Weekend highlights: Furious Haaland, Joao Felix haunts Atleti & the own goal of the year
Goal of the weekend
As Christmas approaches, it's clear that the name 'Mac Allister' will be on the tip of the tongue again. Before Kevin sets the traps for the thieves again, we can enjoy a show from his namesake Alexis.
The Argentine midfielder's beautiful shot helped Liverpool dominate a wild 4-3 win over Fulham.
Fail of the weekend
Goalkeeper Daniel Fernandes Heuer is usually a mainstay for Hamburg. Aside from his saves, he excels on the ball, with The Athletic writing last week that he is a "playmaker in goal."
But then came the derby with St. Pauli, their hated city rival and unbeaten leader of the 2. Bundesliga. And there, the Bochum native, who represented Portugal at youth level, failed miserably.
The result is one of the most curious own goals we've ever seen. The match ended 2-2.
Social media highlight
The theme of this feature is minimalism. If social media has taught us anything, it's that you don't need long elaborations to express emotions, sometimes a single emoji is all you need.
David De Gea is quite often convinced of this. The former Manchester United number one is still on the free agent market and is still keeping a close eye on his former club. Every time United fail to win a match, he puts just an emoji on social network X (formerly Twitter). This time he was probably suggesting that his former teammates froze against Newcastle.
Stat of the weekend
Mourning Manchester United fans might not forgive us but we'll stick with their loss to the Magpies. After all, the Red Devils have been in woefully poor form against teams at the top of the table.
They haven't won away against a team that was in the top eight of the Premier League at the time of kick-off since October 2021, over two years ago!
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer secured the last triumph, but since then United have recorded three draws and ten losses.
Story of the weekend
Barcelona's match with Atletico Madrid already had a clear protagonist before the opening whistle. It was Joao Felix, a star footballer but one who is unnecessary in Diego Simeone's system and thus has been on loan for the last two seasons.
After a short stint at Chelsea, Atleti have now loaned him to Barcelona. As fate would have it, Felix's single goal decided Sunday's game between the Spanish giants.
While many footballers wouldn't celebrate against their former (in this case, technically still current) employer, Felix celebrated right in front of the Atletico fan sector.
"It was a relief, after everything I've been through this summer," he said after the game. It is looking increasingly likely that the stay will turn into a transfer in the summer and Felix will not return to Madrid.
Photo of the weekend
Football fans often joke that Erling Haaland is not human but a cyborg, a goal-scoring machine. But in Manchester City's3-3 draw with Tottenham on Sunday, the goalscorer proved that he is also a flesh-and-blood human being who sometimes misses.
Haaland, and ultimately everyone around Manchester City, didn't like several decisions made by referee Simon Hooper. Most infuriating to them was the situation in which City were given an advantage but the moment Jack Grealish got into a threatening situation, Hooper suddenly whistled for a foul. It resulted in more than one photo portraying Haaland as we have never seen him before - absolutely deranged.
