The Barcelona and Real Madrid attacking trios of MSN and BBC took to Instagram to show us how they celebrated the New Year. From all of us at The18, we wish you nothing but the best for 2017!
Lionel Messi
The Bundesliga YouTube channel is simply the best, and they've gone and shown that again with this video. Featuring the best goal from each club in the 2016-17 Bundesliga season thus far, this is 10 minutes of quality. Featuring Douglas Costa's screamer for Bayern Munich, a crazy team goal from Borussia Dortmund and a great assist from Chicharito in Bayer Leverkusen's selection, these are all sensational.
It’s been six months since Hal Robson-Kanu completed what many consider THE footballing moment of 2016. After Wales had unexpectedly leveled against a heavily favored Belgium side in the quarterfinals of Euro 2016 through Ashley Williams, Robson-Kanu dropped jaws around the planet by performing a Cruyff turn through two Belgium defenders and firing beyond Thibaut Courtois, lifting Wales into the semifinals.
For many, 2016 will be remembered as a year of loss. For all the remarkable gains, achievements and creations that sprung from 2016, it’s often the hurt derived from defeats and casualties that reverberates most poignantly. Here are 10 things we’ve lost in football over the course of 2016.
FIFA is supposed to take the reality of football, turn it up 10 notches and make it accessible for all. So, while you’re executing Roberto Carlos-esque free kicks with regularity, you know that, yes, the professionals might be able to pull this off, but not three times a match.
The FIFA Free Kick Skill Game requires you to expertly curl the ball around a wall of training dummies and into one of the four corners of the net. Again, it’s a skill that professional can pull off, but it’s not something you’d put money on them doing nine times out of ten.
The exorbitant fees that the Chinese Super League has been willing to pay to land the world’s best look like peanuts compared to what one unnamed CSL club was willing to pay Real Madrid and Cristiano Ronaldo to bring the Ballon d’Or winner to East Asia.
As has been said on many occasions, football is a beautiful game. With it, we laugh, we cry and we sometimes throw things at our television screens, but that doesn't diminish our passion.
What might accomplish that, however, is the constant need for social media to single-handedly try and shatter the illusion that surrounds these overpaid heroes we watch week in and week out.
Son Heung-min is now our favorite footballer on the planet. And with an average of a goal every 147 minutes this season, he's a damn good footballer at that.
@SpursOfficial @kevinwimmer27 pic.twitter.com/87GlYBZPHK
— . (@ned99kelsey) December 29, 2016
Almost every FC Barcelona YouTube video, given the talent at the club, is worth a view. However, every once in a very long while, they release a video starring Lionel Messi during his La Masia days. These are particularly important because they showcase the unreasonable talents of a goofy looking 14-year-old with control like Diego Maradona.
It's talent like this that saw Messi rapidly progress through the club's ranks, making his first team debut as a 16-year-old.
Saying the words "Adam Lallana is the key to the Premier League's most high-powered offense" feels weird. It does not roll off the tongue. You think "did I just say that?" and, after a few moments, realize you did say that, and that you meant it, because it's true.
This is not a thing that seemed like it could ever be true as recently as this summer.
Here are a couple of tweets I have tweeted about Adam Lallana: