When former Chelsea winger Damien Duff joined Shamrock Rovers last month, it was reported that he would donate his wages to charity and end his career on an altruistic note. Since David Beckham did the same thing at PSG on a larger scale, Duff’s gesture seems to have received limited attention, but his reasons for doing it have nothing to do with PR or a desire to copy Beckham.
After winning the first leg of their Copa Sudamericana first-stage tie 4-1, Uruguayan club Juventud found themselves in a bit of trouble during the second leg when Real Potosi scored twice to make the aggregate score 4-3. Realizing the danger here, Juventud’s Matias Alonso did the only thing in his power as a footballer to try and preserve the lead: he faked an injury.
Claiming to have a cramp, Alonso drew the ire of his opponents as the medical cart came out so he could be loaded onto a stretcher and driven away in the 78th minute. But the medics were too good at their job. Alonso still wanted to waste more time, but they had already loaded him onto the stretcher and were mere seconds away from removing him from the pitch. He had to think fast. So as they lifted him up on the stretcher, he showed his desperation and commitment to the cause by purposefully falling off it.
This proved to be just a momentary setback, though. And Alonso was then taken away, hopefully to be dumped into the sea.
Juventud did hold on and will face Emelec in the second stage.
Pedro scored and assisted Diego Costa’s first goal of the season within the first half hour of Chelsea’s 3-2 win at West Brom. It was a dream debut for the ex-Barca man and it inspired his new club to their first win of the season despite playing with 10 men after John Terry was sent off in the 54th minute.
LA Galaxy v New York City FC was billed as the marquee match of the MLS season with both clubs loaded up with expensive, big-name talent. Though Robbie Keane, Giovani Dos Santos, David Villa, and Andrea Pirlo would all be on the pitch, the “British invasion” was the focus of the pre-match build-up as Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard would face each other for the first time in MLS (and roughly the nine millionth time overall in their careers).
A 0-0 draw with newly promoted Sporting Gijon and Cristiano Ronaldo is already looking like he wants to murder the universe.
Sheffield Wednesday’s Marco Matias scored a goal to remember in his side’s match against Leeds on Saturday. He received a long pass and got around a chasing defender by lobbing the ball over his head with one foot to set up an exquisite volley with the other.
This is just absolute perfection.
Despite sitting at the top of Euro 2016 qualifying group H, Croatia fear they could be dumped from the competition in their next match. This fear isn’t based in competitive concerns, though. It’s rooted in the growing number of racist incidents perpetrated during their games. So they’ve taken the extreme step of banning their own fans from their next three away matches in an effort to send the message that this behavior has to stop.
The LA Galaxy will host New York City FC this Sunday, so to prepare for the match, they decided to make fun of their fellow aging European talent collectors.
NYCFC gave the Galaxy plenty to work with by allowing their big three — David Villa, Andrea Pirlo, and Poku Frank Lampard — to be photographed wearing white tank tops and looking greasy by New York Magazine for some reason. So the Galaxy recreated this shoot with Dan Gargan, Alan Gordon, and Nacho Maganto.
Xabi Alonso and Thiago have both been with Bayern Munich for a while now and as the video above shows, their ability to speak German is coming along nicely.
In this lesson, we learn why Xabi’s shots are so powerful, that he knows a thing or two about Oktoberfest, and that if this video was about Carlos Tevez’s attempts to learn English, it would just be five minutes of an empty chair and a disappointed teacher.
In conclusion, Xabi Alonso is very handsome.
QPR’s Charlie Austin is in the middle of an increasingly desperate search for a new club before the transfer window shuts despite finishing as the Premier League’s fourth highest scorer last season. And his pursuit has been dealt a blow by West Ham owner David Sullivan, who claimed that his club wouldn’t sign Austin in part because the striker “has no ligaments in his knee.”
