Highlights
Matthijs De Ligt’s Golden Boy Win Ushers In A New Era Of Defending
Given what we’ve seen over the last four years, it’s incredibly perplexing that the Netherlands has reached the finals of the 2019 UEFA Nations League and the country’s biggest club, Ajax, is now the favorite to advance to the Champions League quarterfinals at the expense of Real Madrid, the back-to-back-to-back European champions.
How times have changed at Real Madrid. pic.twitter.com/pk73V99p2g
Edson Álvarez Prolongs The Cruz Azul Curse And Lifts América To 13th Liga MX Title
The Cruz Azul curse continues. After being repelled by a combination of Club América goalkeeper Agustín Marchesín and the crossbar in the first leg, a poor piece of attempting to play out the back ultimately doomed Cruz Azul in the second — the ever impressive Edson Álvarez punished the slack play with a curling effort from the top of the box, and then the El Tri star registered a second at the death to confirm América’s 13th title.
Cruz Azul failed to land a shot on target throughout the 90 minutes.
Messi Registers Hat-Trick And Two Assists In Godly Performance
The genius of Lionel Messi propelled Barcelona to a 5-0 victory over Levante on Sunday evening in Valencia — the Argentine was involved in all five goals with a hat-trick and two assists. Luis Suarez also had a goal and was heavily involved in setting up two of Messi’s. The 31-year-olds are alright.
The first goal arrived in the 35th minute after Messi danced across the top of the box. With defenders circling and closing around him, Messi pulled off an impossible reverse ball which Suarez converted with sublime control.
Coaches, Do Yourself A Favor And Watch This Dortmund Free Kick Routine
Borussia Dortmund maintained its nine-point advantage at the top of the Bundesliga following a 2-1 win over Werder Bremen on Saturday, and not even the 83rd minute introduction of Josh Sargent could disrupt BVB’s continued run of excellence.
That excellence has been highlighted by the play of Paco Alcacer, who scored Dortmund’s opener in the 19th minute after this extremely well-worked set piece (also, VAR is a great thing).
Raphael Guerreiro and Marco Reus stood over the ball, and Guerreiro ran over it once before sneakily returning and delivering with his left foot.
Rampant Liverpool Decimates Man United Despite Alisson’s Terrible Blunder
Liverpool’s ceaseless hammering of Manchester United finally yielded a breakthrough during a seven-minute second half spell that saw Xherdan Shaqiri score a brace of heavily deflected goals, a just reward for outshooting their opponent 36-6 on the way to a 3-1 win.
In the end, it was a humiliating footballing lesson for Jose Mourinho’s side, and the only moment of respite for United was a terrible blunder from Alisson that allowed the Red Devils to stay level at 1-1 for 40 totally undeserved minutes.