Free Kicks

Fresh off helping Mexico to the CONCACAF U-17 Championship title last month, 16-year-old Californian Efraín Álvarez has registered his first goals for the LA Galaxy, notching a brace in the club’s 3-0 U.S. Open Cup victory over Orange County FC on Wednesday night. 

Last Wednesday, Lionel Messi recorded his 600th goal for Barcelona during his club’s 3-0 Champions League semifinal first leg victory over Liverpool. It was an astonishing free kick, the 42nd of his Barça career, that venomously flew right past Joe Gomez’s face before curling into the top corner from 35 yards out. 

While the Premier League overseas actually has an exciting title race for once, the best race of 2019 might be across the pond in Major League Soccer. We’re less than 10 games into the season, but the 2019 MLS Golden Boot race is shaping up to be something special.

Case in point: Wayne Rooney’s free kick against Columbus on Wednesday night.

The arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo at Juventus has somewhat upset free kick duties. Before the Portuguese legend came, it was Paulo Dybala, Miralem Pjanic and Federico Bernardeschi who did the honors, and they did them well.

This season, Pjanic and friends have taken a back seat to Ronaldo. In fact, the only set piece Pjanic has converted this season was against Napoli back on Mar. 3 with Ronaldo hovering over the dead ball. Still, it’s a nice setup for what I’m about to show you.

When Denmark convenes for a friendly against Kosovo (March 21) and a massive Euro 2020 qualifier against Switzerland in Basel (March 26), it’ll do so without an attacker that many are desperate to finally see at the senior level — 22-year-old FC Copenhagen winger Robert Skov.

Barcelona looked to take advantage of Atletico Madrid’s defeat to Athletic Bilbao yesterday by defeating Real Betis and opening up a 10-point gap at the top of LaLiga, and the first half of the match at the Benito Villamarín couldn’t have gone better from a Blaugrana perspective.

In the 18th minute, Lionel Messi opened the scoring with an exquisite free kick that flew beyond Pau Lopez in goal. This was Messi’s 27th league goal in 26 games.  

While the saga surrounding Mauro Icardi continues to develop, Inter Milan’s top four aspirations took a wobble Sunday after throwing away a 3-1 lead over Fiorentina with just 16 minutes remaining.