Day ??? of quarantine and footballers are finding innovative ways to keep kicking a ball and working on their skills. Some professionals are having zoom training sessions, working out with their families and pets, and some are even taking social distancing to a new level.
Of Europe’s top five leagues, Germany’s Bundesliga remains on course to be the first to return to the pitch. All clubs have resumed training in small groups, and the league still expects to return on Saturday, May 9.
However, Bundesliga chief executive Christian Seifert recently told the New York Times that although matches in the top two tiers would resume at the beginning of May, all the games would be played behind closed doors — a measure that’ll likely last through the remainder of the season.
In football’s absence we’re left to discuss purely quantitative things: the 25-point gap between Liverpool and Manchester City, the number of days between now and a hypothetical restart of the season, the amount of money that everyone’s losing during the shutdown, etc.
Amid all of the chaos and cancelations, soccer players around world have kept themselves entertained with the so-called “Stay At Home Challenge.” Lionel Messi showed his skills at juggling toilet paper, but there’s a new front-runner in town. In the lead now for the best stay at home challenge video is the Howard women’s soccer team.
As we’re all trapped inside our homes, what better way to spend time than working on perfecting our trick shots? BeautifulSoulsInNYC used his skills for the great cause of recycling and cleaning up garbage on the streets of NYC.
The last major stint of Ronaldinho’s legendary career was the nine months he spent with Querétaro in Liga MX. At the age of 35, the Brazilian certainly wasn’t as mobile or explosive as he’d been a decade prior when winning the Ballon d’Or with Barcelona, but his ability on the ball remained unparalleled.
So it's perhaps fitting that his greatest moment in Mexico was a seven-minute cameo that served to placate the paying audience inside Club América’s Estadio Azteca on April 19, 2015.
An 11-year-old goalkeeper has taken the internet by storm with his unique way to keep his goalkeeping skills sharp. The youth keeper, who is an only child, has proven to the world that even in isolation you can work on your craft.
The boy’s mother tweeted the video out on March 23. Only two days later, the video has reached nearly 10 million views.
While the likes of Lionel Messi, Bruno Fernandes and Thierry Henry juggle a piece of toilet paper around, Lonestar SC Academy and U.S. U-14 talent Mabry Williams is on to bigger and better things.
One year ago, Italian midfielder Gaetano Castrovilli was playing for Cremonese in Serie B with a transfer market value of just under $2 million. Fast forward to the present day and Inter is reportedly ready to offer Fiorentina $44 million for the 23-year-old.
With Neymar out suspended, Kylian Mbappé had two goals and an assist in Paris Saint-Germain’s 4-0 thrashing of Dijon on Saturday. But it’ll be the back-to-back Mbappé nutmegs that torment the nightmares of Dijon defenders for years to come.
Neymar sat out the match after picking up two yellow cards in the Feb. 23 match with Girondins de Bourdeaux. Marco Verratti was also out suspended while Thiago Silva, Ander Herrera, Colin Dagba and Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting were all injured.