When Wycombe Wanderers faced off against Rotherham United over the weekend, very few fans were expecting a footballing masterclass.
Both sides were newly promoted from League One; Wycombe gained promotion to the Championship for the first time ever this season, doing so after being relegation favorites last year, while Rotherham has bounced between the two divisions each of the last five seasons.
"He was what I called a ball-playing defender," long-time friend Dave Bassett said of Sam Allardyce, "If he wasn't playing with the ball he was playing with your balls."
Allardyce was a feared center back during his 20-plus years in English football due to his propensity to clatter opposing strikers and leave them moaning in pain on the turf. He was even given the nickname "Super Sam Bionic Man" for his ability to quickly ascend from these tackles and continue playing.
Lionel Messi will leave Barcelona at some point, that is a fact. When he leaves is still up for debate. What won’t be much of a debate is that Barcelona’s attack will suffer tremendously from the Argentine’s departure.
It’s a no-brainer that a team won’t score as often after the best attacking player leaves. The real question is how bad will it get? Cristiano Ronaldo leaving Real Madrid gives a good idea of what could happen with Barcelona in terms of offense.
Lyon secured its fifth straight Champions League title on Sunday after an entertaining 3-1 win over Wolfsburg to cement its place as the greatest dynasty in the history of the women's club game.
With seven titles overall, no team comes close to matching Lyon’s total (Frankfurt has four), and it says everything about the club's European dominance of late that all those victories have been recorded over the past 10 seasons.
Univision is celebrating a wildly successful month of Champions League broadcasts. The Spanish-language broadcaster set four U.S. television records in August, capped by record-breaking Champions League final TV ratings from Bayern Munich’s thrilling 1-0 win over PSG on Sunday.
CBS, meanwhile, is being given The18’s coveted participation ribbon, seeing as it has yet to release any sort of data on its Champions League final TV ratings.
On paper, Bayern Munich scored a secure 3-0 victory against Lyon in the Champions League semifinals Wednesday, but the scoreline does not reflect the true nature of the match.
While Bayern was the better side for periods of the game, Lyon found itself one-on-one with Manuel Neuer on multiple ocassions but was unable to finish.
There where multiple times when you were left thinking, "How has Lyon not scored there?"
xG map for Lyon - Bayern
Bayern Munich has no time for trifling sympathies. Bayern Munich is going to destroy everyone in its path.
Serge Gnabry scored twice in the first half and Robert Lewandowski provided his obligatory goal in the second as the German giants stifled Lyon 3-0 on Wednesday in Lisbon to advance to the Champions League final. Bayern will play Paris Saint-Germain on Sunday for the completion of an unorthodox but epic 2020 Champions League season.