Europe

Last season, soccer fans all over the world were treated to perhaps the greatest underdog story ever told, a Leicester City Premier League championship. The Foxes entered the season with 5,000 to one odds to win the title, and as the favorite of many pundits to be relegated out of the Premier League.

However, they shocked the soccer world and won the Premier League championship with a 10-point cushion, running away with the trophy. Now, the question becomes "can Leicester City repeat as Premier League champions? Surely, if they did it once, they can do it again, right?"

Real Madrid and Atletico madrid were handed transfer bans (for the next two windows) related to the signing of youth players from foreign countries, and now FIFA has upheld those bans. Real and Atletico wil not be able to register new players until the January 2018 transfer window.

From a FIFA statement on the appeal rejection:

We love a good manager tiff, and no two managers in soccer have been more consistently tiff-some in the last few years than Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger. Their long and storied history of passive-aggressive sniping is a shining example for those of us who count being petty as a hobby.

There was that time Mourinho called Wenger a "specialist in failure" and refused to apologize, that time Wenger said Mourinho was afraid of failure and that time Mourinho called Wenger a "voyeur."

And now there is a new entry into the pair's long lesson in managerial grudge-holding. 

After two months on the sideline following the injury he suffered during the Euro 2016 Final, Cristiano Ronaldo is ready to make his 2016-17 La Liga bow with Real Madrid.

The Portuguese forward spoke at the launch of his new perfume, saying: “I am fine, I’m going to play.”

Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s signing for Manchester United is the final big European stop for a man who has found success in the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and France. The questions surrounding his ability to succeed in the Premier League, while undoubtedly a media creation, still seem to fuel his desire to stay at the top of his game at 34 years of age.

Imagine how great the world would be if every footballer behaved like Gigi Buffon. The 38-year-old Juventus and Italy goalkeeper is an absolute legend, equally famous for his remarkable career between the posts and his overall character. In recent years Buffon has endeared himself to fans around the world with his charismatic signing of the Italian national anthem, writing an emotional letter to the goal he defends, and playing keeper during a game with children.  

They came, they saw, they conquered. That’s the American plan for FC Barcelona and club president Josep Maria Bartomeu following the opening of a Barca office in New York on Tuesday.

The Empire State Building projected the Blaugrana colors, Ronaldinho completed the ribbon-cutting ceremony with a signature no-look pass into a mini-goal and the Barcelona flag was hoisted outside Barca’s new headquarters in Midtown Manhattan.  

Nicklas Bendtner would like to extend to you an invitation to the pants party.

Bendtner and his pants are always getting into shenanigans, and now he and his pants are headed to Nottingham Forest, which should be fun.

Having lost Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Kim Kallstrom and their manager Erik Hamren after Euro 2016, Sweden still managed to draw with the Netherlands in Stockholm. 

For the Netherlands, their only possible excuse is that they’re now terrible. With nine more qualifying matches still to play, the Dutch have time to improve, it’s just difficult to foresee where that improvement will come from. 

Zenit St. Petersburg received a remarkable offer from Burger King to change the team's name to "Zenit Burger King".

Really.