It’s shocking how many times I have to write this about professional sports, but it’s worth repeating: Play to the damn whistle. Never has this been more important than in the era of the VAR.
Manchester United committed that cardinal sin of sports, the idiom preached from the earliest age of athletics, in a 1-1 draw to Arsenal on Monday at Old Trafford, costing the home side a much-needed win.
Manchester United is on the hunt for a new striker.
After getting rid of Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez to Inter Milan this summer, United has been sorely lacking in attacking talent. Even with the likes of Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial, United has been short on goals recently. Martial has been injured for a few weeks while Marcus Rashford has just been in poor form.
Arsenal travels to Old Trafford on Monday to take on a lackluster Manchester United.
The Gunners, coming off a convincing 5-0 win against Nottingham Forest in the Carabao Cup, will be looking to add some misery to an already woeful Premier League campaign to their historic rivals. Manchester United has been dreadful by its standards, winning just two games, drawing two and losing two in the Premier League.
Leicester City was probably going to win anyway on Sunday at home to Newcastle, but an Isaac Hayden red card just before halftime all but ensured three points at the King Power Stadium.
Ricardo Pereira opened the scoring with a glorious solo run and Jamie Vardy netted twice as the Foxes ran away as 5-0 winners, jumping up to third place in the Premier League table.
Beer in Qatar may be subsidized for the 2022 World Cup, but organizers are worried about the behavior of English fans.
Manchester City star Bernardo Silva has been the subject of controversy after tweeting an adolescent photo of teammate Benjamin Mendy alongside the logo of Conguitos, a Spanish candy. The logo is a candy mascot with blatantly racist caricatures.
The tweet said “Guess who?” along with some emojis.
The Football Association are looking into this tweet posted by Bernardo Silva earlier today...
It has to be the greatest third round fixture in the history of Carabao Cup. Wednesday’s meeting between Burton Albion and Bournemouth at Pirelli Stadium featured three floodlight failures, a minimum of 28 minutes of added time and a giant killing.
There may have been some big Carabao Cup headlines Tuesday, like Tottenham losing to a team three leagues lower than it and Arsenal’s youngsters thrashing Nottingham Forest, but there was an entirely different kind of story that grabbed my attention. An intoxicated Portsmouth fan was caught on video attempting to fight a police horse after the Pompey side lost to Southampton 4-0 and was knocked out of the Carabao Cup.
Here’s the video:
A UEFA Executive Committee meeting in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana has hashed out some future Champions League final locations, so we can now confirm sites for 2021, 2022 and 2023. This year’s final will be staged in Istanbul, and then Ol’ Big Ears will travel to Saint Petersburg, Munich and London over the course of the following three competitions.
The Best FIFA Football Awards 2019 went down in Milan today, and you can rest assured that The18 tried its best to watch on YouTube, but good lord, this stuff is mostly unwatchable. It's remarkably drawn out, full of self-aggrandizing nonsense from FIFA and the forced banter between hosts Ilaria D'Amico, Ruud Gullit and the guests makes you search for the mute button while your skin crawls.
But other than that it's pretty good!
Let’s go to the green carpet for some select photos before the ceremony. Here’s Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe looking fly.