Lukas Podolski has scored hundreds of goals over his 17-year career. He no longer plays at glamorous clubs like Bayern Munich, Arsenal or Inter Milan, but he’s still just 35 and still got a cannon of a left foot.
Podolski joined Antalyaspor in Turkey from Vissel Kobe in January and hasn’t exactly been a revelation. But on Saturday the man with 49 goals for Germany — third-most all time — struck again.
Harry Maguire is one lucky boy. And the VAR has some explaining to do.
Manchester United’s center back made a clear and obvious foul on Chelsea’s César Azpilicueta in the first half of their match on Saturday at Old Trafford. The referee missed it, so the video assistant referee should have chimed in to award a penalty to Chelsea.
Instead, no VAR intervened when the ball was played out of bounds moments later. No penalty was awarded.
Outside of the USWNT, no nation has the qualify of offensive firepower available to the French national team. And France just broke a record that not even Alex Morgan and the Americans can top.
Even without Amandine Henry, a surprise exclusion from the France squad during this international break, France obliterated North Macedonia 11-0 on Friday in Women’s Euro qualifying. Not only did the Les Bleues dominated straight from the opening whistle, they scored mere seconds after the first kick.
There are so many subtle, rarely magnified ways in which professional footballers are infinitely better than the rest of us.
There’s the level of physical fitness that comes with being a professional athlete, amounting to Herculean feats of stamina and mental wherewithal that allow for essentially the same level of play in the first minute as in the 90th, and then there’s the freakish ability to complete a task in one touch whereas it’d take the rest of us five.