With the Super Bowl chalking up its lowest-scoring game in history, it’s only fitting that Sunday’s European football action was dominated by some equally adept defensive displays (apart from Manchester City’s dominant, 19-shot performance vs. Arsenal).
In England, Manchester United held on for a narrow 1-0 victory over Leicester City thanks to a fine Marcus Rashford goal (created by Paul Pogba) and a brilliant free kick save from David de Gea.
As always, the imperious Spanish goalkeeper makes clawing out an effort headed for the corner look easy.
Over in Spain, Real Betis delighted Barcelona by recording a shock 1-0 victory over Atletico Madrid at the Benito Villamarin. Atletico keeper Jan Oblak could only be beaten by Sergio Canales’ penalty in the 65th minute, and the Slovenian pulled off this ridiculous save to start the match.
In Italy, Roma and AC Milan played to a 1-1 draw at the Stadio Olimpico. Milan can thank 19-year-old keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma for the point — check out this double save.
But the award for save of the day belongs in France, where Lyon handed a Neymar-less PSG its first league loss of the season. Angel Di Maria opened the scoring for the Parisians, but Moussa Dembele scored the equalizer for Lyon in the 33rd minute.
But with the scores level at 1-1 in the 43rd minute, the outcome would’ve surely been a lot different had this Di Maria effort not been cleared off the line by center back Jason Denayer.
The defeat doesn’t do much to the Ligue 1 table besides deprive PSG of “Invincibles” status. The club still holds a 10-point lead over Lille with two games in hand.
However, the result says a lot about the changing dynamic in the Champions League — we’re just a week away from Man United vs. PSG at Old Trafford, and it’s no longer looking like a totally lost cause for the Red Devils.
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