With England and Spain both enjoying comfortable starts to their World Cup qualifying campaigns (England sit atop Group F, Spain Group G), the two nations played out a meaningless, feel good friendly at Wembley Stadium on Tuesday. The real battle was played without the football, as both teams submitted their entries to the mannequin challenge.
Barcelona have signed a new shirt sponsorship deal with Rakuten, an electronic commerce and Internet company based in Tokyo. The deal will pay Barca almost $60 million per year for four years, with the option of a one-year extension and even more money should certain bonus criteria be met.
Barcelona’s current deal with Qatar Airways, a partnership which began back in 2011, currently nets them around $35 million per year, but the Catalan side are now set to nearly double that yearly income with Rakuten as the primary sponsor.
Apparently Pep Guardiola has forbidden his players from having sexy time after midnight, for fear that they won't get enough sleep.
This information comes from Samir Nasri, who spent a little time with Guardiola at Manchester City before being shipped off on loan to Sevilla.
This quote from Nasri, via the BBC, is beautiful:
When we last checked in with Steven Gerrard, he was a mediocre-but-not-great MLS player, which is to say there was no way in hell the LA Galaxy were going to pay him gobs of money to stick around for another season. Whether the decision was mutual or on Stevie's side or the Galaxy's, Gerrard will be elsewhere after his contract ends in December.
When Hoffenheim appointed a 28-year-old to lead their first team, even Hoffenheim fans thought they were crazy.
Born on July 23, 1987, Julian Nagelsmann became the youngest manager in the history of the Bundesliga when appointed in February. At the time, 1899 Hoffenheim was sitting in 17th place with just two wins, and it looked like relegation was imminent. Originally considered a publicity stunt, Nagelsmann has brought his team from the brink of relegation to third in the Bundesliga, and Hoffenheim are one of just three teams undefeated at this point in the season.
As international football heaves its bloated corpse over the horizon of our collective attentions, trying to find any kernel of interest becomes increasingly tough. Because of this, we have the British Isles wrestling with the political absurdity of trying to cram as many poppies as possible into one fixture, Lionel Messi hoping that colouring in his tattoos will help Argentina win in Brazil, someone called Radamel Falcao starting to scoring goals again and a certain section of North London declaring war on the sovereign state of Chile due to the possibility of one man’s muscle tear.
Having represented Spain 100 times and having appeared for Barcelona in almost 600 matches, center back Carles Puyol squared off against some of the world’s greatest players in a senior career that ran from 1999 to 2014.
The three-time UEFA Champions League winner and 2010 FIFA World Cup champion was himself on UEFA’s Team of the Year on six different occasions, so there’s probably no better judge of talent than Puyol himself.
Thomas Muller’s incredible return of 32 goals from 49 matches in all competitions for Bayern Munich last season had many prognosticators envisioning a brilliant Euro 2016 campaign for the German attacker. However, Muller’s inability to score and poor form throughout Germany’s six matches made him one of the tournament’s biggest disappointments.
While Muller has scored braces against Norway and the Czech Republic in World Cup qualifying, he hasn’t yet managed a goal in the Bundesliga, a drought that’s now surpassed over 500 minutes of football.
Does anyone know where we can buy a Bedale AFC away kit? We want a Bedale AFC away kit. Bedale AFC's away kit has sausage on it. We want a shirt with sausage on it.
Bedale AFC, an amateur English side, recently signed a sponsorship deal with a local sausage manufacturer, which prompted the marvelous, savory away jerseys.
Donald Trump won the election, Leicester won the premier league, Britain left the EU and now Usain Bolt is joining Borussia Dortmund? Why not.
According to Decca Aitkenhead of The Guardian: