Playing on Thursday night in Sao Paulo in a charity match for the victims of the Chapecoense plane crash, Brazilian defender Fred finally figured out a tactic to slow Neymar down, at least momentarily.
In addition to bribery, money laundering and papering over racism, FIFA — football’s very own basket of deplorables — occasionally rolls out a rule change or two. During the weekend’s World Club Cup final, for example, Alvaro Morata became football’s first ever “fourth substitute” as Real Madrid took advantage of a trial rule-change allowing an additional substitution during extra time.
After Real Madrid’s 4-2 victory over Kashima Antlers in the FIFA Club World Cup Final, you would think everyone would be talking about Madrid’s amazing year that included three international titles. Nope. All the attention shifted to James Rodriguez’s post match comments saying that he couldn’t guarantee he would continue with Real Madrid and wanted to play more.
A country's awarding of their footballer of the year award ultimately says a lot about the state of the game within that nation. For example, knowing that Argentina are loaded with talent but that one man has managed to win this individual prize on 10 occasions speaks to his standing as one of the greatest of all time.
For other nations, a player sweeping the prize time after time shows that he’s single-handedly carrying that nation to new heights à la Gareth Bale. These are the players that’ve utterly dominated their country’s player of the year award in recent times.
It’s been more than 10 years since that infamous night in Berlin, where, in the 110th minute of Zinedine Zidane’s final professional match, the French captain was sent off for battering Marco Materazzi with his bald head.
According to The Daily Mail, 32-year-old Argentine forward Carlos Tevez is set to become the world’s highest-paid player following a move to Shanghai Shenhua in the Chinese Super League.
Tevez follows in the footsteps of Oscar, Hulk and Graziano Pelle, all players that’ve swapped more traditional footballing climes for a personal jackpot in the CSL.
Kevin De Bruyne registered his ninth assist in 16 Premier League matches by smashing a no-look, cross-field volley straight at Raheem Sterling, allowing the Englishman to beat Petr Cech at his near post for Manchester City’s go-ahead goal on Sunday.
Raheem Sterling comes up clutch! #PLonNBC pic.twitter.com/JmCcac2X57