It’s not everyday that Americans exchange goals in the 2. Bundesliga, but that was the case on Sunday when Julian Green’s Fürth defeated Leon Flach’s St. Pauli 2-1.
The 25-year-old Green hasn’t played for the U.S. since 2018 and has fallen down the attacking midfield depth chart at the international level, but he opened the scoring from the penalty spot in the 24th-minute in a man of the match display.
Lautaro Martínez's first hat-trick for Inter Milan helped his side crush Crotone 6-2, earning their eighth successive Serie A win on Sunday and sending Antonio Conte's team top of the standings above AC Milan.
French champion Paris Saint-Germain has named former Tottenham Hotspur boss Mauricio Pochettino as its new head coach after sacking Thomas Tuchel, with the Argentine signing a deal until June 2022, the Ligue 1 club said on Saturday.
Pochettino, who played for PSG as a defender in the early 2000s and also captained the side, has been out of a job since being dismissed by Spurs in November 2019, a few months after guiding the north London club to the Champions League final.
Rangers took a huge step toward winning its first Scottish Premiership title in a decade with a 1-0 win over Celtic in the Old Firm Derby on Saturday at Ibrox — and much of the thanks must go to the Hoops.
The win sent Steven Gerrard’s side 19 points clear of Celtic atop the league standings, although Celtic has three games in hand. The two clubs meet again at Celtic Park on March 20, the penultimate match day. But the Bhoys, who have won the last nine league titles, will struggle to catch Rangers with such a large gap, even if they win out.
Eleventh-place Leeds United takes on Tottenham Hotspur, which could have gone joint-top as little as two weeks ago but has now slipped to seventh, on Saturday.
Coming into the latest edition of the Basque Derby, both Athletic Bilbao and Real Sociedad had endured a dry spell of form.
After winning eight of nine games through late November, Sociedad drew six consecutive games before losing its next three. Having spent time at the top of the table this season, La Real's poor run saw it drop down to third. Athletic, on the other hand, has experienced inconsistency all season. Traditionally the more successful of the Basque giants, it now sits 12th in the table.
Three-and-a-half years after leaving Schalke to join Arsenal on a free transfer, Sead Kolasinac is returning to the Veltins-Arena on a six-month loan.
@seadk6 is back!
Welcome home, Seo! #S04 | #Kolasinac
Javi Gracia's Valencia fell to a 2-1 defeat against Granada on Wednesday, the side's second consecutive loss.
FULL-TIME pic.twitter.com/iZr8NS9AwP
— Valencia CF (@valenciacf_en) December 30, 2020
The mercurial Mario Balotelli needed just four minutes to get off the mark for new club Monza against Salernitana on Wednesday in Italy's Serie B.
Balotelli had been without a club since the summer, when his contract with Brescia was terminated as a result of several missed training sessions. Serie B side Monza swept in to offer the forward a deal until the end of the season in early December. Monza is owned by Silvio Berlusconi, who previously owned AC Milan where Balotelli enjoyed some of the strongest spells of his up-and-down career.
As the year draws to a close, Steven Gerrard's Rangers side is well-placed to end its 10-year run without a Premier League championship.
The Gers sit in first place with a 16-point lead over second-placed Celtic, although the Parkhead side has three games in hand. Rangers' rear guard has deservedly earned plaudits this season, having kept a remarkable 17 clean sheets in 21 games and conceded just five goals.