Announcers

It was a foggy Saturday morning soccer match and I was defending the goal spectating the action going on the field. I had stopped a few shots earlier in the match and my confidence was quickly rising. Thoughts raced through my head, realizing that I was about to officially record my first clean sheet of the season. Then as clear as day the ball was passed to me, and as I went to stop it with my foot it slowly but surely skipped right below my outstretched foot and into the awaiting net behind me.

Lille controls its own destiny in the mission to claim the club’s first Ligue 1 title in a decade. Only six points separates Lille, the current league leaders with 73, and fourth place Lyon at 67. 

On Sunday, Lille secured an imperative 3-2 comeback victory against Lyon. Les Douges conceded twice in the opening 35 minutes but rallied back to retake the top of Ligue 1 from Paris Saint-Germain. Burak Yilmaz capped off the dramatic comeback in the 85th minute with the cheekiest of chips.

Russia will host the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup from Aug. 19-29. The qualifying matches have yet to be played. In some countries, the curfew and lockdowns are still in force due to Covid-19 and the global health crisis.

The million-dollar question: Will there or won't there be a beach soccer World Cup this summer in Europe? I would say: It all depends on the pandemic, its consequences and the accumulation of international sports events that have been postponed since 2020.

Imagine you took the Premier League and made some drastic changes: removed all the money, gathered the most random assortment of players, had every match played in unbearable wind and rain and turned up the patter by a factor of 10. Only then can you begin to imagine what goes on in Scottish soccer.

If you think weeknight drama in the footballing world is usually reserved for Champions League ties and the occasional Premier League match, then you are gravely mistaken. In a year where everything has been turned upside down, the best soccer spectacle is now apparently Monday night Premier League 2 matches.

Where else can you watch Petr Čech play in goal, witness 30-year-old Danny Drinkwater chopping down teenagers and scout some of the best young prospects in England?

Every now and then there is an event in the world of soccer that seems so unbelievable it turns the game on its head.

On Saturday, one such incident, an event unforeseen and unprecedented in the annals of modern technology, occurred in the historic town of Inverness in the distant Scottish Highlands.