The rise of Sergiño Dest has been meteoric. After all, it’s only been 459 days since he made his league debut with Ajax and 380 since he committed his international future to the USMNT.
But this is a 20-year-old who forced his way into the starting 11 of a title-winning Ajax side before convincing Barcelona to part with $25 million. And early returns in Catalonia have been good — Dest was arguably Barça’s best player in El Clásico.
It seems like we’ve been waiting forever for this moment, but it finally came Saturday. No, I don’t mean the U.S. presidential election was called; I mean the Alex Morgan Tottenham debut.
Alex Morgan came on as a sub in the 69th minute in Tottenham’s Women’s Super League match with Reading on Saturday. It was the American’s first appearance on the pitch in more than a year after she gave birth to her first child in May.
There have been few soccer partnerships like Dani Alves and Lionel Messi. The free-flowing Brazilian fullback built an intuitive relationship with the Argentine maestro; Alves set up more goals for Messi than anyone else during his time at Barcelona. So when Dani Alves speaks about Sergiño Dest’s role as fullback at Barcelona, he knows what he’s talking about.
Weston McKennie, the 22-year-old Texan, has a lot of egos to deal with while on loan at Juventus. Cristiano Ronaldo obviously looms large in any locker room, but you know folks like Álvaro Morata, Paulo Dybala, Adrien Rabiot, Aaron Ramsey and Juan Cuadrado want to see their share of the ball. Remarkably, McKennie aided two of the largest personalities on the squad without even touching the ball. And yes, we’re calling it a Weston McKennie assist, because America god damnit.
With everyone in the United States ready to piss themselves due to the election, soccer fans felt a brief wave of joy with the announcement of the USMNT’s 24-man roster for two upcoming friendlies. One name that casual USMNT fans won’t recognize immediately is Yunus Musah. Who is Yunus Musah and how important might he be in the future?
Chelsea manager Frank Lampard said Christian Pulisic's hamstring injury is not serious but the American winger will miss Wednesday's Champions League match at home to Stade Rennais.
Pulisic, who had returned in early October from a two-month injury layoff, pulled up his hamstring during the warm-up for the match at Burnley on Saturday, with Timo Werner replacing him on the left wing in Chelsea's 3-0 victory at Turf Moor.
Fulham chalked up their first Premier League win of the season and climbed out of the relegation zone after first half goals from Bobby Decordova-Reid and Ola Aina helped them to a 2-0 victory over West Bromwich Albion on Monday.
That’s a hellish Sunday afternoon for supporters of Everton Football Club.
On the women’s side, the 2020 FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium was lost after a dramatic 3-1 extra time defeat to Manchester City. City’s Sam Mewis opened the scoring with an unmarked header off a corner kick in the 40th minute.
Juventus forward Cristiano Ronaldo scored three minutes into his return following a COVID-19 infection and then added a penalty to help the Serie A champions to get a 4-1 win at Spezia on Sunday.
The 35-year-old, out of action for nearly three weeks after testing positive for the virus, came on in the 56th minute and almost immediately put Juventus 2-1 ahead. Adrien Rabiot added a third before Ronaldo scored with a Panenka-style penalty in the 76th minute to complete their win.
"SIIIIIIIUUUU"
VITORIA-GASTEIZ, Spain — Barcelona goalkeeper Neto made an embarrassing gaffe as his side were held to a 1-1 draw away to Alaves on Saturday, despite playing the final half an hour with an extra man.
Barca fell behind in the 31st minute after a moment of madness from Brazilian keeper Neto, who clumsily allowed a back pass from Gerard Pique to trickle through his legs towards goal, and Luis Rioja nipped in to nudge the ball into the empty net.