Sports
Lamine Yamal and his 14 seconds of Lionel Messi-like magic against Alaves
You wonder what went through the mind of Alaves’ left-back, Manu Sanchez, three minutes into the game against Barcelona at Montjuic yesterday.
Lamine Yamal, the player who Sanchez was assigned to mark for the next 87 minutes or so of his life, had dribbled past him and four other team-mates in practically his first involvement of the match.
Sanchez would have been forgiven for thinking he might be in for a long afternoon.
In a way, Alaves can be happy with how they contained Barcelona overall. The Catalans got a scrappy 1-0 win at home against a relegation-battling side in a must-win game, after Real Madrid lost across town against Espanyol the night before. Hansi Flick’s side are now four points behind their main rivals at the top of La Liga, and the 2024-25 title race feels more alive than ever as we enter February.
A packed fixture list on Madrid’s side, including a two-legged Champions League play-off against Manchester City on February 11 and 19, could do Barca, who are straight through to the round of 16 in March, a favour too.
But weeks and perhaps months will pass, and Yamal’s outrageous early solo run will linger in the minds of those who were present.
It is nothing new to see fans on the edge of their seats every time Yamal gets the football, but the sequence that started at 3:45 on the clock and finished 14 seconds later had most of the 42,900 attending at Montjuic roaring in excitement, louder and louder as he glided by opponent after opponent.
Lamine Yamal. 🤩 #LALIGAHighlights | @FCBarcelona pic.twitter.com/DNKZSow4Kt
— LALIGA English (@LaLigaEN) February 2, 2025
It’s sometimes easy to forget that Lamine Yamal is still only 17 years old.
Let’s go back to the very start of this extraordinary move.
Yamal picked up possession on the right-hand side, his comfort zone, but in Barcelona’s half of the pitch. Sanchez was pressing him straight away, but the teenager shifted the ball back in the direction it came, wrongfooting his initial opponent immediately.
After he disarmed Sanchez with a shoulder feint and a dribble on his left foot, Alaves’ left-winger Tomas Conechny was there waiting to double up on the Spain international prodigy.
The 17-year-old shielded the ball, then burst past both players and cut inside towards a central area.
Sanchez admitted defeat at this point and returned to his left-back role, but Conechny chose to persevere, following Yamal and trying to grab his arm.
More backup was needed.
The attacking midfielder Jon Guridi now made an attempt to reach Yamal, but the latter was already operating in a different gear.
Antonio Blanco, one of the visitors’ holding midfielders, tried to step into Yamal but a quick flick of his left foot meant that tackle was useless. Yamal kept moving forward.
Now Conechny was back for round two, this time trying to perform a merciless sliding tackle. In some part of his peripheral vision, the Barca winger saw him coming and quickly switched his ball to the right foot — sending Conechny out for tapas.
Those in the Montjuic stands were loving every second of it, never wanting the run to end.
Guridi and Blanco now tried to take Yamal down again but failed again.
Alaves’ other holding midfielder, Ander Guevara, now stood in Yamal’s path and fancied his luck, but with so many players now crowded around him, Yamal opted to find his team-mate Raphinha in plenty of space out on the left-hand side.
With a trivela pass.
GO DEEPER
Lamine Yamal’s trademark trivela: Dissecting the Barcelona star’s work of art
(Alex Caparros/Getty Images)
Raphinha took a shot at goal that went wide, though few in the stadium really cared. The fans were still roaring for Yamal, making the kind of comparisons in their heads with past Barcelona greats that managers understandably tend to try to downplay, for fear of inflaming the hype. But Yamal is no ordinary talent.
“Lamine is already one of the best players in the world, to be honest,” said Alaves full-back Sanchez in an interview with Spanish newspaper Mundo Deportivo. And that was before yesterday’s match.
On a similar note, here is Barcelona’s starting goalkeeper, Wojciech Szczesny, in an interview with Italian media outlet La Gazzetta Dello Sport last week.
“For me, they’re the two biggest talents I’ve seen in my life, both (Kenan) Yildiz (at Szczesny’s previous club Juventus) and Yamal. They’re very different because Lamine, technically, it’s absurd. Yildiz is stronger physically. He’s already ready physically. But technically, Lamine is… it’s so impressive. So it’s really hard to make a comparison but they’re two extraordinary talents and, in my opinion, they’ll both do big things.”
Yamal’s performance on Sunday went beyond his jaw-dropping run. According to Opta, he attempted 20 dribbles and succeeded with 11 of them, and equalled the most by a Barcelona footballer in a single game since the 2005-06 season at least.

Guess whose record he matched…
Yes, it was Lionel Messi, in 2006-07 against Mallorca. He attempted 20 dribbles that day, completing 10 of them.

Yamal was also involved in the goal against Alaves, which was scored by Robert Lewandowski when he tapped in a volleyed shot by the teenager. La Liga did not count it as an assist, as Yamal’s attempt deflected off Alaves defender Nahuel Tenaglia before reaching Lewandowski. Never mind. He still leads the league for that metric this season with 11 in 19 games.
His progression has been superb since breaking into the Barcelona first team last season, and those around the club feel blessed to have such a talent on their hands.
In the back of their minds, though, there is a silent debate over the best way to handle Yamal. If, at the age of 17, he is already so fundamental to the club’s overall project, what is coming next for him? What is the best way to make sure his development stays on the right track, or to be sure that the teenager’s mind can stay in the right place?
Last week, Flick subbed Yamal off in the dying minutes of their final league-phase match in the Champions League, against Atalanta. The teenager was visibly frustrated with the substitution, as he was enjoying himself after scoring one goal.
As he made his way to the bench, Flick stopped him and had a friendly chat to try to smooth things over. Yamal was then named man of the match, and therefore had some media duties to go through. Initially, he was not feeling in the mood to go and speak to broadcasters but eventually agreed to after a conversation with the club’s press officers.
(Pedro Salado/Getty Images)
It was described more as a heat-of-the-moment situation rather than anything with a deeper significance from those in the dressing room, but in a way reflects how Flick wants to protect Yamal from the public eye and excessive scrutiny during press conferences.
Straight after the win yesterday, he was asked about Yamal’s display and whether it was reminiscent of other club greats such as Messi and Diego Maradona.
“I am not a fan of comparisons and all that,” Flick said. “Lamine is a genius. I’ve already said that in the past. What he did today in some situations was unbelievable. I am so happy that he is a Barca player and I want him to do this week after week.
“Again, he is just 17.”
GO DEEPER
What makes Lamine Yamal such a special footballer?
(Top photo: Josep Lago/AFP via Getty Images)
Sports
Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit
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A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue.
Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June.
Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male.
Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling.
“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.
Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case.
(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital.
“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13.
Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters.
With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.
Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice.
Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
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SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.
“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said.
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Sports
Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush
Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.
“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.
Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.
On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.
Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.
Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.
(Lindsey Wasson / AP)
The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.
Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.
His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”
Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.
Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.
A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.
Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.
A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.
The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.
He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.
“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”
Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.
“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.
“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”
Sports
Keith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death
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Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead.
“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights.
Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.
“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann.
One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”
Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”
Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.
After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.
In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.
Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post.
In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”
Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States.
After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media.
Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.
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Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death.
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