You know you are a good team when your opponents have to resort to stomping on your best player and saying horrifically offensive things to you. Luckily for world-beating Barcelona, its opponent in this case received two red cards for its actions, although you could argue it should have been more.
S*** really hit the fan during Barcelona and Espanyol’s Copa del Rey match, and Luis Suarez talking trash played no small part.
It has been roughly 24 hours since the final whistle blew and ever news outlet with at least a passing focus on football is printing various quotes from the post-game interviews, dissecting the official match report, and lip reading what the stars said during the match.
Social media is filled with salty Barcelona fans, gloating Barcelona fans, and people dissing Espanyol (sorry Espanyol, but your fan base is simply dwarfed by Barcelona’s).
It’s unlikely to have escaped your attention that earlier this week Real Madrid appointed club legend and archetypal galactico Zinedine Zidane as their new manager.
Lionel Messi apparently gets under his rivals' skin. I suppose being ridiculously good will do that.
Yesterday in the Copa del Rey against Espanyol, Messi scored an absolutely absurd free kick. Espanyol keeper Pau Lopez set up his wall perfectly, positioned himself perfectly, and reacted to it perfectly, but was still left grasping for air as the kick sailed through the air, off the crossbar, and down in the the goal.
Commenting on Zinedine Zidane, Real Madrid great Alfredo Di Stéfano once said, “he dominates the ball, he is a walking spectacle and he plays as if he had silk gloves on each foot.” Zidane, World Cup, European Championship and UEFA Champions League winner, took a little time out of his day to effectively demonstrate these observations on some unsuspecting French amateurs.
Although, during the last six weeks of 2015, Real Madrid president Florentino Perez said he supported the permanence of Rafa Benitez as coach his club, just four days into 2016 Perez changed his mind. Now Zinedine Zidane is the new man in charge of Los Blancos.
So, The18 presents 18 facts about the life of Zidane, a former excellent player who is beginning his coaching career in a difficult moment for Real Madrid. If he fails will be Benitez and Perez’s fault, but any positive result would be his individual achievement.
On his way to a recent Real Madrid training, James Rodriguez reportedly led police on a 125 m.p.h. car chase, for whatever reason. This got us thinking about car chases, which, naturally, led to us thinking about The Fast and the Furious.
The we thought it would be fun to compare Real Madrid players to Fast and the Furious characters. So that's what we did.
After the rumours spread throughout the past weeks, the call has been made: Rafa Benítez is reportedly no longer Real Madrid’s coach after a draw in Mestalla.
It is a near-universal truth that soccer fans want to be Messi, to live Messi's life and do what Messi does. This holds true, apparently, for other footballers as well. Just ask Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos.
Ramos tweeted out his New Year's collage earlier today, which is a thing a lot of people do. What most people don't do, however, is include in their collages pictures of other people's significant others and children.
Lionel Messi made his 500th appearance for FC Barcelona on Wednesday and, naturally, was on the scoresheet. Messi was named in the starting XI, as well as captain for the night, despite having just passed a kidney stone and traveling between Japan, Argentina, Dubai and Barcelona over the past 10 days.
No matter. Messi put in another Man of the Match performance during Barca's 4-0 La Liga victory over Real Betis.