LaLiga

Loaning players is a practice as common in soccer today as Jose Mourinho blaming the refs for losing a game. 

Powerhouses all over the world make use of this practice to give their young players a chance to play regular soccer somewhere else if they currently don’t have space on the first team. Sometimes, even established players are sent out on loan for various reasons. 

Regardless of why they are away, here are a few players who have been making the most of their opportunities to play regular soccer. 

Joe Hart | Torino

In order to talk smack, don’t you have to back it up? Goalkeeper Diego Alves failed to do so on Saturday in Valencia’s last-second loss to Barcelona:

When it comes to penalties, Diego Lopez is one of the best. Of the last 35 penalties he's faced, Alves has saved a staggering 17 of them; so he has good reason to be a little cocky. Two years ago, he even smack talked Cristiano Ronaldo before saving his penalty to end their title run.

France Football announced the 30 finalists for the 2016 Ballon d’Or award with Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi the favorites to take home the award they’ve entirely dominated since Kaka won in 2007. Real Madrid have six nominees on the list, Barcelona have four and Leicester City’s dream season has resulted in nominations for Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy.

Lionel Messi helped Barcelona defeat Valencia at La Mestalla on Saturday, as he cooly converted a 94th minute penalty to give Barca the 3-2 win. He also happened to lose his damn mind after Valencia fans struck Neymar with a bottle.

The match was tied at 2-2 as the minutes bled away, and it seemed destined to end as a draw. Thankfully for Barcelona, Valencia defender Aymen Abdennour was in a charitable sort of mood as he hacked down Luis Suarez in the 92nd minute to concede a penalty.

Lionel Messi and his Barcelona teammates, including Gerard Pique and Ivan Rakitic, took a moment to read tweets about themselves in an ad campaign for the new 2017 Audi Q2. Fortunately for the Barca players, this was nothing like Jimmy Kimmel’s “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets” segment.

The players read tweets containing strange tags that ultimately praised them as footballers and individuals. The highlight of the two-minute video is watching Messi awkwardly praise himself.

It's clear to anyone watching that while still very good, Cristiano Ronaldo is on the physical decline. Questions have arisen surrounding his ability to remain effective while not being the team’s centerpiece. He is still clearly very capable, but his ineffeciency is indicative of a man not quite ready to accept his new role.