Soccer Monday: Columbus wins Leagues Cup, Leverkusen leaves it late and Napoli rebounds
Kick the week off with all the news from this past weekend
Good morning!
We enter the final week of the month with Europe’s top leagues taking their first steps. At the same time, MLS returned following the dramatic conclusion to the Leagues Cup.
Despite these first steps (in Europe) and conclusion of yet another competition (Leagues Cup), there are plenty of storylines to glean from these matches.
This week, we focus on three teams — Columbus Crew, Bayer Leverkusen and Napoli — and how they have left their mark so far in 2024.
3. Crew wins Leagues Cup against LAFC in MLS Cup rematch
Columbus Crew SC striker Cucho Hernandez scored twice in Sunday’s Leagues Cup final, to secure a 3-1 win against Los Angeles FC.
The Colombian international’s goals — including the decisive strike in the 92nd minute — allowed the Crew to beat LAFC for the second straight final after lifting the MLS Cup last December.
The all-MLS final — played before a sellout crowd of nearly 21,000 at the Lower.com Field — was a thrilling match from start to finish.
Hernandez scored the Crew's first goal in the first half with a header off a cross from Mo Farsi in the 45th minute. LAFC responded in the 57th minute. Olivier Giroud tallied his first goal for LAFC to make it 1-1.
In stoppage time, Hernandez ripped a shot past goalkeeper Hugo Lloris to take back the lead. Hernandez then helped put the game away, assisting on Jacen Russell-Rowe goal to make it 3-1.
2. Leverkusen opens title defense with a win
This season’s Bayer Leverkusen isn’t too different from the one that won the title last season.
The Bundesliga champions needed a goal in the 11th minute of injury time to beat Borussia Monchengladbach 3-2 on Friday after giving up a two-goal lead in the opening game of the season.
Xabi Alonso's team went undefeated in both the league and the German Cup last season, in part thanks to a number of late goals and comebacks.
The team continued it’s late-game heroics at the Borussia-Park. Florian Wirtz saw his last-gasp penalty saved, but converted the rebound to secure the win.
"Maybe this is our new DNA, let's say that,” midfielder Granit Xhaka told ESPN after the game. “This is not a blot, to believe until the end, doesn't matter how we play, doesn't matter what happened in the game.”
1. Napoli wins first game in the Conte era
After a 3-0 defeat to Verona last weekend, Napoli responded with a win — by the same margin — at home against Bologna on Sunday at the Stadio Diego Maradona.
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia set up one goal and scored one as Napoli recorded its first league victory since April 7. In the process, Conte became Napoli’s fifth manager in a span of a year when he was hired in June, but his new team crumbled at Verona to open the season.
“The punch in the face we got in Verona made us immediately understand that if we want to forget the past we have to stay in the center of the ring, you give punches and you get them, but you have to keep standing,” Conte said.
Conte added that he has “a lot of faith in this group.
“It was a tough week, but we united even more, you won’t get anywhere individually,” he said. “These are my first three points with Napoli and I have great emotion. It is these feelings that push you to go further.”
In other news: A fistfight between two players broke out Sunday in a Rutgers vs. UMass women’s soccer match. Punches were thrown as the two players became tangled, engaged in a shoving match and then tumbled to the ground. Rutgers senior Gia Girman was called for a foul in the 55th minute. As she was getting up from the ground, UMass senior Ashley Lamond appeared to attempt to pick the ball up from near Girman’s feet. UMass won 1-0. … Uruguay’s first and second divisions were halted this past weekend due to concerns over hospitalized Nacional defender Juan Izquierdo. The South American nation’s players union decided on Friday to postpone matches through Monday as the 27-year-old Izquierdo recovers in Brazil after passing out during Thursday’s Copa Libertadores match against Sao Paulo. Izquierdo suffered a cardiac arrest and had to go through resuscitation after he was brought from the Morumbi Stadium. … Lionel Messi began on-field training last week and could be ready to join Inter Miami on the field before the end of the MLS regular season. The 37-year-old Messi has been out with a right ankle injury since Argentina’s July 14 Copa America final win over Colombia, when he went down in the second half and tearfully exited the field.