For 37-year-old Brazilian legend Ronaldinho, a return to the professional game isn’t that farfetched. The iconic No. 10 last appeared for Fluminense back in 2015, but he’s spent the last couple of years appearing in friendlies for various causes and trotting out for the Barcelona Legends side.
There’s been way too much written about Nicklas Bendtner over the last decade, but it’s always worth remembering that the Danish striker once achieved a higher score than possible on a psychological confidence test.
Good news: Beavis & Butthead has finally caught on in England. We know this has happened because in a Championship match between Bolton Wanderers and Leeds United Leeds midfielder Connor Shaughnessy gave away a penalty when he demonstrated his Beavis & Butthead fandom by turning Bolton's Gary Madine into The Great Cornholio.
My hero, My mate, Big Gary Madine #bwfc pic.twitter.com/rFCR6lrUm7
I have some thoughts on goalkeepers taking penalties. Goalkeepers taking penalties is a net positive from an entertainment standpoint. Goalkeepers taking penalties is a net negative, from a soccer standpoint.
Sure, there have been goalkeepers who double as penalty specialists and they are professional footballers, so they can be expected to have enough skill to score from the spot when called upon. On the other hand, hello Thibaut Courtois in the Community Shield:
You probably didn’t notice, but the MLS Rankings of Power went on a long hiatus. It went off into the woods, swallowed a cocktail of hallucinogenics, found a small passage in a dense thicket and wormed its way into a little clearing in the shrubbery. There, it pondered the value of power, the capacity for channeling such robust faculties and the question of how to then present it to the people in a safe for consumption listicle format.
When the first international football match was played in 1872, the tactics and formations used were completely foreign to what modern soccer coaches employ. Seven forwards, one defender? Not even a team of 5-year-olds would consider a lineup like that these days.
But how would modern teams look if they decided to turn back the clock and utilize ancient tactics?