Outrageous

Nottingham Forest and Wolverhampton’s League Cup quarterfinal, in terms of entertainment, exceeded expectations Wednesday night.

The match was a classic game of English soccer: cold and rainy but with a great atmosphere nonetheless. Wolves (with the goalscoring return of Raúl Jiménez) and Forest both managed to get on the scoreboard, but the game stood level at 1-1 after extra time so a winner had to be determined from the spot.

Indoor soccer players are some of the most technically talented individuals on the planet. The sport shares much with other variations of the beautiful game, especially beach soccer and futsal, where control is paramount. On Saturday, Tacoma Stars forward Nick Perera put all of his expertise to use with a piece of individual brilliance in a 7-5 win over the Kansas City Comets. 

BERLIN - Germany's World Cup winner Lukas Podolski has long dazzled crowds with his power and speed but he left fans at a charity match on Sunday speechless when he was sent off for dissent.

The 37-year-old former Bayern Munich and Arsenal forward, who now plays for Poland's Górnik Zabrze, was given his marching orders after he brought down an opponent in the indoor arena at Gummersbach during a charity match under his auspices.

He got up and walked to the referee, speaking to him and then coming face-to-face as he kept addressing him.

Atlético Madrid's slender hopes of catching Barcelona and Real Madrid at the top of the table took a massive hit Sunday when Barça travelled to the Metropolitano and emerged with a 1-0 victory, opening up a 14-point gap between the teams after 16 games.

It was all too predictable from this Diego Simeone side with the João Félix and Antoine Griezmann led attack failing to breakthrough and the midfield unable to gain much of a foothold against Sergio Busquets, Gavi and Frenkie de Jong.

Ángel Correa couldn't even connect on an attempted shot aimed at the linesman.

After finishing his professional career on Nov. 8 with a red card and the infamous last words of "I s**t on your prostitute mother!" aimed at the referee, Gerard Piqué has returned to the limelight with his latest business venture, serving as the president of the Kings League in Barcelona.

What we call "shithousery celebrations" might start becoming a trend in the world of soccer, and you can probably thank Emiliano Martínez for that.

In a Saudi Arabian King Cup of Champions round of 16 clash between Al-Ittihad and Al-Shabab, a penalty kick miss that defined the winner of the game gave us perhaps the most brutal celebration to an opposing player we’ve seen this year.

This time around, it was directed to an Argentine by a Brazilian.

Assists are often overlooked in favor of their more flashy and prominent neighbor, the goal. In many ways, they require more technique and ability than scoring a goal because finding the goal is easy. Knowing where to place a ball to find a teammate while avoiding defenders and keepers, and actually having the technical ability to do it, requires a soccer mind of the highest order. One of the greats, Andrea Pirlo, famously said, "Football is played with the head. Your feet are just tools."