All was not perfect in Cristiano Ronaldo’s world during the lead up to El Clasico in April 2012.
He was one of the world’s two best players, in the midst of a colossal goal scoring run and on his way to his lone La Liga title with Real Madrid. But still, things were merely good — not great. The reason being because his Los Blancos squad was universally viewed as Barcelona's whipping boys.
The arguably the biggest game in club football, otherwise known as “El Clasico”, is set to take place this Saturday at the Camp Nou as Barcelona host Real Madrid.
Both teams are in opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to recent form. The hosts are winless in three of their last four matches, while the visitors from Madrid have won all five of their last five fixtures. They are still undefeated this season in all competitions, the only club in Europe’s top five leagues yet to lose, while Barcelona have already suffered three defeats.
When a normal person wakes up, there's a process to be gone through before one gets enough energy to go outside and be a person. Generally there's some combination of a shower, breakfast, coffee and maybe exercise before one is ready to meet the day. Humans are ike diesel engines. It takes us a while to get properly revved up.
Except for Cristiano Ronaldo, who may not even be a human, just a 6'2" bundle of pure energy, hair gel and abs, and who gets out of bed like no human being before him.
World Soccer magazine, established in 1960, has been handing out their Player of the Year award since 1982, establishing itself as one of the most well-respected accolades in the game. Since 2005, the winner of the World Soccer Player of the Year has subsequently been named the Ballon d’Or recipient.
You’ve likely heard that Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United are, after 13 Premier League matches, further down the EPL table than they were during the dog days of David Moyes and Louis van Gaal. You’ve also probably been told that Mourinho has won as many games (six) in his last 20 EPL fixtures as Sean Dyche, Sam Allardyce and, yes, David Moyes. And all this after spunking a bajillion of the late Malcolm Glazer’s hard earned dollars all over the summer transfer market.
Following every weekend, when discussing Serie A, there's a temptation to focus on Juventus. As the long-time reigning champions, it's clear why the Turin side garners a huge amount of attention. But the best stories are not always found at the top of the table.
We've been over why Bastian Schweinsteiger needs to be playing for Manchester United, so we're not going to do that again.
(sorry, can't help ourselves: it's because Marouane Fellaini is garbage)
Schweinsteiger's exile from the Manchester United first team finally ended Wednesday when he made a four-minute (plus stoppage time) cameo in United's 4-1 win against West Ham in the EFL Cup quarterfinals.
When I was a young lad my youth soccer team had a throw-in routine that we labelled “Pikachu”, much to the embarrassment of our coach. The player taking the throw-in would gleefully scream out the play over and over, and we’d get giddy as all hell at the opportunity to execute. Standing in a well-organized line four or five deep, the players towards the front would peel off laterally while the player at the very back of the queue would steam forward to collect the throw-in.
It’s the EFL Cup so everything must be taken with a grain of salt, but Manchester United’s dominate victory over West Ham in the quarterfinals saw United resemble a waking giant. It must also be said that West Ham’s performance was totally in line with their 2016-17 season so far — disastrous.
With only two minutes gone, the Red Devils opened the scoring after a brilliant exchange between Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. With both Paul Pogba and Marouane Fellaini suspended for the match, Mkhitaryan was handed a rare start and setup Ibrahimovic with a slick back heel.
Twenty-one-year-old Enzo Alan Zidane Fernandez, known more commonly as Enzo, was handed his senior Real Madrid debut by manager and father Zinedine Zidane on Wednesday. With Madrid holding a 7-1 advantage in their Copa del Rey fixture following the first leg, it was something of a training exercise against Cultural Leonesa, a club in the third level of the Spanish football league system.