The Search for Luis Diaz's Father

Hi all 🙂

Hope you all had a great weekend and enjoyed some great football. Today we talk about three things we learned from this weekend’s matches. 

But first, let’s kick it off with your FRONT THREE.

The Front Three

Parents of Luis Diaz Kidnapped. This story rocked the football world over the weekend. On Saturday, reports came out that Luis Diaz’s parents were kidnapped by Colombian gunmen. 

Here’s what we know so far:

• On Saturday, Diaz’s parents were sitting in their car at a gas station in La Guajira around midday when they were taken. 

• Hours later, Colombian President Gustavo Petro released a statement via X announcing that Diaz’s mother had been found, and that they were continuing to look for his father.

• Yesterday, authorities in Colombia announced the offering of a 200 million pesos (around $48,000) reward for any information that could help lead to the rescue of Diaz’s father.  

• Diogo Jota gave a beautiful tribute to his teammate Diaz during Liverpool’s win against Nottingham Forrest on Sunday. 

Lyon manager Fabio Grosso attacked before match. Lyon and Marselle’s match was suspended after Grosso and his assistant Raffaele Longo were hit in the face by projectiles thrown by Marseille fans. Some important details here:

• Minister of French Sports Amelie Oudea-Castera stated that seven arrests have been made following the incident. 

• Lyon informed fans that Grosso had “shards of glass in his face”, and shared footage of Grosso with the team greeting supporters with his face bandaged up. 

• Marseille have denounced the fans who injured Grosso, as their president Pablo Longoria called their actions “completely unacceptable”. 

• The French Football Federation is currently figuring out next steps. 

Dutch striker Bas Dost okay after collapsing on the field. Dost gave football fans around the world a massive scare after collapsing during Eeredivisie side NEC Nijmegen’s match against AZ Alkmaar. Dost was stretchered off just before full time, after which the match was suspended. Later on Sunday, Dost let the world know he was alright via the post below. The statement reads: “I'm doing well. The help I received on the field was fantastic. I'm in the hospital now and I feel good. Thanks for all the support!” 😘

This Weekend of Matches: Three Things We Learned

This past weekend gave us some amazing matches. From Bellingham breaking Barcelona hearts to Manchester United’s dismal derby, let’s discuss three things we learned from this critical weekend. 

Erik Ten Hag is officially on the hot seat. 

• After a crushing 3-0 loss in the Manchester Derby yesterday, United fans are more openly frustrated with Ten Hag than ever. 

• For most of Ten Hag’s tenure, most of the frustration has been towards the ownership for their continued neglect of the club. However, after some polarizing decisions regarding squad rotation, some United fans have begun to question Ten Hag’s fitness for the job,  the culmination of which was a chorus of boos when the former Ajax manager decided to take off Rasmus Hojlund early in the second half of this match. 

• In the postgame press conference, Ten Hag didn’t do himself any favors, claiming that penalty awarded to City in the first half “changed the game”. 

• The overwhelming sentiment among Man United fans seems to be that while City were always going to win this game, Ten Hag didn’t give them much of a chance by his team selection and his use of substitutions. 

How do you feel about Ten Hag at United? Do you feel that he can turn this situation around? Reply to this email and let us know. 

This Real Madrid team are ruthless. 

• Jude Bellingham ripped out rival hearts with two big goals (including a screamer that will go down in El Clásico history) to give Los Blancos the 2-1 win on Saturday.

• The sentiment among Barcelona’s camp seems to be that they were a bit unlucky. Manager Xavi stated in an interview that they “didn’t deserve to lose”, while defender Inigo Martinez took to Instagram and proclaimed that the team “deserved better”. 

• While Barcelona may have played well enough to deserve a point, Madrid (Bellingham specifically) have provided another example of being able to have that killer instinct to gut out wins and get themselves over the line. 

• When watching the end of the match, I couldn’t help thinking about the finish to their first Champions League match this season, where they were able to pull out a late 1-0 over Union Berlin. 

Quick question for you all: how do you think Barcelona will respond to this loss? Will they be able to bounce back in the league? Or do you think heads will drop from here? Reply to this email and let us know. 

Also, as much as I want to spend this whole segment gushing about Bellingham’s wonder goal, I’ll take this moment instead to shout out a few of our readers. As many of you know, when you subscribe to our newsletter, we send you a cute little message to welcome you to the team. In that message, we ask you to respond to our email to help us reach your inbox every day, and one way we suggest saying “hello” is telling us your favorite player. We have a good deal of Bellingham fans in our audience, so here’s a quick shoutout to some of you ❤️

A minority of fans continue to take it too far. 

In a weekend of great football, a group of ultras provided more examples of fans doing way too much. 

• We talked about Fabio Grosso’s run-in with Marseille ultras during The Front Three, but now we turn our focus to Romelu Lukaku. 

• Romelu Lukaku and Inter fans have a…let’s say…prickly relationship after reports came out last year that Lukaku was negotiating with rivals Milan and Juve while playing for the Nerazzurri. However, as it happens too often, this has opened the door for racist fans to make their true feelings known without fear of repercussions. 

• Inter fans pulled out an offensive banner, along with inflatable bananas to “welcome” Lukaku back to the San Siro. 

• This isn’t the first (nor will it likely the last) time Lukaku has suffered racist abuse in Italy. A few years ago, an Italian pundit was sacked for stating that the only way to stop Romelu Lukaku was to “give him 10 bananas to eat”. 

• As far as Sunday’s events go, Inter have yet to comment on them.  

Full Time. Thanks so much for reading, and make sure to check in on any Ajax fans in your life right now, they’re going through it. 

Take care ❤️

More Good Stuff 👍

Mario Balotelli and M’Baye Niang play rock, paper, scissors to see who gets to take a penalty in a match for Turkish side Adana Demirspor 😂: https://v.redd.it/tpypibfep0xb1

Ecuadorian Manager Joe Armas and his club Imbabura just got promoted to the country’s top league. At 27 years old, he’ll be the youngest manager in the top flight 👏

https://twitter.com/Juezcentral/status/1717731885655142554

Spanish Second Division side Ibiza gave up a penalty this weekend after a defender just catches the ball in the box with his hands 🤯 https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/17j5oa6/ibiza_concede_a_penalty_after_their_defender/

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