la-liga Page 7 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
This Real Madrid Season Is A Total Disaster
This was to be the year that officially consecrated a new Real Madrid dynasty. After historic European success—back-to-back Champions League trophies, making for three such titles in four years—and the arguably even more Herculean feat of beating out Lionel Messi’s team for status as La Liga champi...
Lionel Messi Is A Treasure
“It’s spectacular to watch him every day. He is the best player there is and the best there will ever be,” said first-year Barcelona manager Ernesto Valverde yesterday after witnessing yet another breathtaking display of excellence by Lionel Messi in his team’s 5-0 victory over Real Betis. Messi sco...
Lionel Messi And Jordi Alba Go Over Levante's Heads For A Gorgeous Goal
In a metaphorical sense, Barcelona are almost always playing above their competition. But today against Levante, Lionel Messi and Jordi Alba combined for some play that was literally untouchable. Their give-and-go was almost as suited to volleyball as it was to a soccer pitch, and it was good for Me...
Liverpool And Barcelona Agree To £142 Million Transfer Fee For Philippe Coutinho
The once-dead Coutinho-to-Barcelona transfer, a hot rumor of the post-Neywatch soccer landscape, is now, suddenly, a done deal: today Barcelona and Liverpool reportedly agreed to a £142 million transfer fee that will send the midfielder to Catalonia. Per ESPN:...
The Coutinho-To-Barcelona Transfer Saga Is Back On, And Might Actually Happen This Time
This past summer was a great one for aficionados of melodramatic transfer window soap operas. The most passion-inflamed and drama-filled ones were the two Barcelona-based series, NeyWatch and One Life to Liverpool. NeyWatch, you probably remember, starred the impossibly hunky Neymar and detailed the...
Catalonia Explodes
By now, you’ve probably seen the images on Twitter or Facebook of Spanish police in riot gear breaking a Catalan woman’s fingers, beating people as they sought medical attention, and even battling firemen. The shocking violence came as Spanish authorities tried, in vain, to block the referendum for ...
Barcelona Play In An Empty Stadium After Attempted Independence Vote
On the day of a controversial referendum on Catalonian independence, which led to the Spanish police shutting down polling stations and firing rubber bullets at a crowd of voters, Barcelona’s game against Las Palmas was closed to the public and played in an empty Camp Nou due to security concerns....
Gareth Bale's Still Got It
It’s more than a little insane to think that Gareth Bale—after four seasons at Real Madrid in which he has played 150 matches and amassed a mind-boggling combined 118 goals and assists, in that time asserting himself as a perennial top 10 player in the world with an unrivaled combination of speed an...
Barcelona Are Still One Of The Greats
Catalonia was in panic mode this past month, as the shock departure of Neymar to PSG dealt a debilitating blow to a Barcelona squad that already wasn’t running at peak efficiency. For a fan base that has become accustomed to not just consistent success, but consistent domination, this was unacceptab...
Barcelona's Farcical Summer Of Discontent Slips Further Into Absurdity
Barcelona should be one of the most prestigious and respected institutions in world sports. This hallowed club should be capable of attracting and retaining the absolute best soccer players around the globe, operating with a dignity and professionalism befitting such a revered club in an era that in...
Manchester City's Owners Buy La Liga Club Girona
The long-awaited deal that adds newly promoted La Liga club Girona to City Football Group’s growing roster of world soccer teams appears to be all but completed. When it’s final, Girona will join MLS’s NYCFC and Manchester City, as well as clubs in Australia, Japan, and Uruguay in CFG’s portfolio....
Is Gareth Bale Even Worth It?
Gareth Bale, once the assumed heir to Cristiano Ronaldo’s throne at Real Madrid, is now at risk of becoming an afterthought. Acquired from Tottenham in 2013 for a then-record transfer fee, Bale has only topped 30 La Liga appearances once in four seasons for Real Madrid. True, he has been as good as ...
Gerard Deulofeu Might Be The Luckiest Bastard Alive
Yesterday, Barcelona played tragedy-stricken Brazilian club Chapecoense (you may remember them as the team involved in that awful plane crash last winter) in the Joan Gamper Trophy match. This match, hosted annually at Barcelona’s Camp Nou, is a friendly and thus doesn’t mean all that much in the gr...
James Rodriguez Escapes Real Madrid's Bench For Bayern Munich
At the 2014 World Cup, James Rodriguez appeared to cement himself as the next international superstar. Scoring six goals in five matches, including one of the best of the year, James won the Golden Boot and immediately caught the attention of Real Madrid. The La Liga giants bought him from Monaco fo...
Gerard Deulofeu Returns To Barcelona, Which Is Just The Stupidest Idea
Goddammit. You were so close to making it, Gerard, and then you had to go and do this....
Reports: Cristiano Ronaldo Wants To Leave Real Madrid (It's Not Going To Happen)
A transfer window isn’t a transfer window without rumors that Cristiano Ronaldo might be on the move, and despite playing the hero in Real Madrid’s historic back-to-back Champions League trophies and snatching away the league title from Barcelona and all but certainly locking up a fifth Ballon d’Or ...
Antoine Griezmann's New Contract Means He Isn't Going To Manchester United—Yet
One of the most important decisions shaping the upcoming Premier League season didn’t actually involve any team from England. That decision was in the hands of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which had to rule on Atlético Madrid’s appeal of their FIFA-imposed two-window transfer ban. Though not ...
Real Madrid Won Everything And Don't Have Much To Show For It
Real Madrid, whose riches and fame and consistent, historic success as a club are unmatched in soccer’s long history, just capped off one of their greatest seasons ever—and it was just the latest of a string of triumphant years that by all rights should indelibly brand this era as their own. They pu...
Real Madrid Pay 45 Million Euros For The Rights To A Child<em></em><em></em>
That braces-rocking, baby-faced kid with his tongue out who you see above is Brazilian club Flamengo’s teen sensation Vinícius Júnior. Vinícius is 16 years old; he has racked up all of about a dozen minutes of pro-level soccer; and, as the club confirmed today, he has just become the most expensive ...
Real Madrid Finally Overcame The World's Best Player By Building The World's Best Team
For close to a decade now, Real Madrid have been tasked with solving the most difficult problem facing any club in the whole sport: What do we do about Lionel Messi?...