Author: Benjy Golaub

Late Drama As Two Last Minute Goals Send Real Madrid To The Champions League Final

The kings of the Champions League, Real Madrid, create more late drama in the semi-final between themselves and Bayern Munich. Two late goals from the ex Stoke City player, Joselu, sends them into the final with an aggregate score of 4-3.

After being behind 1-0 in the 81st minute, Carlo Ancelotti made the decision to bring on the previous Stoke City player onto the field in place of Federico Valverde.

It took him only 7 minutes to get the equaliser after an uncharacteristic shocking mistake from Manuel Neuer which caused him to fumble the ball and fall into the path of Joselu who put the ball into the back of the net with 2 minutes of regulation time left.

As a Real Madrid fan, he was living in a fever dream as only 1 minute later he scores the winner of the game which was originally ruled offside, however, VAR intervened and realised that he was on side and led to the winner being called on side and the German born striker sends Bayern Munich out of the Champions League in astonishing fashion.

Similar to what happened 2 years ago at the Bernabeu against Manchester City, 2 late winners from the subsitute sends Real Madrid through and if history repeats itself, it will lead to the 14 time winners making it 15 in this incredible run after defeating the current holders and an amazing late 2 goal winner.

However, that wasnt the only late drama in this tie, with the Bayern Munich centre back, De Light, scoring a goal in the 100th minute, which was actually called offside from the linesman way too early causing the referee to blow the whistle before the ball was in the back of the net.

After the game concluded, some sports channels did some analysis and realised that it actually was NOT offside and the linesman made a huge mistake which could have caused for extra time and possibly could have sent the game in their favour rather than what happened.

As seen in the image above, De Ligt was correct in arguing his decision to be on side as the linesman came up to him after the game and apologised for being wrong.

Despite this, Real Madrid did make it through and will go on to play Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League final being played at Wembley.

Real Madrid are hoping to make their 15th Champions League title a reality whilst Borussia Dortmund is hoping to get their second and give Marco Reus a perfect sending off as he has recently annouced his departure from the club after spending 12 years at the Yellow wall.

LOUD BENCH Less After Bombing Out Of VCT Play-Offs

After missing their first Major tournament in the organisations history, LOUD have reportedly benched arguably their best player, Less, shortly after losing 2-0 against 100 Thieves.

After bombing out of the VCT Americas Stage 1 play-offs, a tweet was released by a very reliable and credible Brazilian VALORANT journalist, @Noynvlr on X.

The tweet above states-

@loud_less MUST BE MOVED TO THE BENCH OF @LOUDgg

One of the greatest Brazilian players of all time may have his days in the organization numbered.

Most likely, the player will end up being moved to the team’s bench.

At the moment,@raafawp , from @HeroBase , is the favorite to assume its role in the next stage.

The world champion winning Sentinel player, Less has recieved praise from many players across the VALORANT community on his style of play and his consistent performance over the last three years.

One in particular that springs to mind is before the matchup against Evil Geniuses in VCT Champions Los Angeles last year, Ethan, went on stream to state that he spent days figuring out how to kill Less, as if you crouched against him, you would instantly die.

However, the decision behind the reported benching is not due to performance as many have agreed that Less has been the best player for LOUD this split, still occupying the Sentinel role.

It seems to be due to financial reasons with the player being reportedly benched not due to personal or performance reasons.

There has been no official response from LOUD or Less as of yet, with only a tweet coming from Less saying:

oi?????????

With the reported benching of Less, only Saadhak remains from their 2022 VCT Champions winning side with all other players leaving the organisation to play alongside American players in Sentinels and the LATAM side Leviatan.

NRG AND Sentinels Are OUT Of Masters Shanghai After Shocking Stage 1 Performances

The Masters Madrid winners and arguably the best team in the world, Sentinels, are out of contention for Masters Shanghai after failing to qualify for the play-offs in VCT Americas.

Dropping games to Evil Geniuses, Leviatan and LOUD mean that they were mathematically eliminated from play-offs as only the top three teams from their group made it through with G2 making it above them in round differential by just two rounds.

