It’s been a year since Lionel Messi delivered a rare but powerful speech before Barcelona’s Joan Gamper Trophy match against Boca Juniors. It was during that address to the Camp Nou crowd that he promised a return of the Champions League trophy to Catalonia, but that promise was later eviscerated by Liverpool at Anfield. Messi’s pledge was then widely mocked.
With the likes of Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Tyler Adams reshaping the way we view the USMNT midfield, an overhaul of the striker position will eventually follow suit. The Gold Cup was more of the same with Jozy Altidore and Gyasi Zardes leading the line, but it’s a trio of 19-year-olds in Europe that now have an opportunity to stake their claim if they should first make the breakthrough at club level.
A crowd of 37,040 was on hand at the Rose Bowl in Southern California to watch the USWNT kick off its Victory Tour with a 3-0 win over the Republic of Ireland on Saturday night. First half goals from Tobin Heath, Lindsey Horan and Carli Lloyd settled things by the 41st minute, and 17 different World Cup-winners made an appearance on the night, although star attractions Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe both missed the match while recovering from minor injuries.
After making six Bundesliga appearances for Bayern Munich last season following his January move from the Vancouver Whitecaps, much more is expected from 18-year-old Canadian phenom Alphonso Davies during his first full season in Bavaria. Although Davies only totaled 74 minutes of action with the first team last year, he was the Bundesliga’s youngest goalscorer throughout the 2018-19 campaign (as well as Bayern’s youngest goalscorer in 20 years) after opening his account against Mainz back on March 17.
USMNT and Chelsea winger Christian Pulisic put on a master class in the English side's 5-3 friendly win against RB Salzburg on Wednesday, picking up two goals and winning a penalty, which Ross Barkley scored. All of that was within the first thirty minutes of play.
Both of Pulisic's goals were perfectly timed runs behind the backline and smart finishes.
Newly promoted Premier League side Aston Villa faced off with Charlton Athletic in a summer friendly today, but some players are obviously showing maximum effort.
Villa’s John McGinn went full-power super saiyan while scoring two goals and providing an assist.
McGinn first got on the board in the 57th minute with a great strike, deflecting off the Charlton keeper’s foot from about 22 yards out for the goal.
After making his Chelsea debut as a 65th-minute substitute against Kawasaki Frontale on Friday, Christian Pulisic was handed his first-ever Chelsea start Tuesday as the Blues defeated Barcelona 2-1 in Saitama, Japan.
It was the sort of tackle in which the final verdict would be better suited to a courtroom; a straight red card certainly doesn’t seem like enough justice for an act of violence perpetrated with the sole intention of seriously injuring another player.
During yesterday’s “friendly” between Sevilla and Liverpool at Fenway Park in Boston, Sevilla’s Joris Gnagnon was handed his marching orders in the 76th minute for this assault on 18-year-old Liverpool winger Yasser Larouci.
Well, what do we do now? Instead of, as the old saying goes, saving some for the real games, Harry Kane went and used up all the insane, last-second, match-winning goals from the halfway line allotted to us for the 2019-20 season during an International Champions Cup match in Singapore today.
Tottenham defeated Juventus 3-2 at the National Stadium thanks to Kane’s hammer drop in the 93rd minute, leaving Wojciech Szczesny buried in the net and giving Matthijs de Ligt an excellent memory on his debut for the Old Lady.
Well, that wasn’t how the Christian Pulisic Chelsea debut was supposed to go.
Pulisic made his long-awaited debut with the Blues on Friday in Yokohama, Japan, coming on in the 65th minute against Kawasaki Frontale of the J-League. He then proceeded to pick up his first loss as a member of Chelsea, as Leandro Damião scored the lone goal in a 1-0 victory for the Japanese club.