The new LaLiga season begins on Friday with defending champion Barcelona heading north to play Athletic Bilbao at the San Mamés. Last year, Barça cantered to the title by an 11-point margin over second-place Atlético while Real Madrid finished 19 points back. However, the La Liga preview 2019/20 sees the challengers refreshed and reloaded with the likes of Eden Hazard and João Félix ready to come at the king.
The list for the Champions League top scorers of all time stretches from players who played in the European Cup (first held during the 1955-56 season) to its current branding as the Champions League (renamed as such in 1992). The competition is now synonymous with the active footballing behemoths known as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, and for good reason.
Real Madrid stayed at the top for 1,012 days. That’s probably at least 1,005 days more than any of us have managed (I’m not forgetting that week you found $20 in a rarely-worn coat pocket and someone brought bagels into the office). But now the great Real Madrid Crisis of 2019 is upon us, and HEADS WILL ROLL!
After scoring only five league goals in 32 appearances last season — coupled with the celebration of his 31st birthday in December — the limelight had decidedly shifted away from Karim Benzema at Real Madrid and onto potential transfer targets like Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford and Eden Hazard.
In the soccer world, one of the best sights for sore eyes is the return of the Champions League.
Sometimes, watching Champions League teams playing league cup matches against weak opposition can be really dull after a while. For example, Manchester City’s 9-0 drubbing of Burton Albion a few weeks ago. In a lot of ways, European soccer without Champions League becomes kind of monotonous. At some point between the last Champions League group stage match and the start of the Round of 16, soccer fans will be wondering when the tournament will start up again.
After Real Madrid sold Cristiano Ronaldo to Juventus in the summer, Karim Benzema’s role with Los Blancos became ever more important. The club needs him to score more to fill the void of one of the game’s most prolific strikers.
So far, Benzema has had a decent season; the Frenchman has 11 goals and six assists in 26 matches in all competitions. But Benzema, 31, has scored just twice in LaLiga since a brace on Sept. 1.
Perhaps with that in mind, the striker went to Miami, Florida, to practice his, uh, shooting.
It’s too early to declare Santiago Solari the true heir to Zinedine Zidane at Real Madrid, but three wins, 10 goals scored and zero conceded is a fine start to the Argentine’s reign. Most evidently, as Toni Kroos so rightly pointed out, Real actually won a LaLiga match last weekend.
We won a league game yesterday. pic.twitter.com/h2hv83Fruh
— Toni Kroos (@ToniKroos) November 4, 2018
Barcelona vs. Real Madrid | Camp Nou
Sunday, October 28, 2018 | 11:15 a.m. ET
TV: beIN SPORTS USA or beIN SPORTS en Español
Stream: Fubo TV, Sling TV or beIN SPORTS CONNECT U.S.A
Two Loris Karius mistakes gifted Real Madrid a pair of goals in the Champions League Final, and those proved to be the difference in the game. After a cagey first half in which Sergio Ramos took out Mo Salah, Karim Benzema took advantage of Karius' lapse in judgment and opened the scoring for Real Madrid.