Outrageous

Cardiff City defeated Southampton 2-1 on Saturday, the club’s second straight victory after grabbing just five wins in its first 24 matches. The Bluebirds are playing inspired football following the tragic death of Emiliano Sala, the club’s record signing who died in a plane crash in January and whose body wasn’t found and identified until a couple days ago. 

Cardiff jumped up to 15th place with the back-to-back wins, a feel-good story coming out of devastating heartbreak. 

By an odd quirk in this universe in which we live, four of the best footballers on the planet — in particular, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar — were born on the same day of the year: February 5.

 Four #UCL heroes celebrate their birthdays today! 

 Cristiano Ronaldo (34)
 Carlos Tévez (35)
 Gheorghe Hagi (54)
 Neymar (27)

Everton hosted Wolverhampton in what could be described as a mid-table six-pointer if anyone cared about positioning in mid table (no one does). Wolves cruised to a 3-1 win as Raúl Jiménez scored his ninth goal of the season. Meanwhile the best player for the Toffees was an evasive Everton cat. 

Rúben Neves converted a seventh-minute penalty, Jiménez headed home just before halftime and Leander Dendoncker finished the match with a follow-up volley in the 66th minute as Wolves moved comfortably into seventh place, five points ahead of Everton. 

It’s not unusual for ball boys to become a part of a soccer match, as we’ve highlighted plenty of times before. Who can forget when Eden Hazard kicked an unflinching Swansea lad?

Burnley did not have a great day at the office on Saturday. The club traveled to the Etihad to play Manchester City in the FA Cup and was routinely routed 5-0. But it was nothing compared to what happened to the poor Man City corner flag.

To no one’s surprise, the Citizens ran rampant, spreading five goals across the 90 minutes and five different goal scorers. The pick of the bunch was Kevin de Bruyne’s blistering shot from about 20 yards out.

Manchester City are in control.

Manchester United has one of the largest fan bases in the world for any sports team. With that comes one of the largest anti-fan bases — fans who love nothing more than to see Man U lose. 

But those Red Devils haters are finding it harder and harder to hate on this team since Ole Gunnar Solskjær took over for Jose Mourinho in December. And we’re not just talking about the team’s unbeaten run since the Special One was shown the door.

It was around this time last year that we introduced Bruno Zuculini to you, our weary audience, as the maddest lad of them all. The Argentine spent the first half of the 2017-18 season at Hellas Verona, collecting three red cards and four yellows in just 15 starts. He was promptly sold to River Plate before he could build on his phenomenal record over the following months.