It’s not been the best week for Neymar. On Monday, the Brazilian missed out on the 30-player shortlist for the 2019 Ballon d’Or award. On Tuesday, he missed PSG’s 5-0 beatdown of Club Brugge due to a hamstring injury he picked up on international duty.
There’s something about Ángel Di María that changes when Neymar isn’t in the lineup with him for PSG. For whatever reason, the Argentine seems to take his play to another level when he’s the lead creative force.
Di María started against Nice without names like Neymar, Edinson Cavani or Kylian Mbappé alongside him on Friday. Those superstars weren’t needed, because Di María provided two magnificent goals early on in PSG’s 4-1 win.
One of the fastest rising profiles in the game today is OGC Nice and Algeria right back Youcef Atal. The 23-year-old arrived at the French club from Belgian side KV Kortrijk in the summer of 2018 for a modest fee of $3.42 million, but he’s reportedly being closely tracked by Chelsea, Tottenham and PSG.
It’s easy to get cynical about the Brasil Global Tour sponsored by Chevrolet, which is simply adspeak for the series of globetrotting friendlies that the Seleção contests in between Copa Américas, World Cups and World Cup qualifying.
In the preposterously bloated football calendar, nobody likes a meaningless friendly. But what’s Brazil supposed to do during the international break with no qualifying stage for the 2020 Copa América and with 2022 World Cup qualifying matches not beginning until March of 2021?
The 39th season of Survivor premiered on Wednesday night — yes, Jeff Probst is still forcing people to eat bugs after nearly two decades. The original reality/survival gameshow can teach important lessons that can be useful in life and even in the soccer world. Chiefly: Trust no one.
Kasper Dolberg has learned this the hard way after his $75K watch was stolen, with a teammate at French club Nice having become the top suspect in the theft.
Tuttosport officially narrowed its Golden Boy (best young player under 21) shortlist to 40 candidates, and before the list gets any smaller I thought it’d be fun to rank the candidates who I believe will end up in the top 10.
Neymar returned to PSG for the first time this season on Saturday after a long injury layoff and nearly endless transfer drama. The Parisian fans jeered him relentlessly and viciously, angry he tried to leave. The response was an unbelievable Neymar bicycle kick in the 92nd minute to give PSG a 1-0 win over Strasbourg.
MLS youth academy coaching is about to get a serious revamp along with a fourth iteration of the visionary partnership between MLS and the French Football Federation (FFF).
Count Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo among the legion of Parisians happy Neymar did not bolt the French capital to return to Spain this summer. But she’s not content with Neymar sticking with Paris Saint-Germain — she wants the big-eared trophy.
Ahead of the 2019-20 season, French football instituted new laws calling for referees to stop matches if anti-gay messages come from the stands, a response to increased homophobia in Ligue 1 and 2. High-profile matches such as Nice-Marseille and PSG-Metz have already been halted for this reason.
In his ignorance, French Football Federation president Noël Le Graët has shown why the rule is so necessary.