Things are not well in Bilbao. Athletic, one of three clubs to have never been relegated from Spain’s top division (the others being Real Madrid and Barcelona), are mired in the drop zone of LaLiga with only 16 points from 17 matches. However, a moment of brilliant respite was briefly offered by 37-year-old striker Aritz Aduriz yesterday when he notched this audacious penalty against Real Valladolid.
Let’s be honest, divers ruin a lot of what’s great about soccer. Flops slow the game down, they win undeserved free kicks and generally just create more annoyance than enjoyment.
But sometimes, the diver’s acting is so unbelievably poor that the dive itself becomes a work of art. Usually, it’s some of the best players in the world that are doing the diving, which seems counterintuitive.
How many goals has Messi scored? It’s hard to answer, because right this very instant, he dropped Jérôme Boateng and chipped Manuel Neuer. In the time it took you to read that sentence, he just scored a hat-trick against Levante. Lionel Messi has scored 664 goals in his career for club and country, so yes, I’m slightly exaggerating, but only slightly.
The genius of Lionel Messi propelled Barcelona to a 5-0 victory over Levante on Sunday evening in Valencia — the Argentine was involved in all five goals with a hat-trick and two assists. Luis Suarez also had a goal and was heavily involved in setting up two of Messi’s. The 31-year-olds are alright.
The first goal arrived in the 35th minute after Messi danced across the top of the box. With defenders circling and closing around him, Messi pulled off an impossible reverse ball which Suarez converted with sublime control.
Atlético Madrid and France forward Antoine Griezmann has never shied away from telling us his interests. We know that the 27-year-old loves Drake, the NBA, Fornite, Uruguay and hates being overlooked for the Ballon d’Or.
Ousmane Dembélé is a hero of our time, “a man proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on his brow, and misery in his heart,” and capable of exhibiting both sensitivity and distrust in equal measure — look no further than former Atlético striker Kiko describing him as “the most contradictory player I’ve seen” as proof of his status as the melancholic romantic hero of the 21st century. But, to keep the Lermontov reference going, does an unusual beginning necessitate an unusual end?