Outrageous

On Wednesday, Kylian Mbappé was announced as the FIFA 21 cover boy. On Friday, Kylian Mbappé’s entire 2021 was put in jeopardy early in the first French football match since the Covid-19 shutdown.

In some ways, you have to feel bad for João Pedro. In others, you can’t help but laugh at the Cagliari striker for not knowing better. After the João Pedro free kick fiasco against Lazio on Thursday, either reaction is appropriate.

Early in Cagliari’s visit to Lazio, the referee blew his whistle for a foul about 30 yards from Lazio’s net. João Pedro stepped up and smashed the free kick straight into the back of the net. 

It was a flabbergasting shot, rifled straight into the upper 90.

And it didn’t count.

EA Sports dropped the first official FIFA 21 trailer on Thursday and it only could have been created during a pandemic, the likes of which the world has lived through for the past seven months. 

Duván Zapata scored the first goal for Atalanta in a 2-2 draw with league-leading Juventus on Saturday. Moments later he added injury to insult in quite possibly the worst way imaginable with the Zapata stomp on Matthijs de Ligt.

Zapata, a 29-year-old Colombian striker, gave Atalanta the lead when he brushed past Rodrigo Betancur to reach a pass from Papu Gómez, firing a low shot past Wojciech Szczesny in goal.