Humor

In case you haven’t seen all the obnoxious social media posts — like the one that probably brought you to this link — it’s Halloween. And while some of you have probably had your costume picked out since Nov. 1, 2018, most of you are probably still scrambling around to think of a costume for tonight or trying to think of reasons to stay inside, shut out all the lights and pretend you’re not home. So we’ve come up with some soccer-related last-minute Halloween costume ideas for you unimaginative, cheap and lazy folks out there (our prime audience, I’m sure).

Nutmegs — alongside cross-field rakers, back heels and an inordinate amount of step-overs — constitute one of the greatest forms of artistry in our beautiful game. The act of the nutmeg is equal parts illusion and imagination; it transcends the simple reality of moving the ball from Point A to Point B and replaces it with something sublime. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, a nutmeg tells us of beautiful, untrue things. (After all, a nutmeg is rarely ever a decisive moment.)

Normal chairs, like the one you and I are sitting in right now, are for suckers. They’re for losers who have never accomplished anything in their lives and probably never will.

Thrones, on the other hand, are for gods and kings.

Thrones are for legends like Diego Maradona.

So, to the surprise of absolutely no one, Maradona coached a league match from a throne on Tuesday, expertly guiding his team, Gimnasia La Plata, to a 4-0 rout of Newell’s Old Boys in Rosario, Argentina. 

Gareth Bale is still in the midst of a never-ending transfer saga at Real Madrid, but his focus isn’t on where he might be playing next.

Nor is Bale focusing on his play on the field.

Gareth Bale, 30, is mostly worried about what he’s going to do when he retires — golf and going unnoticed.

The second division of Germany, the 2. Bundesliga, seems to be one of those leagues that no one really cares about outside of Germany. But after a few weekend incidents, maybe we should be watching it more.

The first incident was a substitute giving up a penalty. You read that right: A substitute for Holstein Kiel gave up a penalty.

Leicester City broke the Premier League record for largest road win with its 9-0 butchering of Southampton on Friday. 

After one Leicester goal, Saints midfielder Ryan Bertrand was sent off with a red card. But how many goals do we excuse for being down one?

Jaime Vardy’s Foxes wasted no time scoring in the first 10 minutes just before the red card was issued. From there on, Leicester would toy with the Saints. 

Major League Soccer had the usual MLS All-Star Game format in 2019, but the league reintroduced an event in the lead-up to the match: the MLS All-Star Skills Challenge.

In all honesty, the event was much better than I thought it would be. The competition was much closer than initially expected and some late drama brought it down to the wire.

The life of a goalkeeper is a difficult one. If any other player on the field makes a mistake, they are usually forgiven pretty quickly. Goalkeepers, on the other hand, are expected to be perfect. Even the smallest mistake could ruin a keeper's entire career. Robert Green is a perfect example of this.

Ted Lasso is coming back.

Saturday Night Live alum Jason Sudeikis is reprising his role as the clueless American coaching Premier League soccer in London with the return of his character Ted Lasso in an upcoming Apple TV+ series. 

Jason Sudeikis first portrayed Lasso in 2013 as part of a promotional series for NBC Sports, which had just obtained the U.S. TV rights to the English Premier League. Lasso was a stereotypical American football coach who had no idea what he was doing coaching Tottenham Hotspur.