Foosball — or table soccer — was once the eighth-most popular sport in the United States. Professional footballers raked in huge winnings on a million-dollar tour with Porches given to champions. It was a glamorous time, with the sport appearing in major Hollywood films.
No player better represents the artistry and meritocracy of football than Andrés Iniesta. His nickname El Ilusionista (The Illusionist) encapsulates it all. He had an unmatched ability to confound the opposition from the midfield position, be it his miraculous power to effortlessly escape a pack of chasing defenders or his fantastic capacity to contort the ball to his every desire.
El Paso Locomotive has only been around for one season, but it’s clear the club has already become a huge part of the community.
The above mini documentary, released by the USL Championship YouTube channel on Tuesday, highlights the impact Locomotive has made on the West Texas town of El Paso.
The crowning achievement of Lionel Messi’s international career remains the gold medal he captured as a 21-year-old at the 2008 Summer Olympics. It was a loaded Albiceleste squad with further attacking firepower provided by Sergio Agüero, Ángel Di María and Ezequiel Lavezzi, but Messi and Argentina were hugely reinforced by the over-age inclusions of Javier Mascherano and Juan Román Riquelme.
On Sunday morning, Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, along with 7 others, tragically died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California. This tragedy has sent shockwaves through the entire sports world and has led to tributes pouring in from all over the world.
Bryant was good friends with Barcelona's Lionel Messi. "We're the same, Messi and I," Bryant once said in an interview with ESPN. "As people, in the way that we speak, we are different- he's a very reserved person- but we are the same in the love that we feel for our sports."
The Super Bowl is around the corner, a time when all Americans gather around a TV to shovel nachos into their mouths while drinking copious amounts of beer, all under the guise of watching that abating sport called American football. Of course, all anyone really cares about, besides the food and beer, is the commercials, and we got our nacho-covered hands on the latest 2020 Budweiser Super Bowl ad on Thursday.
Last season’s Champions League semifinals were a romantic’s dream. Such was the scale of the attacking ambitions of the last four clubs remaining that almost all of the tournament’s top providers were on display: With five assists each, Ajax’s Dušan Tadić and the Barcelona duo of Luis Suárez and Jordi Alba finished as joint-leaders (along with Manchester City’s Leroy Sané). Just behind them with four assists was Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Injuries, a contentious World Cup and the personal admission of a desire to abandon the PSG project have all adversely affected Neymar over the past two years — so much so that he found himself omitted entirely from the 30-man list for the 2019 Ballon d’Or.
There’s something deeply visceral about the Premier League. When the wind’s swirling, the temperature’s dropping and a legendary old ground like Anfield or Stamford Bridge is rocking, it’s all equal parts blood and thunder in England. This sort of environment lends itself perfectly to some truly violent screamers, the likes of which we’ve witnessed over the years from famed goal scorers such as Alan Shearer, Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard and Thierry Henry.
At the age of 25, Paulo Dybala’s already conquered much of the footballing world — fitting for a man that celebrates his goals by donning a figurative gladiator mask. This season marks his fifth with Italian power Juventus, and every previous year has finished with a Serie A title to go along with three Coppa Italia triumphs.