England

There may have been some big Carabao Cup headlines Tuesday, like Tottenham losing to a team three leagues lower than it and Arsenal’s youngsters thrashing Nottingham Forest, but there was an entirely different kind of story that grabbed my attention. An intoxicated Portsmouth fan was caught on video attempting to fight a police horse after the Pompey side lost to Southampton 4-0 and was knocked out of the Carabao Cup. 

Here’s the video:

A UEFA Executive Committee meeting in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana has hashed out some future Champions League final locations, so we can now confirm sites for 2021, 2022 and 2023. This year’s final will be staged in Istanbul, and then Ol’ Big Ears will travel to Saint Petersburg, Munich and London over the course of the following three competitions. 

The Best FIFA Football Awards 2019 went down in Milan today, and you can rest assured that The18 tried its best to watch on YouTube, but good lord, this stuff is mostly unwatchable. It's remarkably drawn out, full of self-aggrandizing nonsense from FIFA and the forced banter between hosts Ilaria D'Amico, Ruud Gullit and the guests makes you search for the mute button while your skin crawls.

But other than that it's pretty good! 

Let’s go to the green carpet for some select photos before the ceremony. Here’s Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe looking fly. 

Maybe Jürgen Klopp saw something on film, but I doubt it. I think Liverpool simply exploited the almighty power of the backheel on a whimsy, as is befitting of the European champions. Klopp’s prematch team talk probably went something like this (sung to the tune of Men at Work):   

We can backheel if we want to, we can leave England behind

Cause Man United don’t backheel and Chelsea don’t backheel

And they’re no friends of mine

West Ham painted an unflattering picture of Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s Manchester United on Sunday afternoon with a commanding 2-0 victory over the visitors at London Stadium.

Without the injured trio of Paul Pogba, Anthony Martial and Luke Shaw, Man United’s attack floundered and West Ham’s midfield trio of Declan Rice, Mark Noble and Felipe Anderson did a solid number on United’s ponderous pairing of Nemanja Matić, Scott McTominay and Juan Mata.

According to the Independent, the first major signing for David Beckham’s Inter Miami will be Manchester City midfield maestro David Silva.

It’s been an eventful week for building from the back. It began with Mexico’s beatdown of Gregg Berhalter’s longterm vision for the USMNT in East Rutherford, a result which led to a cry for abandoning the philosophy.

Things reached a crescendo yesterday with Arsenal — the masterful architects of their own downfall in recent times. Sokratis Papastathopoulos showed exactly why 2-0 is the most dangerous lead in football by passing the ball straight to Gerard Deulofeu in his own area.   

Maybe you were distracted by Neymar’s epic return to PSG or a huge early clash in the Bundesliga between RB Leipzig and Bayern Munich. Perhaps you were watching college football or taking a break after a long morning of Premier League.

First, we gotta get this out of the way: Christian Pulisic was an unused sub for Chelsea against Wolverhampton on Saturday. 

But wait!

Before you leave, you gotta read about this insane Tammy Abraham statistic.

Abraham, Chelsea’s No. 9, became the club’s youngest player ever to score a hat trick. At 21 years and 347 days old, he is the youngest Englishman to score a hat trick in the Premier League since Raheem Sterling four years ago.