BERLIN — Borussia Dortmund's Erling Haaland scored twice and teenager Giovanni Reyna added another goal as they cruised past Borussia Moenchengladbach 3-0 in their season opener on Saturday.
The 20-year-old Haaland scored a 54th minute penalty, awarded for a foul on Reyna, and bagged another with a sensationally quick counter-attack and a Jadon Sancho assist as Dortmund utilised their fearsome youthful attacking weapons.
Gio Reyna, son of former USMNT captain Claudio Reyna, has opened his account in the Bundesliga.
Bayern Munich is the best team in the world. The German giants proved that by winning the Champions League in August on the back of eight straight Bundesliga titles. But based on the way Bayern opened its 2020-21 campaign, including a stunning Robert Lewandowski rabona assist, Die Roten might be even better this season.
The 2020-21 Bundesliga season started on Friday. Starting this season, ESPN has the U.S. TV rights to the league. For this reason, the Worldwide Leader is actually paying attention to the German league, which is a nice change of pace given FOX’s disappointing coverage of the Bundesliga in recent years.
ESPN's been mostly ignoring the Bundesliga for years, but now that it's on ESPN+ suddenly it's the world's funnest league to watch! pic.twitter.com/dFpMhhmNpD
Hamburg defender Toni Leistner went full Eric Dier and then some with a Dynamo Dresden fan after his team was knocked out in the first round of the DFB-Pokal on Monday. Dresden was relegated from the 2. Bundesliga last season but got revenge with a shocking 4-1 upset of Hamburg.
It’s not entirely clear what happened, but the Dresden fan must have said/done something to cause Leistner to jump into the stands and let him have it.
After miraculously finding a way to finish top European competitions and leagues amid a pandemic, the after-effects are already being seen. The 2020-21 seasons of European competition won’t be a walk in the park with major match congestion. One rule that leagues are disagreeing on is the question of "are 5 substitutes still allowed?"
Lionel Messi is desperate to get out of Barcelona. His hope of leaving on a free transfer is looking more and more like fantasy after LaLiga’s latest statement ruling his contract is still valid and a club will have to pay $833 million to trigger his release clause.
Hopefully, the party was worth it. Knowing what it was celebrating, it probably was.
Leon Bailey will miss part of Bayer Leverkusen’s preseason after Jamaican authorities forced him into a 14-day quarantine. The reason? He was at the birthday party of Usain Bolt, who last week became one of the most high-profile athletes to test positive for Covid-19.