Tuesday night’s friendly match between Argentina and Mexico was a fittingly strange closing to a strange year for both nations: Mauro Icardi scored his first international goal at the eighth time of asking, and Paulo Dybala also opened his account in his 18th appearance.
Cristiano Ronaldo was full of flicks and tricks early on in his first visit to Old Trafford since joining Juventus. He made Ashley Young look silly with an early move and even had an admirer invade the pitch to see him (though he was tackled before he reached the former Manchester United winger.
Then Ronaldo made an actual imprint on the game, setting up Juventus’ first goal in the 17th minute.
For decades the Bitter Englishman has been blissfully ignorant of whatever was going on in Italian football. Oh, Juventus won the Serie A again? Big deal.
But now Cristiano Ronaldo has ruined all of that.
It’s been a while since the Serie A has been relevant in Europe. Sure they’ve had some teams make some runs in the Champions League, but the lack of real star power and the lack of parity has made most Serie A matches the opposite of a must-watch.
If you thought Team Cavani vs. Team Neymar was one helluva little squabble, just wait until you see Juventus players standing over a free kick this season!
It’s time to talk about Paulo Dybala. Actually, it was probably time to talk about Dybala two months ago, when he was rightly titillating the interest of the Barcelona board, possibly plugging a recently-emerged Neymar-sized hole in their starting XI. But even since then, Dybala has gone to a whole new level. Is it time to start talking about Dybala as being one of the very best in the world?
Newly appointed Argentina manager Jorge Sampaoli has wasted no time putting his own stamp on the national team by recalling once-exiled Inter Milan striker Mauro Icardi and dropping the oft-criticized Gonzalo Higuain for crucial upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Uruguay and Venezuela.
Icardi is joined in Argentina’s attack by Lionel Messi, Paulo Dybala, Joaquin Correa and Sergio Aguero, who was left out of Sampaoli’s first Argentina squad for friendlies against Brazil and Singapore back in June.