Europe

With England and Spain both enjoying comfortable starts to their World Cup qualifying campaigns (England sit atop Group F, Spain Group G), the two nations played out a meaningless, feel good friendly at Wembley Stadium on Tuesday. The real battle was played without the football, as both teams submitted their entries to the mannequin challenge.

Barcelona have signed a new shirt sponsorship deal with Rakuten, an electronic commerce and Internet company based in Tokyo. The deal will pay Barca almost $60 million per year for four years, with the option of a one-year extension and even more money should certain bonus criteria be met.

Barcelona’s current deal with Qatar Airways, a partnership which began back in 2011, currently nets them around $35 million per year, but the Catalan side are now set to nearly double that yearly income with Rakuten as the primary sponsor.

As international football heaves its bloated corpse over the horizon of our collective attentions, trying to find any kernel of interest becomes increasingly tough. Because of this, we have the British Isles wrestling with the political absurdity of trying to cram as many poppies as possible into one fixture, Lionel Messi hoping that colouring in his tattoos will help Argentina win in Brazil, someone called Radamel Falcao starting to scoring goals again and a certain section of North London declaring war on the sovereign state of Chile due to the possibility of one man’s muscle tear.

Thomas Muller’s incredible return of 32 goals from 49 matches in all competitions for Bayern Munich last season had many prognosticators envisioning a brilliant Euro 2016 campaign for the German attacker. However, Muller’s inability to score and poor form throughout Germany’s six matches made him one of the tournament’s biggest disappointments.

While Muller has scored braces against Norway and the Czech Republic in World Cup qualifying, he hasn’t yet managed a goal in the Bundesliga, a drought that’s now surpassed over 500 minutes of football.

Does anyone know where we can buy a Bedale AFC away kit? We want a Bedale AFC away kit. Bedale AFC's away kit has sausage on it. We want a shirt with sausage on it.

Bedale AFC, an amateur English side, recently signed a sponsorship deal with a local sausage manufacturer, which prompted the marvelous, savory away jerseys.

Jonjo Shelvey is in trouble.

Jonjo Shelvey is in trouble because he is alleged to have racially abused Wolves player Romain Saiss earlier this month. Should Shelvey be found to have used the racist language he is accused of having used, he faces a minimum five-match ban, though it should probably be more like the eight-game ban Luis Suarez received for racially abusing Patrice Evra a few years ago.

Polish striker Adam Fraczczak just wasn’t himself out there. The guy was playing like Betty White while the opposition, Lechia Gdansk, enjoyed a 1-0 lead. His teammates were on his back, but Fraczczak just couldn't get going while his tummy rumbled.

Thankfully, on the stroke of halftime, Fraczczak’s club, Pogon Szczecin, got a lifeline by earning a penalty.

A non-league coach in England has been banned for three years for gambling, including betting on his own team to lose.

Nick Bunyard, former manager of Frome Town, is either not very good at managing, or not very good at gambling, or both.

Here is an actual quote from Bunyard in the Western Daily Press:

Stjepan Lucijanic looks like a bus driver, but he just set one of the most impressive records in soccer.

Lucijanic plays for NK Dracice Dakovo in the Croatian seventh division, and he scored a hat trick (or more) in five straight matches recently, breaking an 18-year-old record held by Japanese forward Masashija Nakayamu. Overall, Lucijanic scored 20 goals in the five games.

This isn't even the only cool thing Lucijanic has done on a soccer field. Earlier this season he scored six (six!) goals in one match, and one time he scored 12 seconds into a match.