In what can only be described as absolutely nuts, Zenit Saint Petersburg defeated Belarusian side Dinamo Minsk 8-1 to win 8-5 on aggregate in its Europa League qualifying match, constituting the biggest Europa League comeback in 33 years. Dinamo Minsk had won the first leg 4-0 at its home ground, Traktor Stadium.
Latest scores:
AS Trencin 4-0 FeyenoordDinamo Minsk 4-0 Zenit St Petersburg
Do not read on if you, like myself, are still coping with last week’s announcement that David Silva and Gerard Pique are calling it quits with the Spanish national team. International football, it seems, may soon be suffering another casualty, though perhaps we have a couple years to prepare for this one.
While England's Premier League may be the most popular, Spain’s LaLiga is the best soccer league in the world. So the league has decided to do what other sports’ best leagues have done: export the product overseas. With LaLiga North America, the U.S. or Canada could host a Spanish league match as soon as this season.
Following Cristiano Ronaldo’s move from Real Madrid to Juventus, interest in Italy’s Serie A has increased tenfold around the planet. But even before Ronaldo made the move, the division was experiencing something of a renaissance with clubs like Napoli garnering immense praise for its playing style while traditional powers Inter and Milan began targeting glory again. With ESPN now committed to broadcasting the league stateside, an Italian revolution is upon us.
As a neutral, I’m a big fan of this back and forth between Jurgen Klopp and Sergio Ramos. I hope it continues forever. After Klopp labeled Ramos “ruthless” and “brutal” a couple weeks ago during Liverpool’s preseason tour, Ramos duly responded by saying: “He will be wanting to explain not winning the final, but it’s not the first that he has lost. Some of us have been operating at a very high level for many years — I’m not sure he can say the same.”
While Barcelona will return to classic thin Blaugrana stripes on its home shirt this season, the club’s away jerseys and rumored third kits are much more bold.
The away is confirmed, and it’s “volt” (a sort of light green/yellow) with a bit of blue and red on the cuffs. However, it’s the third shirt that’s got tongues wagging across the planet.
At the tender age of 19, any sort of highlight involving Paris Saint-Germain and France forward Kylian Mbappe is technically still from his “youth.” This is especially true since he started playing for Monaco’s senior side at the age of 16 and dominated the 2016 UEFA European Under-19 Championship at the age of 17. Now he’s a World Cup winner at 19.
Remember Martin Ødegaard? We forgive you if you'd forgotten all about the guy. Here’s a quick refresher for you: Ødegaard was the youngest player ever to play in the Norwegian Tippeligaen at the ripe age of 15 years and 118 days. Not only that, but he also was the youngest player ever to play for the Norway national team at the age of 15 years and 253 days.
How fast is Leroy Sané? The 22-year-old Manchester City winger experienced a somewhat subdued first season in England, but he exploded into life last year after scoring 10 goals and adding 15 assists in 32 Premier League appearances. The native of Essen, Germany, was named the PFA Young Player of the Year for his contributions to City’s march to the title, but he was curiously omitted from manager Joachim Low’s World Cup squad (we all know how that turned out for die Mannschaft).
At the age of 32, David Silva has announced his retirement from international football after collecting 125 caps and scoring 35 goals for the Spanish national team. Silva was a member of the squads that won Euro 2008, the 2010 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2012. At Euro 2012, Silva started all six of Spain’s matches and scored the opening goal of the final against Italy.