Spain

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.  

The Best FIFA Football Awards 2019 went down in Milan today, and you can rest assured that The18 tried its best to watch on YouTube, but good lord, this stuff is mostly unwatchable. It's remarkably drawn out, full of self-aggrandizing nonsense from FIFA and the forced banter between hosts Ilaria D'Amico, Ruud Gullit and the guests makes you search for the mute button while your skin crawls.

But other than that it's pretty good! 

Let’s go to the green carpet for some select photos before the ceremony. Here’s Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe looking fly. 

Javier Hernandez has opened his account with new club Sevilla. Back with a LaLiga club for the first time since his loan spell with Real Madrid, the first Chicharito Sevilla goal was stunning to all involved.

According to the Independent, the first major signing for David Beckham’s Inter Miami will be Manchester City midfield maestro David Silva.

With this week's Champions League matchups done and dusted, you might be tempted to think European football is finished until the weekend. Well think again! The Europa League kicks of today and there are a ton of matches worth getting excited about. Here are the 10 I'm most excited about, and my corresponding predictions for each match.

Europa League Predictions 2019-20

Basel vs. Krasnodar

A lot of the pregame hype for Juventus vs. Atlético Madrid surrounded the matchup between Portugal’s past-and-current king, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Portugal’s future king, João Félix.

But the match was decided by the matchup between Mexico’s Héctor Herrera and former Arsenal man Aaron Ramsey, two second-half substitutes.

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.  

Despite his age, Ansu Fati doesn’t need any time to adjust to the highest level.

A 16-year-old forward, Fati became Barcelona’s youngest-ever goal scorer a couple weeks ago. He received his first start at home against Valencia on Saturday and took no time proving he belongs on one of the best teams in the world.

Fati scored in the second minute and added an assist five minutes later in a mindboggling opening to his first career start.

In time, the coaching tree that expands out from Pep Guardiola is going to be massive. Some will fail (like if Mikel Arteta had taken the job at Newcastle), but the Spanish tactician’s otherworldly training methods will almost certainly be absorbed and even expanded upon by some future coaching Übermensch that worked under Guardiola for a long period.

It’s been a while since Lionel Messi’s last in-depth interview with a major news outlet, but one has just landed today from Barcelona-based daily SPORT.