Sevilla and Real Madrid drew 3-3 in their Copa del Rey round of 16 second leg match, extending Real’s unbeaten run to 40 games, and Los Blancos advanced to the quarterfinals, 6-3 on aggregate. Karim Benzema scored with the final touch of the match to continue Madrid's remarkable streak.
Norwegian prodigy Martin Odegaard joined Real Madrid two years ago at the age of 16, and having failed so far to break into Madrid's first team, the 18-year-old midfielder is going on loan to Heerenveen in the Netherlands.
After only two first-team appearances in two years, Odegaard will benefit from regular action against top division professionals.
The loan is reportedly for 18 months, and Odegaard will not be 20 years old yet at the end of it. There's room to grow here.
Odegaard joins a squad that sits fourth in the Eredivisie, in line for a Europa League place.
The FIFA FIFPro World XI, which doesn't matter but people pretend to care about anyway, was announced at the FIFA Awards Gala, which doesn't matter but people pretend to care about anyway, today.
It was, as it is every year, basically Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manuel Neuer.
Well, and Dani Alves, who played the first part of this year with Barcelona and the second part with Juventus. Here's the full squad:
Goalkeeper
Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich/Germany)
Defenders
Dani Alves (Juventus/Brazil)
Real Madrid cruised to a 5-0 victory over Granada on Saturday, moving six points clear of Barcelona in the La Liga table. Goals from Karim Benzema, Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Casemiro and a brace from Isco condemned Granada to their tenth defeat of the season — they’re currently 19th in the table.
The Bernabeu crowd were treated to five goals within the hour, and Real Madrid made it 39 consecutive matches unbeaten, equalling the all time Spanish record.
The prematch festivities included a presentation of Cristiano Ronaldo’s fourth Ballon d’Or trophy.
When you’re undefeated in 38 consecutive matches, the adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” rings particularly true. Unfortunately for James Rodriguez, he’s not a beneficiary of Real Madrid's continuity. The Colombian captain has been limited to four La Liga starts this season, and his minutes across all competitions amount to not even eight full matches.
“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.” —Probably the young boy in this video.
Sandwiched between one-half of the usual defensive line of the FIFA FIFPro World XI, this burgeoning young stoic simply does not give a rat’s a**. With a supreme display of tranquility and passive tolerance, we’ve been given video evidence of nirvana.
Either this boy has achieved a perfect state of quietude, or, at heart, he’s such a Barcelona fan that he finds this whole charade sickening.
The Barcelona and Real Madrid attacking trios of MSN and BBC took to Instagram to show us how they celebrated the New Year. From all of us at The18, we wish you nothing but the best for 2017!
Lionel Messi
FIFA is supposed to take the reality of football, turn it up 10 notches and make it accessible for all. So, while you’re executing Roberto Carlos-esque free kicks with regularity, you know that, yes, the professionals might be able to pull this off, but not three times a match.
The FIFA Free Kick Skill Game requires you to expertly curl the ball around a wall of training dummies and into one of the four corners of the net. Again, it’s a skill that professional can pull off, but it’s not something you’d put money on them doing nine times out of ten.
The exorbitant fees that the Chinese Super League has been willing to pay to land the world’s best look like peanuts compared to what one unnamed CSL club was willing to pay Real Madrid and Cristiano Ronaldo to bring the Ballon d’Or winner to East Asia.