It’s shocking how many times I have to write this about professional sports, but it’s worth repeating: Play to the damn whistle. Never has this been more important than in the era of the VAR.
Manchester United committed that cardinal sin of sports, the idiom preached from the earliest age of athletics, in a 1-1 draw to Arsenal on Monday at Old Trafford, costing the home side a much-needed win.
Manchester United is on the hunt for a new striker.
After getting rid of Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez to Inter Milan this summer, United has been sorely lacking in attacking talent. Even with the likes of Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial, United has been short on goals recently. Martial has been injured for a few weeks while Marcus Rashford has just been in poor form.
Arsenal travels to Old Trafford on Monday to take on a lackluster Manchester United.
The Gunners, coming off a convincing 5-0 win against Nottingham Forest in the Carabao Cup, will be looking to add some misery to an already woeful Premier League campaign to their historic rivals. Manchester United has been dreadful by its standards, winning just two games, drawing two and losing two in the Premier League.
West Ham painted an unflattering picture of Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s Manchester United on Sunday afternoon with a commanding 2-0 victory over the visitors at London Stadium.
Without the injured trio of Paul Pogba, Anthony Martial and Luke Shaw, Man United’s attack floundered and West Ham’s midfield trio of Declan Rice, Mark Noble and Felipe Anderson did a solid number on United’s ponderous pairing of Nemanja Matić, Scott McTominay and Juan Mata.
Bulgarian striker Dimitar Berbatov has officially announced his retirement at 38 years old with a video and written statement, which he posted on Instagram.
Berbatov was very candid in the statement, saying that he did try to find a team to play for last year, but it didn’t happen. He finished his soccer career at Indian league side Kerala Blasters last year and has been a pundit ever since.
With this week's Champions League matchups done and dusted, you might be tempted to think European football is finished until the weekend. Well think again! The Europa League kicks of today and there are a ton of matches worth getting excited about. Here are the 10 I'm most excited about, and my corresponding predictions for each match.
Basel vs. Krasnodar
There’s so much about Paul Scholes that we are yet to understand. We’ve been studying the specimen for over 25 years, but as soon as we think we’re close to a breakthrough with regards to how this terrestrial animal has eyes going every which way, we are mystified by some new behavior.
The midfield instigator was roaming around the confines of the Etihad Stadium today with 50,000 spectators training their inquiring eyes upon him, and he delivered this . . . this thing.
Manchester United legend Andy Cole has confirmed Man U fans’ worst fears by saying the team is “genuinely” still a few years away.
While this arguably is a common consensus of fans of every other team, we had to rip the Red Devil Band-Aid off at some point.
Portugal’s excellent 2019 continued yesterday with an impressive 4-2 away victory over Serbia in UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying. The future looks incredibly bright for the defending European champion with Bernardo Silva, Bruno Fernandes, Gonçalo Guedes, Nélson Semedo, João Félix and João Cancelo (all 25 or under) all playing their part.
But the main story, as always, was 34-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored what would prove to be the match-winner in the 80th minute. It was Ronaldo’s 159th international appearance and his 89th goal.
Perhaps beginning with AC Milan’s historic Centro Sportivo Milanello and continuing to this day in previously undreamt of places like Atlanta and Utah, training facilities for the world’s most prestigious clubs have grown in importance as the most ambitious of organizations attempt to align the best in first-team training, sports science and academy development with a physical representation of an overarching ideology.