Ronaldo confirmed his status as the best young player in the world after scoring 54 goals in 57 games across all competitions for PSV Eindhoven. “The Phenomenon” wasn’t even 20 years old yet when Barcelona became interested in signing the Brazilian.
Barcelona finally landed Ronaldo by paying a then world record fee of $19.5 million, with the striker set to join the side for the 1996-97 season.
It’s the most difficult shooting technique in the game, the side volley. With the ball flashing across your body, you’ve got to combine balance, technique and precision in equal measure.
I used to have a youth soccer coach who’d launch cross-field passes at us and tell us to attack the ball after letting it drift across our body. We’d all be tripping and slicing attempts while he screamed “aim small, miss small!” It was traumatizing.
In July of 2014, FiveThirtyEight published an article entitled “Lionel Messi Is Impossible” which attempted to evaluate Messi’s goal-scoring abilities through the use of statistics and data.
One of the most ridiculous findings from all the number crunching was how much better Messi was than everybody else at shooting from distance. In fact, Messi’s efficiency from outside the box was almost as good as most other players inside of it.
Gonzalo Higuain has already gone some way towards repaying the €90 million that Juventus forked out to lure the Argentine away from Italian rivals Napoli. Higuain entered in the 66th minute of Juve’s opening Serie A match against Fiorentina. With the score level at 1-1, Higuain made the difference with his third touch of the match.
Remember those late June whispers regarding a sophomore slump for Toronto FC’s Sebastian Giovinco? Yeah, suggestions of Giovinco’s apparent demise had been greatly exaggerated. The Italian registered his MLS-leading 16th goal on Saturday — it was his eighth goal in six MLS matches dating back to July 24th.
Things got a little out of hand during an English League One match between Oxford United and Peterborough United on Saturday. With neither side enjoying the finest of starts in England’s third tier, the awarding of a penalty in the third minute of second-half stoppage had major implications with the scores level at 1-1.
After watching Portugal capture Euro 2016 by winning only a single match in regular time, the fear here was that we were about to witness more of the same on the women’s side of the game. Sweden had ridden their luck to the gold medal match on the strength of two penalty shootout victories.
Against Germany, they came undone. The first forty-five minutes appeared to give strength to the notion that Sweden were destined to win gold, but Germany simply blew them away in the second half. A 67th minute Sweden goal wasn’t enough to overturn the lead Germany had built.
Leigh Griffiths played like a man possessed (as did Kolo Toure) during Celtic’s 5-2 victory over Hapoel Be’er Sheva in their first-leg Champions League playoff victory at Celtic Park. The Scottish striker almost willed Celtic into the Champions League group stage with two goals and an assist on the night.
Like father, like son. Enzo Alan Zidane Fernandez, known commonly as Enzo, registered a fantastic assist in a friendly match between Real Mardid and Stade de Reims.
Enzo’s nonchalant style, his effortless ability to stroll beyond would-be tacklers and his penchant for Cruyff turns, step overs and beautiful passing makes him a carbon copy of his father.
Except for the head of hair that is.
Well, that’s that then. Barcelona have eliminated Arsenal in the 2016-17 UEFA Champions League round of 16, taken it to Paris Saint-Germain in the quarters and will finally receive their first stern test in the semi-finals.
Try as Arsenal might in their all-too familiar opening day loss to Liverpool, the Gunners were simply unable to overcome Barcelona, the Catalan giants throttling Sevilla 5-0 on aggregate in the Supercopa Espana.