GOD SAVE THE QUEEN: European Soccer Recap
I’m sure this is the first you’ve heard of it, but the QUEEN OF ENGLAND IS DEAD (live updates here, because obvi we need live updates on a death?) which meant there was NO PREMIER LEAGUE FOOTY this week because of…respect?? More on that in a minute. There WAS Champion’s league action, and it was spicy, and the rest of Europe famously doesn’t care about England’s monarchy, so they played their games. In an effort to be transparent I must tell y’all I didn’t watch very many of those games because I was in the queen’s parade of mourning being a Tier One Sister/Maid of Honor preoccupied with the advent of another sporting season, and if you have critiques on that well…pay us higher wages!
In The Champion’s League
Massive week for fellas returning to their former clubs- it’s coming home and by it I mean Lewandowski and Haaland. Barca faced Bayern in Munich, and despite making a whole lotta shots, Lewagoalski didn’t score. In fact, they lost. Rude! Haaland was more successful in his big return, scoring a late goal that put Man City up 2-1. Liverpool got a needed win over Ajax, Marseille lost to Frankfurt (putting them at 0-2…not looking good guys!), Inter won, Atletico didn’t. On Wednesday, PSG went 1-0 to Random Team From Israel (psg loooooves to lose to the worst team in their group) but then each of the big 3 scored to get us the W. Chelsea’s new coach apparently didn’t help their problems, they drew leipzig, Napoli continued to score hella goals, Juve lost to benfica, Milan & Real won as well. Group stage gon’ group stage, what else can I say!
In The Premier League…
A NATION IN MOURNING! Granted I doubt any of the teens who wanted to be watching sports spent that time thinking about the legacy of the queen, and I don’t think that the broadcasting folks were thrilled with this decision, but in our view it was a proper call. A country should take a break after their 96 year old grandma dies!!! Bereavement leave for everyone!!!!
In Ligue 1…
PSG didn’t have to play their top line against Brest to win this game, but for some reason Gaultier insisted upon it. Why have such a deep roster if you’re not going to rest your best against a team like Brest? That’s something we’ll never know, but after scoring three times and having them all be offsides, they finally got on the board with an Neymar goal after a half hour. In theory, Gaultier wanted this put away by half time so he could sub people off, but that didn’t happen, so Insert shrug emoji here. Elsewhere, Nice got a muuuch needed win over our Corsican boys, Monaco beat Lyon, and Marseille beat Lille. Marseille is keeping pace with PSG at the top of the table, TBD on whether they’re going to be able to keep that going (while balancing Champion’s League), but they’ve not lost a game yet this season. Lens is also hanging in there, but they’re typically good until January rolls around, so we’re not going to hold our breath.
In Serie A…
After their Big Loss to PSG, Juve needed a win this week. Sadly, they got a draw, and less sadly, it was a controversial one: Salernita lead 2-1 until late in the game, Juve (Bonucci) converted a penalty in stoppage time (like minute 93) and then scored AGAIN off a corner (minute 96), only for it to be ruled offside. Do I think he was offiside? No. Do I think a team like Juve should have it come down to the 96th minute and get 2 red cards to win a game like this? no. You had all the other minutes in the game my dudes!!!! Napoli sits top of the table after another win this week, followed by Atalanta who squeaked by with a draw. Inter & Milan both got wins but probably aren’t thrilled with their table positions at the moment, and Roma continues to be a darling, beating Empoli.
In La Liga…
ICYMI, Karim Benzema is out for awhile after injuring himself in the first week of Champion’s League play. Even though Real will probably be fine with out him domestically, that is not great news for ME PERSONALLY since there is a WORLD CUP APPROACHING FOLKS (more on that in a sec). Anyways, they proved it was nbd for them by beating Mallorca 4-1 (it seems like Mallorca not doing incredible which is upsetting for me because I love when a country has their little island in the big leagues. It’s like if we had a puerto rican nfl team. which…maybe we should?!?!!?!). Other 4-1 wins: Atleti over Celta, Athletic over Elche. Real Betis is still basically undefeated (they lost to Real Madrid last week but imho that doesn’t count because Real recognizes Real) and our new fave Ozuna also won. Ozuuuuuna
Looking Ahead:
In world cup news!!!!!! Qatar did a trial run event to see how things would go for the world cup and it went…poorly!!!! It’s weird to think that maybe just because they paid a heck ton of money to fifa to bribe their way into hosting this cup that doesn’t necessarily mean they…are prepared to host it?? Weird. There were a lack of Hydration Stations and bathrooms (pretty important!), it was impossible to get in (long lines reminiscent of the UCL final last year), oh, and the AC wasn’t effective (important in the desert!). This bodes…poorly!
That’s all we got RIP to Queen Lizzie, she was the realest!
