LaLiga

Cristiano’s Son Has To Deal With The Messi-Ronaldo Rivalry Everyday At School

First grade is a time of personal discovery. At six years of age, it's a time when children learn simple things like raising their hands, not interrupting the speaker and respecting the feelings of others. It’s a time of collaboration, sharing and complex learning in different subject areas.

Unless your Cristiano Ronaldo Jr, whose elementary experience is, according to his father, like braving the comment section of any soccer website — the one place where you'll never find co-operation, manners and mutual respect.

Happy New Year From MSN And BBC!

The Barcelona and Real Madrid attacking trios of MSN and BBC took to Instagram to show us how they celebrated the New Year. From all of us at The18, we wish you nothing but the best for 2017!

Barcelona's MSN

Lionel Messi

Real Madrid’s Squad Can Actually Turn The Real World Into A Game Of FIFA

FIFA is supposed to take the reality of football, turn it up 10 notches and make it accessible for all. So, while you’re executing Roberto Carlos-esque free kicks with regularity, you know that, yes, the professionals might be able to pull this off, but not three times a match.

The FIFA Free Kick Skill Game requires you to expertly curl the ball around a wall of training dummies and into one of the four corners of the net. Again, it’s a skill that professional can pull off, but it’s not something you’d put money on them doing nine times out of ten.

The Astronomical Sums Behind China’s Attempt To Lure Cristiano Ronaldo

The exorbitant fees that the Chinese Super League has been willing to pay to land the world’s best look like peanuts compared to what one unnamed CSL club was willing to pay Real Madrid and Cristiano Ronaldo to bring the Ballon d’Or winner to East Asia.

Barcelona Unearth More Video Of Lionel Messi As A Child Phenom

Almost every FC Barcelona YouTube video, given the talent at the club, is worth a view. However, every once in a very long while, they release a video starring Lionel Messi during his La Masia days. These are particularly important because they showcase the unreasonable talents of a goofy looking 14-year-old with control like Diego Maradona.

It's talent like this that saw Messi rapidly progress through the club's ranks, making his first team debut as a 16-year-old. 

24 Thoughts On Samir Nasri's Twitter

Warning: the following article contains screenshots of tweets that should not be viewed by children or anyone who might be near a child in the future.

Also: Tweets are NSFW

Samir Nasri's Twitter, um, did a thing. Meet me on the other side of these screencaps.

Watching Suarez, Messi And Neymar Warm-Up Is Like Going To The Art Gallery

We still have to wait over a week for Barcelona to return to action in the Copa del Rey against Athletic Bilbao, but the folks at Barca’s official YouTube channel have made the wait a little more bearable by sharing a video of Luis Suarez, Lionel Messi and Neymar warming up.

With any other attacking trio of teammates this would most likely fall flat, but here are three of the five best players on the planet performing tricks and volleying across the field at each other.

You could certainly do worse with one minute of your time.

Watch Takashi Inui Become The First Footballer In Space

A joint effort between the Japanese and Spanish has seen the first footballer successfully launched into space. Takashi Inui, a Japanese international and midfielder for Eibar, rocketed to infinity and beyond with the help of Spanish goalkeeper Iago Herrerin.

According to our planisphere star chart, Inui is currently near Mars’s moon Phobos, taking pictures of the Martian planet’s polar ice caps. He will hopefully return to Earth in time for Eibar’s next match against against Sporting in the Spanish Cup.

Barcelona Spent The Last Few Transfer Windows Preparing For The Distant Future

There will never be another series of transfers like FC Barcelona’s 2013 and 2014 plundering of some of the best soccer players the world has seen in quite some time. During that Summer of endless spending, Barcelona came away with Luis Suarez, Neymar, Ivan Rakitic, goalies Marc-Andre Ter Stegen and Claudio Bravo and important role players Jeremy Mathieu and Rafinha.

Barcelona had its eyes set on deep domestic and continental runs. While they were mindful of the future, more important was the immediate success of the team. It certainly paid off.

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