We'll say this about Russia: It has established a brand and executed a plan to grow the brand into something world-renowned and maintained the brand very well.
What is Russia's brand you ask? Oh, you already know. "Crazy stuff happens here." "It's like if Florida was cold and a country." "Anything can happen at any time and everyone is miserable."
Here it is, the most fitting visual representation of Monday you’ll ever find. Friday was all smiles, cheers and waves (especially if you just touched down in Nashville to celebrate a bachelor party), and then Monday violently appeared only moments later — blasting you in the face with a jet stream of tepid sewage water.
You were lost in the sauce, but now it’s time to wake up and reap what’ve you’ve sown. Monday's coming in hot.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past week, you've heard about Roma’s fantastic comeback against Barcelona.
The first leg of the Champions League quarter-final matchup saw Barcelona beat the Italian side 4-1 at the Camp Nou, and just about every man and their dog thought that was going to be it. No one gave Roma a chance in the second leg, but they did what many people believed to be impossible: defeated the Catalan giants 3-0 at the Stadio Olimpico to shock the world and book their place in the semi-finals of the Champions League.
Congratulations, Ștefan Blănaru. You made us pay attention to Romanian football with perhaps the funniest soccer celebration we’ve seen all year. Your combination of cleverness, arrogance and an impeccable performance have us wondering whether this was the greatest thing ever or the dumbest celebration ever.
Blănaru plays for FC Hermannstadt in Liga II, the Romanian second division. He scored the third goal in a 4-0 win over Luceafarul Oradea on Saturday. You’ve never heard of the player or either club — but that doesn’t matter.
Luis Suarez is having a time of it this season, and we think it might be time for him to try something new.
One goal in 10 Champions League appearances just isn't going to cut it for Barcelona (his record is much better in La Liga, to be fair), so Suarez should cut his losses now and retire from soccer to fulfill his destiny as the third property brother.
Tell me with a straight face Lucho shouldn't be sitting in a chair next to these two talking about how biting people affected his career in real estate. You can't.
So it’s Real Madrid vs. Bayern Munich and Liverpool vs. AS Roma in the Champions League draw for the semifinals on Friday. What immediately jump out are all the storylines and relationships between the two sets of semifinalists. But there’s more to this matchup than player links.
Sure, Bayern’s James Rodriguez is on loan from Real Madrid and Toni Kroos once plied his trade for the Bavarians. And yes, Salah transferred to Liverpool from Roma last summer.
Clearly Gianluigi Buffon is not the biggest fan of Michael Oliver right now. The English referee sent the Italian goalkeeper off at the end of extra time during the Juventus-Real Madrid Champions League match Wednesday, after Buffon vehemently disagreed with a penalty Oliver gave. Juventus were eliminated after Cristiano Ronaldo converted the penalty.
Here's what Buffon said after the match:
Cristiano Ronaldo is an inspiration to 30-somethings everywhere. He shows us that despite no longer being the target market and despite no contemporary pop songs being written about our nightly hijinks (“I don’t know about you but I’m feeling 33” just sounds sad), we are still human people. We are still capable of launching ourselves towards the heavens like a SpaceX rocket before getting one over on those nasty, garbage bin 40-somethings in goal.
Cristiano Ronaldo is probably, no, scratch that, he is the most hated player in soccer right now. I challenge you to name me someone more polarising, I dare you. But, what makes him so easy to dislike?
Well, for starters, the guy has a body that looks as if the Greek god Zeus hand carved it himself. I mean, seriously, I know most of us are out of shape, but there’s no need for Ronaldo to continually take his shirt off in celebration to remind us all of how ridiculously jacked he is. It's not fair.
Roma completed one of the biggest comebacks in Champions League history by overcoming a 4-1 deficit after the first leg in Barcelona. They advanced to the semifinals on away goals after winning the second leg 3-0. When Manolas headed in the game-winning goal everyone (except Barca fans) went crazy: the players, the coaches, the fans, but the best reaction came from Roma’s commentator. This man was screeching like a little kid who got Nintendo 64 for Christmas.