After failing to come off the bench in PSG’s 2-1 Champions League defeat to Borussia Dortmund, Edinson Cavani was handed a start against Bordeaux in Ligue 1 action Sunday and scored his landmark 200th goal for the club.
Cavani was already PSG’s all-time leading scorer (Zlatan Ibrahimović is second with 156), but it’s a special milestone for the 33-year-old as his seventh season in Paris figures to be his last.
Lionel Messi and Barcelona have a massive week ahead on the road. A trip to the Stadio San Paolo to face Napoli on Tuesday in the Champions League is followed by an even bigger showdown with Real Madrid at the Bernabeu on Sunday.
For years now, Manuel Neuer has been established as the premier sweeper-keeper in the world. The German World Cup winner and Bayern Munich No. 1 essentially redefined the position. But even Neuer gets things wrong from time to time.
A stunning mistake from Manuel Neuer vs Paderborn nearly cost Bayern three points on Friday. The visitors twice pegged back the reigning champions before Robert Lewandowski saved Neuer’s blushes with an 88th-minute winner for a 3-2 victory at Allianz Arena.
There are two arenas in which professional sports teams succeed: on the field and on social media. As Southampton showed earlier this season, it's possible to win online even after losing on the pitch. A master class Club Brugge tweet at Manchester United ahead of the two sides’ Europa League Round of 32 first leg bout once again showed the power of Twitter.
Jesse Marsch's RB Salzburg entered its Europa League Round of 32 first leg against Eintracht Frankfurt looking to rebound from a loss against LASK this past weekend which cost Salzburg first place in the Austrian Bundesliga. Frankfurt came into the game having won four of its last six games, most recently putting five goals past Augsburg. Only Bayern Munich has racked up more points than Frankfurt since the Bundesliga's winter break.
Thierry Henry, one of the greatest strikers of his generation, isn’t much of a proven manager. Though he played for the likes of Arsene Wenger, Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti, his first stint as Monaco coach was about as bad as it gets. The former World Cup and Champions League winner clearly wasn’t ready to lead one of Europe’s top clubs.
Major League Soccer, on the other hand, might be the perfect place for the 42-year-old coach.
In terms of a 1-0 scoreline, there’s no greater beatdown than the one RB Leipzig just administered to Tottenham in London on Wednesday. The difference on the scoreboard was Timo Werner’s 58th-minute penalty, but the difference on the pitch was an incredible gulf in tempo, build-up play and variation in attack.
Soccer is a sport often defined by tradition. A player’s jersey number is often indicative of his or her position on the pitch, a practice dating back more than a century.
But Atalanta players don’t give a fuck about jersey number conventions, and they’re on the verge of taking their No. 88s and No. 95s and No. 72s right to the Champions League quarterfinals.
Atalanta smashed Valencia 4-1 in the first leg of their UCL Round of 16 match on Wednesday at the San Siro. The second leg in is March 10 at the Mestalla.
Diego Simeone once summed up his coaching philosophy in one brief sentence: “Effort is non-negotiable.”
On Tuesday, the Atlético team on the pitch at the Wanda Metropolitano fully embodied its manager in a heroic 1-0 Champions League Round of 16 first-leg victory over defending champion Liverpool.
Giovanni Reyna made quite the first impression in his Champions League debut.
The American teenager supplied the game-winning assist as Borussia Dortmund beat Paris Saint-Germain 2-1 in the first leg of their UCL round-of-16 match on Tuesday at the Westfalenstadion.
The second leg is scheduled for March 11 in Paris, with the German side holding a slight edge thanks to Lucien Favre’s introduction of Gio, the son of former USMNT captain Claudio Reyna.