Opinion

With Liverpool’s 6-3 aggregate pasting of Hoffenheim on Wednesday, the English Premier League put five clubs in the Champions League for the first time. That’s five chances for English fans to cry over their clubs failing to come through in the continental competition.

Chelsea won the Champions League in 2012 but since then English clubs have barely sniffed the final. In 2015, no EPL team even made it past the Round of 16.  The days of 2008 — when the EPL had three of the four semifinalists, including both teams in the final — are barely visible in the rearview mirror. 

The fallout from Chelsea’s home defeat to Burnley to open their Premier League title campaign has been swift. In fact, you could say the situation had been pretty neatly summed up after the opening 43 minutes at Stamford Bridge. 

With Gary Cahill sent off, Burnley had shocked the world by cruising to a 3-0 lead behind a brace from Welsh striker Sam Vokes, a player more used to terrorizing Championship defenses than the reigning English champions.

I had a coworker at a previous job who always told me no one is irreplaceable. The company has been there for years and it will continue to be there for years, so don’t think for a moment any one employee is bigger than the company. Then he was arrested for diddling a high schooler and I was promoted to his job.

Neymar is not bigger than Barcelona. The Blaugrana will be fine.

According to the latest FIFA World Rankings, Switzerland will approach the 2018 FIFA World Cup bracketed amongst the traditional favorites of Brazil, Germany and Argentina. Those are the only three nations above them in the latest August rankings. It’s easy to laugh at the Swiss opening up a sizable gap over the traditional European powers of France, Spain, Italy and England, but there’s no reason to not have them pegged as dark horses in Russia.