RiceSport Football News

"Check your emails, lads!"
🗣📩 A bitter reminder printed on Crystal Palace fans’ shirts, aimed straight at the club’s hierarchy after their failure to check important emails ended up dropping the team into the Conference League instead of the Europa League.

📉 Specifically, after winning the 2024/25 FA Cup and qualifying for the Europa League, UEFA sent a warning email regarding multi-club ownership, as Palace share the same owner — American billionaire John Textor — with Lyon, who also qualified for the Europa League after finishing 6th in Ligue 1.

Ironically, Palace completely missed these warning emails, meaning they made no preparation or appeal whatsoever.

In the end, UEFA officially granted Lyon the Europa League spot. Because Textor is still registered as Palace’s owner, the English club were forced to drop down to the Conference League under UEFA rules. Meanwhile, Nottingham Forest — who finished 7th in the Premier League — accidentally benefitted and took Palace’s Europa League place 🧐

Club chairman Steve Parish later admitted that missing the emails was entirely Palace’s fault. The email address they provided to UEFA was “[email protected]
” — which is normally used for fan complaints, not for receiving critical information 🤦‍♂️

⁉️ The unluckiest player in Premier League history

➖ Juninho Bacuna holds a record no footballer would ever want: losing 14 consecutive games in his first 14 Premier League starts for Huddersfield.

😂 Ironically, Huddersfield never actually lost that many games in a row — their longest losing streak was eight. They even broke that run with a win against Wolves… but Bacuna was dropped from the starting XI in that match.
As soon as he returned to the lineup, the losing streak continued.

➡️ Bacuna finally avoided defeat in his 15th start (a 1–1 draw against Manchester United), but by then Huddersfield had already been relegated.
➡️ To this day, he has never won a Premier League match in which he started.

😳 Arsenal can score in any way they want

➖ Last night, Arsenal defeated Bayern Munich with three goals — and each of them came in a completely different fashion:
➡ The first goal came from a set-piece
➡ The second came from winning the ball in midfield (pressing), then building up and delivering it into the box from the flank
➡ The third came from a counterattack, a quick transition — something Arsenal weren’t even known for in previous seasons

🔥 Before this match, Bayern were unbeaten in 19 games, winning 18 of them. And in all 19, they scored at least two goals.

😳 Arsenal silenced the “big bad” Bayern Munich without a real number 9, as Gyokeres, Havertz, and Gabriel Jesus were all injured. Playmaker Ødegaard had to start on the bench because he wasn’t fully fit. Meanwhile, their set-piece aerial specialist Gabriel Magalhães was also unavailable.

➡️ “A very simple question: Will Liverpool sack Arne Slot after the 1–4 defeat to PSV?
YES or NO?”

Liverpool spent €400 million — and now they’re free-falling. What’s going on?

Summer 2025 saw Liverpool splashing cash harder than anyone in Europe, signing three headline-grabbers: Isak, Wirtz, and Ekitike.

After a flying start — five straight wins — everyone expected The Kop to defend their crown with ease.

But then… they’ve plunged.

➖ Wirtz: 0 goals – 0 assists
➖ Ekitike: lost his starting spot
➖ Isak: a pale shadow of his Newcastle form
➖ Team: only 3 points from the next 7 games → slipped to 12th

The latest hammer blow: 0–3 loss to Nottingham Forest.

Tomorrow at 03:00, Liverpool face PSV with confidence at rock bottom. Will this match be a turning point, or push them even deeper into crisis?

➡ Are Liverpool’s three summer signings just slow burners, or are they on the same path as Lukaku, Pogba, Antony, and Sancho?

Who’s still claiming the Premier League is below La Liga? 🥶

🚨 Fun fact you might not want to show Barca fans:
Back in 2020, Barcelona sold Marc Cucurella to Getafe for just €12M… and kept Junior Firpo.

Since then:
➖ Firpo: sold → relegated with Leeds → now struggling to get minutes at Betis.
➖ Cucurella: €65M move to Chelsea → Euro champion → Club World Cup winner → and this morning’s MOTM after destroying Barça at Stamford Bridge.

📸 The Touchline

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