Welcome to our wall-to-wall coverage of Day 2 of the FIFA Stay and Play Cup — it's the first four matches of the Round of 16!
If you missed yesterday’s play-in round, catch up on all the action here. Wednesday was dominated by Scandinavian clubs while Marseille, Valencia, PSV and Helsinki all ate it.
Day 1 of the FIFA Stay and Play Cup is in the books, and while at times it was just ridiculous (an 8-2 scoreline, Twitch host Jimmy Conrad disappearing, people forgetting to unmute their mics), it was an entirely welcome and enjoyable afternoon after over a month of sporting radio silence and the total absence of communal events (competitive toilet paper hoarding aside).
Anfield erupted as Ilkay Gündoğan's free kick flew wide and the final whistle blew. The Liverpool faithful had witnessed some remarkable European nights at their home ground, but perhaps none as exhilarating as this one.
The Reds had just completed a miraculous turnaround to claim a 4-3 victory over Jürgen Klopp's former team Borussia Dortmund to advance to the Europa League semifinals, 5-4 on aggregate. Before last year's famous Champions League victory over Barcelona, this game had a strong claim as Anfield's greatest European comeback.
AC Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic trained with Swedish club Hammarby as the global soccer shutdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic continues, and a brief bout of coughing didn't appear to trouble him as he practiced his shooting.
Former Sweden forward Ibrahimovic, who is his country's record goal-scorer and owns a stake in the top-flight Stockholm club, took a full part in the training session that had a mixture of bright sunshine and brief showers of snow and hail.
In football’s absence we’re left to discuss purely quantitative things: the 25-point gap between Liverpool and Manchester City, the number of days between now and a hypothetical restart of the season, the amount of money that everyone’s losing during the shutdown, etc.
Before clicking play on the video above, you obviously know what goal comes in at number one in this countdown. One could argue that Giovani dos Santos’ chip in the 2011 Gold Cup Final is still, to this day, setting the USMNT back further and further. We’ll never truly know the lasting repercussions of Tim Howard, Eric Lichaj, Michael Bradley, Carlos Bocanegra and Jermaine Jones being simultaneously ruined by Dos Santos, but I’ll tell you one thing, the United States still hasn’t recovered.
With almost all of European football on hold, fans sit dreaming of the Champions League instead of watching it. The 2019-20 edition of the tournament isn’t canceled yet, so the return of the competition is still possible. While everyone waits, here's a look back at the best 2019-20 Champions League goals.
#5. Erling Haaland’s Rocket vs. PSG
Every angle of THAT Håland goal pic.twitter.com/C5GsIUpChj
There will come a day when the USMNT boasts a world-class striker. I might not be around to see it, but that day is coming.
When Christian Pulisic scores or DeAndre Yedlin showcases his pace on a recovery run, the highlights are available for consumption across the United States almost instantaneously. 15 years ago, that was certainly not the case.
This was a time without Twitter, YouTube and Reddit — a time when you had to visit yanks-abroad.com for news while scrounging up money to pay for Fox Soccer Channel because your parents sure as shit weren’t expensing it.
The Premier League has earned its place as the most-watched domestic competition on the planet with a package of blood and thunder. In cauldron-like atmospheres up and down the country, clubs compete at exemplifying heavy metal football while engaged in tit-for-tat thrill rides for 90 frantic minutes.
But what sets the Premier League apart is that it’s also home to some of the game’s most sublime artists. These are the players who remind us that while force allows you to exert some form of control over proceedings, dominance can really only be achieved through understanding.