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Zlatan Ibrahimovic famously said “A World Cup without me is nothing to watch” after Sweden lost their 2014 World Cup qualifying playoff to Portugal (he did later attend a World Cup match, though), and it seems he feels the same way about Champions League finals.
Zlatan, who has still never won the Champions League, spent one tumultuous season with Barcelona back in 2009/10. But as his former club prepared to face Juventus in the final, Zlatan posted photos of himself climbing mountains in Sweden to his Instagram account. Read more
Norway celebrated their third goal in their Women’s World Cup opener against Thailand by miming a group selfie. We’ve seen footballers celebrate goals by taking selfies with actual phones before, but this might be the first pretend selfie at a World Cup.
When we last left injury plagued defender Thomas Vermaelen, he was celebrating Barcelona’s La Liga title even though he hadn’t played a single minute for the club to that point. In the three weeks since then, a lot has happened though. He played 63 minutes in Barca’s meaningless final La Liga match of the season and for his considerable trouble, he got to celebrate their Copa Del Rey title and he collected a Champions League winner’s medal after watching his teammates beat Juventus 3-1.
Because this is real life, the winning goal of the 2015 Champions League final was scored by a serial biter coming off a four month ban from all footballing activities for a team with a long impending transfer ban, leading a universally beloved figure to cry in front of the whole world. In other words, Luis Suarez scored the decisive goal in Barcelona’s 3-1 win against Juventus.
The Champions League final is upon us once again, pitting two of Europe’s legendary clubs — Juventus and Barcelona — against each other in Berlin. Both clubs have already won domestic cup and league titles this season, so this match will decide who will win a historic treble. But the most important honors are being decided here right now by me.
These are the 2015 Champions League final superlatives…
The day before the Champions League final is an important and nerve-wracking day for the participating players. It’s their chance to make their final preparations before the most important match of their season. Or, in Dani Alves’ case, work on a pre-match intimidation routine that will ensure that no one wants to ride the escalator with him.
Dani Alves: Master of the game before the game.
Barca win La Liga. That means that this qualifies as dressing like a champion and no one can dispute it. pic.twitter.com/2YZhO7Me1D
The US came back from 3-1 down to beat the Netherlands for the first time ever in a friendly at the Amsterdam Arena that was roughly equivalent to a derailed train crashing into a helicopter. Before getting into the match itself, there are two key pieces of information that need to be stated.
1. Since Guus Hiddink replaced Louis van Gaal after the Nethelands finished third at last summer’s World Cup, the Dutch have decided that defending is morally wrong.
2. The US have been blowing leads by conceding late goals like that’s the object of the game.
So with that established, here are some match facts:
Cristiano Ronaldo posted a video thanking fans for supporting him while lounging without a shirt on before segueing into a message to the press, whom he points out, he does not talk to.
“Just leave me alone,” he says. “Let me do my work properly like I do every year. Don’t try to damage my image, because it’s not going to happen.”
Mr. Orange from Reservoir Dogs is supposed to be Sepp Blatter. Seriously.
United Passions, a film produced by FIFA about FIFA and for FIFA with a title befitting a softcore porn flick, was first released last year in select markets (Serbia! Portugal! Hungary!) and it was received as poorly as a vanity project for a reviled criminal organization posing as a non-profit should be. It has a 2.9 rating (out of 10) on IMDB and a 0.5 rating (out of 10) on Rotten Tomatoes. It reportedly cost FIFA between $20 million and $30 million to make.
And now, mere days after the film’s hero announced his plan to surrender the FIFA presidency following major arrests and evidence of decades of corruption, United Passions is being released in theaters across the United States — the very same country responsible for setting FIFA’s previously impenetrable headquarters on fire. (UPDATE: According to The Hollywood Reporter, it made $607 in its opening weekend. Six hundred and seven. That means about 60 people paid to watch it and/or sit in an air conditioned room during its first two days of release.)
Given these hilarious circumstances, the film’s director, Frederic Auburtin (who was brought to the project by United Passions star and friend of Sepp Blatter, Gerard Depardieu), is promoting its US release by talking about how much he wanted to undermine its message.
“I didn’t have the freedom to do a Michael Moore movie at all,” he said. “If I started the movie with flashlights and sirens coming to Zurich, like what happened last Wednesday — I knew if we would write any line like this, everyone would say: ‘What are you doing, man? Come on.’ ”
Mr. Auburtin said he would have preferred to delve deeper into the FIFA darkness. “But I accept the job,” he said. “I know FIFA is producing the film. As we say in France, don’t be more royalist than the king: Don’t be the king if you are not the king.”
Auburtin and Tim Roth, who plays Sepp Blatter, both say they tried to subtly hint at the corruption that has since made headlines around the world within the film. And there’s only one way to find out if that’s the case: by actually watching the damn thing.
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