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Atletico Madrid stuffed Barcelona 4-0 in the first leg of the Copa Del Rey semi-finals last night, leaving the Catalans with a mountain to climb. Barca’s night started going rapidly downhill in the sixth minute when Eric Garcia and Juan Garcia got themselves in a right old kerfuffle. After ten consecutive days of rain in Madrid, some Barca fans were actually blaming the pitch for the team’s dire performance.

Juventus haven’t won Serie A for nearly six years and currently find themselves ten points behind lead leaders Inter. This Andrea Cambiaso gives us a little glimpse into why the Italian giants might be so inconsistent showcasing a very stylish flicked finish. Into the wrong net.

We’ve already found a front-runner for the FSA’s Goal of the Year award in 2026, courtesy of Ryan Ledson’s superb long range effort from just inside his own half against Luton Town this week. We doubt you’ll see a sweeter strike all year, and to cap things off it gave 10-man Huddersfield a 1-0 win against the Hatters.

There was a cracking game at Edgeley Park at the weekend as Stockport County beat Rotherham 3-2. The game was blessed with not one, not two but three own goals in total. And we reckon the pick of the bunch is the beautiful ballet between Stockport ‘keeper Ben Hinchcliffe and his defender Joseph Olowu. A strong contender for own goal of the season.

In more news that will make you feel old, Papiss Cisse’s famous volley against Chelsea (the second one) is almost fourteen years old – having scored against the Blues for Newcastle United in May 2012. And this week his namesake at Stoke City, Lamine Cisse, did his best to impersonate that effort with a fantastic long-range effort to send the Potters through into the fourth round of the FA Cup. Nice advantage from the ref, too.

With Oasis touring and Bill Clinton in the news you’d be forgiven for thinking the Long Nineties may never end and this week Toluca’s Eugénie Le Sommer added to that sense of déjà vu by channelling the spirit of compatriot Eric Cantona. An audacious effort complete with nonchalant celebration.

To round off the year on a positive note – let’s finish with the Puskás Award 2025 which has been handed to Independiente winger Santiago Montiel for a ludicrous overhead kick in the Argentinian Primera División against Independiente Rivadavia.

This week’s ICYMI brings you something of an unusual moment from last week’s DFB Pokal, with Hertha Berlin’s David Kownacki stealing the tactical plans of opponents Kaiserslauten from the hands of Marlon Ritter. It’s hard to say exactly what piece of intelligence or key strategy he intercepted, but given Hertha were running away with the game, leading 6-1 with only a handful of minutes to go, we doubt it would’ve had much impact on the outcome anyway…

Last week we asked you to vote in our Goal of the Year Award as we had candidates from (deep breath) – Sheffield Wednesday, Yeovil Town, Notts County, Manchester City Women, Brighton & Hove Albion, Hanworth Villa, as well as Spurs’ women’s and men’s team.

Former Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino looks like he’s finally got a grip of the USA’s national men’s team, who are now unbeaten in five, and are looking forward to next summer’s World Cup on home soil. If they want to do anything more than make up the numbers, though, the likes of Ricardo Pepi will have to start taking their chances.

This week #ICYMI has been gearing up for winter by watching the Canadian Premier League final, which was played out in blizzard conditions in the capital city, between hosts Atletico Ottawa and Cavalry FC. Late in the first half Ottawa’s Mexican midfielder David Rodriguez produced a moment of magic – orange ball and all – to level the scores. He would go on to net the extra-time winner to give Ottawa their first title, too. Brrrriliant.

It’s been a bumper week for Goal of the Season contenders – from Barry Bannan’s blammer to Micky van de Ven’s legengary school-yard-style run – but we reckon Piotr Zielinski’s aesthetically pleasing volley for Inter away at Verona is also worthy of your consideration. A terrific effort all round.

With a €658m annual wage bill, PSG are extremely likely to win their fifth Ligue Un title in a row. Their competition in France shouldn’t be making things easy for them, but sadly Brest’s Romain Del Castillo let them off this week when he channeled his inner John Terry (never a good idea) by bodging a penalty en route to a 3-0 loss.

The Swiss Super League saw a lovely tribute to 90s cult-hero Jamie Pollock this week as Luzern’s Pius Dorn did his best to re-enact Pollock’s legendary own goal for Manchester City all the way back in 1998. Another sumptuous volley sent into the wrong net.

After 14 previous attempts, Japan finally beat Brazil for the first time in their history this week following a remarkable comeback at a packed Tokyo Stadium. Japan turned the game around in the second half, winning 3-2 having gone in at half-time 2-0 down. They were helped on their way by some oafish defending from Fabricio Bruno. No-one cares about international football though, eh?

Scotland haven’t qualified for a World Cup since 1998 but 2026 could be the year they finally return. The Scots are now second in their World Cup qualifying group with three games played and should they make it they’ll look back on Thursday’s unlikely 3-1 win over Greece at Hampden as a turning point. Greek goalie Konstantinos Tzolakis might want to move on very quickly after a late howler.

We don’t remember the part of the VAR sales pitch saying it would be an unpredictable overly fussy all-seeing-eye that would mean penalty kicks now take five minutes to resolve, but here we are. Roma conspired to miss three spot kicks in a row last night as they lost to Lille 1-0 at home while the officials channelled John Cleese’s High Priest from the opening scenes of Life of Brian. Ridiculous stuff.

The boffins that make the shortlist for the Puskás Award would have had a busy week, what with Brighton’s Diego Gomez scoring two worldies against Barnsley in the League Cup and Rayo Vallecano’s Pep Chavarría scoring this absolute screamer against Atletico Madrid. Some hit.

If you’re the enlightened “never leaves early” type than Swansea City vs Forest in the League Cup this week would have been right up your street. The Swans went from 2-0 down to 3-2 up with the equaliser and winner coming in the 93rd and 97th minutes respectively. Christian Burgess certainly seems to have enjoyed his winning strike.

Norway smashed Moldova 11-1 this week, the largest margin of victory in a European Championship qualifier since 1996. Moldova’s meagre consolation goal came courtesy of Norway defender Leo Østigård who made a right old mess of a hopeful punt down field. Luckily for him Norwegian Replicant-come-Terminator Erling Haaland scored five and assisted two more, rendering his blunder meaningless. Likely to be entirely forgotten by history.