Europe

Jamie Vardy’s dismissal on Saturday for his lunge on Mame Biram Diouf was predicated on everything but the tackle itself. Having lost the ball to Glen Johnson in the buildup, that particular spirit that invokes images of Skittles Vodka and murmurs of “Chat Shit Get Banged” could be felt through televisions around the globe: Vardy, looking like Pokemon’s Rattata with Red Bull coursing through his mouse veins, was probably about to do something he’d regret.

Tottenham have apparently forgotten which holiday is approaching, and I think that's great. A picture from the club's Christmas party revealed the players had dressed up in costumes like it's Halloween.

It doesn't have to be Halloween for wearing costumes to be a good idea. Any holiday can work, or any day, really. Tottenham aren't letting convention define them, and that's great. Now, to the costumes.

Football is a harsh business, particularly so for managers. Sometimes, simply winning matches isn’t enough to placate fickle supporters and owners. With exorbitant amounts of money being pumped into the game, the business of hiring and firing managers is a particularly trigger-happy one. 

With clubs only a loss away from entering crisis mode, the decisions made are occasionally downright stupid. In modern football, at the risk of sounding old, the men in charge aren't given enough time to succeed.

Here are 10 managerial sackings that history will not look kindly upon.

130 years after the people of France gifted the United States the Statue of Liberty, now an icon of our country, Alex Morgan, an idol of footballing excellence, has returned the favor by taking her talents to Lyon.

BREAKING: Orlando Pride Forward Alex Morgan to Open Year with French Club Olympique Lyonnais..

Read | https://t.co/ahuGbDPJQ7 pic.twitter.com/qKovCKBNOz

We know what you're thinking: how did a random soccer fan leave a match with half a player’s official uniform, specifically the bottom half?

A meeting between two clubs sitting side-by-side in the Premier League table turned out to be a thoroughly one-sided affair, Manchester United traveling to the Hawthorns to play West Bromwich Albion and comfortably winning 2-0.

The gap between the top six sides in England and the rest of the division appears to be pretty large on the evidence of Saturday’s match between the Red Devils and the Baggies. United are now unbeaten in eight consecutive EPL matches, and they’ve drawn level, at least momentarily, with Tottenham, who have a game in hand.

It’s been a difficult debut season in the Bundesliga for USMNT striker Bobby Wood. His team, Hamburger SV, are the only club to have played in every season of the Bundesliga since its foundation, but they’ve spent the entire season mired at the bottom of the table.

With only 10 points from 15 matches, Hamburger’s struggles have been mirrored in Wood’s play. The American hadn’t scored since September 10, but he finally scored his third goal of the season against Mainz on Saturday.

It hasn’t taken much, but Jonathan dos Santos has matched his career best for goals in a season. In 66 previous La Liga appearances, Dos Santos had managed a total of two goals, both during his debut season with Villarreal in 2014-15, but he’s already scored twice in only 14 appearances for the Yellow Submarine this campaign.

From 1967 until 2001, Coventry City were a staple in the English top-flight. The club from the West Midlands even won the FA Cup as recently as 1987, but they now find themselves in League One, England’s third tier of professional football. Compounding their state of decline is their current standing of 21st in the division, putting them at serious risk of being relegated to League Two.

The inspiring story of Bradley Lowery and his courage in the face of terminal cancer has seen football fans from around the world unite in making his dream come true. The five-year-old was diagnosed with neuroblastoma in 2013, but the cancer was thought to be treated over the course of two-years of chemotherapy.

Tragically, the cancer returned this past June, and doctors have informed the Lowery's that Bradley likely has only two months to live. On Wednesday night, Bradley was seen walking hand in hand with his hero, Jermain Defoe, as a mascot for his favorite club, Sunderland.