However, another team that has let the world down, is NRG. They go out of play-offs after not even qualifying for one international event so far after losing to Sentinels in VCT Americas kick-off and now bombing out of Stage 1 despite having, on paper, the best roster in the world, with the additions of Demon1 and Ethan who were from the world champions winning side Evil Geniuses and Demon1 being the most sought after player in the world.

Despite being two of the best players from that squad of 5 from last year, they were unable to defeat any of their former team mates this year which included an utterly embarrassing defeat to Leviatan where they only managed a total of 8 rounds across the two maps. Leviatan is now home to c0m who won the Champions title alongside Demon1 and Ethan.

On paper, Sentinels and NRG should have had near to no problems making it through to play offs with the compeition in their group being the 2023 worst team in Americas, KRU and the ”tier 2” Cloud9, who both majorly over performed and went 5-1 in their series whilst SEN and NRG went 3-3 shocking the world.

VCT Americas Kick-off start tonight with Cloud9 playing G2 Esports looking to knock each other out of play-offs in this one and done game.

Another knockout game could see LOUD dropping out of Master Shanghai contention with a tough game against 100Theives who already look a lot better than their kick-off form with Champions winning IGL, Boostio, transforming this roster after putting Cryo, onto the smokes role and allowing Asuna to take up the Raze as he used to do back in 2021.

These games will decide who will go on to face off against KRU Esports and Leviatan with both of those teams looking on form hoping for a spot in Masters Shanghai to Join Paper Rex, T1, GenG from the APAC side with the other regions yet to play off.

Erling Haaland Fires Four Past Wolves in Six Goal Thriller

The Premier League top scorer has regained his spot once again at the top of the golden boot race with a first half hattrick against Wolves that has silenced fans saying that he is a shadow of his 22/23 performance.

With his 5 goals on Saturday, Haaland has now registered 25 goals in the Premier League and 36 goals across all competitions in 41 appearances. It has come to the back end of the season where he has really come to life after scoring his sixth hattrick for the treble winners in just two seasons at the club.

Two of Haalands goals against Wolves came from the Penalty spot with a soft one given in the 12th minute and then a blatant foul onto Jeremy Doku in added time on the first half. It took him 54 minutes of the game to score 4 goals and, as Guardiola does, he inevitably subbed him off and sent him to rest which fans are speculated caused his frustration on the subs bench.

After the game concluded, Manchester United legend, Roy Keane, had a lot to say about Haalands outburst on the bench saying he was ”behaving like a spoiled brat”.

This comes only weeks after calling Haaland a ‘‘League Two player without his goals”. It has been highly critised that he can have this statement on the post match after just scoring 4 goals and giving his team the push that they need in the title race.

He did then say in the post match interview with viaplay that he ”does not care specifically about that man” referring to Roy Keane, possibly igniting Roy Keanes comments in the punditry box at full time.

Manchester City’s next game in this neck and neck title race is against Fulham on the 11th of May on the early 12:30 kick off where they will hope to regain their lead that they have in the Premier League over Arsenal and set up for their toughest game in this back end of the season against Spurs on the 14th of May, only three days later.

LOUD Shatter Sentinels Chances of Masters Shanghai

Sentinels’ chances of Masters Shangai is now up in flames with LOUD getting their first win of the split against the current champions.

Sentinels going down to LOUD now means that their chance of their qualification mainly lands into the hands of other teams losing with them needing NRG and G2 to lose BOTH of their games for Sentinels to make it to play-offs.

Despite LOUD not having a win all split after going down to Leviatan, Cloud9 and KRU, they turned up and played Sentinels down to a level that just isn’t acceptable in SEN fans eyes.

SEN now go on to face off against FURIA with the only game they have remaining is set to be played this weekend in the final week of Split 1 for VCT Americas.

LOUD’s chances for playoffs are very alive due to their group being the poorest group of all VCT with two teams going 0-4 and the final spot being contested between two other teams whilst Leviatan takes the lead for the group after taking down NRG and Sentinels.

