Ronaldinho retired this week. Maybe you’ve heard. We’ve mentioned it a few times. But it’s worth revisiting once more because the Brazilian was one of the most creative footballers to ever play the game. He was, in essence, the Nintendo Labo of soccer.
Barcelona lost yesterday. That happened and it was weird because it doesn't happen very often. Some things happened during the game that do happen often, though. One of those was Sergio Busquets calmly, composedly ruining lives.
PSV midfielder Bart Ramselaar must have some kind of skin condition that makes a soccer ball stick to his leg but still allows the ball to move around. There is no other plausible explanation for the skill Ramselaar pulled off at a PSV training session in Florida, where they are spending their winter break taking part in the Florida Cup.
New Year’s Eve is approaching, so it’s time to get all stressed out about having the best time ever while throwing up Smirnoff Ice in the toilet or whatever. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the holiday season, but it’s also extremely likely that you’ve suffered your share of anxiety due to travel, a damning inability to properly give justice to your own existence and personal beliefs over dinner conversation and the realization that another 365-day period has been spent slaving over inconsequential tedium in the face of death, which you’ll inevitably experience entirely alone.
Who are the longest serving managers in Premier League history? Well, if we exclude the time before the Premier League’s formation in 1992, Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger tops this list, but we’re not going to do that. Including both the Premier League and the original First Division, here are the 10 longest serving managers at any one club in English football history.
Oliver Kahn is a giant of the game. The 2002 World Cup Golden Ball winner with Germany spent 14 years at Bayern Munich, winning eight Bundesliga titles and a Champions League. But what if he had left Germany to play for Manchester United when Alex Ferguson came calling in 2003? The paths of Bayern, United and even U.S. soccer would have played out much differently.
Lionel Messi was never a little-known quantity. When he scored nearly 500 goals for Newell’s Old Boys as a young boy, people took notice. That’s why Barcelona made the highly unusual decision to sign a 13-year-old foreign player. That’s why, aged 17 years, three months and 22 days, he became Barcelona’s youngest-ever representative in an official competition. It’s why he represented La Albiceleste, the two-time world champions, at 18.
When Zlatan Ibrahimovic arrived at Inter Milan from Juventus for nearly $30 million in August 2006, the 24-year-old Swede was thrilled over the possibility of forming a devastating and prolonged partnership with 24-year-old Brazilian striker Adriano. The two had dominated Italian football since 2004, and the Nerazzurri looked set to rule the competition for years to come with two of the world’s most feared young forwards.