This month we celebrate the seven year anniversary of Neymar's debut in professional football for Santos FC, which happened when he was just 17. Since then Neymar has collected titles, individuals awards, and many other achievements the likes of which few could have imagined he would achieve. He is one of the kings of international football, and plays with players idolized all over the world.
Kristaps Grabovskis is good at soccer. Like, really good. So good he's being compared to Messi by adults who should really know better at this point (including, now, us).
We can't seem to help it though. Every time we see a 10-year-old in a Youtube video who can dribble a soccer ball withoug falling down we run to anoint him the next Messi. Or some other legendary player, but it's nearly always Messi.
Manchester United have signed the highly-rated American teenager Matthew Olosunde after he received international clearance to join up with the squad last week. Although the deal was finalized January 29, Manchester United did not announce it until Friday once the paperwork went through.
Hello darkness my old friend.
As an Arsenal fan, waking up at 4:00 a.m. on a Sunday for a sunrise hike with my roommate, only to run out of gas halfway to the trailhead, was a lot like getting home after said hike knowing that I had today’s Arsenal vs Manchester United game recorded, only to accidentally check my notifications and see two Marcus Rashford goals against Arsenal.
Raul Gudino, a 19-year-old Mexican goalkeeper, was handed his first start in the Portuguese Premeira Liga Friday in Medeira's 1-1 draw with Estoril.
Gudino comported himself well, from what we can tell from the numbers. There's always room for improvement, but this is a great start for a young player at a position where players don't traditionally peak until their late 20s/early 30s.
I haven’t played co-ed soccer since high school gym class. What I remember from it involves a lot of social and competitive awkwardness. I may or may not have been the kid that couldn’t figure out when it was “OK” to try hard in gym class and when you were an a**hole for doing so. I figured this out later in life, but clearly this Mr. Garruto got it from the get go. Which is incredibly ironic, because this Garruto guy got kicked out of a co-ed league.
Who knew such controversy could come from a UEFA Youth League Match? So, here's what happened. On Wednesday, several media outlets (including us) published footage of David Ruiz Pascual with what looked like one of the dives of the century in a game between Celtic and Valencia. It turns out that the young lad injured his cruciate ligament while running for the ball, and that's why he fell over so dramatically. Take a look at it here:
Today in soccer players should stick to soccer news: three youth players for German team HSV (Hannover 96, not Hamburger SV) have been suspended after botching a casino robbery asbout as badly as you can botch a casino robbery.
That's right, we said casino robbery.
It was all a disaster from the start. The would-be robbers probably thought they were going to be cool and badass like this:
So, you know how everyone was saying Manchester United needed a striker, and Van Gaal responded by selling Chicharito and Robin van Persie, loaning out Adnan Januzaj and James Wilson and refusing to replace any of them? Yeah, that was stupid. Anyways, it looks as if he may have done one thing right by recalling Will Keane from loan.
2015 is behind us and, even though El Tri shined throughout the past year, there was something missing in their matches: dominance. Even though El Tri once again reached the top of CONCACAF, many expected the team to do so in style and without hiccups. They had very few matches in 2015 in which they truly showed consistent quality. It was indeed a rollercoaster of a year for El Tri, with a dismal Copa America performance, a sluggish Gold Cup win and a nail-biter of a match against the Stars and Stripes to qualify for the Confederations Cup. El Tri saw it all in 2015.