Like Sands through the Hourglass… Soccer Round Up
These really DO be the days of our lives folks, and they are WINDING DOWN (or I guess maybe winding UP?) for the World Cup, which at the posting of this blog will be a mere 12 days away! That’s like, TOMORROW!!!!! If you’re wondering if we are prepared, well…ok stop pressuring us! Go ask Qatar if they’re ready!!! Spoiler alert: They’re not!
Don't get too concerned, we’re in the kitchen cooking up a five course content meal for you that’s going to satisfy every craving when it comes to the world cup. Keep an eye out for that next week (11/14) (she wrote the deadline down so now we gotta do it), but until then, let’s catch up on some footy:
In The Champions League…
The group stage is OVER. It is OUT. As are half the teams in contention, which causes the annual crisis about why these big teams failed to advance and if money is being wasted and whether soccer is still a good investment (tbh, it’s not). The Following teams got sent over to the Europa League: Barca (who will face Man United, a cruel twist of fate for Frenkie de Jong who refused a transfer to the reds over the summer because— get this— he wanted to play in the Champion’s League), RB Salzburg (who will face Mourinho’s Roma), Ajax (who will face Union Berlin, a team that has had absolutely 0 business being on the run they’ve been on this year), Shaktar Donesk (who will face Rennes), Juve (facing Nantes), and Sporting + Sevilla + Leverkusen (who I don’t care enough about to concern myself with their matchups. Sorry!). The draw for the next stage of UCL play (round of 16, which occurs over 2 legs) happened on Monday and it’s looking like UEFA just kept their older sibling’s tests from when they took the class, because we have SEEN these match ups before: PSG will play Bayern (eek), Liverpool will play Real. Also: Club Brugge faces Benfica, Inter faces Porto, Napoli faces Frankfurt, Milan faces Tottenham, Man City will face Leipzig, and Chelsea will face Dortmund.
In the Premier League…
The BIGGEST news of the week came early Monday morning when a rumor leaked that the Fenway Sports Group (FSG, and yes, that Fenway) was looking to sell Liverpool. They came out shortly after saying they “remained committed to the team” and then released their official intent to sell later on in the day. So…someone def got fired for that one! Unclear what this will mean for the team, who have struggled this season after enjoying top of the table glory in recent years ( and no one really seems to know why? like ok we lost mané?) This past weekend, Liverpool downplayed recent woes by beating Tottenham 2-1, but they’re still all the way down in EIGHTH PLACE. The biggest match up of the weekend was YetAnotherLondonDerby: Arsenal beat Chelsea 1-0 to climb to the top of the table and continue a season that has been…suprisingly succcessful for such a young squad (21 Savage still waiting for them to win the league) The Trees tied the Bees 2-2 (in what we’re calling the Nature Match), Leeds beat Bournemouth 4-3, and Man City overcame a red card to beat Fulham. Newcastle has been on a tear and showed it Saturday in their 4-1 in over Southhampton, while Man United are looking lost again in their 2-1 loss to Villa. It’s a lot of ups and downs to be honest, and the premier league is feeling volatile, so we’re not going to make any big assumptions about what’s happening until after the World Cup.
In Ligue 1…
The french league is plagued this year with VAR calls and cards awarded left and right- the refs are out of control!!! In several matches just this past week there were penalties awarded or ignored in controversial turns, which honestly just takes away from the play and we don’t support it. In terms of actual soccer (and take this lightly becaise we are headed into a big break and only have one more round of play before that) if you look over at the Ligue 1 table right now, you’ll see PSG on top (who are the most likely to be impacted by World Cup play), which is typical for France, and then we’ve got… Lens?!?!!? and Rennes?!!?! What’s going on we must ask!!!! Some type of rhyming poem? Lens is playing beyond their means to be completely honest (they did beat Angers this weekend), and no one is optimistic that they’ll be able to keep this up, but Rennes is a legit team and we should keep an eye on them. They had a tough match against Lille this past weekend that ended wth a red card and a draw. Marseille (who beat Lyon Sunday), Monaco (who beat Toulouse) and Lorient (who just lost to PSG) sit tied below that fighting for european contention and spots at the top.
In La Liga…
Rayo BEAT REAL guys!!!!! They are having so much fun this season playing big teams and giving them a run for their money and i…love that! Of course, and if you’re getting tired of me saying this too bad, Real has a lot of international players who will probably be holding back their best stuff ahead of the World Cup, so this means little in the grand scheme of things. Barca beat Almeria, which served as a send off for Gerard Pique is one of the most significant figures in the recent era, but mostly, fuck this guy for CHEATING ON SHAKIRA. He chooses to retire after basically being retired by the club already (he really plays), but he’s taking control of his narrative by choosing to bow out instead of being forced out/ not playing elsewhere. The exciting game of the weekend was the Seville Derby (against Betis) which had 2 goals, 3 red cards, and NINE YELLOW Cards. It! Was! Messy!!!!!!!! Some of those cards, deserved. Sevilla is all the way down in the gosh dang relegtion zone, but they were fighting tooth! and! nail! to give Betis everything they could. There were so many shots taken and missed, but maybe the real goals were the red cards we gained along the way.
In Serie A…
I talked a big game about Napoli never losing just for them to lose Liverpool in the UCL last week, but at home THE STREAK CONTINUES! They’re on top of the table by 7 points and got an important win over Atalanta. Milan, in second, also got a win (over Spezia), but got a red card as well which is unnecessarily messy imho. Inter, all the way down in 7th, lost to Juve, probably just in an effort to prove me wrong after talking them up preseason. Lazio beat Roma in the ROME DERBY, which I’m sure was dramatic, but let’s be real, it’s italy, they’re always dramatic. (see : this story about a former Roma icon and his petty battle with his wife over who gets the rolexes) I don’t have the bandwidth for more than that rn sorry y’all let’s move on.
In MLS…
LAFC won the MLS Cup in a CRAZY game again the Philadelphia Union on Saturday, which included 1) a game tying goal by Gareth Bale Prince of Wales (who was never really supposed to play in this game), 2) a penalty shootout 2a) in which a backup goalkeeper made the winning goal. American soccer just isn’t real (not in a good way). This is a huge win for LAFC, who have lived in the shadow of the LA Galaxy for years, and boast super cool owners/fans such as WILL FERRELL, who drank from the cup after the win:
Take that energy into your week folks, it won’t get better than that! Cheers!
