Summer ReNEYssance
Sometimes, the soccer is so good you guys. Sometimes, the sporting gods gift us with not just a good game or maybe two on Saturday, but a whole ass weekend of good content. Often this is confined to the field, but this weekend we were treated to goals and glory on the pitch AND drama off the pitch. How did we get so blessed? How could the memes be this good? God only knows but we are tbh thrilled to talk about it.
In the Premier League…
Let’s not beat around the beef- the Premier League BROUGHT the drama this weekend. From Manchester United (and their highlighter yellow uniforms, potentially an attempt ot blend in with the pitch) imploding and going down FOUR GOALS to LITERALLY BRENTFORD ?!?!?!?!? (UP THE BEES GOD DAMN) to the Nottingham Forest team winning all our hearts (up the TREES?!!?!?!?!?!)(bees and trees, something going on there!) to a straight up BRAWL going down between Tall Skinny Goofy Looking German Man Thomas Tuchel and Short Serious Italian Man Antonio Conte- I honestly don’t know where to start?? Saturday started as one would expect- Man City absolutely stomping the Cherries (Bournemouth), Everton losing to Aston Villa, Leeds blowing their lead to draw Southampton. The scene was quiet…too quiet. Arsenal beat Leceister, which isn’t shocking because the Gunners are vibing (tbd how resilient they’ll be if they face literally a single obstacle) and the Foxes have traded away a bunch of talent / are left with solely oldies. Then! We get a main event worth watching, the bees CAME OUT STINGING, scoring nearly right away against Erik Ten Haag’s floundering United. We love this for the bees! United…girl what are you DOING. Truly this is a club in crisis. If Elon Musk is joking around about buying you on Twitter…seek help babes. Also lowkey I’m not convinced he wasn’t serious. They’re also making a desperate lunge for Christian Pulisic to come over on loan (cut to behind the scenes footage of the man united scouts googling the word MIDFIELDER and scribbling names on a post it), who isn’t thrilled with the amount of playing time he’s getting currently @ Chelsea. Sunday morning the TRICKY TREES went full whomping willow on West Ham (tbh idk what’s going on with them, but I love this for nottingham). And THEN! Drama continued in a real london derby tete-a-tete where Thomas Tuchel (chelsea) apparently refused to let Antonio Conte’s (Spurs) hand go in their post match handshake? And they both got red cards? And yelled at each other? And everyone had to be like “:/ we don’t condone this misbehavior :/” but it was right good show lads!!! Fellas, is it gay to fake hug your fellow coach? To round out the weekend Liverpool failed to beat Crystal Palace (1-1 draw), mostly thanks to another red card and some light headbutting. Sometimes you gotta head butt your homies, what else can we say. They have started the year with 2 draws which is…not ideal, but we’re not counting anyone out (except man United, that’s a shit show),
In Ligue 1…
SPICE CONTINUES (is this dune?)! PSG out here looking like they actually might have their shit together? Well, they did for about 5 minutes. They secured Renato Sanchez in a transfer last week, a perfect addition to their famously lacking midfield (literally read any of our old posts about it) and it paid off beautifully when he scored this past weekend against Montpellier. Our boys really thrived, winning 5-2, including not one but TWO goals from Neymar, who is looking honesty SO GOOD. Like…his best in years (5 goals and 3 assists to start the season…king) Reports say that he and Messi are getting along really well and coach Gaultier is thrilled with his progress. Which is great news for all of us! Right? *prolonged french silence* *notices mbappe pouting in the corner* Ok folks maybe not! The rumor mill is churning and nothing feeds that baby better than a bunch of big egos- to elaborate: During the match (which once again they WON HANDILY but whatever throw a fit) there was a penalty called early on, Mbappe took it, the goalie saved it. Sad, but we move on. ANOTHER penalty was called, but this time, Neymar took it and scored, and the story is that Mbappe was reaaallllly pissed about that (there’s a parallel here…something about giving a mouse a cookie but it’s giving a 22 year old way too much power in your international football club). That’s the tea there (also, if you’re stats minded, mbappe connected with neymar way less on passes than messi did). Maybe this is just a start of the season growing pains, but they’re going to have to get their shit together if they want to be UCL champions, because that league will EAT YOU ALIVE if you having a SINGLE WEAKNESS on your team. As Paris should know by now because despite spending $$$ and securing most of the best players in the world, they STILL have not won it (and once they do, maybe their Dad will finally love them). Anyways! Nice isn’t thriving, they absolutely need to sign a striker before the transfer window closes. Marseille…also not really thriving, they couldn’t beat Brest and though they beat Reims in their debut last week, Clermont Foot beat Reims 4-2 this week which tells you they can’t be THAT good. And in true Farmer’s League fashion, Lorient’s game at Lyon had to be postponed since the pitch wasn’t ready.
