It’s about time for the second half of the European club season, and you know what that means — it’s time to burn all the “Cristiano Ronaldo Is Finished” takes from September/October for the fourth straight year.
Recently named the USMNT Young Male Player of the Year, Sergiño Dest has had quite an impressive 2019-20 season already. He's logged major minutes for Ajax in the Eredivisie and chose to represent the USMNT over the Netherlands (still trying to figure out why, to be honest).
Barcelona and Real Madrid played to a scoreless El Clásico draw for the first time in 30 years with the match largely failing to live up to the extreme prematch hype.
The Champions League draw on Monday created some tantalizing matchups for the knockout rounds. Now the question is: When does Champions League Round of 16 start in 2020?
For the first time ever, UEFA held a draw for the UCL Round of 16 only with clubs from the biggest five leagues on the continent, so we knew we were in for some big games from the start of the knockout rounds. The draw confirmed our expectations and then some.
During Bayern Munich’s 3-1 victory over Tottenham on Wednesday, Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer recorded 66 touches, which was more than any Spurs player on the day (Kyle Walker-Peters was tops with 59). With 48 accurate passes, he also outperformed all Tottenham players in that category. Oh, and his pass success rate of 89 percent (48 of 54) was also better than Spurs' best (Moussa Sissoko hit on 85 percent).
Injuries, a contentious World Cup and the personal admission of a desire to abandon the PSG project have all adversely affected Neymar over the past two years — so much so that he found himself omitted entirely from the 30-man list for the 2019 Ballon d’Or.
Ajax, semifinalist last time around, has been eliminated from the UEFA Champions League at the group stage following a heartbreaking 1-0 defeat to Valencia in Amsterdam.
Heading into the day as Group H leaders, Johan Cruijff ArenA fully expected a celebratory affair given the fact that Ajax had previously crushed Valencia 3-0 at the Mestalla back on Oct. 2, but Rodrigo’s goal in the 24th minute — coupled with Chelsea’s 2-1 victory over Lille — sent Ajax crashing down to third and into the Europa League.
Sergio Ramos has had his best idea since deciding to pull a Panenka on Rui Patrício at Euro 2012. The Real Madrid captain said he believes there should be two Ballon d’Or trophies, thus eliminating that tiresome argument over whether the award should simply be given to the best overall player on the planet (always Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo) or to the player who performed most influentially over the strictly defined duration of a season (usually Messi or Ronaldo, but sometimes a little less clear).
Look, we've all been there. We've accidentally walked into the wrong work cubicle after moving a few weeks prior, went to the wrong classroom after the start of a new semester or called our significant other by our ex's name (hopefully this one doesn't happen too often).
We become so used to doing something that we just do it on autopilot. That's what happened to the ever-confusing player that is Tiémoué Bakayoko on Saturday.
Once dubbed the future holding midfielder partner of N'Golo Kante at Chelsea, the French international is now on loan with Monaco for the season.
It’s been a good week for PSG phenom Kylian Mbappé. Despite his tender age of 20, Mbappé finished in the top 10 of Ballon d’Or voting for the third straight year on Monday. On Wednesday, he scored in PSG’s 2-0 victory over Nantes. On Saturday, he scored an outrageous backheel goal and recorded an assist in PSG’s 3-1 victory over Montpellier.