Amazing Goals

It’s easy, as soccer fans, to always focus on the amazing goals or the incredible last-ditch saves. But sometimes it’s a pass that stands out. On Saturday, this Lionel Messi assist vs Osasuna ripped apart the defense and was better than any goal scored in some time. 

Messi’s magical left foot can do it all. Usually we watch it ripping a gorgeous curler or dancing around defenders. So today let’s appreciate the Argentine’s marvelous passing ability as Barcelona beat Osasuna 2-0 on Saturday. 

Daryl Dike is not long for the Championship. In this form, he’ll either guide his new club to promotion or be bought up by a Premier League club by the summer.

Ousmane Dembélé is perennially late. 

You can easily imagine him throwing open the door of his Mercedes S63 AMG coupé, crushed Mountain Dew Game Fuel cans spilling out with him, and sprinting into Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper at a breakneck speed muttering "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" because this really happens all the time — to the point where the club fined him hundreds of thousands of dollars and wondered aloud if he had a video game disorder that forced him to stay up all night playing with his friends (others call this disorder “having fun.”)

It is a weird quirk of my mind that whenever I see or hear the name Eli, the Three Dog Night song Eli’s Coming begins playing in my head. Needless to say, the tune will be spinning around my brain for days after this insane Eli Sam scorpion kick goal in the FA Trophy on Saturday. 

Barcelona was nursing a slender one-goal lead for most of its match with Sevilla, the club directly behind it in the LaLiga standings. Lionel Messi had received the support Barça needed to be in position to win, but the Argentine hadn’t yet put his own stamp on the game. But as he does more often than not, Messi created a bit of magic late and helped Barcelona beat Sevilla 2-0 on Saturday at the Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán.

Manchester City reached the preposterous milestone of 19 straight wins across all competitions following Wednesday’s 2-0 Champions League Round of 16 “away” victory over Borussia Mönchengladbach. Goals either half from Bernardo Silva and Gabriel Jesus turned it into a training exercise at Puskás Aréna in Budapest as Gladbach only landed one shot on target. 

Barcelona stayed within two points of Real Madrid and five of Atlético following a comforting 3-0 win over relegation-threatened Elche at the Camp Nou on Wednesday. Lionel Messi was the star of the show with two goals before playing a large role in Jordi Alba’s third, and the Argentine is now LaLiga’s outright top scorer with 18 goals in 22 games. 

The first half saw nice bits of skill from Frenkie de Jong, Messi and Pedri, but Barcelona couldn’t find the opener with Francisco Trincão wasting the best opportunity of the opening 45.

LONDON — Dele Alli and Gareth Bale staked their claims for places in Tottenham Hotspur's first team with superbly-taken goals in a 4-0 victory over Austrian club Wolfsberg in the Europa League last 32 second leg on Wednesday.

Alli has fallen down the pecking order under manager Jose Mourinho, not starting a Premier League game since the opening day of the season, but was clearly in the mood to impress.

The midfielder produced a sensational overhead kick in the 10th minute to give his side the lead on the night, after they won the first leg 4-1 in Budapest.

He’s a big beefcake who peaked late, so Olivier Giroud was never going to be given the credit he deserves. But the World Cup winner has scored and created enough golazos that what he did on Tuesday was not at all surprising.