriously directionless ye...
Jesse Marsch tries again, this time at Leeds United
You can’t accuse Jesse Marsch of being unambitious. He replaced Julian Nagelsmann at RB Leipzig, and Nagelsmann had only left for Bayern Munich — one of the biggest jobs in the world — and is considered maybe the leading young genius on the European continent (whether this letterman’s jacket is evid...
Fedor Smolov is that guy
After years of political tension between the countries, Russia officially invaded Ukraine on Wednesday, bringing swift sanctions and reaction from around the world, as countries almost unanimously opposed the actions spearheaded by Russian President Vladimir Putin....
Champions League Final likely to be moved out of Russia over Ukraine conflict
Not less than a week after the Russia Olympic Committee won 32 medals — second most overall but somehow ninth in the standings because of questionable Russia shit — Vladimir Putin appears to be preparing to invade the Ukraine. Now, the sporting world seems to be paying attention to the crisis in rea...
Let’s see All-Stars, Pro Bowlers mess around with generational wealth on the line
The reason why I’m against an NBA midseason tournament is the same reason why All-Star weekend events and Pro Bowls don’t work: incentive. Rings are the only unit of bragging rights that matters. It’s why people laugh when Carmelo Anthony talks about all of his Olympic gold medals. There’s no reason...
Kylian Mbappé continues to bend Champions League to his will
Kylian Mbappé is only 23, but his plunge into the world soccer scene keeps growing. The French dynamo, playing for his home country’s most successful club over the last dozen years, Paris Saint-Germain, as well as being an integral member of France’s national team, keeps scoring critical goals. Two ...
Should Wolves be the fans’ favorite to finish in the top four?
The Premier League might not have much of a title race at the moment (a lot is going to have go right for Liverpool and a lot wrong for City to change that), but it’s relegation fight will be, to quote Jim Ross, “A Saturday night on payday weekend in Muskogee.”...
Fan-on-fan violence was always out of hand, we just didn’t see it
Fans fighting each other is nothing new. It’s so prevalent in soccer that they made a movie about it. While I wouldn’t recommend “Green Street Hooligans” because Elijah Wood playing a Harvard dropout-turned-soccer hooligan is as ridiculous as it sounds, I have been guilty of sharing fan fight videos...
Who are Tom Brady’s peers in other sports?
There’s no doubt Tom Brady won championships at a rate we’ve never seen before in the NFL, with no fellow football players lifting as many titles as the longtime Patriot and most-recent Buccaneer did. He alone holds the record for most Super Bowls won by an individual player....
Everton completely change gears, hires Frank Lampard
When you become a club that’s as much of an underground circus that Everton Football Club have become, your list of possible managers shrinks. You can really only get the desperate or those with nothing better to do, or possibly those who would work nowhere else. Everton have let Duncan Ferguson, wh...
So after Mason Greenwood, what will Manchester United do about Cristiano Ronaldo?
Not that we don’t know the answer, but it will make for even more awkward viewing than United’s on-field performances have been anyway....
For one evening, Mohammed Salisu was Gandalf
Usually, when one player dominates a game, bending it to his will, you think of hat tricks and thunder-bastard goals and everything offensive. After all, soccer is judged on who scores and who doesn’t. And that goes for pretty much every sport....