GOALS FOR EVERYONE

The soccer this week CONTINUED TO BE GOOD in that so. many. goals. were scored across all the leagues (is this a factor of incredible offenses or weak defenses? Tough to say!), but, on the other hand, commentating was absolutely ass in every game we watched. @NBC, @Beinsports HIRE US because if I have to listen to fucking Phil Schoen recount all of the earliest goals scored in all of the history of soccer again I will 100% go full yellow wallpaper insane. Let’s unpack it:

In the Premier League…

The scheduling gods have not been kind to us- not sure who at the EPL chose to take notes from the NFL and put a bunch of shit games on at once and then show us the worst one on tv, but whomever it was, jokes on you because Southampton beat Leiceister on Saturday! And it was fun to watch okay! Sadly that meant we weren’t treated to Fulhams 3-2 win over the Bees (WEST LUNDUN DARBY INNIT) or the show put on by Crystal palace. Win some lose some! ON SUNDAY, Chelsea continued to baffle by losing 3-0 to Leeds United (BEES TREES and LEEDS there is something going on here people!!) but alas no handshake near-kisses this time.Then Manchester United faced off against Newcastle in what some tweeple are calling “ The Battle of the Sheiks” (you might think that the Newcastle fans would be a bit miffed about being owned by the Saudis now, au contraire, they are attending games dressed in thobes). Despite the 3-3 draw, this was actually an exciting game as Newcastle surged to a 2 point lead before Manchester answered with 1, and then Newcastle was like ROIT ISSA PROPA GAME, scored again, making it 3-1, but unfortunately City came back with 2. A real back n forth rollercoaster!!

At the end of the weekend (actually, on Monday, which is the second Monday in a row for liverpool which is personally annoying to me), Liverpool played Man United. Lots was made of this, what with the whole “manchester united hitting rock bottom” storyline as the main talking point in the EPL right now (Tim Howard before the game: “Sometimes rock bottom has trap doors” lol), but also with the fact that Liverpool hasn’t gotten off to the BEST start either (i.e. in Man U won this game they would be ahead of them in the table), there was GOING to be drama. Man U scored twice, although IMHO the second shouldn’t have counted. Then, second half, Liverpool woke up a little bit (but Manchester still going at it, Rashford playing v v v well) and finally got a goal (it was p messy though, and then Mo salah got in a little tiff with Bruno fernandez and I think poked him in the eye while fighting over the ball…kinda funny tbh). With a goal on the board they got more into it, but it was too little too late. They sit 16th in the table (the first time since 2012 they’ve gone winless in the first thee matches of the season) and meanwhile, Man United has decided all their problems are fixed now (but don’t point this out on twitter, lest you be ridiculed, as I learned on tuesday).

In Ligue 1:

Clermont Foot is off to a surprisingly good start, having won both their games so far and beating Nice this last weekend (Nice, for their part, is kinda in crisis having lost 2 games and still no striker acquired). Monaco is blowing it (they lost to Lens), Marseille is looking pretty good, and Lyon (who embarrassingly finished 8th last season but have a bunch of great homegrown players on their team and actually should be good tbh) beat troyes 4-1 (Troyes gunna have an uphill battle staying up this season). Red Cards abounded- one for Nice, Monaco, Marseille, Angers, Rennes, AC Auxerre, AND Montpelier. That’s like- half the teams in the league!!! Early Sunday morning, Bayern Munich (I am aware this is coming off as bundesliga news, fret not, tis but a brief aside) won their game against Vfl Bochum 7-0 (wiith some goals from former Liverpudlian Sadio Mane, but again, we don’t cover the bundesliga, so ignore that), and I said to Katrina: That is a CRAZY amount of goals! No one ever scores that much! And then she told me about the Newcastle game detailed above (sorry i think she meant to say, I gave a riveting play-by-play recap on our Zoya walk), and I said, WOW something is in the air because there are goals getting scored baby! And truly that theme carried all the way through the cap of the weekend, which brings us to PSG’s whopper of a SEVEN GOAL win over Lille. Lille, playing at home, against their former coach, two years after winning the league (though they’ve since lost all their best players), looked for most of the team like a group of middle schoolers rather than a professional football team. Then of course there was the notable absence of recently signed star Mohamed Bayo, on whom the team have pinned their hopes because … checks notes… HE DECIDED TO GO CLUBBING THE NIGHT BEFORE TAKING ON 3 OF THE BEST PLAYERS IN THE WORLD AND THEN POSTED ABOUT IT ON INSTA so he got grounded. Mbappe notably scored 8 seconds into the game— literally they blew the starting whistle, Messi put a ball up the pitch to Kiki, and he knocked it into the goal in a move that shocked even him. I honestly do not think the goalie though they had started the game????)As if in response to the drama/rumors of feuding last week, PSG doled out goals to everyone in their big three- Messi scored next (then Hakimi, who also HILARIOUSLY went to high five mbappe after he scored and SLAPPED HIM IN THE FACE by accident we died) then Neymar, then Neymar again, then Mbappe 2 more times to round out a hat trick (main character energy there). While, as a PSG fan, this game was a joy to watch (even when Lille scored and stopped us from getting a clean sheet), it was atrocious to listen to. Did you know that 8 seconds is the fastest a goal has been scored in ligue 1 history?????? well I do, because the commentators talked about it nonstop. They apparently must have decided beforehand to just do color commentary rather than discussing what was happening on the field. aka, their jobs???? So instead Katrina and I found out all the fastest goals in soccer (against our will) and then when they finished that they spoke at length about what’s next for PSG and how they’ll do in the champions league. A sample of this insightful commentary:

