Ending months of speculation, Zlatan Ibrahimovic announced he would be returning to Manchester United in the most Zlatan of ways on Thursday.
I UNITED it @ManUtd pic.twitter.com/2rgvuvoT0m
— Zlatan Ibrahimović (@Ibra_official) August 24, 2017
With Liverpool’s 6-3 aggregate pasting of Hoffenheim on Wednesday, the English Premier League put five clubs in the Champions League for the first time. That’s five chances for English fans to cry over their clubs failing to come through in the continental competition.
Chelsea won the Champions League in 2012 but since then English clubs have barely sniffed the final. In 2015, no EPL team even made it past the Round of 16. The days of 2008 — when the EPL had three of the four semifinalists, including both teams in the final — are barely visible in the rearview mirror.
There’s nothing Cristiano Ronaldo loves more than himself. Who can blame him? He’s one of the best footballers in the world, looks like a more attractive version of Adonis and is the highest-paid athlete on the planet.
So when Ronaldo was asked to sponsor a company that was presumably modeled after his chiseled abdomen, he jumped at the opportunity as he would at a teasing cross or being asked to take off his shirt.
Russian hackers Fancy Bears dropped a complete non-story this week regarding the use of banned substances in soccer. You see, the typical SHOCKING TRUTHS UNCOVERED AND REVEALED that we’ve come to associate with hacking were nonexistent in this information dump, which is insane given football’s history of being corrupt to the core.
CONCACAF aficionados have long watched the development of Joel Campbell with bated breath (what else are we supposed to do?). The Costa Rican international has routinely punished the United States in international competition, and he seemed to come of age at the 2014 World Cup after scoring against Uruguay.
Here’s your football fact of the day: the England Blind team is a force to be reckoned with. The IBSA Blind Football European Championships kicked off last week in Berlin and the English side has made it known that they are the team to beat after 6-0 and 7-0 whoopings of Romania and France, respectively.
They’re just as much about quality as they are about quantity as Daniel English proved, however. Against Les Blues on Monday, the England player went on this brilliant solo run to score in just the first minute of the game.
Let's check in on the Barcelona social media department:
Oh dear. Last night some hackers did some hacking and announced the pretend signing of Angel Di Maria to the whole world. They didn't stop there, those involved spent the rest of the night urging Barcelona to contact them to get their Twitter account back and review their security procedures.
Barcelona the club might still be mad at Neymar for leaving, but the Brazilian forward's former teammates are clearly still buddies with him.
Look how happy everyone looks in this picture!
Everyone loves a good hero. Jasmin Handanović was that hero on Tuesday night for NK Maribor in a Champions League playoff against Hapoel Be’er.
Holding on to a slender aggregate lead on away goals in the 90th minute, the Maribor goalkeeper came up with an incredible sprawling save to keep his team ahead.
You can tell it's going to be a special season for Real Madrid. One stat proves everything:
Real Madrid have scored in 69 consecutive games in all competitions.
Most exciting attack in the #UCL? pic.twitter.com/O7lYaUO4Kl— Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) August 22, 2017