Barcelona

You can take Cristiano Ronaldo out of LaLiga, but you can’t take out the brilliant symmetry that’s conjoined the fortunes of Ronaldo and Lionel Messi since the day they were born. Days after Ronaldo saw red in the UCL, Messi’s Barcelona will have felt hard done by a red issued to defender Clement Lenglet — this one coming after the referee had gone to the monitor on the advice of the VAR (something still missing from the UCL).

It’s the headline you did not expect today: Patrice Evra once defecated in Gerard Pique’s shoes at Manchester United. The reason for it, however, is totally understandable. 

According to Spanish daily sports paper Diario AS, Evra once waited months for a pair of boots from Nike that had the names of his kids and other details on them. When Evra finally received them, Pique went to the showers, made a small bonfire and burned them. Nice one, Pique.

Lionel Messi led the charge in Barcelona’s flying start the UEFA Champions League with a vintage display as Barça cruised to victory over Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven on Tuesday.

PSV became the 30th team to be pierced by Messi’s goal-scoring sword in Europe. He now has a record eight hat tricks in the UCL to his name, pulling him one ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo. Not only did the 31-year-old bag a few goals, but he was constantly working to find space, dictating the tempo and setting up his teammates.

Hirving Lozano earned a lot of praise for his defensive efforts during the World Cup with Mexico. Much of it was deserved as his tracking back was nearly as important as his goal against Germany. But on this Ousmane Dembele goal vs PSV Eindhoven on Tuesday, Lozano was left grasping at air.