When ESPN acquired the exclusive U.S. TV rights to Serie A back in August, we were excited about the prospect of easy access to a league that used to require a high-level cable subscription (or illegal stream) to watch, especially with Cristiano Ronaldo having just moved to Italy. The ESPN Serie A deal meant at least one match per week would be on ESPN networks, with the remainder on ESPN+.
The winter-break period separating the first half and the second half of the season in Europe’s top five leagues is a great time for clubs to reflect on a club's season (although winter break doesn’t exist in England). Even before Christmas, but Europe’s top clubs are preparing for their second half of the season push. Here are some New Year's resolutions for Europe’s top clubs in the big five leagues.
If there’s one thing I’m certain of in the last 10 years, it’s that nobody is anybody until they have a mobile game. From Kim Kardashian to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, you gotta get in on those sweet micro transactions to really prove you’re famous. So of course there’s a new Cristiano Ronaldo mobile game out now.
No one is going to deny Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are two of the greatest footballers of the last 20 years — perhaps even all time. But what if they didn’t play for the best clubs in the world? What if they played in smaller leagues? What if Messi and Ronaldo played in Ligue 1 and Liga NOS?
Well, they’d be Hatem Ben Arfa and Bas Dost, respectively.
How many goals has Messi scored? It’s hard to answer, because right this very instant, he dropped Jérôme Boateng and chipped Manuel Neuer. In the time it took you to read that sentence, he just scored a hat-trick against Levante. Lionel Messi has scored 664 goals in his career for club and country, so yes, I’m slightly exaggerating, but only slightly.
The Derby della Mole between Juventus and Torino was decided by a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty kick on Saturday at Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino. The 70th-minute goal wasn’t a surprise for anyone who follows Serie A, both in terms of who scored it and where it came from.
But Ronaldo’s celebration afterword was a bit puzzling.