It turns out spending millions of dollars on manager Andre Villas-Boas and immediate want-aways Carlos Tevez and Jackson Martinez amounts to little more than burning money for the Chinese Super League. According to a recent audit by accounting firm PwC and as reported by Goal, the CSL’s clubs are currently in a combined debt of over $600 million.
Newcastle United supporters have long referred to Sunderland’s Stadium of Light as the Stadium of Shite *shoots finger guns*, but that genius-level pun was taken to a seemingly literal level on Saturday after 17-year-old season ticket holder Callum Mawson was accused of shitting in the stands during his club’s 3-1 defeat to Reading.
Sepp Blatter, the disgraced former FIFA president who once suggested female players wear tighter shorts to promote “a more female aesthetic” in the women’s game, has dismissed Hope Solo’s claims of sexual assault at the 2013 Ballon d’Or award ceremony in Zurich, Switzerland.
A little over a year ago, Renato Sanches was one of the hottest young commodities in European football. In 2016 he won the Portuguese Primeira Liga with Benfica and helped Portugal win the European Championship. On Wednesday, a Renato Sanches pass was so bad it nearly brought his coach to tears.
Wednesday’s Scottish Premiership match between second-place Aberdeen and third-place Rangers quickly descended into stereotypes about Scottish football after Aberdeen’s Greg Tansey just clattered Rangers midfielder Jason Holt in the box.
Tansey unloaded his flailing, spinning whiff with only seven minutes gone and was then shamefully (or mercifully) hooked in the 43rd minute. With the mighty Bhoys of Celtic dropping points against Motherwell, this could’ve been an excellent opportunity for Aberdeen to put some pressure on the pacesetters. Instead, this happened.
FC Magdeburg scored a 2-1 derby win over Hallescher on Saturday in Germany’s 3. Liga in front of 22,481 fans. The impressive crowd — more than many MLS matches despite being third tier — saw an absurd Christian Beck back-heel goal the likes of which we’ve never seen before.
A 29-year-old striker who has spent his career in the lower divisions of Germany, Beck made the most out of a mistimed jumped to score the opener for Magdeburg, somehow.
A macaque monkey (fun fact: the most widespread primate genus aside from humans) delivered the match ball in a Japanese J-League match over the weekend while threaded out in full Cerezo Osaka kit. The monkey attempted a brief session of free styling before picking up the football and delivering it to the referee.
It’s not as riveting as War for the Planet of the Apes, but you do get the feeling that an evolved chimpanzee like Caesar would absolutely hate something like this.
So remember how in 2016 Nike rolled out all their international kits with the Vapor template? You might not because it was a complete non-event. The USA looked like Portugal looked like England looked like PSG. The kits were “modern” in design, which is PR speak for indistinguishable, homogeneous, money-grubbing attire.
Well, here comes the 2018 World Cup, the perfect time to check all those boxes again. But instead of the Vapor template, we now get the Aeroswift template (the collar is different!). Just take my $120 now.
Here’s Portugal…