Martin Ødegaard has flown under the radar over the past few seasons. The Norwegian midfielder was the talk of the town in 2014 after being signed by Real Madrid at just 16 years old but has since been loaned out to two different teams in the Eredivisie and deemed irrelevant to many Madrid fans, who see Dani Ceballos, Vinícius Jr and Rodrygo as the future of the club.
According to the Independent, the first major signing for David Beckham’s Inter Miami will be Manchester City midfield maestro David Silva.
It’s been an eventful week for building from the back. It began with Mexico’s beatdown of Gregg Berhalter’s longterm vision for the USMNT in East Rutherford, a result which led to a cry for abandoning the philosophy.
Things reached a crescendo yesterday with Arsenal — the masterful architects of their own downfall in recent times. Sokratis Papastathopoulos showed exactly why 2-0 is the most dangerous lead in football by passing the ball straight to Gerard Deulofeu in his own area.
Paco Alcácer has fit in quite nicely at Borussia Dortmund since leaving Barcelona. The Spanish striker has scored 27 goals in 37 games and found his way back to the Spanish national team with his performances.
But Alcácer has brought more than just goals to Dortmund (though he’s brought plenty of those); he’s brought an unselfish mentality for a striker that fits perfectly into BVB coach Lucien Favre’s style of play.
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.
The evidence for Belgium and Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne being the finest passer of the ball on the planet is mounting. He’s opened his Premier League campaign with an assist in four straight matches — including two against Tottenham — while becoming the quickest player in EPL history to reach the milestone of 50 career dimes; it took him 18 fewer appearances than Mesut Özil.
Today, the Belgian recorded a hat trick of assists against Scotland in Euro 2020 qualifying, and it only took the 28-year-old 32 minutes to accomplish the feat in Glasgow.
The UN should look into Memphis Depay for crimes against humanity because he just ended Angers center back Mateo Pavlovic on Friday.
Lyon cruised to a 6-0 win with Depay and Moussa Dembélé scoring two apiece, but it was the Depay assist vs Angers that was the highlight of the match (unless you’re the Pavlovic family, which is now forced to deal with life without Mateo).
After being forced to start his Chelsea career on the bench during last Sunday’s humiliating 4-0 defeat to Manchester United in the Premier League, Christian Pulisic made his first-ever competitive start for the Blues in Wedne
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.
I’ll admit that my own excitement over last night’s MLS All-Star Skills Challenge led to disappointment for the better part of an hour. The Shooting Challenge round — kicks from the spot aimed at targets in goal — was turgid and tedious as all hell, and then I sank even lower after the Touch and Volley round, which I’d likened beforehand — in my own head — to be soccer’s equivalent of the NBA’s Slam Dunk Contest.