In 24 minutes of Spanish Super Cup action on Sunday, Cristiano Ronaldo accomplished what many could never achieve over the course of their entire careers. The mercurial forward has always shown an appetite for amassing marks of renown, but Sunday’s first leg at the Camp Nou had something for everyone in the spectrum of The Cristiano Ronaldo Experience.
What a goal.
Cristiano Ronaldo showed off his gorgeous summer tan then got a red card to match his new skin tone. Gerard Piqué showed off some center forward's skills then scored for the wrong team. In a wild first leg of an El Clasico verison of the Spanish Super Copa, Real Madrid exploited Pique's defensive abilities for a 3-1 victory at the Camp Nou. But Los Blancos will have to play the second leg (and perhaps longer) without Ronaldo, who shoved the referee after being shown a second yellow card.
Anyone who ever watched a match with Edgar Davids knows he’s one of the most recognizable players to ever grace a pitch. With his magnificent dreadlocked mane and iconic goggles, Davids was steam punk before steam punk was cool. He was a pretty damn good footballer too, playing for clubs like Ajax, AC Milan, Juventus, Barcelona, Inter Milan and Tottenham while representing the Netherlands 74 times and making some kickass commercials. Paul Pogba’s got nothing on Davids.
With 19 league assists in 30 matches, no player in Europe’s big five leagues had more than RB Leipzig’s Emil Forsberg last season. The 25-year-old Swedish midfielder was one of the breakthrough players in Europe in 2016-17, firing his club to an unexpected second place finish in the Bundesliga.
For a bit of context, Luis Suarez provided the second most assists in Europe’s big five leagues last season. His total was 13.
In the summer of 1998, Nigerian wizard Jay-Jay Okocha arrived at Paris Saint-Germain for an exceptionally large fee of $18 million, making him the most expensive African player at the time. World renowned for his creativity, dribbling and playmaking, PSG’s capture of Okocha was not unlike this summer’s signing of Neymar.
Maybe you’ve heard already, but this Christian Pulisic guy is pretty good. At 18, the Borussia Dortmund and U.S. men’s national team star has proven himself to be one of the best Americans in the game today. He has an impeccable first touch, composure in the box beyond his years and makes impressive runs on and off the ball.
According to the latest FIFA World Rankings, Switzerland will approach the 2018 FIFA World Cup bracketed amongst the traditional favorites of Brazil, Germany and Argentina. Those are the only three nations above them in the latest August rankings. It’s easy to laugh at the Swiss opening up a sizable gap over the traditional European powers of France, Spain, Italy and England, but there’s no reason to not have them pegged as dark horses in Russia.
Christian Pulisic isn’t named Lionel Messi, he doesn’t play for Real Madrid and he’s never been on the cover of FIFA, so many North American and British folk are rightly confused about just how good he really is. He’s only scored five Bundesliga goals, so he must suck, right? Not so fast, Paris Saint-Germain’s latest die-hard supporter!
In his heyday, everyone detested playing against AC Milan and Filippo Inzaghi. Physically and technically there was nothing about Inzaghi that stood out. He didn’t possess incredible pace or sublime technical skill, but he was an absolute menace nonetheless.
Fue un comienzo de ensueño para el FC Levadia en la tercera ronda de la Copa de Estonia el martes. Al recibir a su compañero de la primera división Paide en el estadio Kadriorg de Tallin, los visitantes iniciaron los procedimientos y rápidamente pusieron el balón en el fondo de su propia red después de encadenar cinco pases juntos.
Debes admirar el énfasis de Paide en tratar de construir su ataque desde la espalda, solo necesitan aclarar algunos detalles menores como la comunicación, la conciencia y el posicionamiento básico antes de avanzar hacia ese bloque intermedio.