Stats Courtesy of vlr.gg

After an un-characteristically bad performance from Zellsis he went 16 kills across the two maps and Sacy was the only player on Sentinels to keep his frags consistent.

On the other side, cauanzin had a strong return to form after being the bottom frag of the side for the first 3 matches, he turned up and dropped 41 kills on Sentinels and looked to be on a revenge tour of the remaining matches in the split.

Returning Haaland Keeps Man City In Control of the Title Race

After Liverpool dropping points yet again, it is down to Manchester City and Arsenal to battle the title between the two of them rather than the three that was expected.

Manchester City faced off against a punished Nottingham Forest after a 4 point deduction in late March.

City lined up without Phil Foden who was out with an apparent illness so he stayed in Manchester whilst the team travelled. With the missing Foden, came some good news with the return of Erling Haaland who was out of the squad for two games due to fatigue/ muscle injuries.

Despite not starting for this game, Erling Haaland did come on in the 62nd minute whilst the Champions were already 1-0 up. He came on and almost instantly made it 2-0 with a goal in the 71st minute pretty much putting an end to the battle that Forest were putting up.

Haalands goal puts him back on the top of the golden boot race that has been very contended this year compared to the last that the Norwegian dominated. He goes up to 21 goals whilst Cole Palmer is just one behind with Ollie Watkins and Alexander Isak are sitting on 19 goals.

Just like the title race, the golden boot race is up for debate and will go down to the final day.

This game was also a landmark moment for City with Pep Guardiola taking control of 300 Premier League games with a staggering 221 wins. Despite his contract expiring, Guardiola is consistently extending his contract at the right timing for the following season.

If he does decide to extend and stay with Manchester City despite winning everything he possibly can, he could put his name in Premier League history as the most prolific winner of all time.

Manchester City will face off against Wolves on the 4th of May at the Etihad Stadium with the reverse game of this fixture going in the way of Wolves handing City one of their 3 losses all season long.

KRU Stay UNDEFEATED in VCT Americas After 2-0 LOUD

Lionel Messi’s Co-Owned VALORANT team, KRU Esports, has retained their unbeaten record. They are the only team in the world of VCT that has remained unbeaten going into week 5 of VCT, with VCT China still awaiting their Week 4 of games.

KRU Esports went 0-9 in their regular season last year in VCT with their only highlights coming in their Last Chance Qualifier and eventually making it to VCT Champions. They seem to be the opposite of last years peformance after going 4-0 in regular season matches taking down LOUD in their superweek. The LATAM side have now made the Brazilian Giants go to 0-3.

Stats Courtesy of vlr.gg

The introduction of heat into the KRU side has put them onto the right track with their Kick-Off performance not up to scratch. However, they were without heat, after their poor performance in kick-off, they added the ex-MIBR player heat into their roster and have been on fire since.

Last year, heat was the duelist player for MIBR and now on KRU he has become the initiator player and seems to be thriving alongside his teammate, keznit who is still one of the top duelists in VCT Americas.

Similar to TenZ, ZmjjKK and Sayf, the duelist players from 2023 have now moved onto a more flexible role and moved off of duelist to allow other players to take up that role and take their team to another level.

KRU are now set to play their 2 remaining games against 100Thieves and Leviatan, where they are expected to make playoffs anyway, they are looking towards a 6-0 record for their split looking towards Masters Shanghai.

Lionel Messi, who became co-owners of KRU alongside Sergio Aguero, late last year, posted for their win on Instagram after they retained their unbeaten record and now their fanbase is growing even more with the addition of two SUPERSTAR footballers.

Foden Brace Keeps Man City in Driving Seat For Title Push

Phil Foden, who is having the best season of his career delivers once again for Manchester City in the run in to the end of the season where City normally perform their best.

After missing last weeks Premier League games due to the FA Cup ties, Manchester City travelled to Brighton to close the gap that Arsenal gained after winning both of their games. Manchester City are now in the final games of the season which, they took control of last season breaking a 13 point gap into a Premier League winning season.

