In 24 minutes of Spanish Super Cup action on Sunday, Cristiano Ronaldo accomplished what many could never achieve over the course of their entire careers. The mercurial forward has always shown an appetite for amassing marks of renown, but Sunday’s first leg at the Camp Nou had something for everyone in the spectrum of The Cristiano Ronaldo Experience.
What a goal.
Cristiano Ronaldo showed off his gorgeous summer tan then got a red card to match his new skin tone. Gerard Piqué showed off some center forward's skills then scored for the wrong team. In a wild first leg of an El Clasico verison of the Spanish Super Copa, Real Madrid exploited Pique's defensive abilities for a 3-1 victory at the Camp Nou. But Los Blancos will have to play the second leg (and perhaps longer) without Ronaldo, who shoved the referee after being shown a second yellow card.
I had a coworker at a previous job who always told me no one is irreplaceable. The company has been there for years and it will continue to be there for years, so don’t think for a moment any one employee is bigger than the company. Then he was arrested for diddling a high schooler and I was promoted to his job.
Neymar is not bigger than Barcelona. The Blaugrana will be fine.
Barcelona have a cool $260-ish million to play with following the sale of Neymar Jr. to PSG. Now, the question on everyone's minds is how Barcelona will go about spending such a large sum. Not all at once, hopefully! I took a crack at budgeting Barcelona's bundle of Benjamins (not really Benjamins because they are presumably in Euro form but I love alliteration so whatever), and this is what I came up with:
New socks for the whole team! ($10 per player)
For 37-year-old Brazilian legend Ronaldinho, a return to the professional game isn’t that farfetched. The iconic No. 10 last appeared for Fluminense back in 2015, but he’s spent the last couple of years appearing in friendlies for various causes and trotting out for the Barcelona Legends side.
Barcelona hosted Chapecoense at Camp Nou in the Joan Gamper Cup in a celebration of the Brazilian club, which was devastated by plane crash in November that killed 71 of the 77 passengers, including most of the squad and staff. An emotional first kick from survivors Jakson Follmann and Neto had some holding back tears but when the match began, there was no holding back Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and the Catalans in a 5-0 victory for Barcelona on Monday.
During the quietest moments of the offseason, when nothing is stirring, not even Mino Raiola’s double chin, major footie outlets, without fail, turn to three sources to provide some semblance of news: #1. Diego Maradona — he’s guaranteed to have said something controversial in the last few days. #2. Sir Alex Ferguson — he’s guaranteed to have waxed lyrical on Cristiano Ronaldo or torn into Manchester United in the last few days. #3. Ronaldinho — he’s guaranteed to have done something, anything in the last few days.
Barcelona, a club not used to losing star players, accepted the largest transfer fee of all-time as Paris Saint-Germain funded the release clause for Brazilian striker Neymar on Thursday. The $263,480,000 fee didn’t just shatter the old record, it eviscerated it, more than doubling the $117.6 million Manchester United paid for Paul Pogba.