We all knew it was coming.
After Norwich City upset Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City last week, there was never any doubt Watford would be on the end of a spanking at the Etihad on Saturday.
But this was all a bit much.
Bulgarian striker Dimitar Berbatov has officially announced his retirement at 38 years old with a video and written statement, which he posted on Instagram.
Berbatov was very candid in the statement, saying that he did try to find a team to play for last year, but it didn’t happen. He finished his soccer career at Indian league side Kerala Blasters last year and has been a pundit ever since.
According to the Independent, the first major signing for David Beckham’s Inter Miami will be Manchester City midfield maestro David Silva.
With this week's Champions League matchups done and dusted, you might be tempted to think European football is finished until the weekend. Well think again! The Europa League kicks of today and there are a ton of matches worth getting excited about. Here are the 10 I'm most excited about, and my corresponding predictions for each match.
Basel vs. Krasnodar
Liverpool’s defense of its Champions League crown is off to a shaky start following a 2-0 defeat to Napoli at the Stadio San Paolo in Italy on Tuesday. Liverpool supporters will disagree with the game-changing penalty that Felix Brych awarded Napoli in the 82nd minute, but it certainly wasn’t a vintage performance from the Reds.
It’s been an eventful week for building from the back. It began with Mexico’s beatdown of Gregg Berhalter’s longterm vision for the USMNT in East Rutherford, a result which led to a cry for abandoning the philosophy.
Things reached a crescendo yesterday with Arsenal — the masterful architects of their own downfall in recent times. Sokratis Papastathopoulos showed exactly why 2-0 is the most dangerous lead in football by passing the ball straight to Gerard Deulofeu in his own area.
Maybe you were distracted by Neymar’s epic return to PSG or a huge early clash in the Bundesliga between RB Leipzig and Bayern Munich. Perhaps you were watching college football or taking a break after a long morning of Premier League.
First, we gotta get this out of the way: Christian Pulisic was an unused sub for Chelsea against Wolverhampton on Saturday.
But wait!
Before you leave, you gotta read about this insane Tammy Abraham statistic.
Abraham, Chelsea’s No. 9, became the club’s youngest player ever to score a hat trick. At 21 years and 347 days old, he is the youngest Englishman to score a hat trick in the Premier League since Raheem Sterling four years ago.
While I don't have the skills of our soccer expert Leon, I thought I'd try my hand at predicting the results of this weekend's Premier League fixtures.
Prediction: 3-0 Liverpool
In time, the coaching tree that expands out from Pep Guardiola is going to be massive. Some will fail (like if Mikel Arteta had taken the job at Newcastle), but the Spanish tactician’s otherworldly training methods will almost certainly be absorbed and even expanded upon by some future coaching Übermensch that worked under Guardiola for a long period.