Today marks the 36th birthday of Trivela King Ricardo Quaresma. Am I using the date as an excuse to watch Quaresma highlights before subsequently sharing them with you? Absolutely.
I believe that no player represents the gulf between professional footballers and amateurs better than the Portuguese wizard.
Lionel Messi made his first start of the season against Villarreal on Tuesday and normalcy was restored to Barcelona for 15 minutes. Barça raced to a 2-0 lead over that period, but then Messi went down and the Camp Nou went quiet.
It certainly didn’t appear to be a recurrence of the calf injury that’s plagued him so far, and he carried on through the remainder of the first half — just long enough to see Villarreal pull one back through Santi Cazorla.
It is a well-known fact goalkeepers are a breed of their own. They put themselves in ridiculous situations and are forced to make incredible saves or be the laughing stock of the world.
Mahmoud Gad, goalkeeper for ENPPI SC in the Egyptian Premier League, found himself in one of those situations.
After coming out 30 yards to make a header, he had to sprint back to tip a chip over the crossbar.
On Sunday, the Czech First League had one of its biggest games of the season: the Prague derby between rivals Sparta Prague and Slavia Prague. The match went down at Letná Stadium, home of Sparta, but the visitors — and current league-leaders — Slavia emerged with a 3-0 win.
After Tomáš Souček had given Slavia the lead with a 19th-minute penalty, the game’s pivotal moment arrived in the 55th minute. With Slavia pushing hard to increase its lead, the two-goal cushion finally arrived in bizarre fashion.
Maybe Jürgen Klopp saw something on film, but I doubt it. I think Liverpool simply exploited the almighty power of the backheel on a whimsy, as is befitting of the European champions. Klopp’s prematch team talk probably went something like this (sung to the tune of Men at Work):
We can backheel if we want to, we can leave England behind
Cause Man United don’t backheel and Chelsea don’t backheel
And they’re no friends of mine
West Ham painted an unflattering picture of Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s Manchester United on Sunday afternoon with a commanding 2-0 victory over the visitors at London Stadium.
Without the injured trio of Paul Pogba, Anthony Martial and Luke Shaw, Man United’s attack floundered and West Ham’s midfield trio of Declan Rice, Mark Noble and Felipe Anderson did a solid number on United’s ponderous pairing of Nemanja Matić, Scott McTominay and Juan Mata.
Last night in Porto Alegre, Athletico Paranaense captured the 2019 Copa do Brasil with a 3-1 aggregate victory over Paolo Guerrero’s Internacional. After winning the first leg 1-0 in Curitiba, Athletico-PR captured its first-ever Copa by seeing things through at Inter’s home stadium.
Josef Martinez is joining (and exceeding) elite company. He’s surpassed Gabriel Batistuta, Jamie Vardy and Robert Lewandowski and is now chasing Lionel Messi for one of the most impressive goal records in the world.
And he’s doing it by embarrassing defenders in Major League Soccer.
An excellent Ángel Di María brace spearheaded PSG to a 3-0 victory over Real Madrid on Wednesday night, giving belief to Parisians that this is finally their year. On the other side of things, Zinedine Zidane’s greatest nightmare came to fruition as he was forced to watch James Rodríguez and Gareth Bale attempt to orchestrate an attack that finished with zero shots on goal.
Liverpool’s defense of its Champions League crown is off to a shaky start following a 2-0 defeat to Napoli at the Stadio San Paolo in Italy on Tuesday. Liverpool supporters will disagree with the game-changing penalty that Felix Brych awarded Napoli in the 82nd minute, but it certainly wasn’t a vintage performance from the Reds.