FIFA gamers have reason to celebrate, as there's an increasing chance that FIFA 19 will feature the Champions League.
UEFA and Konami, the developer of Pro Evolution Soccer (PES), announced that they have ended their partnership after ten years. During that time PES held the licensing rights to the Champions League and the Europa League.
That did not go as planned for Toronto FC. Having just knocked mighty Club America out of the Concacaf Champions League, the reigning MLS champions surely figured to have an easier time of it against Chivas Guadalajara in the final. Chivas are having a terrible season domestically, but for some reason have been kryptonite for MLS clubs in the CCL.
They were again, handing Sebastian Giovinco and friends a 2-1 defeat in Toronto and taking a solid lead back to Mexico for the second leg.
Rodolfo Pizarro opened the scoring just a few minutes in the game.
Michael Oliver, the referee who took a stand and freed Narnia from the evil grasp of Sauron, returned to Premier League duty on Monday in a 1-1 draw between West Ham United and Stoke City. Okay, fine, Oliver didn’t fight any orcs or free Narnia, but the man did end Gianluigi Buffon’s dreams of winning the Champions league.
Roma, Juventus
Oh, Michael Oliver.
Mikey, Mikey, Michael.
Michael Oliver, with a rubbish bin for a heart.
Michael Oliver, with his Citroen Saxo haircut.
Michael Oliver, with the face of an AirFix fanatic, all glue-eyed intricacy and camo paint fumes.
Michael Oliver, with his absolutely correct refereeing decision in the biggest moment of the footballing season so far.
Michael Oliver, with the target over his head. The bullets are in the post already, Mike.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past week, you've heard about Roma’s fantastic comeback against Barcelona.
The first leg of the Champions League quarter-final matchup saw Barcelona beat the Italian side 4-1 at the Camp Nou, and just about every man and their dog thought that was going to be it. No one gave Roma a chance in the second leg, but they did what many people believed to be impossible: defeated the Catalan giants 3-0 at the Stadio Olimpico to shock the world and book their place in the semi-finals of the Champions League.
So it’s Real Madrid vs. Bayern Munich and Liverpool vs. AS Roma in the Champions League draw for the semifinals on Friday. What immediately jump out are all the storylines and relationships between the two sets of semifinalists. But there’s more to this matchup than player links.
Sure, Bayern’s James Rodriguez is on loan from Real Madrid and Toni Kroos once plied his trade for the Bavarians. And yes, Salah transferred to Liverpool from Roma last summer.
Clearly Gianluigi Buffon is not the biggest fan of Michael Oliver right now. The English referee sent the Italian goalkeeper off at the end of extra time during the Juventus-Real Madrid Champions League match Wednesday, after Buffon vehemently disagreed with a penalty Oliver gave. Juventus were eliminated after Cristiano Ronaldo converted the penalty.
Here's what Buffon said after the match:
Cristiano Ronaldo is an inspiration to 30-somethings everywhere. He shows us that despite no longer being the target market and despite no contemporary pop songs being written about our nightly hijinks (“I don’t know about you but I’m feeling 33” just sounds sad), we are still human people. We are still capable of launching ourselves towards the heavens like a SpaceX rocket before getting one over on those nasty, garbage bin 40-somethings in goal.
Four minutes and 32 seconds elapsed from the time referee Michael Oliver pointed to the spot to the moment the ball struck the back of the net from the force of another epic Cristiano Ronaldo penalty kick.