This is what you call “making the most of your shot”
When Monterrey scored an 86th-minute penalty to equalize against Morelia, all appeared to be lost for Los Canerios. Anything short of a win would’ve sealed their relegation (in Liga MX, the one club with the lowest points per game ratio over the previous three years is relegated). But then, at the start of injury time, Raul Ruidiaz poked in a winner that not only saved Morelia from relegation, but earned them a spot in the playoffs (at the expense of Club America) and put him atop the Clausura top scorers list.
Aquí está el GOL de Raúl Ruidiaz y con el que @FuerzaMonarca se mantiene en la #LIGABancomerMX ⚽ #SienteTuLiga ⚽ #LimpiemosNuestroMéxico https://t.co/5wvHAnMiKz
This was a rollercoaster of emotions on the verge of flying off the tracks into a fiery pit of despair until Ruidiaz climbed up to the front car, reaffixed the wheels to the track, and rode that sucker right to the ice cream tent.
As a result of his heroics, Chiapas get relegated instead, despite winning earlier in the day. Meanwhile, Miguel Herrera’s Tijuana finish atop the table for the second time in a row.
Tijuana becomes the first team since league switched to short tournaments to finish as the leader of consecutive tournaments. #LigaMXEng
Estudiantes manager Nelson Vivas completely lost his shit after getting sent off in the first half of a match against former club Boca Juniors. After a brief, yet animated discussion with the official, Vivas tore open his shirt in a fit of rage, then kicked off his shoe, and pulled off his now buttonless shirt as he walked away.
As he headed down the tunnel, he gave the TV camera a good look at his fully tattooed back, too.
Vivas played for Arsenal, so maybe he’s still upset about the north London derby, but whatever set him off, we can only hope he didn’t stop walking until he reached an anger management class.
Sometimes you have to laugh to stop yourself from crying
The Philadelphia Union are the only team in MLS still looking for their first win of the season. In fact, they haven’t won since August of last year and they’re closing in on the league’s all-time record for consecutive matches without a win (19 games, held by the 1999 New York/New Jersey MetroStars). In the face of such abject misery, the club could fall into a collective depression and trudge through extra-long training sessions while listening to Joy Division in the fleeting hope of turning things around. Instead, they’re making parody videos of ’90s sitcom opening credit sequences.
To promote their upcoming “throwback night,” the Union had striker CJ Sapong (who, for the record, was born and raised in Virginia) star as “The Fresh Prince of Chest-Air”—a play on the club’s home in Chester, Pennsylvania, about 17 miles away from Will Smith’s playground in West Philadelphia. And the result is pretty great.
It’s always interesting when a club that’s less than 10 years old does a throwback thing — I mean, what do you throw back to? For the Union, it’s a TV show that ended 14 years before they played their first match and the original Bethlehem Steel FC, which was disbanded in 1930 and played in a different city more than 60 miles away (a USL club affiliated with the Union using the Bethlehem Steel name was founded in 2015).
(Philadelphia Union)
In other words, the club is throwing it back to when they weren’t around to lose all the time. Smart.
“I thought it was just there for decoration,” said director of football Txiki Begiristain
(Man City)
The Premier League has given Man City a two-year academy transfer ban and fined them £300,000 for improper conduct related to the signing of two youth-team players, ages 11 and 15.
The statement said City “will be prohibited from registering any academy players in the under-10 to under-18 age range who have been registered with a Premier League or EFL club in the preceding 18 months.”
It added: “This ban will last for two years. The period of this ban from 30 June 2018 onwards will be suspended for three years to be activated in the event of any similar breach by the club.
These sanctions likely won’t have much of an impact on City’s first team, as Kelechi Iheanacho is just about the only member of the squad to have spent any time in the club’s own academy. And his spell there was a brief one.
“We have players there?!” said a shocked Txiki Begiristain, Man City’s director of football, when asked for comment on the ban. “I thought it was just for decoration. Like a large statue or a bird feeder. I offer the Premier League my personal assurance that we will clear the rest of these kids out of there and we’ll do it quickly. That facility cost a lot of money and we don’t want any children messing it up.”
Asked if the ban will impact Pep Guardiola’s plans for the first team, Begiristain said, “Not at all. We’ll just spend a lot of money on the fully developed products of other clubs’ academies like we always do.”
Shocking revelations from the private writings of Jose Mourinho’s personal punching bag
On this week’s episode, hear EXCLUSIVE entries from the diary of tortured Man United defender Luke Shaw, plus our Dirty Tackles of the Week (we’re coming for you and your overpriced parking, Philadelphia Union owners), another round of True Are Ya? (Has Paulo Dybala really never been to a movie theater in his life?), binding decisions are made in Life Ref, and we advertise questionable products from Bayern Munich and Francesco Totti.
If you like the show, please subscribe and rate/review on your podcast app of choice. Also, consider helping us keep the pod alive with a contribution at Patreon.com/DirtyTackle. With your support, we’ll release weekly episodes and keep the childish, nonsensical, and occasionally funny football discussions rolling. Every little bit will help us improve the show and hopefully make your week slightly more tolerable.
He might be getting on in years, but he’s still too damn good
Fairness and sportsmanship are the foundation of honest competition at all levels. With this in mind, UEFA must require Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon to play all matches while wearing a blindfold in the name leveling the playing field for the poor souls who must face him.
With Juve’s 2–0 win at Monaco in the first leg of the Champions League semifinal, Buffon now has 60 clean sheets in 100 career Champions League appearances. He hasn’t conceded a single goal from open play in the Champions League this season. And Juve haven’t conceded a Champions League goal of any kind in 621 minutes and counting. Again, they’re not doing this in a hastily arranged tournament against their younger cousins at a family reunion—this is the Champions League. Juventus are facing the best of the best, and still Buffon is allowing less people to score than the Pope at an orgy for divorcees who are into butt stuff.
