Wayne Rooney is already feeling the Sam Allardyce effect. Everton's creaky old prodigal son scored a hat trick in his first performance in front of the new boss. First impressions are very important, and Wayne Rooney clearly knows that.
Granted, Everton were playing West Ham who are terrible, but level of competition doesn't matter when you can do this:
ROONEY! FROM HIS OWN HALF! pic.twitter.com/1TwTF2ipvM
This is 26-year-old Scunthorpe United midfielder Josh Morris, aka the Maestro, aka the Commander-in-swazz, aka the purest two-footed footballer we’ve seen since Socrates was strolling around parks at Spain ’82. Morris was the designer, creator, originator and producer of two of the finest curlers of the 2017-18 season so far, and he scored them in the span of two second half minutes.
Gareth Bale made his return from another injury layoff with an exquisite assist for Real Madrid, but goalkeeper Keylor Navas’ ricocheted blunder may have overshadowed Bale’s attempted heroics. Real Madrid drew 2-2 against Fuenlabrada in the second leg of their Copa del Rey Round of 32 match on Tuesday, advancing 4-2 on aggregate as the club’s (relative) struggles continued this season.
The feel-good aura surrounding Newcastle United was evaporating faster than a fart into a Panasonic exhaust fan as they stared a fifth-straight defeat in the face on Tuesday. West Bromwich Albion took a 2-0 lead in the 56th minute of their Premier League match at The Hawthorns, but a spirited fightback earned Newcastle an invaluable point and somewhat arrested the slide on Tyneside.
FC Magdeburg scored a 2-1 derby win over Hallescher on Saturday in Germany’s 3. Liga in front of 22,481 fans. The impressive crowd — more than many MLS matches despite being third tier — saw an absurd Christian Beck back-heel goal the likes of which we’ve never seen before.
A 29-year-old striker who has spent his career in the lower divisions of Germany, Beck made the most out of a mistimed jumped to score the opener for Magdeburg, somehow.
The 2017 NCAA Men’s College Cup field has been whittled to eight with many of the usual suspects advancing to the quarterfinals. The marquee matchup of the quarters will be a rematch of last year’s College Cup final — Wake Forest, the top-seed, will take on back-to-back national champion Stanford. Seeds 2 through 5 remain alive as well: Indiana, North Carolina, Louisville and Akron.
Celtic has a lot to be proud of, most notably a 64-match domestic unbeaten streak that’s left the rest of Scotland with absolutely nothing to do. But in Champions League play, the Bhoys have gotten a little taste of their own medicine. While the Scottish Premiership bows down to the might of Celtic, Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga must similarly contend with Hoops’ UCL group stage opponents Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich.