Mexico National Team

As the rain and mist rolled into Liebenauer Stadium in Graz, Austria on Tuesday, it was Mexico that moved like the onryō ("vengeful spirits") that originated in their opponent’s homeland before being proliferated around the world through the J-Horror genre.

An opening 20 minutes of Japan superiority was beat back single-handedly by Guillermo Ochoa, but the rhythm of the game slowly changed in Mexico’s favor and by the time Raúl Jiménez opened the scoring in the 63rd minute, you felt as though it’d been coming for El Tri.

But first, Ochoa.

In all honesty, we’ve only just begun to see the torrential number of ways in which COVID-19 can disrupt football in a purely sporting sense. 

Major League Soccer’s regular season has been severely disrupted by the pandemic with a logjam of postponed matches that can no longer be completed before the start of the playoffs, forcing qualification to be determined on a points-per-game basis rather than the final standings. 

It’s been a dream start to the campaign for Napoli after a disappointing seventh-place finish last season (apart from the ludicrous fallout of the abandoned Juventus match), and a key to the club’s revival has been the renaissance of Hirving “Chucky” Lozano.

Santiago Muñoz’s path to Real Madrid via Newcastle United is beginning! On Sunday, the very close namesake of the famous Goal! film series (Santiago Munez) logged his first Liga MX minutes with Santos Laguna during his side’s 2-1 win over Atlético San Luis. 

The pattern of Wolverhampton’s play is absurdly predictable. Since returning to the Premier League in 2018-19, Wolves have failed to score in the first half 58 times. That’s the most in the division. 

However, they love a 0-0 scoreline after 45. They did that 14 times last season and only lost one of them. No club scored a higher percentage of its goals in the second half than Wolves, and no club boasted a stronger goal difference in the final 30 minutes of games than Nuno Espírito Santo’s men.  

A Raúl Jiménez shot that took a heavy deflection off the head of Leeds United midfielder Kalvin Phillips gave Wolverhampton a hard-fought 1-0 away win in the Premier League on Monday.

Mexico salvaged a 2-2 draw against 10-man Algeria on Tuesday with Jesús Corona’s beautiful opener pegged back by goals from Ismaël Bennacer and Riyad Mahrez before Diego Lainez provided one final flourish to the script in The Hague.