Phil: PSG is playing very well right now, the big three are playing very well in ligue 1 yes yes. Time will tell how they do in the Champions league, the real test. Thomas: Yes well in the champions league they will have to play big clubs. those big clubs like bayern munich and real madrid and man city and those clubs are very good. Those clubs are playing very good. So PSG will have to beat those clubs, those clubs being Bayern and Real and City and that is tougher than ligue 1 so we will have to wait and see.

SIR ARE YOU TRYING TO REACH A WORD COUNT OR SOMETHING? It was giving:

In La Liga…

(Ozuna, unofficial mascot of CA Osasuna)

Spicy weekend- Villareal shocked Atletico at home, winning 2-0. Atleti looked like trash honestly, I’ve got nothing else to say about that. Real Madrid continued the solid start to their season, despite this being the first game sans Casemiro who has now officially left for Manchester, beating Celta 4-1. Celta looked asleep the entire first half honestly, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that Luka Modric is playing great (the implied addendum onto that being: for a man his age, who doesn’t know how to wear a headband) while Eden Hazard (who missed a penalty) has yet to make his mark on the club. Barca ALSO won 4-1, quelling fears/rumors that all their summer spending wasn’t worth it. Lewandowski scored his first goal since joining the team, which is I guess a big deal but if you watched this game (I mean, I know you didn’t, but play pretend) you’d know the real star is Ansu Fati, a bebe but like truly the future of this team. Also a lot of red cards in this league this past weekend- one for Cadiz (who lost to Osasuna, or as I will now be referring to them, OZUNA hay music hay flow), Espanyol (who’s gunna tell them that actually all the teams are español), Rayo (who beat espanyol), Sevilla & Valladolid, (side note Sevilla is really really struggling they have no strikers and they are RUNNING OUT OF TIME TO GET ONE), one for Atleti, and one for Almeria. That’s 7! Wait… 7 red cards in Ligue 1… 7 red cards in La Liga… 7 goals for Bayern.7 goals for PSG… @Universe what are you trying to tell us?!?!?!!? Should we play the lottery???? (

In Serie A…

My italian bros decided not to drop their podcast until Wednesday this week (rude, some of us have deadlines my dudes) but dw I did the work and can recap all by myself. Top of the Table right now: Napoli, who have been scoring goals like crazy (Beat Monza 4-0) followed by Inter (they beat Spezia 3-0), and spicy favorite Roma (who beat Cremonase, but Wijnaldum might be injured which isn’t ideal). They hate to see a girl boss winning, and by a girl boss, I do in fact mean Jose Mourinho. Milan were lazy against Atalanta and left with a draw- they need some PIZZAZ and maybe a real no. 9 (or a LOVE POTION no 9!) rather than a false one. Luckily they’re close to a deal on a Serbian forward who can hopefully put an end to their troubles. Most of the other matches were 0-0 draws (i guess all the goals got taken by the other leagues) including Juventus at Sampdoria, where the players looked like they had 0 plan, 0 formation, and 0 motivation to attack the goal.

like what are you boys doing here

Looking Ahead:

So a lot of people are looking REALLY HOT right now, which is great, and we are loving the goal scoring, also great, but let this serve as your friendly reminder that we have a world cup approaching kiddos! and after that world cup is when most of these folks will have to be, you know, finishing this season. Idk if y’all have ever played in a world cup (I haven’t) but it’s a lot of soccer games! AND traveling (I mean, Qatar is not as big as Russia so tbd on how far apart the stadiums will be but still) AND you’re playing with your national team so it could be completely different vibes. All of this just to say that we have no way of knowing what this season is going to be like come December, let alone come May when the Champions will be crowned. So, no predictions, just enjoying the goals and judging some of the lower level teams.