Fights

For the second time this season, PSG manager Thomas Tuchel had to deal with drama after a Kylian Mbappé substitution — this time during his team’s 5-0 victory against Montpellier on Saturday.

Sometimes you just really don’t want to be substituted out of a match. The level of soccer doesn’t matter — whether it’s youth, college or professional — but the best thing to do is wish your oncoming teammate success and then get cozy on the bench. But Mbappé seems to have his own style.

It was hailed as a cruel slam by Oh My Goal; The Sun called it a dig; The World Game went further and called it a cheeky dig; SPORTbible proclaimed it a Face with Tear of Joy emoji masterpiece; Piers Morgan jumped on the social media bandwagon; Cristiano Ronaldo’s sister tipped over the wagon and set it on fire in defense of her dear brother. 

The footballing populace hasn’t been this charged and incited into Twitter fervor since Megan Rapinoe proposed the outlandish idea of taking it upon ourselves to make the world a better place. 

So what happened?

Argentina’s 1-0 friendly victory over Brazil on Friday — thanks to Lionel Messi’s goal in the 13th minute — created quite the conversation on Twitter. From Messi telling Brazil manager Tite to shut up after he believed Messi should’ve been given a yellow card to penalty misses from both Gabriel Jesus and Messi, it was quite an entertaining match.

When former USMNT manager Jürgen Klinsmann labelled the newfangled CONCACAF Nations League a “waste of time” back in October (rich enough coming from a coach that inspired his team to defeats against Mexico, Costa Rica and Guatemala by a combined scoreline of 8-1 during 2018 World Cup qualifying), it was easy to grasp the German’s point: If you limit the amount of big matches you have against quality opponents, you limit your growth.

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has escaped any sanctions from the Football Association for turning himself into the Meme Lord during Sunday’s 3-1 defeat to Liverpool. 

One look at the Bundesliga table — with Borussia Mönchengladbach currently on top — tells you that it’s been a wild season so far in Germany. But that adjective doesn’t come close to describing the scenes that unfolded at the end of today’s match between SC Freiburg and Eintracht Frankfurt at the Schwarzwald-Stadion.

UEFA has failed to protect players from racist abuse once again.

It’s not that this is anything new, it's just the players are naturally fed up with the monkey chants, the racial diatribes and having things like water bottles and human spit flung at them. UEFA in the past has levied fines and partial stadium closures and recently put in a new protocol allowing teams to walk off the pitch, but is that really enough of a crackdown?

No. Racism in the stands has always been there but now that there’s a spotlight on it, UEFA looks like the joke that it already is.

A video of Juventus’ training session Tuesday has taken social media by storm. The clip features a frustrated Gonzalo Higuain lashing out during a game of rondo (monkey in the middle).

Higuain lost it in training today pic.twitter.com/k6BaXEyS6c

— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) September 17, 2019

Kick It Out, an organization that advocates for players who experience racial abuse within the footballing world, has issued a call to action to social media companies in response to the Twitter abuse that Chelsea striker Tammy Abraham has received over the past 24 hours.

Arsenal has confirmed that the man featured in a video fighting off two attackers with knives in North London is defender Sead Kolašinac and that the man in the car is Mesut Özil.

Kolašinac showed no fear in this failed attack as the video shows him forcing the assailants around the vehicle. For a man who gets paid millions to use his feet, he looked very prepared to use his hands. But, of course, why risk his livelihood with a kick that could’ve probably shattered one of the motorists’ helmets.