With the latest reports saying there’s no hope that Cardiff City striker Emiliano Sala and pilot Dave Ibbotson will be found alive after their Piper Malibu light aircraft went missing Monday night over the Channel Islands, the footballing world is beginning to pay its respects to the 28-year-old Argentine.
Christian Pulisic has been usurped. But just who is Frenkie de Jong anyway?
Prior to Wednesday, Pulisic was the most expensive signing of the January transfer window, Chelsea paying $73 million for the services of the Borussia Dortmund 20-year-old.
Now Pulisic must sit in the back seat for Barcelona’s new 21-year-old midfielder, Frenkie de Jong.
In the soccer world, one of the best sights for sore eyes is the return of the Champions League.
Sometimes, watching Champions League teams playing league cup matches against weak opposition can be really dull after a while. For example, Manchester City’s 9-0 drubbing of Burton Albion a few weeks ago. In a lot of ways, European soccer without Champions League becomes kind of monotonous. At some point between the last Champions League group stage match and the start of the Round of 16, soccer fans will be wondering when the tournament will start up again.
Every child dreams of becoming the next Lionel Messi, and I don’t think that should be discouraged. However, it might not be a bad bit of parenting to tell your children that it’s OK to aim for the next Maxwell, Alexander Hleb, Aleix Vidal, Thomas Vermaelen, Paulinho or Kevin-Prince Boateng as well — that’s probably the surest way of representing the Blaugrana as a professional.
These are the somewhat old, somewhat weird transfer dealings of the five-time European champions, and in a strange way, they make perfect sense.
With Lionel Messi given a rest and role as a substitute for Barcelona’s match against Leganes on Sunday, Ousmane Dembélé moved into the Argentine’s customary position on the right-hand side of Barca’s front three and spent the opening 45 minutes making the Camp Nou forget all about the man they were missing.
Dembélé opening run of the match led Leganes on a merry dance. He nutmegged one defender and then was millimeters away from dicing another.
If you’ve paid attention to internet trends over the past few days or so, you will notice something known as the #10YearChallenge. The basic premise of it is that people post pictures of themselves from 2009 and another from 2019 to show the world how much they’ve changed — in appearance or otherwise.
Barcelona maintained its five-point lead at the top of LaLiga with a comfortable 3-0 win over Eibar at the Camp Nou on Sunday. Luis Suarez opened the scoring for the hosts after a wonderful interchange with Philippe Coutinho, and then Suarez turned provider for Barca’s second, finished by Lionel Messi — his 400th league goal for the club.
Barca’s third was Suarez’s second of the game after a quick Sergi Roberto throw-in found Eibar’s defense asleep.
El valor de los más grandes clubes de fútbol se ha disparado en los últimos cinco años, gracias en gran parte al crecimiento de los ingresos. Una gran parte de estos ingresos proviene de los contratos de patrocinio de camisetas más caros de todos los deportes, y no debe sorprender que los tres clubes con los mayores contratos de patrocinio de camisetas también constituyan los tres equipos de fútbol más valiosos del mundo.
Barcelona took full advantage of Atletico Madrid and Sevilla’s 1-1 draw earlier today (as well as Real Madrid’s shock defeat to Real Sociedad) to open up a five-point gap at the top of LaLiga. Goals from Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez inside the first half — although the lead was cut by Jaime Mata shortly before the interval — proved enough for the Blaugrana.