The first leg of the Atletico Madrid-Real Madrid Champions League quarterfinal ended in a rather drab 0-0 draw, but this being a Madrid derby and a rematch of last season’s Champions League final, there was still blood. Mostly spurting from Mario Mandzukic’s face.
Always an instigator, Mandzukic was at the center of most of the night’s conflicts and ended up worse for wear after taking a Sergio Ramos elbow to the face.
Former QPR and Hull manager Iain Dowie now serves as a commentator for Sky Sports News and was tasked with reporting from Chesterfield’s League One match against Colchester United on Tuesday. When he announced that Chesterfield had made it 3-0, he revealed his personal struggle with holding up the proper number of fingers by showing four of them.
Suddenly, Dowie’s modest record as a football manager is all the more impressive.
When we last saw Steven Defour, he was the subject of a giant tifo made by Standard Liege fans featuring his decapitated head. He had done something unforgivable for a former Standard Liege captain by signing with Anderlecht and when he was sent off during their meeting in January, the decision was enthusiastically cheered.
Well, Defour and Anderlecht returned to the Maurice Dufrasne Stadium on Sunday and this time the midfielder was laughed at. With Standard up 3-1 late in the match, Defour tried a little too hard to make something happen for his new side and attempted a Zidane style roulette. But he ended up falling over and gifting the ball to Standard without even touching a defender.
This, my friends, is why you should think twice before committing a betrayal.
Letter writing six year olds are apparently very interested in the Aston Villa manager’s job. Back in February, six-year-old Jude Branson wrote to Jose Mourinho, politely asking that he abandon the Premier League leaders to manage Villa (and bring Diego Costa with him, of course). But six-year-old Charlie Pye said “f*** Mourinho, I can do this job myself” (not an exact quote).
Back in 2002, when Zlatan Ibrahimovic only just began Daring to Zlatan at Ajax, he filmed a sketch that revealed his entire career to be the dream of a concussed bellboy.
According to the clip, the elbow to the head that Zlatan suffered from a Hungarian goalkeeper while scoring for Sweden that year was actually bellhop Zlatan falling down the stairs while trying to carry too many bags
Louis van Gaal has a message for his wife’s City-supporting hairdresser. Unlucky, Dawn! https://t.co/W7NunveNGb
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) April 12, 2015
Manchester United beat Man City 4-2 on Sunday, which is great news for Louis van Gaal and terrible news for his wife, Truus.
Vasco da Gama and Flamengo played to a scoreless draw on Sunday, but just because there were no goals does not mean there were no near decapitations. Flamengo’s Jonas demonstrated his violent flexibility in the 11th minute, planting his studs into an opponent’s shoulder.
Even more incredibly though, was the fact that he was only shown a yellow card for his very dangerous high boot.
This has been the Dirty Tackle of the Day: a chronicling of unfortunate events.
Jonas Hector scored the deciding goal in Cologne’s 3-2 win against Hoffenheim on Sunday, weaving through and jumping over a total of five defenders before beating the keeper with a deflected shot.
If that was the best individual goal of the weekend, then Atalanta had the best team goal when German Denis’ overhead shot was set up by a backheel and a header.
For the first time in five Premier League meetings, increasingly noisy neighbors Manchester United beat their reigning champion rivals Man City. They did it in emphatic fashion, too — winning 4-2 to go four points clear of fourth-place City. It was the type of result that could mark a definitive shift in the two clubs’ fortunes for years come, but what if it continued?
Dordrecht ’90 scored twice in a span of two minutes to negate NAC Breda’s lead in the second half of their Eredivisie match on Saturday, prompting NAC manager Robert Maaskant to put his fist through his team’s dugout in a fit of rage.
Maaskant has always been a hot head, but he’s got nothing on the Italian amateur who celebrated a goal by putting his head through the side of the dugout…