Shocking

It’s been an excellent 24 hours for Tottenham’s Champions League aspirations.

For a club that’s won the FA Cup six times and made it to the final on 13 occasions (only Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal have more final appearances), Newcastle’s abysmal recent record in the competition is astounding.

Heading into Tuesday’s Fourth Round replay with third-tier Oxford United, Newcastle hadn’t advanced to the Fifth Round (the Round of 16) in 14 years — that’s despite the club being a Premier League side in each corresponding year apart from two. 

The China women’s national football team is currently sitting in a hotel in Brisbane, Australia, under quarantine as precautions concerning the coronavirus outbreak continue. As of Monday, there are 12 confirmed cases in Australia.

The national team, consisting of 32 members, will be quarantined until Wednesday, Feb. 5. The team is scheduled to play three Olympic qualifying matches against Thailand, Chinese Taipei and Australia in Sydney this week and next week. 

For the second time this season, PSG manager Thomas Tuchel had to deal with drama after a Kylian Mbappé substitution — this time during his team’s 5-0 victory against Montpellier on Saturday.

Sometimes you just really don’t want to be substituted out of a match. The level of soccer doesn’t matter — whether it’s youth, college or professional — but the best thing to do is wish your oncoming teammate success and then get cozy on the bench. But Mbappé seems to have his own style.

The VAR era has produced some stunning moments, but here are two of the strangest minutes we’ve seen yet. The scene is Estadio Fernando Torres in Madrid — yes, the stadium’s named after the former Liverpool striker — where Fuenlabrada is hosting Girona in Spanish Segunda División play. 

With the 2020 FIFA Futsal World Cup beginning in September, qualifying for the tournament has begun in earnest in both Europe and Africa. While European qualification is a two and a half month process to determine which six countries will join the host nation Lithuania, the Africa Futsal Cup of Nations — played between Jan. 28 and Feb. 7 — determines which three African countries qualify. 

The world was shocked and saddened at the sudden passing of Kobe Bryant and his daughter on Sunday, who were among nine people killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California. Bryant was reportedly traveling to a basketball game with his 13-year-old daughter when the crash occurred. Bryant was 41.

On Jan. 21, 2019, Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala passed away after his plane heading for Cardiff went down in the English Channel. 

The 28-year-old was headed to Wales after his former club FC Nantes and Cardiff City agreed to a $20 million transfer for the striker. His body was recovered from the wreckage, but the pilot and only other person on the plane, David Ibbotson, was not found.

A year after the tragedy, Nantes has unveiled its Argentina-styled kit (Sala was from the village of Cululú) for an upcoming match against Bordeaux in remembrance of its former player.