Any thoughts Wayne Rooney had of a happy return to Manchester were ritually sacrificed by being set on fire and danced around by his former teammates.
To wit:
Antonio Valencia, who spent eight seasons as Rooney's teammate in red, welcomed his former captain back by thundering a volley past Jordan Pickford in the fourth minute.
In the space of a week, Manchester City has defeated Liverpool, Dutch champions Feyenoord and now Watford by a combined scoreline of 15-0. In those three matches, Argentinian striker Sergio Aguero has provided five goals and two assists, including a hat trick and an assist in Saturday’s 6-0 hammering of Watford at Vicarage Road.
Barcelona continue to set the pace at the top of La Liga following a spirited, come from behind victory at Getafe on Saturday. A wonder goal from Gaku Shibasaki gave Azulones a shock lead, but second half strikes from Denis Suarez and Paulinho maintained Barcelona’s perfect start to the season after four matches.
Grumblings of an early crisis on Tyneside appear to have been hugely premature on the back of another Newcastle United victory on Saturday, their third straight in the Premier League. With a 2-1 win against Stoke City, Newcastle climbed into the Champions League places and confirmed their finest start to life in England’s top division in six years.
True beat downs are rare in professional soccer, usually confined to mismatched tournament qualifiers and silly international friendlies. It's rare to see a beat down in a league match because in most leagues the top and bottom clubs are close enough to each other in terms of talent that the minnows can keep the outcome somewhat respectable.
Major League Soccer is a league that thrives on parity. The convoluted financial regulations keep all the teams spending roughly similar amounts and therefore with roughly similar talent levels.
Everyone knows the Champions League song, but not many folks know that it has lyrics and verses.
These are the lyrics, which I am not making up:
They are the best teams
They are the best teams
The main event
There’s an immediate hot take available here that I just can’t commit myself to: the departure of Neymar from Barcelona has had an uplifting effect on 33-year-old midfielder Andres Iniesta, and El Ilusionista is about to enjoy the consummate season because of a mixture of peak footballing intelligence and a proverbial unchaining on the left-hand side of Barca’s midfield.
Juventus arrived at the 2016-17 Champions League Final having surrendered only three goals in 12 matches. Thanks in large part to Lionel Messi, that total was matched in the 2017-18 edition of the competition after only one match, or 69 minutes to be precise.
Messi scored a fantastic brace and Ivan Rakitic added one of his own as Barcelona throttled an under-strength Juventus 3-0 at the Camp Nou to begin Champions League group play.
“What does a soccer captain do?” you typed into the search engine named Google. Here’s your answer in the form of 23-year-old Newcastle United center back Jamaal Lascelles. The Englishman skippered Newcastle’s return to the Premier League, and now he’s earned the Magpies a vital victory over Swansea City with a heartfelt block and buccaneering header.
Paris Saint-Germain almost broke the internet on Friday by announcing a starting XI against Metz that took all of the world’s money to assemble, including Neymar ($263M), Kylian Mbappe ($220M), Edinson Cavani ($77M) and Julian Draxler ($48M). Metz, by comparison, turned to Newcastle United flop Emmanuel Riviere.