17-year-old Missouri native Josh Sargent made his Werder Bremen debut on Tuesday while appearing for the club’s U-23 team in a friendly versus Dynamo Dresden. Sargent officially joined the club on Jan. 1 and won’t be able to sign a professional contract until turning 18 on February 20, but the eagle has landed.
If you learn anything today, please let it be this: Kids are not good at anything. This recent video of 100 children taking on three Japanese internationals will serve as my indisputable evidence.
Hiroshi Kiyotake, Hotaru Yamaguchi and Yosuke Ideguchi faced off against 30 forwards, 30 midfielders, 30 defenders and 10 goalkeepers in a friendly match recently. While the youngsters were well drilled in positional discipline (they refused to be pulled from their defensive stations), their skills left a lot to be desired.
When FC Barcelona signed 12-year-old prospect Cristobal Munoz from a youth side affiliated with Malaga last March, the deal was heralded by Barcelona-based daily Sport as the capture of “the hottest young prospect in Spanish football.”
The dead of winter marks the offseason for most soccer players in America, but that doesn’t mean the time for setting goals and striving for improvement is at an end. Between the end of one season and the next preseason marks an important period for reflection, planning and taking the first steps towards a memorable new year.
Building on advice from some of the world’s top managers, we look at seven different areas you can focus on during the offseason to take yourself and your club to the next level.
Injuries are a part of sports. So it’s only fitting that as you train for soccer, you should also train to avoid injuries. Injury prevention for kids is particularly critical as over 1.5 million kids injure their knees and ankles every year. ACL injuries in kids especially are on the rise, with a 400% increase in the last decade.
Georghe Hagi had a knack of scoring from anywhere on the pitch. Like Steph Curry, give him a few feet and he could launch a shot from anywhere inside his own half — and usually score. Now the Romanian legend’s 19-year-old son is doing the same with Fiorentina, which beat Chievo Verona 3-2 in a youth match thanks to an unlikely Ianis Hagi goal.
Despite finally ending his La Liga goal drought against Malaga on Saturday, Cristiano Ronaldo is having a no-good, very bad season so far in Spain. Luckily, Cristiano Jr. is here to pick up the slack.
Ronaldo posted a video on Instagram of his son hitting a sweet free kick in a youth game. Gosh, I wonder where he learned to do that?
You could forgive Stefan Frei for suffering from a professional hangover following his heroics in the 2016 MLS Cup final. The 31-year-old native of Switzerland's legend is forever woven inside the fabric of the league following that save on Jozy Altidore in the second half of extra-time, one of seven saves for Frei in a performance that saw him named MLS Cup MVP.
If we’re being perfectly honest here, this all really boils down to the quality of the assist in the final passage of play. The clipped, first-time dink hits the runner in stride and leads to the goal, but we mustn’t play down how the runner managed to streak unmarked into the area in the first place. That was accomplished via a somersault.
It’s a perfectly executed somersault simply because the footballer turned gymnast didn’t break his own neck. I think that’s really the only standard that exists with regards to this particular acrobatic exercise.
Here at The18, I’m in charge of the children. I keep tabs on all the babies, I have baby skills — why can’t you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?!