Friendly

Barcelona hosted Chapecoense at Camp Nou in the Joan Gamper Cup in a celebration of the Brazilian club, which was devastated by plane crash in November that killed 71 of the 77 passengers, including most of the squad and staff. An emotional first kick from survivors Jakson Follmann and Neto had some holding back tears but when the match began, there was no holding back Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and the Catalans in a 5-0 victory for Barcelona on Monday.

The U.S. women faced off against Japan on Thursday in their last game of the Tournament of Nations. Japan-U.S. has become a particularly heated affair in recent years with the two meeting in three of the last four major finals. USWNT fans will not easily forget the heartbreaking loss to the Japanese at the 2011 FIFA World Cup nor Carli Lloyd’s rampage to win the trophy four years later.

Saturday’s El Clasico at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami gave over 66,000 spectators the opportunity to watch the likes of Lionel Messi, Neymar and Gareth Bale, but the lasting legacy of this match will probably be the confrontation between Barcelona midfielder Ivan Rakitic and American referee Jair Marrufo.

Rakitic’s goal in the 7th minute gave Barca an early 2-0 lead, but his 73 minutes on the pitch weren’t entirely enjoyable.

The Australia women's soccer team made history in Seattle on Thursday night, pulling off the upset against the U.S. women in both teams' Tournament of Nations opener. In 27 meetings, the Matildas have never beaten the Americans who have been a perennial powerhouse on the women's stage. July 27, 2017 was a special day, however. 

Fans showed up en masse at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, to watch Barcelona play Manchester United on Wednesday night. What they saw on the pitch looked more like Manchester City against Real Madrid.

One team in light blue played against another in white. 

In the end, the team in light blue (Manchester City, we presume), beat the team in white (Real Madrid?) 1-0. 

Major League Soccer revealed today that  German star Bastian Schweinsteiger will wear the captain’s armband when the MLS All-Stars take on Real Madrid in Chicago on August 2. Schweinsteiger beat out Tim Howard and David Villa for the honor in a Snapchat vote. 

On one hand, preseason friendlies definitely do not matter. On the other hand, preseason friendlies between teams like Chelsea and Bayern Munich definitely matter.

Not for any competitive reason, of course. When Bayern and Chelsea met in the International Champions Cup Tuesday, Munich's 3-2 win wasn't predictive of anything. No, the Chelsea-Bayern friendly definitely mattered because we hadn't seen elite soccer in a while and missed players doing things like what Thomas Muller did.