Phil Foden has taken over the role of the centre of attention for this City side this year with injuries to Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne going in and out of injuries, but Foden was the one stable person within Manchester City this year. He has now become the main person to look towards a game changing moment this year.

City took the game comfortably 4-0 with a 3-0 first half making the home side realise that their chances for Europe next year is now near impossible with even winning out the rest of their games, they would still need the 5 teams above them to drop drastic points in their battle for Europe.

The day before the Manchester City game, Liverpool got shocked by Everton in a 2-0 loss putting their title chances even further in doubt now sitting 3 points off of Arsenal at the top of the table.

Arsenal are currently sat at the top of the table, however, the top position will be short-lived as City are one point behind them with a game in hand. Meaning even a draw for Manchester City could put enough pressure onto Arsenal in this title race.

Manchester City’s next game is against Nottingham Forsest on Sunday following the North London Derby between Tottenham and Arsenal where City fans will be having their best Spurs shirts on for the huge game in the title race.

Evil Geniuses SHOCK Masters Champions in VCT Americas

Sentinels are now under huge pressure with a 2-1 loss to Evil Geniuses give them their second loss of the split making their play-off chances slim after a dominant kick-off tournament and then taking the Masters Madrid trophy back home.

After a ridculous 9-3 comeback on Lotus, Sentinels took the map and went up 10-2 on Bind with most fans saying it was just another standard win for SEN City. However, it wasn’t meant to be with a shocking comeback from Evil Geniuses took them to map 3.

Map 3 was Sunset where it was very back and forth between the rounds and they were extremely shared with the two most recent international winners.

Stats Courtesy of vlr.gg

With jawgemo coming back to Champions form on the Raze, he took over the first map which ended up going in the favour of Sentinels despite dropping 23 kills in the first half. He then had a steadily great performance across the next three maps where he was consistently great.

After going down 2-0 to Leviatan, SEN now go down 2-1 to Evil Geniuses who have shown that it wasn’t a fluke last year with the remaining Potter and jawgemo still creating greatness with a new roster.

To make play-offs comfortably now, Sentinels need to take down LOUD and FURIA whilst they need the other teams in their group to have poor games for the remainder of this split.

Sentinels next game is against a poor LOUD side who are currently sat 0-3 in their group despite being one of only two teams that made it to Masters Madrid with the trophy eventually coming back to Americas but to Sentinels rather than LOUD.

Leviatan DOMINATE NRG During Superweek

The ‘Super Team’ of VCT Americas, NRG, got humbled against Leviatan, after hyping up the team and their chances of winning it all, NRG are looking below par of what they are used to indivdually. Demon1 no longer is showing the firepower that he had last year on Evil Geniuses despite now being the centre of attention on the squad.

Leviatan, a super team in their own right, absolutely dominated NRG last night with NRG only allowed to take 8 rounds from 2 maps, an even more impressive and overwhelming victory than Sentinels against MIBR on Saturday. NRG having only played teams that you could call ‘not contenders’ and when they play world class teams they seem to crumble against Sentinels and now Leviatan.

Stats Courtesy of vlr.gg

NRG really had a shocking performance against the LATAM giants who just came off the back of a 2-0 win over Sentinels aswell.

Demon1, who was the MVP of VCT Champions 2023, dropped 13 kills across the two maps instead of dominating like he did last year. aspas, who has been called the GOAT of Valorant, dropped 34 kills and looked unbothered that he was striking down the MVP of Champions 2023.

NRG have started to create a reputation for themselves for being toxic and super confident in themselves despite not having the results to back it up. Victor, before the game said that it was going to be easy, and it ended up being somewhat the opposite and it seemed that Leviatan took control of map control, rotations and even NRG’s aim seemed off during the matchup.

Before the matchup, Demon1, said in an interview that

”I will take care of aspas”

Those words came back to bite him as the ended the match with 2 first kills and 15 first deaths across the two maps.

NRG now look ahead to their next game against MIBR which should be an easy game, and Leviatan look ahead to G2 Esports which seems straight forward after the results they got against Sentinels and NRG over the past 2 weeks.