Europe

There will never be another series of transfers like FC Barcelona’s 2013 and 2014 plundering of some of the best soccer players the world has seen in quite some time. During that Summer of endless spending, Barcelona came away with Luis Suarez, Neymar, Ivan Rakitic, goalies Marc-Andre Ter Stegen and Claudio Bravo and important role players Jeremy Mathieu and Rafinha.

Barcelona had its eyes set on deep domestic and continental runs. While they were mindful of the future, more important was the immediate success of the team. It certainly paid off.

A meeting between two clubs sitting side-by-side in the Premier League table turned out to be a thoroughly one-sided affair, Manchester United traveling to the Hawthorns to play West Bromwich Albion and comfortably winning 2-0.

The gap between the top six sides in England and the rest of the division appears to be pretty large on the evidence of Saturday’s match between the Red Devils and the Baggies. United are now unbeaten in eight consecutive EPL matches, and they’ve drawn level, at least momentarily, with Tottenham, who have a game in hand.

It’s been a difficult debut season in the Bundesliga for USMNT striker Bobby Wood. His team, Hamburger SV, are the only club to have played in every season of the Bundesliga since its foundation, but they’ve spent the entire season mired at the bottom of the table.

With only 10 points from 15 matches, Hamburger’s struggles have been mirrored in Wood’s play. The American hadn’t scored since September 10, but he finally scored his third goal of the season against Mainz on Saturday.

It hasn’t taken much, but Jonathan dos Santos has matched his career best for goals in a season. In 66 previous La Liga appearances, Dos Santos had managed a total of two goals, both during his debut season with Villarreal in 2014-15, but he’s already scored twice in only 14 appearances for the Yellow Submarine this campaign.

From 1967 until 2001, Coventry City were a staple in the English top-flight. The club from the West Midlands even won the FA Cup as recently as 1987, but they now find themselves in League One, England’s third tier of professional football. Compounding their state of decline is their current standing of 21st in the division, putting them at serious risk of being relegated to League Two.

Before Atletico Madrid’s last Champions League group stage fixture against Bayern Munich, Diego Simeone made some interesting comments saying that he will one day coach Inter Milan. A fire that was started a week earlier by his son Giovanni Simeone (striker for Genoa) saying that his dad will indeed one day be the manager for the Nerazzurri side. 

The inspiring story of Bradley Lowery and his courage in the face of terminal cancer has seen football fans from around the world unite in making his dream come true. The five-year-old was diagnosed with neuroblastoma in 2013, but the cancer was thought to be treated over the course of two-years of chemotherapy.

Tragically, the cancer returned this past June, and doctors have informed the Lowery's that Bradley likely has only two months to live. On Wednesday night, Bradley was seen walking hand in hand with his hero, Jermain Defoe, as a mascot for his favorite club, Sunderland.

Barcelona's kits for next season have reportedly leaked. They are bad, if they are in fact next year's kits. We're not 100 percent positive if these are the kits. There's a lot of evidence pointing to "yes", so for the rest of the article we're going to treat the rumors as true, even though they may not be, so take that into consideration as you read.

 Replica da possível camisa do Barça para temporada 2017/18. pic.twitter.com/kJ3XEDQt9E

Football has long been obstinate in its opposition to video technology, going so far as to appoint fifth and sixth officials to stand behind the goals doing absolutely nothing as opposed to implementing any kind of instant replay system. 

Goal-line technology has, in recent times, been successfully used at the highest levels of the game, but this only came about because of legitimate instances of robbery at the pinnacle of the sport.

On Wednesday, Manchester United beat Crystal Palace 2-1. The first Manchester United goal was scored by Paul Pogba and assisted by Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The second goal was scored by Zlatan Ibrahimovic and assisted by Paul Pogba.

There can only be one Man of the Match, so who was it to go to?

Well, the people who decide such things said it should go to Pogba (likely because Zlatan's assist may or may not have hit his arm), but Zlatan overruled them and said it should go to Zlatan.