Author: Brooks Peck

Germany win FIFA’s Golden Dildo

Germany beat Chile 1-0 to win the Confederations Cup for the first time

(DFB/Twitter)

Germany beat Chile and overcame VAR to win FIFA’s most phallic trophy on offer this year, and continue their domination of international football. And they did it with what was essentially a youth team.

Germany manager Jogi Löw left many of his more established stars at home in order to give the country’s next generation a bit of experience ahead of next year’s World Cup. As a result, the youngest squad in the competition faced the oldest (Chile) in the final and handled themselves exceptionally well—even in the face of the latest Video Assistant Referee goof-up, which saw Chilean rectal examiner Gonzalo Jara receive a yellow card after review when he should have been sent off in the 65th minute.

Germany captain Julian Draxler (23 years old), who moved from Wolfsburg to PSG last season, was awarded the Golden Ball as the tournament’s best player, RB Leipzig’s Timo Werner (21 years old) was awarded the Golden Boot—even though teammates Leon Goretzka (22 years old) and Lars Stindl (an elderly 28 years old) matched his three goals—and Chile’s Claudio Bravo won the Golden Glove just to melt Man City fans’ brains.

So what did we learn from the Confederations Cup? Even if all the players who won the World Cup with Germany in 2014 who are still with the team get hurt, they still have an absurdly high chance of repeating as champions.

Anyway, here’s Löw creepily holding the Confederations Cup trophy and looking like he’s seconds away from sniffing it repeatedly.

 

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is building a new, indestructible, and terrifying Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Like Frankenstein’s Monster, but better at scoring acrobatic goals

Getting injured last season appears to have taught Zlatan Ibrahimovic that his body is imperfect. So Zlatan has apparently been busy building a new version of himself. One that can’t get injured. One that will rule the world for an eternity. One that will haunt your dreams.

Zlatan unveiled the floating, Hellraiser-esque head of the new Zlatan on Instagram, proclaiming that “The symbol of Sweden is almost done.”

The symbol of Sweden is almost done #mystatue #proud #lifework

A post shared by IAmZlatan (@iamzlatanibrahimovic) on

When the new Zlatan is complete, us humans don’t stand a chance.

 

FC Cincinnati stonewall the Chicago Fire in shootout, draw second largest U.S. Open Cup crowd ever

Both of the U.S.’s second divisions stick it to MLS on the same night

(FC Cincinnati)

Last summer, Alan Pardew compared the atmosphere at Crystal Palace’s friendly against USL club FC Cincinnati to that of the FA Cup final. On Wednesday night, the second-division club drew a similar crowd for their U.S. Open Cup match against the Chicago Fire, creating a similar atmosphere as Mitch Hildebrandt saved THREE penalties to help pull off the upset.

Not only was the crowd at Nippert stadium more than double that of the Open Cup match between MLS franchises San Jose and Seattle, it was the second largest in the comptition’s history at 32,287.

Just listen to the noise they made after each save from Hildebrandt:

Meanwhile, Miami FC of the NASL (the U.S.’s other second division), beat Atlanta United, one of MLS’s new additions this season. Miami and Cincinnati will now face each other in the quarterfinals, ensuring that a second-division club will reach the Open Cup semifinals for the first time since 2011.

Is all of this evidence that lower division clubs are gaining on MLS? Could the walled off levels of the U.S. pyramid be creating slower growth in the top division than those below it? Two matches probably aren’t enough of a sample size to draw too many broad conclusions, but it’s something to consider, at the very least. It’s also a reminder that there’s so much more to soccer in the United States than just MLS alone.