An eventful Monday began just 10 minutes after noon, when João Pereira brought down Mario Götze in the Portuguese 18 yard box, conceding a penalty and drawing a yellow card for his troubles. A little over fifteen minutes later, Portugal’s striker Hugo Almeida grabbed his hamstring and exited the match, swiftly followed by another German goal — this tally from Mats Hummels — and then, well, Pop covered this yesterday: What you can’t see from that angle is the referee staring directly at them as it occurs, nor the incident that preceded it, for which this was...
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Anatomy of a Goal (and Day Five Previews)
Before we get to anything else, we need to talk about this: [this space used to be filled with a gif of a goal but sadly has fallen to internet rot] I know, it happened on Friday and there have been eleventy billion matches between then and now. But try to remember. Try to remember when Spain and the Netherlands were playing one another in a tense and competitive soccer match, rather than Iker Casillas’ nightmare and a “performance that sang of the glue factory.” Before this moment, it looked as if Spain was going to head...
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