In all honesty, we’ve only just begun to see the torrential number of ways in which COVID-19 can disrupt football in a purely sporting sense.
Major League Soccer’s regular season has been severely disrupted by the pandemic with a logjam of postponed matches that can no longer be completed before the start of the playoffs, forcing qualification to be determined on a points-per-game basis rather than the final standings.
Sebastián Córdova had two goals and an assist in América’s 3-1 victory over Tigres at Estadio Azteca on Sunday night. With one match remaining in the Guardianes regular season, América has secured a spot in the quarterfinals while Tigres needs to take care of business against Atlas next Saturday to have any chance of avoiding the play-in round.
It’s been a dream start to the campaign for Napoli after a disappointing seventh-place finish last season (apart from the ludicrous fallout of the abandoned Juventus match), and a key to the club’s revival has been the renaissance of Hirving “Chucky” Lozano.
Santiago Muñoz’s path to Real Madrid via Newcastle United is beginning! On Sunday, the very close namesake of the famous Goal! film series (Santiago Munez) logged his first Liga MX minutes with Santos Laguna during his side’s 2-1 win over Atlético San Luis.
El Tráfico took center stage on Sunday afternoon as Los Angeles FC hosted the LA Galaxy at an empty Banc of California Stadium but with thousands watching the action unfold on national television.
The standings — LAFC entered fifth in the Western Conference, the Galaxy dead last — and ESPN.com’s promo photo juxtaposing Bradley Wright-Phillips and Sebastian Lletget told you everything you needed to know about how much has changed for these two clubs over the past year.
The pattern of Wolverhampton’s play is absurdly predictable. Since returning to the Premier League in 2018-19, Wolves have failed to score in the first half 58 times. That’s the most in the division.
However, they love a 0-0 scoreline after 45. They did that 14 times last season and only lost one of them. No club scored a higher percentage of its goals in the second half than Wolves, and no club boasted a stronger goal difference in the final 30 minutes of games than Nuno Espírito Santo’s men.
A Raúl Jiménez shot that took a heavy deflection off the head of Leeds United midfielder Kalvin Phillips gave Wolverhampton a hard-fought 1-0 away win in the Premier League on Monday.
A strange weekend in LaLiga that included defeats for both Real Madrid (1-0 to Cádiz) and Barcelona (1-0 to Getafe) ended with Real Sociedad at the top of the table following a 3-0 win over Real Betis at the Benito Villamarín on Sunday.
Sociedad showed promise last season by advancing to the Copa del Rey final and finishing sixth in the league (the club’s highest standing in seven years), but the return of Martin Ødegaard to Real Madrid and transfer of Diego Llorente to Leeds United seemed like big losses — even with David Silva arriving from Manchester City on a free transfer.
Napoli hosting Atalanta was always going to produce plenty of goals, with two of Italy’s most electric offenses meeting at the San Paolo Stadium on Saturday. We just didn’t think they’d all be from one club in the first half, including two Chucky Lozano goals vs Atalanta.
Mexico salvaged a 2-2 draw against 10-man Algeria on Tuesday with Jesús Corona’s beautiful opener pegged back by goals from Ismaël Bennacer and Riyad Mahrez before Diego Lainez provided one final flourish to the script in The Hague.