Opinion

Drogba lands in Montreal

Everyone's likely already heard that Didier Drogba has signed with the Montreal Impact, a team that recently put up a second place result in the CONCACAF Champion's League. While the rumors were originally for Chicago, Montreal was able to steal him away with a combination of targeted allocation money — they backed the Brink's truck up to Drogba's front door — and location — Montreal being a French speaking town. 

Earlier this week, Sepp Blatter took another important step along the road to transforming FIFA from a governing body of the world’s most popular sport into a comedy troupe with a penchant for the absurd. 

At the end of this past season there were numerous rumors about Bastian Schweinsteiger leaving Bayern Munich. Although no offers were made, Manchester United, with head coach Louis van Gaal, never failed to miss an opportunity to praise the German midfielder for his leadership, strength, and ability to control the game.

And although Schweinsteiger himself remained quiet for the most part about Manchester United’s interest in him, one could sense his passion and his will to move to another club, to get another challenge; Schweinsteiger never committed himself to Bayern Munich.

The temptation to believe that Karim Benzema will leave Real Madrid is at an all time high. As the team continues its preseason exhibition tour in China, the French international has posted a photo to Instagram of himself in a plane separate from the rest of the team, with the caption “let’s leave the past in the past.”

It is really easy to overhype players in soccer, especially young, talented forwards who like to beat a man. It’s just so tempting to see a couple highlights, a couple good displays and label them the next great thing. But you know what? That’s exactly what we’re about to do, with a little qualifying. 

Jesus “Tecatito” Corona just won the CONCACAF Bright Future Award after helping Mexico win the Gold Cup, and there really is no arguing that he deserved it.

Life is unfair, but no one needs to tell that to Rafael van der Vaart.

He should have been an amazing player, and by most accounts he was. The man had incredible passing ability, and a canny knowledge of how to attack. For some players those two traits were enough to earn them millions of dollars, the adoration of their team’s fans, and probably a trophy or two. This was not the case for van der Vaart. 

Real Madrid is stuck in a sticky spot after they let longtime goalkeeper Iker Casillas go on to Porto after 25 years with the club. To replace him Real Madrid is looking to make a deal for Manchester United keeper David De Gea, but it looks like the Red Devils won’t be willing to let him go without Sergio Ramos in exchange.

A solemn farewell to Casillas leaves backup keeper Jesus Navas, who is also Costa Rica’s first choice keeper. He had a great World Cup, but had a dismal first season for Real Madrid.

You missed it, didn’t you? You missed CONCACAF soccer. Nothing makes you appreciate the quality of soccer around the world like the lack of it in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. That might seem harsh, but  after seeing the USA play poorly in its most difficult group game and still win, there can be no doubt that it is the truth. 

It was hard to believe at first when it popped up in the upper left hand corner of the TV during the broadcast of the semifinal between the United States Women’s National Team and Germany: 

Over the past 5 games of the 2015 World Cup, Germany had average 11.8 shots on goal, not shots in general, shots on goal. Against the USWNT on Tuesday night, they only had one.