Thursday’s soccer news starts with goals for USMNT players in Europe. Timothy Weah opened the scoring in Lille’s 3-2 win at Montpellier in the 23rd minute. Montpellier leveled the score in the 57th with Lille’s Nanitamo Ikone converting a 68th minute penalty. Montpellier equalized in the 70th. Burak Yilmaz put Lille ahead for good in the 86th minute. Weah subbed out in the 68th minute. Lille is in 2nd-place in the Ligue 1 table, tied on points with 1st-place Lyon.
“My players struggled to get the win,” Lille coach Christophe Galtier said. “I like this mindset. Of course, everything was not perfect but coming to win in Montpellier is a great result.”
Josh Sargent scored in Werder Bremen’s 3-0 win at Hannover in the DFB Pokal. Theodor Gebre Selassie put Werder up in the 29th with Sargent doubling the lead in the 32nd. Jean-Manuel Mbom finished off the goals in the 60th minute.
“The DFB Pokal is an important competition for us,” Werder Bremen coach Florian Kohfeldt said. “We have always emphasised that to the players and I think you can see that in the way we have performed so far this season. We really wanted to get to the last 16 and that was obvious to everyone watching tonight. We played well in every area of the pitch. they put us under pressure at the start of the second half, but I thought we dealt with that very well. We had a young team on the pitch that performed very maturely this evening.”
Staying in the second round of the DFB Pokal, John Brooks wasn’t in the squad for Wolfsburg’s 4-0 home win over Sandhausen. Yannick Gerhardt scored in the 27th with Wout Weghorst making it 2-0 in the 29th. Joao Victor added a goal in the 41st with Weghorst scoring again a minute into stoppage time.
Luca de la Torre subbed on in the 87th minute of Heracles’s 1-0 win at Groningen in the Eredivisie. Adrian Szoke scored in the 78th minute. Ulysses Llanez entered in the 76th minute in Heerenveen’s 3-0 loss at Feyenoord. Heerenveen fell behind in the 48th, with Feyenoord adding goals in the 58th and a minute into stoppage time.
Also in the soccer news, two-time MLS Golden Boot winner Bradley Wright-Phillips is on the move again after one season with LAFC. MLS Cup champions Columbus signed the free agent striker, who will turn 36 in March. Wright-Phillips has 116 MLS goals, sixth on the all-time list and won Comeback Player of the Year in 2020.
“We are thrilled that Bradley has chosen to join Crew SC as we look to build off of our 2020 MLS Cup title and continue to contend for trophies headed into 2021,” Crew president/GM Tim Bezbatchenko said. “As one of the most proficient strikers in our League over the last decade, Bradley brings valuable veteran experience to our attacking corps and we look forward to his contributions. We also believe Bradley’s quality character and mentality is an asset to every team he has played for and has played a critical role in all the personal success he’s had in his career.”
SI.com’s Avi Creditor previews the glut of games for Premier League clubs over the holidays. The Guardian’s choices for the 100 best soccer players in the world. Sky Sports reports that PSG is looking for a new coach. The Independent’s Melissa Reddy explains Mauricio Pochettino’s link to the PSG job. The NY Times’ Rory Smith profiles former Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech who is now one of the club’s technical advisors.
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Logo courtesy of Lille
