No one likes a flopper — it’s one of the few things on which all football fans can agree.
You might begrudgingly appreciate when a flopper earns your team a penalty kick or understand that the nature of the high-stakes game encourages players to do whatever it takes to gain an advantage, but no one actually likes a flopper.
So when we recently discovered something called the Floppotron, we were intrigued.
We take you to Argentina’s Torneo Federal A (the third division) for a match between — according to the crests we see here — C.D.J.U. and C.A.yS.D.deB. Perhaps you know them better by their full names: Club Deportivo Juventud Unida and Club Atlético y Social Defensores de Belgrano. No?
Football is a tribal sport. It’s us against them, good vs. evil, blue versus a more nefarious shade of blue. Soccer fans invest so much of their lives into their respective clubs that losses become marks against their character, burdens upon their very existence.
Before he retired a month ago, Rafael van der Vaart's career took him to some of the greatest clubs in the world, where he played with some of the legends of the game. He started in Ajax and went on to play with Hamburg, Real Madrid, Tottenham and Betis while also appearing more than 100 times for the Dutch national team.
As much as we all love soccer here at The18 and around the world, we have to admit that there are a few things more important than the beautiful game. First comes survival: We need food and water, plus a place to live. After that comes sex, followed by our social desires such as parenting and friendship. Only then do we really get to soccer.
You can't play soccer when you're dead ... or in Spain.
In a story that seems right out of a James Joyce novel, Dublin-based amateur club team Ballybrack FC, which plays in the Leinster Senior League, was forced to apologize recently after a match against Arklow Town was postponed because of the death of one of Ballybrack's players, Fernando Nuno La-Fuente. Apparently, club officials had informed the league that La-Fuente had died in a traffic accident on Nov. 22.
There’s a lot of things that've felt not quite right about Qatar hosting the 2022 World Cup. The feelings of uneasiness began many years ago when accusations of corruption and money laundering ran rampant upon the Arab country being awarded the tournament in 2010.
Since being instilled as manager of Ascenso MX side Dorados de Sinaloa back in September, Diego Maradona has gone on to record his finest achievement in professional coaching — even greater than when Argentina secured 2010 World Cup qualification on the final matchday and Maradona celebrated by telling reporters to “suck it and keep on sucking it” — by leading the second division side to the Apertura final.
Anyone who follows The18 knows Patrice Evra is a must-follow on Instagram. But this Patrice Evra Thanksgiving post takes things to a new level, for better or worse.