Outrageous

The Primeira Liga in Portugal produced one of the worst offside calls ever on Sunday in the final minutes of a crucial game between Porto and Braga.

The game between the league’s second and third-placed clubs went down to the wire with Braga mounting a late comeback after trailing 2-0.

Braga scored its first goal against 10-man Porto in the 87th minute. Mexican star Jesús Corona was sent off in the 60th minute.

Braga was on the attack again in the 90th minute when a bizarre offside call stopped play and made the club’s players and coaching staff lose their minds.

When Ryan Succop nailed a 51-yard field goal with just under three minutes remaining in the third quarter of Super Bowl LV, the game was effectively decided in favor of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, rendering the fourth quarter into nothing more than a giant advertising exercise for Paramount Plus. 

Three points seemed out of the question for 3. Liga side Ingolstadt as the league title contenders trailed 1-0 with only two minutes of stoppage time left on Saturday. Then came the craziest 70 seconds of soccer, which featured a goalkeeper goal and a last-minute winner to give Ingolstadt all three points.

Let’s start with what you came for: that gorgeous goalkeeper volley.

During the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic with more people working from home, it’s not uncommon for house pets to join in on work meetings. My cat has jumped into my lap during countless Zoom meetings, either loving the attention or completely oblivious. Pets have also continued to pop up in soccer matches; we’re never upset to see a good boy or girl interrupt a game in search of a belly rub. 

But everyone has to get back to work eventually, and when an animal doesn’t leave you alone, drastic measures must be taken, as was the case as a dog was shown a red card this week in Serbia.

As an American soccer website, we at The18 feel obligated to cover every little thing about our beloved Americans abroad. Exactly one year and a day ago, we wrote about Gio Reyna’s first Borussia Dortmund goal, an absolute worldie against Werder Bremen. We covered him before the goal and we continue to cover him today.

Imagine you took the Premier League and made some drastic changes: removed all the money, gathered the most random assortment of players, had every match played in unbearable wind and rain and turned up the patter by a factor of 10. Only then can you begin to imagine what goes on in Scottish soccer.

The 2021 Super Bowl kickoff time is set for 6:40 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 7 with NFC representative Tampa Bay hosting defending champion Kansas City at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. You don’t want to miss it because a little birdie told me that The Weeknd is set to be joined by Daft Punk, Kendrick Lamar and Ariana Grande during his halftime performance, although maybe I’m just telling you what I want to hear.

Ángel Di María might never play another game for PSG, not after what he did to his new manager, Mauricio Pochettino, in training this week.

Pochettino, who replaced Thomas Tuchel at PSG on Jan. 2, took part in a training drill with players on Friday but probably wishes he hadn’t. His fellow Argentine, Di María, sent him flying to the grass with a ruthless nutmeg.

Even back to the early ages of the sport, football has always been a prevailingly mental game. Tactics, strategies, formations, players; all have been examined at length in order to uncover the next advancement in the sport.

While the discussion of soccer tactics has gradually transitioned from old men with pipes to young computer science graduates with laptops, it is club managers that still think they are the commanders of footballing thought — often to their own detriment...

The writing’s on the wall for Newcastle United under the direction of Steve Bruce: 2021-22 will mark the third time in 13 seasons that Newcastle finds itself in the Championship. 

Tuesday’s 2-1 home defeat to Leeds United marked a fifth straight league defeat for Newcastle, a feat that even Kevin Keegan/Chris Hughton/Joe Kinnear/Chris Hughton again/Alan Shearer couldn’t match in 2008-09, nor could Steve McClaren/Rafael Benítez in 2015-16.