As recently as January 2016, Real Madrid were a club in crises. Having been defeated 4-0 by Barcelona in late November, kicked out of the Copa del Rey in the round of 32 after fielding an ineligible player and dropping points to both Villarreal and Valencia in the space of a few weeks, manager Rafa Benitez was given his marching orders on January 3rd.
The alarm clock sounds — it’s your favorite tune, “Macarena” by Los del Rio. You get dressed and admire your floppy hair and manicured beard. As you drive to the stadium, the anger in your belly slowly grows stronger.
You take to the pitch and wait for the whistle, just about ready to unleash your rage. Your opponents become victims to your endless tackles, kicks, grabs and taunts.
Diving in soccer certainly predates the 1974 FIFA World Cup final, but on no other occasion has the ramifications of a flop been so clearly encapsulated and amplified.
The 1974 World Cup in West Germany served as a pageant for the Netherlands technique of Total Football, the tactical theory envisioning a side in which any outfield player can quickly take over the role of any other player on the pitch.
Burnley’s a beautiful little market town in Lancashire, England with a population of around 70,000. The UK Government awarded the town the title “Most Enterprising Area in the UK” back in 2013, so Christian Benteke’s initiative in announcing his move to ‘Burnleyl FC’ via Twitter should come as no surprise.
Gonzalo Higuain has already gone some way towards repaying the €90 million that Juventus forked out to lure the Argentine away from Italian rivals Napoli. Higuain entered in the 66th minute of Juve’s opening Serie A match against Fiorentina. With the score level at 1-1, Higuain made the difference with his third touch of the match.
Raul Jimenez has scored his first goal of the season for Benfica, banging in a penalty to equalize against Vitoria Setubal Sunday. The game finished 1-1.
Jimenez, a 25-year-old Mexico international, scored five goals in 28 appearances last season in the Premeira Liga, plus three goals in 10 appearances in the Champions League.
It took 39 minutes of competitive soccer for Bayer Leverkusen striker Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez to get his first goal of the season. Hernandez scored to but Leverkusen up 1-0 against SC Hauenstein in the DFB Pokal Sunday. The game finished 2-1 to Leverkusen.
Chicharito's 1st goal of the new season. Nicely done to poke it over the keeper. pic.twitter.com/qZiUOR8cAf
Things got a little out of hand during an English League One match between Oxford United and Peterborough United on Saturday. With neither side enjoying the finest of starts in England’s third tier, the awarding of a penalty in the third minute of second-half stoppage had major implications with the scores level at 1-1.
Remember that time Germany beat Brazil 7-1 in the World Cup semifinals? Yeah, that's history now. Weverton came up with a save in penalties and Neymar scored his penalty (in addition to a monster free-kick earlier in the game) and Brazil became Olympic champions.
We're not sure if anyone out there knew this, but Neymar is really good.
Look at that celebration. Cristiano is clearly Neymar's idol pic.twitter.com/vsnGaLiZdl
La Liga's season has officially started, which means Lionel Messi is back to obliterating everything and everyone with Barcelona.
Barcelona's first victims of the season were Real Betis. Barcelona were nice enough to give Betis a little hope before Messi did this to make it 2-1.