Phenoms

DORTMUND, Germany - Borussia Dortmund's Erling Haaland scored twice, including a spectacular lob, to guide his side to a 4-2 home win over Union Berlin on Sunday which lifted them to within a point of leaders Bayern Munich and Vfl Wolfsburg.

Norwegian Haaland has now scored seven times in the league this season while taking his total tally to an impressive 68 goals in 67 games in all competitions for Dortmund.

Erling. Braut. Haaland.

That is all.

It was a tongue in cheek joke when Erling Haaland burst onto the Champions League scene during the 2019-20 season with 10 goals in eight games to extrapolate that scoring rate into the future. But when Haaland finished as the UCL’s top scorer in 2020-21 with those exact same numbers, the giggles turned to disbelief.

Well, Haaland’s third season in the Champions League began on Wednesday with Borussia Dortmund traveling to Istanbul to play Beşiktaş, and the 21-year-old scored what would eventually prove the match-winner just before halftime. 

Ricardo Pepi scored his team-leading 12th goal to help host FC Dallas record a 1-1 draw against the San Jose Earthquakes on Saturday in Frisco, Texas.

Pepi returned to action after missing FC Dallas' last match while participating with the United States Men's National Team for World Cup qualifying. The 18-year-old homegrown player made quite the impact after his diving header off Justin Che's cross beat a diving JT Marcinkowski to forge a 1-1 tie.

Pepi has scored four goals in his last three MLS matches.

After a 2020 season that was hugely disrupted by COVID-19, resulting in both the men’s and women’s College Cup finals being played back on May 17, the 2021 NCAA Division I soccer season marks a return to normalcy as we’re now almost two weeks into the fall campaign. 

It’s early doors but we’ve already seen some spectacular play around the country, so much so that SportsCenter’s Top 10 has already featured a couple stunning goals. 

Orlando City blew a two-goal lead before Júnior Urso scored the go-ahead goal in the 69th minute for a 3-2 victory against visiting Columbus on Saturday night to extend their point streak to seven games.

Daryl Dike returned to the lineup and had a goal and an assist for Orlando (10-4-8, 38 points), which has three wins and four ties during its run. Columbus (7-10-6, 27 points), the reigning MLS Cup champion, has lost seven of eight and is below the playoff line.

Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. 

Ever since Goal! The Dream Begins was released in 2005, Newcastle United has been scouring Mexico for the IRL regen of Santiago Munez, the Mexican striker who joined the Toon on trial, quickly ascended to the first-team and fired the side into the Champions League despite being riddled with the plot device of asthma. 

FC Dallas scored three goals in a four-minute first-half span, got braces from Jesús Ferreira and Ricardo Pepi and held on for 5-3 win over host Austin FC on Sunday in the most recent rendition of the Texas Derby.

FC Dallas (6-9-7, 25 points) emphatically snapped a three-match winless streak, dating back to a 2-0 home victory against Austin FC on Aug. 7. Austin (5-12-4, 19 points) has lost four of its past five matches and fell to FC Dallas for the second time in the month of August. The expansion team has just 20 goals this season in its 21 matches, the least in the league.

15-year-old Portland Thorns phenom Olivia Moultrie scored her first professional goal on Wednesday night to help her side advance to the final of the Women’s International Champions Cup.

Shea Groom had given the Houston Dash a 2-0 halftime advantage to stun Providence Park, but Natalia Kuikka pulled one back for the Thorns in the 51st-minute to set the stage for Moultrie’s equalizer in the 58th.

It was a big day for Americans in Europe on Tuesday as Brenden Aaronson’s RB Salzburg took on Brøndby in the first leg of their Champions League playoff, while over in Germany Gio Reyna’s Borussia Dortmund welcomed Bayern Munich to the Westfalenstadion for the DFL-Supercup.

Brøndby had taken a surprise 1-0 halftime lead at Red Bull Arena, prompting 33-year-old manager Matthias Jaissle (who used to be an assistant at Brøndby) to turn to Aaronson for the second 45.

That change brought good things for Salzburg.