After watching Loris Karius almost single-handedly crush Liverpool’s chances in the Champions League final against Real Madrid, Liverpool spent a record $87.4 million to bring Roma’s Alisson to Anfield.
The United States is a big country. It spans four time zones just in the contiguous continental landscape. So it can understandably be a tough task to schedule a weekday match that kicks off at a time suitable for the entire country. Unfortunately, the USWNT vs Chile match on Friday night didn’t really kick off at a time suitable for any part of the country — except maybe Hawaii.
The 2018-19 Europa League group stage draw on Friday placed Arsenal in Group E alongside Portugal’s Sporting, Azerbaijan’s FK Qarabag and Ukraine’s Vorskla Poltava.
STOP THE PRESSES! We’ve got some pulp for you: Unami Emery has banned Arsenal players from drinking fruit juice at London Colney. That’s right, gone are the days of sucking down Simply Lemonade (I like the raspberry best) and cracking open a Snapple (I like the kiwi strawberry best) to read “Real Fact” #646 inside the bottle cap.
Serie A banned Udinese’s Rolando Mandragora for one match after “blasphemous remarks” concerning the Virgin Mary. The 21-year-old midfielder said “Porca Madonna, Vaffanculo, Dio Cane” and television cameras caught it, the BBC reports.
The words, an insult to the Virgin Mary and calling God a dog, heavily disturbed the Italian FA. The angry outburst reportedly came after Sampdoria’s goalie Emil Eudero saved a shot against Udinese. Mandragora’s team won 1-0 on Monday, Aug. 27.
The Champions League group stage is now set, all 32 teams having clinched their spot in the meat of Europe’s biggest club competition. Red Star Belgrade was the last team in, booking its spot in the Champions League group stage for the first time ever with a dramatic 2-2 draw with FC Salzburg, advancing on away goals.
Germany flamed out of the 2018 World Cup with two losses and one last-minute victory. Die Mannschaft brought to Russia many of the same players and ideas the Germany squad had used to win the 2014 World Cup, but with a far worse result.
The world’s most powerful president had a bizarre meeting in the White House on Tuesday. I’m talking, of course, about FIFA president Gianni Infantino.
Infantino was welcomed to the Oval Office by a slightly less prominent president, Donald Trump, in what has to be one of the more bizarre interactions between the sports world, politics and the free press — at least in the last three days (it is 2018, after all).
FC Agres took on Chindia Targoviste in Romanian second division action on Saturday with the scores level at 1-1 in the 82nd minute. During a fairly innocuous attacking situation in which a Chindia attacker appeared to be fairly well marshaled on the right flank, Agres manager Emil Sandoi (who played as a center back during his own professional career and was capped 30 times by Romania) pulled off the inexplicable.
Always looking for new, weird ways to promote, self-promote and promote some more, Major League Soccer and Twitter are joining together to create one crazy marketing ploy for Friday night’s El Trafico between the LA Galaxy and LAFC.