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If you hear about this anecdote from Mesut Özil’s forthcoming autobiography excerpted in Bild, it will probably focus on the fact that when Özil and José Mourinho were at Real Madrid, they once got into an argument in which Mourinho called Özil a coward. This is true, and pretty interesting in itself, but the full…
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It’s seemed pretty likely for a while now, and became all but inevitable after the humiliation in Paris last month, but it is now official: Barcelona manager Luis Enrique will not coach the team next season.
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Even way down in the ninth tier of English soccer, players do not like to lose. Case in point: Cray Valley Paper Mills FC goalkeeper Jordan Carey’s reaction to this Ashford United goal:
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If you haven’t yet grasped why American soccer’s penchant for ripping off European fan culture without any of the history or tradition from which the real culture emerged is so embarrassing—think MLS team names like Sporting KC and D.C. United, or incidents like New York Red Bulls “ultras” tossing garbage bags at and …
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Scientists, in their never-ending quest to replace all fields of human achievement with our new insect overlords, have studied the best way to teach a bee to play soccer.
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Sometimes you bang in a golazo by spinning through a box full of defenders and hitting the ball perfectly. Other times you just sort of stand there and let the ball hit you and it goes in anyway. Soccer is dumb like that. Case in point: this goal from Newcastle.
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Zlatan Ibrahimovic is back to doing Zlatan Ibrahimovic things, as he provided Manchester United a 1-0 lead in today’s League Cup final against Southampton with a free kick of absolute perfection. Give this man the serum that will let him play forever, please.
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Sutton United has had a hell of a week. The fifth-division club’s Cinderella run through the FA Cup came to an end; the loss that knocked them out of the tournament involved their large adult backup goalkeeper Wayne Shaw eating a pie on the sidelines, which led to a gambling probe, which led to Shaw’s resignation.
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Claudio Ranieri has been fired by Leicester City, and he probably deserved it, even after accomplishing the impossible the year before. That doesn’t mean he isn’t still the best, though, as his statement in light of his firing attests:
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Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri, the architect of the greatest, most shocking, I-still-can’t-believe-it-happened-even-though-it-definitely-did championship victory in the history of sports, has reportedly been fired today.
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About a month ago, Arsène Wenger got himself a four-match touchline ban for his behavior in a league game between Arsenal and Burnley. We all knew part of the ban was because Wenger pushed the fourth official after being sent to the stands by the head referee, but we didn’t know what exactly he said to get himself…
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For most England-focused soccer fans watching yesterday’s Manchester City-Monaco Champions League match, seeing Radamel Falcao’s name in the starting lineup probably elicited more surprised chuckles than brows furrowed in worry or anticipation of what the striker might do. Oh wow, Falcao—that washed up has-been who…
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Since Diego Simeone took over Atlético Madrid half a decade ago, Madrid’s other club has morphed into a juggernaut of sorts. La Liga has always been a comically imbalanced league, but Atléti spoiled Barcelona and Real Madrid’s party in 2013-14 and became the first “other” team to win the league in a decade. Their…
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Mike Piazza, Hall of Famer and the best-hitting catcher in major-league history, is having a fine time in Italy these days. Much of it has to do with Reggiana, the third-tier soccer club in which he purchased a majority stake last year, and the New York Times’s Andrew Keh wrote a wonderful story about this for…
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Saúl must have something against German teams. A year after ripping apart Bayern Munich with the run of his life, the Atlético midfielder thumped in a beautiful curler against Bayer Leverkusen today:
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Vietnam apparently has some very principled soccer players, even if their beef here—that the ref gave a soft penalty—doesn’t look all that controversial of a decision.
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Large boy Wayne Shaw, the backup goalkeeper for fifth-division Sutton United, has inevitably become a meme over the course of his team’s cinderella run to the fifth round of the FA Cup, which pits teams from up and down the league pyramid, and leads to wonderful, silly matchups like yesterday: Big, bad Arsenal…
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If there’s been one consistent attribute of Barcelona’s play over the past decade or so that has seduced fans and neutrals and even ostensible enemies to buy a ticket to the Camp Nou or to flick on the TV to whichever obscure channel wound up with the La Liga broadcasting rights or to trawl sketchy video sites for the…
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Jonathan Mejía and his UCAM Murcia squad lost to Real Valladolid on Saturday in some hot second-division Spanish soccer action, but really, who cares, for young Mejía scored the goal of his life. Look at the Honduran international turn these four dudes into jelly.
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Alexis Sánchez, the pride of Chile, is one of the best soccer players on the planet. He’s also trapped on a bullshit team that kind of sucks, where—amazing goals and dribbles and passes be damned—he’ll probably never win anything of major consequence. To top it off, his bullshit team is balking at paying him superstar…
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Arsenal had a big match in the Champions League on Wednesday, which is another way of saying Arsenal were yet again monumentally embarrassed in a huge moment. Arsenal are also right about at the start of the end stretch of their season, which is another way of saying that Arsenal are already out of realistic…
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Today in Manchester United’s Europa League knockout match against Saint-Étienne, Zlatan Ibrahimović scored about the most unremarkable hat trick you’re likely to see. A poorly taken free kick that deflected in, a tap-in off a rebound, and a penalty. But the goals, bland as they were, aren’t the point. The point is…
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This video of some typically crude and unsporting behavior in Argentina is queued up to begin where the real action starts, but if you’d like a little backstory, you can skip back to the beginning. On the other hand, if you just want to see a dude spit in a player’s face, just hit play and let it ride.
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Arsenal’s Alexis Sánchez had a chance to level up the game against Bayern Munich with a penalty. He took a bad one, and it was saved. Oops! Thankfully, the ball bounced kindly into his path for an easy rebound. Only he botched that with a whiffed shot. Oops again! The soccer gods smiled on Alexis, though, and gave the…
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Yes, everyone knows it’s coming. And everyone also knows that the whole point is that even though everyone knows it’s coming, it’s still impossible to stop. And yet it remains hard to watch a team allow Arjen Robben to get onto his left foot and do what he always does, as he’s just done to Arsenal:
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Motagua were on the cusp of sealing a big win late into their match against rivals Olimpia in the Honduran league last week. Then, up 2-1 with just seconds remaining, the Motagua keeper was beaten by two shots that hit the back of his net almost simultaneously. One goal was the equalizer, scored by an Olimpia player.…
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For years Paris Saint-Germain have spared no expense in their efforts to realize their dream of winning the Champions League. For years they’ve failed, putting out attack-minded teams that crush domestic foes in Ligue 1 but consistently come up short in the competition they really want to win. And while this was just…
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The fairy tale of last season was real. Leicester City—such a preposterously unlikely underdog that even the instinctive Cinderella comparison feels like a woefully insufficient metaphor for the sheer absurdity of a small, recently promoted club beating Manchester United and Chelsea and Arsenal and Liverpool and…
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