Major League Soccer is bound by parity and married to the chaos that comes with it. With late goals, monumental upsets and high-scoring affairs, Matchday 8 was one for the books.
(S3E5 spoilers below)
As writers on the series, Jason Sudeikis (Ted), Brett Goldstein (Roy) and Brendan Hunt (Coach Beard) have always stressed that Ted Lasso isn't a show about soccer, it's a show about these characters who just so happen to be involved in the running of a professional soccer club.
There was a standout moment during Crystal Palace's incredible 5-1 victory over Leeds United on Sunday that I failed to notice — I think I was too busy trying to comprehend Leeds' total capitulation — but now register as one of the best goal celebrations of the 2022-23 season.
With many experts having predicted that the winner of the 2022-23 UEFA Champions League will emerge from the blockbuster quarterfinal tie between Manchester City and Bayern Munich, City's 3-0 beatdown of Bayern in Tuesday's first leg at the Etihad is quite the statement from the Sky Blues.
There's still a lot of thinking yet to come from Pep Guardiola, but this City team can kill you a myriad of ways (unlike Chelsea and Real Madrid), is UCL battle hardened (unlike Benfica, Inter, Milan and Napoli) and has Erling Haaland (unlike Bayern).
MLS Matchweek 7 proved severely dichotomous to the league’s image. Fans were treated to the best that MLS offers with individual brilliance, age-defying heroes, local rivalries and close games. However, it was an alleged incident that occurred between San Jose and New York that left an extremely sour taste in fans' mouths.
An Erling Haaland bicycle kick goal vs. Southampton during Manchester City’s 4-1 victory on Saturday silenced his haters who claim he doesn’t score any quality goals.
Every player has their fair share of haters, it’s natural. However, Haaland’s haters are a particularly interesting group of people. They despise Haaland, a striker whose sole purpose is to score goals, for scoring goals.
By the time the USWNT and Ireland wrap-up their two-match friendly series next Tuesday at CityPark, there'll be less than 100 days before the start of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
So although the U.S. holds a 13-0-0 advantage all-time against the Girls in Green (outscoring them 48 to one in the process), there'll be plenty of internal battles to focus on at Q2 Stadium in Austin on Saturday before the second game in St. Louis three days later.
In a shocking twist to Chelsea’s managerial merry-go-round, the London club is talking to former player and manager Frank Lampard for a potential reunion. Lampard would be a caretaker manager until the end of the season as the club figures out a long-term manager.
Lampard oversaw Chelsea from July 2019 through January 2021 when he was replaced by Thomas Tuchel. Lampard then spent a year managing Everton from January 2022 until January 2023. He was sacked after Everton sat 19th in the league.
We thought the introduction of VAR would help eliminate all those messy emotions that lead to human error on the pitch, but as ChatGPT is quickly showing us, these technologies all too quickly go from feigning helpfulness to demanding free will.
Players are still free to utilize the dark arts and to work over referees by staying in their ear for 90 minutes, so it's time to fight fire with fire. This time we're using technology for the benefit of the CONCACAF region.
If the most sensational rumors are to be believed, Apple is looking for a quick exit from its 10-year, $2.5 billion deal with MLS while the league prepares for an NASL kind of collapse into oblivion.
The Athletic previously detailed an opt-out clause in the contract predicated on Apple obtaining a certain number of subscribers within a set timeframe, but it's impossible to speculate from the outside since Apple hasn't released any viewership statistics through six matchweeks.