The new LaLiga season begins on Friday with defending champion Barcelona heading north to play Athletic Bilbao at the San Mamés. Last year, Barça cantered to the title by an 11-point margin over second-place Atlético while Real Madrid finished 19 points back. However, the La Liga preview 2019/20 sees the challengers refreshed and reloaded with the likes of Eden Hazard and João Félix ready to come at the king.
Believe it or not, the International Champions Cup is still going on.
Juventus and Atlético Madrid met at Friends Arena in Stockholm, Sweden, for the final ICC match on Saturday, though most fans have long since turned their attention to actual matches, like Liverpool and Manchester City routing overmatched Premier League foes.
The 2019 MLS All-Star Game averaged only 182,000 viewers for its English-language coverage on FS1, the smallest audience for the game on any network over the last decade and the smallest English-language TV audience in the 24-year history of the event. That number is down 60% from 2018 (452K on ESPN) and 57% from 2017 (420K on FS1).
Atlético Madrid won the match 3-0 in front of a sell-out crowd of 25,527 at Exploria Stadium.
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.
In recent years, Major League Soccer has gone up against numerous big-name European clubs in a friendly to help showcase both the talent in MLS as well as international talent of clubs vying for more market presence in the U.S. The MLS All-Star Skills Challenge is part of that ploy. So, here’s some helpful information to know before you watch it.
We all know that preseason results mean less than a fortune cookie, but we also know that in the slumbering offseason, clicks must still be generated.
For Mexican midfielder Héctor Herrera, finalizing a transfer this summer was at the forefront of his mind. That announcement was finally reported during the Gold Cup, and it was a big reason why Herrera ignored Tata Martino’s call-up and didn’t make the trip to the United States for the tournament.
Despite having not scored more than 10 league goals in a season since 2014-15 (his first with Real Madrid), Colombian attacker James Rodriguez remains one of the game’s most recognizable and beloved footballers. The 28-year-old’s playmaking ability is world class (he dropped 13 assists during his first season on loan at Bayern Munich), and although he’s been deemed surplus to requirements by Zinedine Zidane, the likes of Atlético and Napoli are desperate to sign the 2014 World Cup Golden Boot winner.
The Premier League isn’t the only competition with deep pockets. La Liga has smashed its transfer spending record just two weeks into the summer transfer window, having already spent $1.13 billion. The previous record of $1 billion was set in 2018, with high potential players such as Thomas Lemar, Malcolm and Vinicius Junior all being sold for over 40 million to Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, and Real Madrid, respectively.
Barcelona activated Atlético Madrid’s release clause for Antoine Griezmann worth $135 million (€120 million) and signed him to a five-year contract with a release clause of $900 million, announcing the signing on Friday. The Griezmann transfer fee is the fourth-highest of all time behind only Neymar, Kylian Mbappé and João Felix, but Atlético thinks it should be higher.