Marcos Antonio's Bundesliga debut for Nurnberg in 2012 against Stuttgart was so bad the Brazilian defender was substituted after 16 minutes and never played for the club again (granted, a big part of that was injuries). It was one of just two appearances Antonio made for the club, the first coming in the DFB Pokal against TSV Havelse.
So remember how in 2016 Nike rolled out all their international kits with the Vapor template? You might not because it was a complete non-event. The USA looked like Portugal looked like England looked like PSG. The kits were “modern” in design, which is PR speak for indistinguishable, homogeneous, money-grubbing attire.
Well, here comes the 2018 World Cup, the perfect time to check all those boxes again. But instead of the Vapor template, we now get the Aeroswift template (the collar is different!). Just take my $120 now.
Here’s Portugal…
Cristiano Ronaldo is having a no-good, very bad time in La Liga this season, and we have the stats to prove it. Never mind the one goal, this goes far deeper than that.
At what point do you give up?
At what point, after months of being utterly abject, do you finally snap and say to yourself, “You know what, maybe football isn’t the sport for me?” At what point — if you’re a Benevento player or fan — do you decide rugby, darts or bobsledding is actually your calling in life? Right about now, we should be approaching this point. It goes without saying: Benevento is historically, catastrophically, fantastically abject.
What a wild ride the 2017 MLS regular season was. The league, for all its various shortcomings and absurdities, is incredibly exciting and ever-growing in quality. However, for all of its maturation and development, there’s still a brilliant charm to MLS that’s long since left Europe’s biggest leagues and the likes of the NFL, NBA and MLB.
Borussia Dortmund has not had a great month and a half, but maybe the club can take solace in the impressive teamwork that led to a goal Friday — even if that goal was scored by Stuttgart. As the Bundesliga returned from the international break, Dortmund defender Marc Bartra and goalie Roman Burki combined to great effect to allow Chadrac Akolo to score in the fifth minute.
The list of the 32 nations competing in the World Cup was finalized on Wednesday night. That also meant the list of 179 nations not competing in the World Cup was also finalized. While 15 percent of the countries who compete in FIFA will be preparing for the World Cup draw on Dec. 1, the remaining countries, constituting most of the world’s population, will be wondering “What if…” for the next four years.
Here’s a pro tip for all you executives out there who want to run a professional soccer league: make sure your best team doesn’t disband the same week it wins the league championship.
Speaking of, it’s been one helluva week for the San Francisco Deltas — henceforth to be referred to as NASL’s bottle rockets. The Deltas came, they saw, they conquered then they got the hell out of Dodge, all within a span of two years.