The Premier League may not have started yet, and the Boks only face the All Blacks this coming Saturday, but this past weekend was by no means short of quality sport, writes the MoneyMan.
For the sake of my weekend wrap I’ve decided to focus on three events from this past weekend, and I’m going to kick it off with the Community Shield.
Before the Prem has even started we got a little taste of what we can expect, once again, when Man City and Liverpool take each other on. Liverpool came away with a 3-1 win, and it was fantastic to see Darwin Nunez firing as he won a penalty and scored a goal. I’m a Leeds man through and through, but when it comes to this fixture I’m backing Liverpool all the way.
What was unfortunate to see was the media coverage of the game. Erling Haaland was ridiculed for his lack of impact and immediately the internet was rife with memes about Haaland’s lack of contribution and Nunez’ second half success.
Come on guys, the season has barely started. Both Nunez and Haaland will be huge for their respective sides this season, and while the comparisons are natural, the manner in which they are pitted against each other is nonsensical. Nunez had a great outing on what was Liverpool’s day, but people quickly forget that he also missed a couple of shots in front of goal, like Haaland did, and the nature of soccer is that on another day their stats could very easily have flipped the other way around.
It will be interesting to see how Haaland handles the English media, and the expectation of playing in Pep’s team, coming from a place where he was always the golden boy in teams that were not expected to win everything.
But great start for Klopp and his men, and an awesome 45 minuted from Darwin Nunex, who was brought in to score goals and so far has been doing just that.
Then, what an occasion at Wembley as a record crowd of 87000 watched the Lionesses beat Germany 2-1 at home, in extra time, to win the Women’s Euros 2022. A goal on 110 minutes from England’s Chloe Kelly secured the home team glory, and the growth and quality of women’s football has been fantastic to watch.
Sunday night was capped off for me by a Commonwealth Gold medal from the Blitzboks, who were emphatic in putting Fiji away 31-7 in the final. Neil Powell has subtly ushered in the new age of Springbok Sevens, and a young team without any of the vintage names of Kyle Brown, Seabalo Senatla, Rosko Specman and so on, did South Africa proud by dominating in Birmingham.
