Soccer: Weekend Shocks
English football delivered big surprises — Arsenal were knocked out of the FA Cup 2-1 by relegation-threatened Southampton, and Manchester City demolished Liverpool 4-0 with Erling Haaland scoring a hat‑trick while Mohamed Salah missed a penalty. (x.com) Barcelona edged Atletico 2-1 on a late Robert Lewandowski goal amid VAR and red‑card drama, Chelsea thumped Port Vale 7-0, and Son Heung‑min created four assists in Tottenham’s 6-0 win — a chaotic weekend for top clubs. (x.com)
The weekend’s strangest soccer story was not that one giant stumbled. It was that several did, all at once, and in different ways. Arsenal lost control of a cup tie they were supposed to manage. Liverpool walked into Manchester and were taken apart. Barcelona needed late chaos to get past Atlético Madrid. Chelsea turned a quarterfinal into target practice. And Son Heung-min, no longer even in England, still managed to intrude on the mood of the weekend with four assists in LAFC’s 6-0 win over Orlando City. (usnews.com) Start with Arsenal, because that was the cleanest shock. Southampton are a Championship side, seventh in the table, and they beat the Premier League leaders 2-1 in the FA Cup quarterfinal at St Mary’s. Ross Stewart put Southampton ahead in the first half. Viktor Gyökeres equalized after the break. Then Shea Charles came off the bench and scored in the 85th minute, sending Southampton to Wembley and leaving Arsenal with another cup exit to process after their League Cup final loss before the international break. (usnews.com) That result mattered even more because Manchester City made sure there would be no ambiguity about the tournament favorite. City beat Liverpool 4-0 at the Etihad, and the scoreline was not inflated by luck. Haaland scored the first from the penalty spot after Virgil van Dijk brought him down, headed in the second before halftime, and finished his third before the hour. Antoine Semenyo added the other goal. Salah then had a penalty saved by James Trafford, which felt less like a missed chance than the final proof that Liverpool’s afternoon had already collapsed. City reached an eighth straight FA Cup semifinal, a record in the competition’s modern era. (espn.co.uk) Chelsea’s version of authority looked different. Their 7-0 win over Port Vale was not a test of nerve or structure. It was a demonstration of the gap between a deep Premier League squad and a League One side at the bottom of its division. Jorrel Hato scored after two minutes. João Pedro followed. Port Vale then added an own goal before halftime, and Chelsea kept going through Tosin Adarabioyo, Andrey Santos, Estêvão, and a late Alejandro Garnacho penalty. For a club that has spent much of the season lurching between expensive promise and visible disorder, the afternoon offered one simple thing: a route to Wembley with no stress attached. (skysports.com) Spain supplied the weekend’s most theatrical game. Barcelona beat Atlético Madrid 2-1 at the Metropolitano, but that bare score hides the mess inside it. Marcus Rashford gave Barcelona the lead. Atlético equalized. A red card shown to Gerard Martín was overturned after a VAR review, a decision Diego Simeone attacked afterward, and then Lewandowski came off the bench to score in the 87th minute. The win pushed Barcelona seven points clear of Real Madrid with eight league matches left, and it also served as a kind of revenge after a 4-0 loss at the same stadium in the Copa del Rey. (espn.com) Then there was Son, attached to the weekend by talent rather than geography. The card’s Tottenham reference is outdated. Son left Spurs last year and now plays for LAFC. On Saturday, April 4, he produced four assists in the first half of a 6-0 win over Orlando City, feeding Denis Bouanga repeatedly in a performance MLS itself called “savage.” It was the sort of stat line that would have looked absurd in north London. It looked just as absurd in Los Angeles. (espn.com)
