Cristiano Ronaldo and speed have gone hand in hand for a long time. It has always been a massive part of his game. The step-overs have come and gone, the goal scoring has gotten immensely better, but throughout it all Ronaldo’s speed has been there.
Barcelona didn't have to twist the knife. But they did.
Leading Real Madrid 3-0 in the Bernabeu, and making a powerful statement in the first Clasico of the year, the Blaugrana could have easily killed the game off and returned to Catalonia the triumphant victors, the clear favorites in La Liga and the masters of El Clasico.
All Barcelona outfield players touched the ball in Barcelona’s first goal in this 36 pass sequence. INCREDIBLE.. pic.twitter.com/PYDOXUkx5r
FC Barcelona stars participated in a FIFA 16 tournament and the resulting video is comedy gold. Claudio Bravo, Arda Turan and Dani Alves faced off against Neymar Jr., Jordi Alba and Marc-André ter Stegen in a winner-takes-all matchup.
Who’d the Barcelona players choose to play as? Well, themselves, naturally. With Neymar’s team sporting Barca’s away kits and the Alves squad in the traditional Blaugrana home shirts, the stage was set for a mini half-Clasico on FIFA 16.
Real Madrid have lost only two games in all competitions this season. They sit atop their Champions League group (one that includes Paris Saint-Germain) and they’ve plundered 33 goals while conceding only 11. Their combined goal difference in La Liga and the Champions League is a resounding +22.
And yet, such is the nature of the beast in the Santiago Bernabéu, all is certainly not right in Madrid.
All the talk surrounding this weekend's Clasico has centered, as it usually does, around Lionel Messi.
Thie difference this year is the talk has centered around whether Messi will play. Messi sustained a knee injury earlier this season, and has been out since September. The date aimed for as Messi's return has been Saturdays match against Real Madrid.
All eyes will be on Spain as the world’s biggest club football match is played on Saturday. The first El Clasico of the season will be held at the Santiago Bernabeu as Real Madrid hosts Barcelona.
What makes a rivalry? Does it have to be fueled by hate, or could a rivalry just be the acts of greatness shown by the two involved, where each pushes the other to reach heights they may have never achieved without that competitive adversary? In the NBA, Magic Johnson had Larry Bird; in the NFL, Peyton Manning has Tom Brady; tennis has Rafael Nadal vs Roger Federer. Right now in the world of soccer Lionel Messi has Cristiano Ronaldo.
Messi is back in training for Barcelona, and to commemorate that event, he's bought himself a new car. Or, at least, we've never seen it before. And, obviously, we have no idea why he bought it. When you have as much money as Messi does, you don't really need to rationalize any of your purchases. You can just make them.
Regardless of his motives in buying it, Messi showed up to training in a sweet blue Audi R8. If you don't think his Audi R8 is cool that's probably because you don't have one and are jealous.
The 15/16 iteration of Barcelona could go down as the best attacking side of all time; the 14/15 version arguably already has. This is because the front three of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, and Neymar Jr. has been nothing short of unstoppable when they have all shared the pitch. While the three are known to get along quite well, we are going to pit them against one another. Specifically we are going to look at Messi vs. Neymar.
Neymar scored two goals during Barcelona’s 3-0 victory over Villareal Sunday. He also changed the lives of anyone watching who hadn’t understood what it means to watch a truly great Brazilian goal; his second goal on the day was absurd, absolutely absurd, the kind of thing that makes people tell themselves, “OK, I need to get whatever channel shows Barcelona matches so I can watch as much of this as possible.”