Brazil clinched qualification into the final stage of the South American U-20 Championship with a 1-0 victory over Bolivia on Friday afternoon in Chile.
The win completed a difficult group stage for the young Seleção, who have a prodigious amount of talent at their disposal, including Real Madrid-bound Rodrygo, who scored twice in a win over Venezuela earlier in the competition.
Alejandro Sebastián Romero Gamarra, better known as Kaku (but not that Kaku), is a New York Red Bulls designated player. He arrived in the Big Apple from Huracán with much fanfare in February 2018, but didn’t quite live up to lofty expectations in his first season.
Now he wants a move to Club América. But the Red Bulls are going all Daniel Levy on the Liga MX side and Kaku’s agent, Gustavo Casasola, is not happy.
It was around this time last year that we introduced Bruno Zuculini to you, our weary audience, as the maddest lad of them all. The Argentine spent the first half of the 2017-18 season at Hellas Verona, collecting three red cards and four yellows in just 15 starts. He was promptly sold to River Plate before he could build on his phenomenal record over the following months.
SportsCenter recently handed all the power of its Instagram to Major League Soccer's biggest star, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and the man is funnier than ever. The Galaxy forward opened with the number one rule for dealing with the media.
“Just be yourself, always, whatever happens be yourself,” Ibrahimovic said. “Answer honest and what you think. Maybe you’re not always right, maybe you’re not always wrong.”
Every child dreams of becoming the next Lionel Messi, and I don’t think that should be discouraged. However, it might not be a bad bit of parenting to tell your children that it’s OK to aim for the next Maxwell, Alexander Hleb, Aleix Vidal, Thomas Vermaelen, Paulinho or Kevin-Prince Boateng as well — that’s probably the surest way of representing the Blaugrana as a professional.
These are the somewhat old, somewhat weird transfer dealings of the five-time European champions, and in a strange way, they make perfect sense.
If you’ve paid attention to internet trends over the past few days or so, you will notice something known as the #10YearChallenge. The basic premise of it is that people post pictures of themselves from 2009 and another from 2019 to show the world how much they’ve changed — in appearance or otherwise.
Simo Valakari is no Pep Guardiola. He’s no Jurgen Klopp. He’s definitely no Jose Mourinho.
But he is the most inspirational manager I’ve ever seen.
Simo Valakari isn’t exactly a household name. The manager of Tromsø IL in Norway’s Eliteserien since 2017, he’s trying to get the club back into the Europa League, where it competed in five of six years from 2009-14 or even the Champions League.
While most clubs across continental Europe have returned from their winter sojourns to warmer climes, Paris Saint-Germain has been in Doha this week for its Qatar Tour 2019.
Given the club’s Qatari ownership, it’s no surprise the club would visit the small but wealthy country, providing plenty of weird interview opportunities where Neymar can tell everyone that 18-year-old American Tim Weah will be the next great striker.
Tuesday night, Porto advanced to the semifinals of the Taça de Portugal — the country’s premier knockout competition — with a 2-1 victory over second division side Leixões.
Porto’s currently leading the Primeira Liga with a five-point advantage over Benfica, but a strong starting 11 was named for the match, including Mexico internationals Hector Herrera and Tecatito. However, the real focus was on 35-year-old center back Pepe, who was making his first appearance for the club in over a decade after his career had taken him to Real Madrid and then Beşiktaş.
On Monday, EA Sports posted a video featuring the best goals scored in FIFA 19 so far. As you’d expect, it’s a compilation of players like Neymar and Antoine Griezmann flicking the ball up, turning and swiveling, mutating their bodies into ungodly forms and weltering bicycle kicks from over 30 yards out. Very cool.