Last week, there was a horrific moment in the Champions League when Real Madrid left back Marcelo shattered his arm while unleashing a blood-curdling scream that was captured by live television cameras. Millions of viewers at home thought they were going to be sick.
West Brom is in a lot of trouble. The club is bottom of the Premier League, seven points from safety. But Alan Pardew and his boys are turning things around. The great West Brom taxi heist and McDonald’s rendezvous of 2018 is the ultimate team building exercise in football history. I believe it was John Wooden who said: “The team that commits crimes together, stays up together.”
Next Tuesday, Chelsea and Barcelona will renew one of the greatest footballing rivalries of the 21st century. Beginning in 2000 and ending with that Fernando Torres goal scored almost six years ago, Barca and Chelsea met 12 times in the Champions League, including the 2000 quarterfinals, the 2005 and 2006 Round of 16 and the 2009 and 2012 semifinals.
WATCH THIS: Greatest Games, 2009 UCL Semifinal
In every sport, there are rivalries that transcend all others — Yankees vs. Red Sox, Lakers vs. Celtics, Duke vs. UNC, North Korea vs. South Korea, Alabama vs. everyone outside of Tuscaloosa. For football purists, nothing beats the rivalry between Arsenal and Östersunds FK. Fortunately for soccer fans around the globe, the Europa League will bring us another thrilling chapter in the Arsenal vs. Ostersund rivalry on Thursday.
The Champions League returned with two matches on Tuesday, both featuring a team with a legitimate shot at winning the title and preventing Real Madrid from a historic three-peat. One might expect Cristiano Ronaldo and Los Blancos to be watching those matches to size up the competition, or at least spend the evening preparing for the big match against Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday.
Cristiano Ronaldo was doing none of those things. Instead, he was at home playing a game that looks like it was invented by a 6-year-old.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic endeared himself to Manchester United fans during the 2016-17 season, scoring 28 goals in 46 appearances. As the season ended and Zlatan’s contract with the Red Devils neared its conclusion, an entrepreneurial United fan took it upon himself to re-sign the Swedish striker, offering up his wife in exchange for Ibrahimovic’s signature.
Arsenal fans know all about catastrophic blunders in defense this year. From Granit Xhaka completely switching off to Petr Cech whiffing on a kick, the Gunners’ defensive frailty is terrifying — and that’s just the Swansea game. But Ayr United in Scotland has Arsenal beat for ineptitude at the back. This video is just under a minute long, but it’s 58 seconds of the worst football you’ll watch this year.
Manchester City struggled to a 1-1 draw with Burnley on Saturday morning, missing a number of key players to injury. At least two of those players had much better weekends than their teammates at Turf Moor.
According to radio journalist Rocco Steinhauser, an animated film collaboration between Pixar and Barcelona could soon be in the works.
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