Five years ago, Real Sociedad was playing in the Champions League after a campaign in which the club scored 70 goals — the most in LaLiga apart from Barcelona and Real Madrid. Instrumental to Sociedad’s success was a 22-year-old forward by the name of Antoine Griezmann and his strike partner, the 24-year-old Mexican Carlos Vela.
In 2016, Iceland was the darling of the football world. Buoyed by bearded backers belting out their brilliant Viking chant, Iceland reached the quarterfinals of the European Championship, the country’s first-ever major international tournament.
The following year, Iceland qualified for its first-ever World Cup, becoming the lowest-populated country to ever reach the tournament. Qualification coincided with Iceland peaking at No. 18 in FIFA’s rankings of international teams earlier this year, an astonishing climb after hitting the nadir of No. 131 just six years prior.
The ridiculous transformation that D.C. United’s experienced since the arrival of Wayne Rooney reached a fitting conclusion today with a 3-1 victory over New York City FC and a berth in the 2018 MLS Cup Playoffs. Rooney scored twice for United and strike partner Luciano Acosta was also on the scoresheet before David Villa struck a late consolation goal on a celebratory day at Audi Field.
After failing to make the grade at Atletico Madrid four years ago and following that up with three years of diminishing returns with Benfica — culminating in a return of only eight goals in 43 appearances last season — Raúl Jiménez’s loan move to Wolverhampton back in June had all the stink of today’s bewildering transfer market.
It appeared to be nothing more than super agent Jorge Mendes using his clout to wheel and deal the 27-year-old in a way that lined his own pockets while allowing Benfica to finally cut financial ties with the $11 million flop.
Déjà vu approached the viewer of CSKA Moscow vs. Real Madrid on Tuesday and punched him or her in the teeth. Whether it was the sight of Russian internationals Igor Akinfeev and Mario Fernandes doing brave defending, Marco Asensio never making the right decision in the final third or Toni Kroos not enjoying himself on Russian soil, Tuesday showed that Julen Lopetegui could only run from the demons he’d managed to avoid by getting sacked before the World Cup for so long.
Barcelona players are not used to losing, especially in LaLiga. Last season, the Blaugrana lost just once in league play. Barcelona lost 19 games in the last five seasons combined — the same number Leganés lost last season alone.
So when Leganés scored a stunning 2-1 victory over Barcelona on Wednesday, maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised the Barça stars didn’t know how to handle defeat.
It looked to be business as usual in LaLiga on Wednesday after leader Barcelona took a 12th minute lead against bottom-of-the-table Leganes thanks to a wonder goal orchestrated by Lionel Messi and finished by Philippe Coutinho.
Volodymyr Chesnakov has one of the oddest pregame rituals we have ever seen.
The captain of Vorskla Poltava, Chesnakov and his teammates were in London to face Arsenal in the Europa League on Thursday. Before coming out onto the pitch at Emirates Stadium, Chesnakov spit all over his own face.
And it worked. He scored a great goal for Vorskla, the fifth-place team in the Ukrainian Premier League.
But Arsenal still won easily, 4-2, to the surprise of no one.