German Clubs

DORTMUND, Germany - Borussia Dortmund's Erling Haaland scored twice, including a spectacular lob, to guide his side to a 4-2 home win over Union Berlin on Sunday which lifted them to within a point of leaders Bayern Munich and Vfl Wolfsburg.

Norwegian Haaland has now scored seven times in the league this season while taking his total tally to an impressive 68 goals in 67 games in all competitions for Dortmund.

Erling. Braut. Haaland.

That is all.

No top-flight club celebrates Oktoberfest like Bayern Munich, whether it’s players getting sloshed in lederhosen or jerseys created specifically for the beeriest time of the year. This season the German giants kicked off Oktoberfest in supreme style, with a delicious Leroy Sané free kick vs. Bochum that, like a frothy Märzen, really set the mood for a 7-0 victory on Saturday.

Manchester City and RB Leipzig played the most thrilling game to open up the 2021-22 Champions League season with a nine-goal thriller that saw City win 6-3. American fans won’t want to talk about the Jack Grealish vs Tyler Adams moment for City’s fourth goal.

Adams was caught ball watching and far too lackadaisical tracking back to get to a ball in his final third. His slowness allowed Grealish to pick up the ball and proceed to do horrible things to the American. Close your eyes USMNT fans, Adams is about to get murdered.

It was a tongue in cheek joke when Erling Haaland burst onto the Champions League scene during the 2019-20 season with 10 goals in eight games to extrapolate that scoring rate into the future. But when Haaland finished as the UCL’s top scorer in 2020-21 with those exact same numbers, the giggles turned to disbelief.

Well, Haaland’s third season in the Champions League began on Wednesday with Borussia Dortmund traveling to Istanbul to play Beşiktaş, and the 21-year-old scored what would eventually prove the match-winner just before halftime. 

Ronald Koeman might be right that Barcelona could still cobble together a league challenge, but Barça hasn’t been this far from competing for Europe’s ultimate club prize since it played in the Europa League (the same season a 16-year-old Cesc Fàbregas left La Masia for Arsenal). 

Exactly 13 months after Barcelona suffered ultimate humiliation at the hands of Bayern Munich, the Blaugrana welcomed Die Roten to the Camp Nou to open Group E play in the Champions League. Based solely on scores, Barcelona improved by three goals, but it looked so much worse in doing so. At one point, Serge Gnabry took pity on his defender and kicked the ball out of bounds. 

Bayern Munich thrashed RB Leipzig 4-1 on Saturday to go up to second in the Bundesliga on the quest for a tenth straight league title. 

Tyler Adams, who played every minute of World Cup qualifying for the USMNT, didn’t feature in RB Leipzig’s defeat. The 22-year-old has still made headlines for his comments on Bayern’s tendency to purchase the best talent from the Bundesliga.

The USMNT injury updates include a mixed batch of good and bad news.

Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel gave a Christian Pulisic injury update after the American forward suffered a knock to the ankle during the USMNT’s 4-1 victory against Honduras. Good news U.S. and Chelsea fans, Pulisic will only be out for 10 days.

“For Christian, unfortunately he came yesterday on crutches and he has an ankle injury with about 10 days," Tuchel said.