After getting stretchered off in the first half of the Euro 2016 final and wiping the tear drowned moths from his face, Cristiano Ronaldo didn’t hide in self-pity — he came back out and took on a new job for Portugal: head coach. With a brace on his knee, Cristiano hobbled up and down the touchline, shouting instructions that may or may not have drowned out those of actual manager Fernando Santos.
Moth consoles tearful Cristiano Ronaldo after Euro 2016 final injury
A collision with France’s Dimitri Payet early in the first half of the Euro 2016 final left Cristiano Ronaldo with a badly injured knee. Though he isn’t normally one to receive the world’s empathy, watching him exhaust every ounce of his considerable willpower to try and continue before tearfully going off for treatment twice and eventually having to be stretchered off in the 25th minute was a genuinely heartbreaking sight. Even for one moth in particular.
NWSL match played on insanely small pitch
As the U.S. women’s team beat South Africa 1-0 in friendly attended by 19,272 people at Soldier Field in Chicago, an NWSL match between the Western New York Flash and Seattle Reign was played on a shrunken field at a minor league baseball stadium.
Ricardo Quaresma has feather hair now
Paul Pogba has been the king of hair artistry amongst footballers for some time now, but ahead of the Euro 2016 final, Portugal’s Ricardo Quaresma has made a play for the throne. Quaresma showed off a new ‘do that consists of a blond feather shaved into his otherwise bald head during Portugal’s training session the day before the final.
Barcelona launch misguided call to support Leo Messi’s tax fraud
Barcelona have launched a bizarre campaign to rally fans into showing support for Lionel Messi because he’s being held accountable for being guilty of tax fraud.
Messi and his father were each given a suspended sentence of 21 months in jail (meaning they won’t have to serve it) and fined a total of €3.5 million for evading millions in taxes. But apparently Barcelona feel that Messi should be above the law.
DT Exclusive: Why Marcelo Bielsa quit Lazio after two days
The enigmatic Marcelo Bielsa quit as Lazio manager just two days after the club officially announced his arrival. This obviously did not please Lazio, as they are now threatening legal action against the Argentine even though they promptly announced Simone Inzaghi (Pippo’s younger brother) would replace him.
For his part, Bielsa says “After four weeks working together with you, we could not sign any of the seven additions in the work program expressly approved by the President Claudio Lotito.” He adds that the club agreed to sign at least four of those players by July 5, but that didn’t happen, either. “For my style of work we needed to have these players arrive in a timely manner to train,” he concludes.
This, however, was not the offense that sent Bielsa over the edge. The following is a transcript of the conversation that ended his 48-hour reign.
Paul Pogba makes being stuck in a hotel for a month seem fun
Before France’s 2-0 win over Germany in the Euro 2016 semifinals, Paul Pogba gave the France Football Federation’s YouTube channel a look at what he does on tournament off days. After being cooped up in the team hotel for about a month straight already, you’d think there would be a lot of boredom and misery, but for Pogba it’s a lot music, dancing, and massages.
Antoine Griezmann takes a bow after proving himself to be the star of Euro 2016 on and off the pitch
So much of Antoine Griezmann’s is a response to disappointments. He was forced to move to Spain at a young age after being rejected from French clubs for being “too small” and now he’s France’s top scorer at the Euros. He was in tears on the pitch after France’s quarterfinal loss to Germany at the 2014 World Cup and at Euro 2016 he scored both goals to beat them 2-0 in the semifinals. At the Champions League final in May, he missed an important penalty for Atletico Madrid as they lost to Real Madrid and in the match against Germany he converted an important penalty to open the scoring.
France make Mesut Özil regret his pre-match banter
One of the most notable aspects of this expanded edition of the Euros is the imbalance of the knockout stage. Part of that has been down to the new structure of the tournament with 24 teams and four of six third-place finishers in the group stage advancing, and part has been big teams starting slow and smaller ones playing out of their skin. But the result was Germany battling Italy in the quarterfinals while France made easy work of Iceland.
Cristiano Ronaldo enjoys Portugal’s pre-match photobomber
A clever UEFA volunteer taking part in the pre-match ceremonies for the Euro 2016 semifinal between Portugal and Wales decided to make the most of his pitch access by photobombing the Portuguese team.