With Real Madrid having won its third Champions League title in four years, pundits and fans alike continue to make the case that La Liga has overtaken the other major European leagues as the most elite division in the world.
With the 2016-17 Premier League season in the books, we now know what the league will look like next year. Relegated to the English Championship are Hull City, Middlesbrough and Sunderland. The three promoted sides include newcomers Brighton and Huddersfield and established EPL side Newcastle United.
The UEFA Champions League, and its predecessor the European Cup, is the most prestigious competition in all of club football. It’s where players and managers make their names, and it’s where clubs and teams become immortalized through history.
Here are some of the greatest all-time records in the Champions League as recorded by either players, managers, clubs or in single matches.
Goalkeeper with the most clean sheets: Iker Casillas (57)
Depending on who you choose to believe, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has already handed in his transfer request and will be looking to leave Borussia Dortmund immediately following Sunday’s DFB-Pokal final against Eintracht Frankfurt or he hasn't.
Social media is now the most powerful tool for marketing products and services. For celebrities and world-class athletes, social media plays an important role in engaging with fans. As social media becomes more and more commercially influential, it only makes sense that the more followers they get, the more income they'll receive.
Own goals: the bane of any defender’s existence, the joy of everyone else’s. When that ball is swung into the commentator’s corridor of uncertainty, you can’t blame a defender for sticking out a leg and burying the ball into the back of his own net…but yes you can.
Here are some various records for own goals, their infamous scorers and other riotous events that are worth reading about.
Winning trophies is something every world footballer wants. It is a pride to contribute to your team’s success. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are among the world’s most successful footballers in the modern era. However, neither is the world’s most decorated player when it comes to footballers with the most trophies (based on the numbers of trophies won for their teams, not individual honors). In fact, Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't even make this list, with only 22 team trophies.
The man who covers 30 percent of the planet has been named the Professional Footballers Association's (PFA) Player Of the Year. The PFA is a players union that aims to secure players rights in regards to clubs and football institutions from being unethical and or taking advantage of their players. N'Golo Kante's peers and competitors saw him as the most consistent player in England.
There’s a statistic on the Leicester City vs. Atletico Madrid chalkboard that sticks out like Marc Albrighton’s foul on Antoine Griezmann. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given his isolation throughout the match, culminating in a 77th minute substitution, but Jamie Vardy, according to who you choose to believe, left the pitch with a pass completion percentage of 0.
Soccer fans know that the outcome of a match doesn’t always reflect what transpired on the pitch. Talking heads have long debated whether a team was lucky to win or unlucky to lose, often with little substantial proof to argue against the scoreboard. The expected goals statistic (xG) has changed that, equipping soccer enthusiasts with a metric for “what should've happened.”