Making her 110th appearance for Australia, captain Sam Kerr scored her 58th and 59th goals for the Matildas on Tuesday in a 3-1 friendly victory over New Zealand in front of over 13,000 in Canberra.
Australia raced to a three-goal advantage after 32 minutes with Kerr registering a brace. The first, in the 15th minute, was a towering header off Steph Catley's corner kick.
After starting Thursday's Europa League draw against Eintracht Frankfurt, Xavi used a match against 19th-place Levante to give 19-year-old Pedri and 17-year-old Gavi a rest. That plan lasted less than an hour at the Ciutat de València after Levante took a 52nd-minute lead from the spot through José Morales.
Incredibly, Levante could've gone 2-0 up in the 56th when the home side was awarded another penalty, but Marc-André ter Stegen saved Roger Martí's effort and Xavi immediately replaced Frenkie de Jong with Gavi and Nico González with Pedri.
Jordy Alcívar scored on a corner kick in the 11th minute and Charlotte FC held off late bids from Atlanta United for a 1-0 victory Sunday afternoon in Charlotte, N.C.
Kristijan Kahlina recorded six saves in the shutout as Charlotte avenged a 2-1 loss last month in Atlanta.
Charlotte (3-4-0, 9 points) got a boost from the early goal and sustained that momentum for long stretches. Atlanta (3-2-1, 10 points) seemed unable to overcome lineup changes necessitated by a recent rash of injuries.
The two best football teams on the planet exchanged cross-field rakers, 70-yard goalkeeper pings, marauding fullbacks, suffocating periods of pressure and jaw-dropping displays of skill on Sunday in a potential Premier League title decider that fittingly ended 2-2 between Manchester City and Liverpool at the Etihad.
Who's ready to watch them do it all again next Saturday at Wembley in the FA Cup semifinals?
An olimpico goal — one scored directly from a corner kick — is always a sight to behold. Damián “Kitu” Díaz of Ecuador’s Barcelona SC scored one of the most unique olimpicos ever seen on Thursday in the Copa Sudamericana when he caught the Montevideo Wanderers’ goalkeeper out of his goal during the corner kick.
Díaz spotted the goalkeeper standing six yards away from his goal and had the audacity to curl the ball into the goal while the goalkeeper wasn’t looking. Brilliant.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, this doesn’t work. No matter how many times you try it in practice, no matter how perfect your technique, the 20-yard-first-time-shot-off-a-corner-kick routine almost never comes off. But when it does, it’s the stuff of dreams, and such was the case with a stunning Dimitri Payet volley against PAOK on Thursday.
Jordan Morris set up one first-half goal and scored another, helping the Seattle Sounders beat visiting New York City FC 3-1 on Friday in the first leg of a CONCACAF Champions League semifinal series.
The second leg of the total-goal series is scheduled for April 13 in Harrison, N.J.
Morris' assist produced the opening goal by Albert Rusnák in the 16th minute.
Another look at Rusnák's goal pic.twitter.com/uU6LaR85nk
Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana started this week, giving us the healthy extra dose of soccer we all need. Tuesday night, there were 11 games across both competitions, with fabulous stories in each of them, like the fantastic 2-0 victory of Bolivian club Always Ready over Corinthians.
My favorite moment, though? The magnificent goal that allowed Banfield to beat Santos in Copa Sudamericana, a sweet volley from 21-year-old Agustín Urzi.
Despite quiet performances from Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah that resulted in both getting hooked on the hour, Liverpool relied on the pass mastery of fullbacks Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson to defeat Benfica 3-1 in Lisbon on Tuesday while former Porto winger Luis Díaz returned to haunt his old rival with a goal and an assist.
The moment of the match was Liverpool's second in the 34th minute, which provided the Reds a deserved 2-0 halftime advantage.
BARCELONA - Barcelona's teenage sensation Pedri scored a magnificent goal in the second half to secure a 1-0 win over fading Sevilla on Sunday as they climbed above their opponents into second spot in LaLiga after extending their winning streak to five games.
The 19-year-old Pedri created and scored the winner in a similar style to the trademark goals Lionel Messi scored for Barcelona before leaving to join Paris St-Germain last year.