On March 24, 2016, Johan Cruyff passed following a battle with lung cancer at the age of 68. As Gary Lineker said, football “lost a man who did more to make the beautiful game beautiful than anyone in history.” He revolutionized two of the game’s most storied clubs, Ajax and Barcelona (also the LA Aztecs), but his impact is still being felt around the globe.
The bidding war for center back Milan Škriniar has officially gone berserk.
While teams have been bidding on the defender for a few months now, his agent has come out with some numbers.
“Real Madrid and Barcelona both want (Škriniar); Manchester City offered €55 million but he’s worth €100 million,” Škriniar’s agent Mital Halis said.
You may recall back in January when Barcelona U-10 phenom Michal Zuk signed a brand ambassador contract with adidas. It was an unprecedented show of financial support for such a young player still years away from first-team experience, but his highlights speak for themselves.
As it turns out, the rest of Zuk’s Barcelona U-10 team is every bit as talented as he is.
Yesterday, Barcelona opened a ten-point gap at the top of LaLiga with only ten matches remaining, all but guaranteeing the club’s fourth league title in five years. The performance that earned the cushion was a 4-1 away victory over Real Betis at the Benito Villamarín, and all four Barca goals were of the highest order.
Barcelona looked to take advantage of Atletico Madrid’s defeat to Athletic Bilbao yesterday by defeating Real Betis and opening up a 10-point gap at the top of LaLiga, and the first half of the match at the Benito Villamarín couldn’t have gone better from a Blaugrana perspective.
In the 18th minute, Lionel Messi opened the scoring with an exquisite free kick that flew beyond Pau Lopez in goal. This was Messi’s 27th league goal in 26 games.
Atlético and Barcelona drew 60,739 to the Wanda Metropolitano in Madrid for a Primera División match Sunday, a world record attendance for a women’s match between two club sides. Atlético was looking to put one hand on the Spanish league title with a positive result, but Barcelona would record a 2-0 victory to cut the host’s lead at the top of the table to just three points with six matches remaining.
After a scoreless first leg that was defined by Luis Suarez not playing very well, the Uruguayan enjoyed a vital role in Barcelona’s 5-1 second-leg victory over Lyon at the Camp Nou on Wednesday. However, the man of the match was Lionel Messi, who scored two goals and added two assists to ease his side into the Champions League quarterfinals.
Lionel Messi turned one billion seconds old on Saturday. The Argentine maestro sometimes feels like he’s one billion years old with his sage, sanguine, muted reactions on the pitch.
Despite being the target of every opponent’s defensive tactics, regularly subjected to physical play, Messi rarely loses his cool. His only red card in his career came in his first ever appearance with Argentina.