Aguerrroooooooo

👋 Welcome…

..to The Tap-Inn. Where you can tap in to the world of soccer with me, your first-gen Irish Tap-Inn bartender, Joe.

It is Monday, my dudes. On tap today:

• 🎬 Why the final minutes of a soccer game make for the most iconic moments

• 🌎 Could Messi and Ronaldo finally meet on the World Cup stage?

• 💪 The player putting on too much muscle for his own good

Ready? I thought so. Let’s pour.

🥃 TOP SHELF

Better late than never

You know that moment at 1:45 AM when I flick the lights on and suddenly everyone rushes to the bar for one last drink? Desperate. Frantic.

This is known as stoppage time in soccer. You can read more about it in our previous edition here.

Why stoppage time creates some of soccers greatest moments

If your team is 3-0 coming into the 90th minute, you’re gucci. You’re the guy sitting at the bar with three drinks in front of you when the rest of us are scrambling for the bartenders attention at last orders.

If your team is 1-0 up however, you’re nervous. And your players are too. They’re not playing with the same swagger they were in the 50th minute. They’ve dropped back a little deeper, inviting a little more pressure towards their own goal.

“What about the opposition?”

Like your buddy on the dancefloor fifteen minutes before close, they’re getting very, very desperate.

If it’s an important game, like a knock-out game - they might throw their centre backs up beside their strikers and play route one football. If they’re really in need of a goal, they might even send their goalkeeper up for a set piece.

A lot of the time, this desperation leads to deflation. The team scrambling for a last minute goal commits too many players to attack, and end up losing the ball and conceding a sucker punch goal.

All this to say, that stoppage time can create some of the most iconic moments in soccer history...

“Alright, alright, can we just see some last-minute goals already??”

Thought you’d never ask.

No better place to start than Sergio Agüero's title-winning goal in 2012. Arguably the most dramatic goal and iconiccommentary of all time:

Then there’s Liverpool GK, Alisson Becker, scoring a last minute header vs West Brom in 2021. A goal that sealed qualification for the Champions League — which they then went on to win the following year.

And lastly: not one, but two stoppage-time goals that saw Manchester United turn a 1–0 deficit into a 2–1 win, scoring in the 91st and 93rd minutes to take the 1999 UEFA Champions League final.

So next time you're watching and you see that board go up showing +6 minutes? Don't you dare leave your barstool. That's when the magic happens. Or the tragedy.

Either way, you'll want another drink.

🗞️ THIS WEEK IN SOCCER

FA Cup recap

No EPL games to highlight as it was FA Cup weekend in England. Let’s check out what happened…

• Wrexham 2–4 Chelsea AET — Ryan Reynolds' Wrexham went ahead twice, had a yellow card upgraded to red by VAR, and made Chelsea really earn it in extra time. Game of the weekend for me.

• Newcastle 1–3 Man City — Man City made ten changes and still waltzed through. They have such ridiculous depth. They are still in the hunt a quadruple. They play Real Madrid this week.

• Port Vale 1–0 Sunderland — The magic of the cup, eh. Port Vale sit bottom of League One, 57 places below Sunderland in the soccer pyramid. Didn't matter. One header, full pandemonium.

European action

🇪🇸 La Liga

• Athletic Bilbao 0–1 Barcelona — Over in Spain, Lamine Yamal at 18 years old, curled one into the top corner in the 68th minute to put Barcelona four points clear of Real Madrid at the top.

🇩🇪 Bundesliga

• Union Berlin 1–4 Werder Bremen — I don’t usually check in on German league but why the weissbier not. Bremen were down to ten men and still put four past Union Berlin, lifting themselves out of the relegation zone in the process. Bayern Munich continue to pull away at the top with a 4-1 win over Borussia Mönchengladbach. Yes, that is a real team.

Brazil’s record reds

A Brazilian derby between Cruzeiro and Atlético Mineiro on Sunday got more rowdy than that time The Tap-Inn ran out of Guinness…on St Patrick’s Day.

With just seconds remaining in the game, an initially ordinary foul ended up leading to players and staff from both teams piling into a massive brawl. When it was over, the ref had handed out 23 red cards — one of the biggest mass send-offs ever.

📝 TRIVIA ON TAP

Stop that, you

What player has the most stoppage time goals in Premier League history?

• A) Mo Salah

• B) Erling Haaland

• C) Jermaine Defoe

• D) Harry Kane

Keep scrolling for the answer. 👇

🌎 WORLD CUP COUNTDOWN: 94 DAYS

It’s one of my dreams to go and visit the north and south Pole’s before I die. Today, one of my regulars told me there’s a cruise called pole to pole. You travel from the north pole to the south pole in 94 days. If I hopped on that cruise now, I’d be back just in time for the WC opening ceremony.

One last first dance?

Fun fact: Messi and Ronaldo have never faced each other in a World Cup.

Despite facing each other over 30 times when Ronaldo played for Real Madrid and Messi for Barcelona, they have never faced each other in a competitive fixture for their countries. But could they finally face each other this summer, in what could possibly be their last World Cup?

The answer is yes, quite possibly. If both Portugal and Argentina win their groups (expected) and then win their next two games, Messi and Ronaldo will face each other in a World Cup quarter finals in Kansas City.

For even more drama, if one of them doesn’t win their group, they could face each other in the final - is it written in soccer stars? I hope so.

The Boston stand-off continues

On Friday, I shared that the board in Foxborough, Massachusetts are threatening to pull-out of hosting the World Cup if FIFA dont cough up the $7.8 million needed for security in advance. There have been no positive developments in negotiations, if anything, it is even more in-doubt now as The Kraft Group (who’ve offered to pay the bill) expressed their disappointment in the Foxborough boards swift rejection of their latest offer.

If you’re still wondering if I’m going on that cruise? I’d love to. I just need to come up with the $94,000 to pay for it.

🔥 QUICKFIRE

Sound like a pro

The phrase: Daisy-cutter

What it means: Picture a ball skimming along the ground so low and hard that it'd slice the head off every daisy in its path. A lot of backspin, a lot of power. A great example from ex-Liverpool ace Thiago Alcantara right here.

Use it:"There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing your midfielder rip a good daisy-cutter out to the full back".”

On this day

March 9, 1983. Clint Dempsey, arguably the greatest American soccer player of his generation, was born on this day 43 years ago in Nacogdoches, Texas.

The man scored 57 goals for the USMNT (still the joint all-time record), played for Fulham, Tottenham, and the Seattle Sounders, and had an actual rap career on the side.

A proper American original. Happy birthday, Deuce.

Last call

Shockingly, the bear man who once tried to fool us all into thinking he didn’t actually lift weights due to his genetics, has been caught red-handed by his team mates…lifting weights.

In light of this startling revelation, Adama Traoré’s (pictured above) manager Nuno Espírito Santo has officially banned the Spanish right winger from lifting weights. "It's enough weight that he carries," he said after a video went viral of Traoré bench pressing 320 pounds.

📝 TRIVIA ANSWER

C) Jermaine Defoe

The English goalsmithholds the record for the most stoppage time goals in EPL history with a total of 10 goals scored after the 90th minute.

Defoe was one of the most prolific strikers the Prem’s ever seen, ranking 10th in the all-time top scorer list, scoring 162 goals for 5 different clubs.

One of my favourite players ever? Defoe-nitely.

Until next time…

Thanks for stopping by The Tap-Inn.

If you enjoyed this, forward it to that friend who knows nothing about soccer and help spread the good word.

I’ll be behind the bar every week, Monday and Friday, serving up soccer. Sláinte.

— Joe