Leicester City are off to a surprising undefeated start, second only to Man City in the Premier League, thanks to new manager Claudio Ranieri. Though it’s difficult to find negatives about their five league matches of the season, one area where they could improve is defensively, having allowed seven goals — more than any other club in the top half of the table except for Norwich.
So to try and motivate his players to concede fewer goals, Ranieri has offered an incentive: free pizza.
Welcome Frank Lampard. #NYCvTOR https://t.co/X9RdM8I2BC
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) September 17, 2015
Wearing the captain’s armband in the absence of the injured David Villa, Frank Lampard finally scored his first MLS goal to put NYCFC up 1-0 against Toronto FC.
It’s been a long road to this point for Lampard, who was first unveiled in New York back in July 2014. He immediately joined sister club Manchester City on a short-term deal for the 2014/15 Premier League campaign that was extended into the start of NYCFC’s inaugural MLS season.
He scored eight times for Man City and finally made his NYCFC debut in August. He missed a few more games due to injury and now, in his fifth appearance for the club, he’s scored a goal. Let the joyous anti-climax wash over you.
Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has long been a source of unintentionally funny quotes, but as the scrutiny on his job performance grows so does the inane brilliance of his words.
Down 1-0 to Barcelona at home in the Champions League, Roma’s Alessandro Florenzi (who you might remember from the time he celebrated a goal by hugging his grandmother) saw space between Marc-Andre ter Stegen and the goal, so he decided to let rip with a shot from a rather insane distance and angle that floated into the net to equalize in the 31st minute.
It’s been a relatively nervy start to the season for Celtic. After winning four consecutive Scottish Premier League titles, the Bhoys currently sit five points behind perfect Aberdeen through seven matches. Naturally, this unfamiliar wasteland known as “Second Place” has everyone at the club sweating a little and that has apparently produced an unwanted odor around the main stand at Celtic Park.
So horrible this happening to any player. Feel so bad for Luke Shaw, he was playing so well. pic.twitter.com/MkkWCyWXoK
— ️ (@Routinho_) September 15, 2015
Early in the first half of Manchester United’s Champions League group-stage opener at PSV, Luke Shaw suffered a sickening leg injury (later confirmed to be a double fracture) resulting from a dangerous challenge by Hector Moreno.
Jose Mourinho is getting pointed questions from journalists and he doesn’t know why. As he says, he is still the champion of England (he — not his club — just him) despite Chelsea’s terrible start this season and others (ahem, ARSENE WENGER) have gotten much softer treatment, in his eyes, over much longer periods of underachievement.
“Some manager can’t be in difficult situations five, six, seven, 10 years and I am the current champion of England, why should I be in trouble?” he asked reporters at his press conference ahead of Chelsea’s Champions League opener against Maccabi Tel Aviv. “Why? I think that’s a good question and you don’t know what to answer.”
He then addressed the issue of what has been dubbed his “third season syndrome” where he either doesn’t stick around for one or underachieves if he does stay in a given job that long. Naturally, he sees this trend quite differently.
“My third season at Porto, I didn’t have a third season,” he said. “My third season in Inter, I didn’t have a third season. My third season at Chelsea the first time, I won the FA Cup and the Carling Cup and I played a Champions League semifinal. The third season in Real Madrid, I won the Super Cup, I lost the cup final, and I went to the Champions League semifinal. These are my third seasons. So click Google instead of make stupid question. Click Google and try to find.”
And it only got better from there. (Watch the video above for the full back and forth with the reporter who raised the issue.)
It’s unclear how much Google paid for this brilliant bit of product placement, but “Click Google instead of make stupid question” is a bold new slogan for the company.
Steven Gerrard has a new autobiography coming out, so excerpts from it are being released in the hopes of drumming up interest in the book. Of course, the best way to do that is with a story about a penis injury.
In January 2014, Gerrard suffered a horrific injury. I suggest you stop reading at this point, but I know you won’t.
With his side up 2-0 in the second half against undefeated Leicester City, Aston Villa manager Tim Sherwood attempted some kind of magic spell on the touchline (his version of a tactical adjustment) to prevent the home side from making a comeback. Except it totally backfired and Leicester ended up winning 3-2 with a trio of unanswered goals in the final 20 minutes of play.
Players on loan are always eager to make an impression, but midfielder Tomas’ time at Botafogo will be remembered for the wrong reason. During a Brazilian Serie B match against Mogi Mirim, the 23-year-old on loan from J. Malucelli was tasked with taking a corner kick. It did not go well.