Given the form of Jadon Sancho, Christian Pulisic had become something of a forgotten man at Borussia Dortmund while relegated to the role of impact sub over the last few months.
Weston McKennie can kind of do it all. He’s lined up at just about every position for Schalke, from center back to forward, but he’s best deployed as a box-to-box midfielder given his mobility and awareness.
He’s also a really good header of the ball.
While most players use their leaping and heading abilities to score (Cristiano Ronaldo) or defend (Virgil van Dijk), McKennie takes another approach. He’s becoming adept at earning assists with his noggin.
We’ve just hit March and while MLS has just started stateside, European football leagues will begin to wind down by early May. Naturally the European game will soon be dealing with promotion and relegation to and from the top leagues.
Most of these leagues have roughly 10 games to go and every game can be do or die for clubs making the leap up and clubs who are fighting to survive. Here are the teams most likely to be relegated from the highest tier and promoted from the second tiers of Europe.
When Claude Puel was fired by Leicester City over the weekend, there were no more French head coaches at a top-flight Big 5 league outside of France. It got us thinking, which country produces the best coaches by nationality?
Is it Italy, with its highly tactical league? Or England, the inventors of the sport? How about Germany, with the largest population in Europe? Spain’s gotta be up there with the deepest league in Europe, right? Or maybe France, which just won the World Cup?
Tyler Adams has started four matches for RB Leipzig following his January move, and the Bundesliga side has won all four of those games. However, even though he registered his first assist in Leipzig’s victory over Stuttgart last time out, the 20-year-old American was forced to take a spot on the bench for today’s game against Hoffenheim.
Did you know there’s a 33-year-old American playing goalkeeper in the 2. Bundesliga? I did not, but I’m starting to connect the dots. That man is Kenneth Kronholm, born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and he’s a certified mad lad.
Claudio Pizarro became the oldest Bundesliga goal scorer of all time on Saturday. He has an 18-year-old American to thank for it.
Pizarro, a 40-year-old Peruvian, has seen it all. He’s played for Bayern Munich and Chelsea and is in his fourth stint with Die Grün-Weißen. He’s even become a voice actor with a role in the German version of “Coco.”
Tyler Adams is one of those unfortunate souls to have been born on a holiday. He celebrated his 20th birthday on Thursday, Valentine’s Day, perhaps with his German-but-not-really-German girlfriend the Leipzig press is way too interested in.
Though he just turned 20, he’s quickly become an integral part of the Bundesliga’s fourth-placed team. On Saturday, he played the full 90 minutes in midfield for the fourth time since joining the club in January.
After Borussia Dortmund blew a three-goal lead to draw with Hoffenheim earlier in the day, Christian Pulisic was probably hoping to get some help from his USMNT teammate Weston McKennie vs Bayern Munich in the late Bundesliga match on Saturday.
The Schalke midfielder had one great moment that had Dortmund and Schalke fans both thinking the Royal Blues could slow down Bayern. But it wasn’t nearly enough as the home side dominated the rest of the match on the way to a 3-1 victory at the Allianz Arena in Munich.
Silly on the outside, serious on the inside.
That was the message Mainz wanted to put forth as the club prepared to host Bayer Leverkusen on Friday. The German club would be would be wearing a new Mainz carnival kit for a fifth straight year and wanted to make sure its fans knew the players would take the match seriously, even if the uniforms were a bit of a joke.