Aston Villa defeated Leicester City 2-1 on Tuesday to advance to the final of the English Football League competition in hopes of lifting the Carabao Cup. The competition has seen many different sponsorships come and go as Carabao, a Thai energy drink, hasn’t always sponsored the competition. There once was a time teams raised the EFL Milk Cup.
Let’s take a walk down memory lane and review some of the fun EFL Cup names.
It’s obviously far too early to say that Kylian Mbappé vs. Erling Haaland is the next generation’s version of Cristiano Ronaldo vs. Lionel Messi — and you can absolutely make fun of me for even bringing it up — but these two kids are not normal.
The 21-year-old Mbappé has already proven that he has no level. With a World Cup winner’s medal to his name and a Champions League strike rate of 19 goals in 30 appearances (to go along with 11 assists), there’s no doubt that Mbappé’s Ligue 1 domination would translate across all European leagues. He’s a phenomenon.
On Monday, it was revealed that Toronto FC captain Michael Bradley would undergo surgery following a severe ankle injury suffered during the 2019 MLS Cup loss to the Seattle Sounders. Given the fact that it’d been 71 days since the final and with the club now reporting for preseason, news of Bradley being sidelined for approximately four months was met with confused anger throughout Toronto.
With the transfer ban on Chelsea lifted and the team’s recent struggles, the Blues have their eyes on acquiring new assets in the transfer window. But a vegan-only kiosk might be the greatest acquisition thus far.
On Tuesday, Chelsea hosted London-rival Arsenal and looked to bounce back after losing to Newcastle during the weekend. The Blues secured one measly point after playing the majority of the match with a man advantage courtesy of a David Luiz red card.
Parody in European football is a rarity. Typically, in domestic leagues there are several clubs that dominate the table and even fewer that are traditionally crowned champions. As of right now, Europe’s top five leagues consist of 98 teams. In the past decade those leagues have crowned 15 different champions. No one league has had more than four unique champions.
However, Turkish Super Lig club Sivasspor is on a historic run for its first-ever league title.
NBCUniversal unveiled the plan for its upcoming streaming service Peacock on Thursday. Comcast’s answer to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Disney+, ESPN+ and Apple TV Plus is coming this year, featuring all the reruns of The Office and Law & Order you could ever want.
And there’s soccer.
Disgraced former USMNT manager Jürgen Klinsmann has doubled down on his belief that he had the nation “in a good place” and on track for “the final four” at the 2018 World Cup despite his final game in charge — a 4-0 defeat to Costa Rica in San José — echoing through time as the second-most abject, clueless performance in the history of the program (the nadir being that night in Couva).
The United States’ closest version to the Champions League final will be underway soon. The College Football Playoff National Championship between LSU and Clemson is set for 8 p.m. EST on Monday, Jan. 13, in New Orleans, Louisiana.
College football fans outside of the good old USA are few and far between. Hell, even a good number of Americans couldn’t tell you what state Clemson is even in. (Hint: It’s in South Carolina).
To coincide annually with The Guardian’s excellent list of the 100 best male footballers in the world — compiled by a panel of 239 experts from 63 different nations — we here at The18 have compiled our own list over the last few years. There are no experts involved, there’s no rhyme or reason for anything, but we do hope you’ll join us on this adventure into the bowels of the beautiful game.
Pellegrino Matarazzo, a native of New Jersey, was introduced as the new head coach of VFB Stuttgart on Monday, signing a contract that runs until June 2021. Matarazzo takes over from Tim Walter, who was sacked after the first half of the campaign following a run of inconsistent results and performances.