Europe

Hamburger SV claimed a vital three points in their fight to maintain their position as the only German club to have never been relegated from the top division. The catalyst for Sunday’s 2-1 victory over Gladbach was American striker Bobby Wood.

Wood scored his fifth Bundesliga goal, and ninth across all competitions, after cleverly evading his marker by lying motionless on the ground for about five seconds. His marker ultimately ends up handing him the ball, and from there, Wood takes it around a defender and fires it into the net.

Elementary mathematics tells us that you don’t need to beat your title rivals to win the Premier League. As unlikely a scenario as it may be, a title-winning team could happily lose every single game to their four nearest competitors and still rack up 90 points from their remaining fixtures, a tally that would have clinched the title in nine of the last 10 seasons.

As Liverpool are proving this season, however, the reverse is equally true: you can batter the teams in the top six league positions and still come nowhere close to sitting atop the footballing pyramid.

It’s not often that the play of the weekend is a tackle, but Mats Hummels might’ve provided just that after his remarkable recovery and slide tackle in Bayern Munich’s match against Eintracht Frankfurt.

With the scores level between first and sixth in the Bundesliga table at the Allianz Arena, Branimir Hrgota raced clear of the Bayern defense for a one-on-one opportunity against Manuel Neuer. However, just as Hrgota shaped to shoot, Hummels came sliding in from behind to clear the ball for a corner.

Borussia Dortmund will be missing a key piece in their attack at the most critical point of the season as Marco Reus has sustained a thigh injury that will sideline him for a month.

Missing a world-class talent like Reus will not be good for a side that is still at risk of dropping out of the Bundesliga Champions League places. Dortmund currently sit third with only three points separating them from fifth-place Hertha Berlin.

Just look at what Reus accomplished in his final 100 minutes before injury:

The appointed heir to Gianluigi Buffon as Italy’s No. 1, could it be possible that AC Milan’s Gianluigi Donnarumma will eventually dwarf the Juventus legend? The 18-year-old goalkeeper was sensational in Milan’s highly controversial defeat to Juventus, recording nine saves and showcasing his strength, agility and tenacity. 

The vitriol of the Arsenal fans was palpable in the build up to the Gunners' Champions League exit at the hands of Bayern Munich on Tuesday. For the better part of the last decade there has been a rift between the Arsenal faithful as to whether manager Arsene Wenger should stay or leave and the voice of the "Wenger out" faction has now reached a crescendo.

Pep Guardiola has been named February’s EPL Manager of the Month after consecutive victories over West Ham, Swansea and Bournemouth, whoo! Perhaps it was because City had been held to a scoreless draw against Stoke on Wednesday, but Guardiola was in no mood to be rewarded for his nine-point haul in the shortest month of the year.

Ten years ago today, a roguish little imp touched down in the Camp Nou and began to do things with the football that this planet had never seen before. It’s said that he was 19 years of age at the time, and his well shampooed mop of hair, preciously pushed back with a hairband, and wiry frame do allude to an awkward period in life, but to highlight your greatness at such a tender age by scoring a hat trick against Real Madrid in El Clasico, that defies all notions we have of the effect of time on a person.

We all spend hours debating and arguing why a particular handball was called or not, especially when it happens in the 18-yard box. Looking at FIFA’s Laws of the Game, the handball rule is written as followed:

FIFA Laws of the Game P. 82: Handling the ball 

Handling the ball involves a deliberate act of a player making contact with the ball with the hand or arm.