In La Liga…
Ay dios mio Barcelona my boys you HAVE to learn to work well under pressure! The spanish league (and the italians, more on that in a sec.) starts a week behind everyone (probably too busy TAKING A SIESTA), so this was the first chance we got to see the many many purchases of barcelona actually play a game. The stade? She was bumpin. There was a lot of anticipation. Arguably, TOO MUCH! And Rayo was there to burst that bubble (force a draw, kudos to them) and force pundits to question literally everything. But do not panic guys!!! It’s week one! You cannot expect these dudes to come out and dazzle on demand! Tbh it’s probably for the best that they disappointed right out the gate because now, they can just go in with a blank slate. We will not be entertaining any hate for Xavi’s little spending spree okay! It’s called supporting the economy! Stimmy checks for everyone! Elsewhere, burdens were felt on Real Madrid’s squad as well, where there’s talk of unloading midfielder Casemiro (to…Man United, who, I swear to god, are just googling SOCCER PLAYERS NEAR ME at this point). They got out of the weekend with a win, beating Almeria 2-1. And last, but not least in our hearts, Atletico also got off to a solid start by beating Getafe 3-0 on Monday thanks to 2 goals from Alvaro Morata (and one from our boy Grizou), who, like neymar, is having a MOMENT right now.
In Serie A…
Last league best league! (you may be wondering what about the Bundesliga, more like the BORINGdesliga, until something besides Bayren winning happens, we aren’t dedicating time and space to them). At this point in the week, most of the news I’m hearing about Serie A is about a potential deal for Juventus’ Adrien Rabiot (a player who makes way too much money for playing not great footie!) falling through since (One guess as to who the buyer was? Bueller? Anyone?) MANCHESTER DANG UNITED didn’t want to pay him whatever he was asking for, which I am sure was an absurd number. I need this transfer window to end, and I need it to end now, put me out of my misery, let’s focus on the SOCCER. AC Milan had an excellent start to their season (despite worries that they’ll be unable to repeat in terms of the title race, tbd on how they’ll doin the Champion’s league which is likely to be a big focus for them) with a 4-2 win over Udinese (one of my favorite teams to say). Atalanta also won, but no one has hope for them this year, they’re in their flop era. Inter Milan struggled a little against Lecce, but won 2-1, clearly still getting their sea legs. Roma (everyone’s sweetheart this year, the big pick) beat Salernitana. The 2 monday games had a lot of action: Juve beat Sassuolo 3-0 (w/ 2 goals from Vlahovic, absolutely key for him to perform in order for this team to see success, and 1 from ANGEL DI MARIA rip dobby we miss you!! (dobby has no master!! dobby is a free elf!)He also did a rabona!). Napoli scored 5 and conceded 2 to Verona (saying Verona makes me miss Venezia, rip to those well fitted kings!!!). The big takeaway for our Napoli ancestors there is that those five goals came from 5 different players, always exciting to see a team have OPTIONS when it comes to creating chances. Also a lot of them have rando eastern european ass names? I checked the roster and this team has: a Georgian, a Slovakian, a Kosovian, a Macedonian and a Pole- random???
Looking Ahead
Hesitant to make any broad assumptions after legit one (sometimes two) games in a season that lasts roughly a million years, but let’s say some people clearly weren’t ready to go back to school! There’s still time to get your shit together and get your grades up, there are still a lot of egos to rein in and players to coach into ONE TEAM (what team? Wildcats). Let us know you predications in comments! Send us your best Man United memes!