People often say that Lionel Messi is from another planet—his talent far beyond that of a mere mortal. And yet, he has never once scored against Buffon, even as the Italian keeper nears his 40th birthday. If Messi can’t even score against Buffon, how could anyone else hope to do so?
Clearly something needs to be done and eliminating Buffon’s ability to see anything around him during matches is a start. Then again, it’s extremely possible that he has a Jedi-like spatial perception that allows him to react to shots on goal without using his eyes. In this case, UEFA should force him to get blackout drunk just before kickoff. It’s the only way.
Even more astonishing than his unparalleled talent, however, is the fact that Buffon has never won the Champions League in his long and successful career. Perhaps this is evidence of Buffon’s charitable side. “I’ll take the World Cup, seven Serie A titles, a Serie B title just for giggles, and three Coppa Italia trophies, and leave the Champions League to the rest of you jabronis for a while.”
But with the team Juventus have assembled in front of him, this seems very likely to end soon. After the first leg in Monaco, Buffon commented to Juventus’ official website about this quality and shared some insight into his thoughts on retirement, which probably won’t come until he’s 112 years old and only recording a clean sheet 59 out of every 100 Champions League appearances.
“My objective is for people to think it’s a shame when I retire. That’s why I’m still working so hard. Obviously it helps to play for a team like this, because it makes me happy and there’s nothing better than working in such a positive environment.”
At this rate, his opponents aren’t going to think “what a shame” when he retires, though. They’re going to think, “Thank the merciful lord he’s finally gone” and “What did any of us ever do to deserve the torment of facing him for so long?!”
“Wenger Out” signs are everywhere these days and one company is behind them all
An unoriginal man and his sign
The Wenger Out Sign Company has turned the dissatisfaction with the Arsenal manager’s job performance into an international business. Founded by Dan Dublinsky—a man who has never watched an Arsenal match in his life—in Caldwell, Idaho, the company sells signs made to look like they were hastily scrawled by a disinterested child to people all over the world who are desperate to feel one with the delicious power of memes.
Currently valued at $3 billion and preparing an IPO for the New York Stock Exchange, the Wenger Out Sign Company is profiting from Arsenal’s ongoing reluctance to make a decision about Wenger’s future.
Here’s the ad the Wenger Out Sign Company produced to air during the Champions League final this year:
People are acknowledging his existence again and he is overjoyed
(Chicago Cubs/Twitter)
Bastian Schweinsteiger is off to a wonderful start in Chicago. He’s scored two goals in his first five matches, people are making eye contact wit him, and the birds don’t stop singing just because he’s around. The good times continued when the world champion* Chicago Cubs asked him to throw out the first pitch at their game against the Philadelphia Phillies.
As you’d expect, Schweinsteiger took the task seriously, even practicing with Chicago Fire teammate/pitching coach Dax McCarty during training. And when the moment of truth came, he threw a pretty good pitch with a huge smile on his face.
Best part of that video? When former Cubs second baseman Ryne Sandberg asks Schweinsteiger how hard he’s going to throw it, to which Schweini responds: “I am a German—full power.”
The night didn’t end there, though. During the seventh-inning stretch, Schweinsteiger and his teammates sang “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” over the Wrigley Field PA system.
*The Cubs are not “world” champions in the same way Schweinsteiger is a world champion. They are essentially just champions of the continental United States and parts of Canada.
He won’t be satisfied until he breaks every record there is
Cristiano Ronaldo’s hat trick in the first leg of Real Madrid’s Champions League semifinal against Atletico Madrid helped him close in on the competition’s offside goals record currently held by Milan legend Pippo Inzaghi. Ronaldo’s first goal of the night was allowed to stand despite appearing to be very clearly offside. This comes after he scored twice from an offside position against Bayern Munich in the previous round.
Cristiano Ronaldo stops to admire the work of Cristiano Ronaldo
“Being the best means being the best at everything, including scoring goals that should not count,” Ronaldo said after the match. “And I intend to prove that I am the best.”
With his hat trick, Ronaldo scored his 50th career goal in the knockout stage of the Champions League, which is a record, his 11th career goal in the Champions League semifinals, which is a record, and his 101st career goal across all stage of the Champions League, which is also a record.
Inzaghi’s offside goal record in the competition stands at 46, leaving Ronaldo a ways to go.
“I will do whatever it takes to break all the records,” Ronaldo added. “Most goals scored in the 57th minute, most goals scored while wearing a child’s hat, most goals scored while having to pee—all of them.”
Asked for comment about the Real Madrid star’s pursuit of his record, Inzaghi said, “He looked onside to me.”
A perfect celebration of Il Capitano’s 25 seasons with Roma
(AS Roma)
Francesco Totti is celebrating his 25th season with his beloved Roma and to mark the occasion, Nike released gorgeous limited-edition gold Tiempos ahead of Sunday’s Rome derby.
(Nike)
But the launch event in Rome was equally fitting, as Totti was given a proper throne to sit on while looking out over his adoring subjects. Each step leading up to Totti bore the name of previous ruler of Rome, with his own at the top.
Though his playing time has dwindled, Totti’s love of Roma has not diminished over the years. From Reuters:
“Rome is the most beautiful city in the world,” he added. “From one moment to the next, it takes your breath away with narrow streets and stunning scenery.
“Sure, I might have won more trophies elsewhere but my loyalty to Roma was like winning the Champions League to me.”
