Marco Fabian made his Bundesliga debut Sunday in Eintracht Frankfurt's 3-2 win over Wolfsburg. The Mexican winger proved to be effective down the left side, and had a positive effect on the game, setting up Alexander Meier's winner for Frankfurt in stoppage time.
Marco Fabian makes a big play on his Frankfurt debut and Meier seals his hat trick in the final minute to win it! https://t.co/zgV8574dWx
The 2004/05 season saw the introduction of Lionel Messi to the world of football. While Messi managed only 7 league appearances for the senior team, totaling 77 minutes of action, he was a guaranteed starter for the reserve side, Barcelona B. The boy from Rosario ensured that the senior team payed exceedingly close attention to his development with performances like this.
The magisterial dribbling skills of players like Neymar, Lionel Messi and Angel Di Maria are revered the world over. These players are commonly heralded as masters of the ball, dribbling wizards who require the attention of multiple defenders in order to be stopped or at least contained.
After any given weekend, social media will be crawling with vines and GIFs of these superstars flat-out embarrassing opposition. Outside of this prevailing common knowledge, who are some of the world’s best dribblers?
Fort Lauderdale Strikers midfielder Victor Pagliari Giro, a.k.a. PC, scored the goal of the Florida Cup with this screaming free kick against Independiente Santa Fe.
Despite losing the match, 2-1, Fort Lauderdale rightly alerted SportsCenter to the goal, which made number seven on SportsCenter's top 10 plays. It figures he'd score the goal of his life in a game that didn't count for anything. Isn't that how it always works?
Scoring goals is Chicharito's business, and business is most definitely good. Fans flocked to see Brazilian side Internacional take on Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez’s Bayer Leverkusen in the Flordia Cup this past week. Chicharito duly provided the spectacle they’d been hoping for with a brace and a stunning volley that unluckily crashed off the crossbar.
Remember Germany's terrible free-kick routine in the 2014 World Cup against Algeria? That was awful, and their only vindication was the fact that they won the entire tournament. Well, a high school team in Japan has proven it's better at at least one thing than the reigning champions of the world: silly free kick routines.
Hector Herrera and Jesus "Tecatito" Corona both had objectively good games for Porto Sunday, each scoring a golazo for the Portuguese club in a 5-0 win over Boavista n the Premeira Liga.
Some might say that both players' accomplishments should be celebrated, and then be left at that. We think otherwise. Everything is a competition, so we needed to figure out which goal was better.
First, let's look at Hector Herrera's goal. Finishes don't come much more intricate and precise than this.
Of the three nominees for the 2015 FIFA Puskas Award, Wendell Lira is the one we least-expected to win. Nothing against him, it's just one of the other two nominees is the most popular player in the world and the other scored his goal in the Champions League.
Then again, maybe it's not that surprising, because this is the goal he scored:
EA Sports has released its “FIFA 16 - Best Goals of 2015” video and the final cut is outrageous. Scorpion kicks, rambonas, 35-yard volleys and overhead kicks from the top of the 18, every goal in this collection would certainly win the FIFA Puskás award if it were accomplished in reality.
While online opponents might be yelling “sweaty goal!” and heading for the menu’s exit, you can imagine the delirium the goal scorers must have felt. Mastering the controls and executing with this kind of precision certainly takes a huge amount of skill...and time.
Lionel Messi apparently gets under his rivals' skin. I suppose being ridiculously good will do that.
Yesterday in the Copa del Rey against Espanyol, Messi scored an absolutely absurd free kick. Espanyol keeper Pau Lopez set up his wall perfectly, positioned himself perfectly, and reacted to it perfectly, but was still left grasping for air as the kick sailed through the air, off the crossbar, and down in the the goal.