Diego Maradona is quitting Gimnasia, and we don’t mean the gym. (We’re pretty sure he quit that long ago.)
Rather than stay to fight relegation, Maradona, 59, resigned from Gimnasia La Plata in the Argentine Superliga after just two months as head coach. Gimnasia currently sits in 22nd out of 24 clubs but in worse shape facing relegation. The club lost Maradona’s first three matches in charge but had won three of the last five.
After Brazil lost to Lionel Messi and Argentina on Friday, Brazil legend Rivaldo, one of the great No. 10s in the history of the game, spoke out against 22-year-old Lucas Paquetá wearing the No. 10 jersey for the Canarinha.
In the absence of Neymar, who is out injured, Paquetá was handed the iconic No. 10 yellow shirt, through no fault of his own. The AC Milan midfielder was then subbed out at halftime of his 10th senior cap with the Seleção.
Eternal South American rivals Argentina and Uruguay put on quite a show in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Monday night in a friendly match that featured fine performances from Luis Suárez, Edinson Cavani, Lucas Torreira, Lionel Messi, Sergio Agüero and Paulo Dybala.
Mexico pushed Brazil to the brink in the final of Sunday's 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup, but late goals from Kaio Jorge and Lázaro sent a raucous crowd of over 15,000 into raptures in Brasília. Inspirational captain Eugenio Pizzuto had provided the assist on Bryan Gonzalez’s opener for El Tri in the 66th minute, but Brazil’s ferocious comeback began in the 84th with Kaio’s VAR-assisted penalty and ended — just before the match was headed straight to a shootout — with Lázaro’s stunning winner with only one minute remaining in stoppage time.
Argentina’s 1-0 friendly victory over Brazil on Friday — thanks to Lionel Messi’s goal in the 13th minute — created quite the conversation on Twitter. From Messi telling Brazil manager Tite to shut up after he believed Messi should’ve been given a yellow card to penalty misses from both Gabriel Jesus and Messi, it was quite an entertaining match.
We’re a little over a month away from the 2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Asunción, Paraguay, but the defending champion has just delivered a timely reminder of its mastery of the sand. The World Beach Games wrapped up yesterday in Doha, Qatar, and it was Brazil that captured the men’s beach soccer title following a 9-3 victory over Russia in the gold medal match.
It’s easy to get cynical about the Brasil Global Tour sponsored by Chevrolet, which is simply adspeak for the series of globetrotting friendlies that the Seleção contests in between Copa Américas, World Cups and World Cup qualifying.
In the preposterously bloated football calendar, nobody likes a meaningless friendly. But what’s Brazil supposed to do during the international break with no qualifying stage for the 2020 Copa América and with 2022 World Cup qualifying matches not beginning until March of 2021?
You just can’t escape Liverpool these days, even during the international break, which can’t end soon enough.
Liverpool has won 17 straight Premier League matches, a run that includes winning the Champions League trophy at the end of last season. The Reds are already eight points clear of Manchester City atop the league table and look poised to run away with the title.
To whomever says Lionel Messi lacks character, isn’t a leader or doesn’t care about his country, Ángel Di María would like you to know you’re dead wrong.
Speaking with ESPN Argentina this week, Di María said Lionel Messi left the Argentina players in tears after an emotional speech following La Albiceleste’s exit from the 2019 Copa América this summer.
It’s been nearly three years since the LaMia Flight 2933 disaster claimed the lives of 71 people, including 19 members of the Chapecoense soccer team. Of the six surviving passengers of the flight, three were Chapecoense players: goalkeeper Jakson Follmann, center back Neto and left back Alan Ruschel.