When, or if, Cristian Ganea makes his debut for Athletic Bilbao in LaLiga, he will also make history.
Indeed, the left back born in Bistrita, Romania, could become one of just a handful of non-Basque players to ever pull on the club’s iconic red-and-white striped kit. That’s because, unofficially anyway, the Bilbao-based side has had a policy of only signing players of Basque origin since the early years of the 20th century.
It's hard to imagine narrowing the shortlist from a field that also included the likes of Kylian Mbappé, Lionel Messi and Antoine Griezmann, but a jury comprised of coaches and journalists have spoken and named their top three: Today, UEFA announced that one of Luka Modrić, Cristiano Ronaldo or Mohamed Salah will be named the 2018 UEFA Player of the Year, an award given to the best footballer “irrespective of nationality, playing for a club within the territory of a UEFA member association during the past season” for their “performances in all competition — domestic, continental and interna
Last night, Real Madrid started its 2018-19 LaLiga campaign off right with a win over Getafe. Goals from Gareth Bale and Dani Carvajal were enough to lift Juan Lopetegui’s side over the Azulones as they cruised to a comfortable victory.
Barcelona was lacking that killer instinct for much of its LaLiga opener. Fortunately for the reigning champs, they’ve got the world’s best player on their side, and a Lionel Messi goal vs Alaves on a sneaky free kick sparked Barcelona to a 3-0 win at the Camp Nou on Saturday.
While England's Premier League may be the most popular, Spain’s LaLiga is the best soccer league in the world. So the league has decided to do what other sports’ best leagues have done: export the product overseas. With LaLiga North America, the U.S. or Canada could host a Spanish league match as soon as this season.
As a neutral, I’m a big fan of this back and forth between Jurgen Klopp and Sergio Ramos. I hope it continues forever. After Klopp labeled Ramos “ruthless” and “brutal” a couple weeks ago during Liverpool’s preseason tour, Ramos duly responded by saying: “He will be wanting to explain not winning the final, but it’s not the first that he has lost. Some of us have been operating at a very high level for many years — I’m not sure he can say the same.”
SCR Peña Deportivo has officially won the battle for the best kit in all of soccer. It might simply be the best soccer kit ever.
At the age of 32, David Silva has announced his retirement from international football after collecting 125 caps and scoring 35 goals for the Spanish national team. Silva was a member of the squads that won Euro 2008, the 2010 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2012. At Euro 2012, Silva started all six of Spain’s matches and scored the opening goal of the final against Italy.
Barcelona defeated Sevilla 2-1 in the 2018 Spanish Super Cup thanks to goals from Gerard Pique and Ousmane Dembele. Pablo Sarabia had given Sevilla an early lead in the ninth minute, but Barcelona’s comeback was complete when Dembele thundered in a crossbar down effort in the 78th.
Sevilla earned a penalty and had a chance to equalize from the spot in the 90th minute, but Marc-Andre ter Stegen saved Wissam Ben Yedder’s tame effort.
Following the semi-retirement of Andrés Iniesta, Lionel Messi was named Barcelona captain for the upcoming 2018-19 season, the club announced on Friday.
Four Barça captains for this season: all from La Masia!