The Houston Dynamo had a dream start in the U.S. Open Cup final thanks to Mauro Manotas. They had a dream finish thanks to the Philadelphia Union's Auston Trusty.
Manotas scored two goals in the first half and Trusty shockingly smashed the ball into the back of his own net as the Dynamo won their first U.S. Open Cup 3-0 on Wednesday at BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston.
It looked to be business as usual in LaLiga on Wednesday after leader Barcelona took a 12th minute lead against bottom-of-the-table Leganes thanks to a wonder goal orchestrated by Lionel Messi and finished by Philippe Coutinho.
What a run by Leo Messi leading to a beautiful Coutinho goal!
Borussia Dortmund climbed to second in the Bundesliga table — just two points behind leader Bayern Munich following its surprising draw with Augsburg on Tuesday — after thumping Nurnberg 7-0 at the Westfalenstadion on Wednesday.
Since returning from a muscular injury, Christian Pulisic has been at his best for BVB, scoring in back-to-back matches before assisting on Dortmund’s first goal on Wednesday.
The American winger went on an impressive run before carving open Nurnberg’s backline with a sensational pass for Jacob Bruun Larsen’s opener.
Frank Lampard made many trips to Old Trafford as a player in a long career with West Ham, Chelsea and Manchester City. Perhaps the greatest midfielder in the history of the Premier League returned once more to face Manchester United on Tuesday — not as a player, but a manager of Derby County.
Lampard faced off against his former coach at Chelsea, Jose Mourinho. Lampard went home with an unlikely win.
Twenty-year-old American midfielder Luca de la Torre — a native of San Diego, California — scored his first competitive goal for Fulham on Tuesday in the Cottagers' 3-1 win over Millwall in the League Cup. Not only did De La Torre bag Fulham’s second of the day, he also assisted Joe Bryan on the first and Cyrus Christie (#COYBIG) on the third.
Here’s his first for the club.
You can take Cristiano Ronaldo out of LaLiga, but you can’t take out the brilliant symmetry that’s conjoined the fortunes of Ronaldo and Lionel Messi since the day they were born. Days after Ronaldo saw red in the UCL, Messi’s Barcelona will have felt hard done by a red issued to defender Clement Lenglet — this one coming after the referee had gone to the monitor on the advice of the VAR (something still missing from the UCL).
Cristiano Ronaldo recovered from the madness of his Champions League sending off to score the match-winner in Juventus’ 2-0 victory over Frosinone on Sunday in Serie A play, giving the Portuguese forward three goals in five appearances in Italy’s top division.
Ronaldo crushed his peers by attempting 10 shots on the day, putting five on target, two off and having three blocked. That’s a high number of shots, folks. (To go along with the fact that Juve outshot the home side 30-3.)
It’s official: The 2018 North Carolina Courage will go down as the finest side in NWSL history after dominating the Portland Thorns 3-0 in front of a sellout (and hugely pro-Thorns) crowd at Providence Park. Jessica McDonald was voted the game’s MVP after scoring a brace either side of halftime, but the Courage never looked back from Debinha’s opening goal in the 13th minute, dominating the entirety of the match much like they did the NWSL season.
After scoring a fluky goal against Club Bruges in the Champions League Tuesday (although a hugely important one that secured all three points for Borussia Dortmund), Christian Pulisic made it two goals in two games after salvaging a point for BVB against Hoffenheim Saturday.
Perhaps most importantly from an individual perspective, the 20-year-old went the full 90 minutes for the first time this season after being sidelined at the start of the campaign with a muscular injury.
Volodymyr Chesnakov has one of the oddest pregame rituals we have ever seen.
The captain of Vorskla Poltava, Chesnakov and his teammates were in London to face Arsenal in the Europa League on Thursday. Before coming out onto the pitch at Emirates Stadium, Chesnakov spit all over his own face.
And it worked. He scored a great goal for Vorskla, the fifth-place team in the Ukrainian Premier League.
But Arsenal still won easily, 4-2, to the surprise of no one.