Lion Links: 9/26/17

Ooooowee. That was a tough one to stomach on Sunday. Since I had to wake up early on Monday morning, I told myself I wouldn’t drink, and yet as I found myself watching the Orlando City game I was more and more drawn to that magic section of my fridge that contains the sweet, amber colored, forget-about-my-sports-team’s-problems-juice. And while my Monday morning was a little bit rough, it couldn’t hold a candle to what took place up in Portland on Sunday night. Now that I’ve both thrown some shade and revealed a little too much about my weekend habits, let’s get into the news around the soccer-verse.

Harris and Hickmann up for Save of the Week

Orlando Pride’s Ashlyn Harris and Monica are up for the NWSL Save of the Week with their two-person effort against the Portland Thorns on Saturday. With Ashleigh Sykes through on goal, Harris came out and made herself big, doing enough to slow the ball on its way to goal, allowing Monica to get back and clear it away just in time.

While Orlando couldn’t go on to win the game, as it finished 0-0, the women in purple did clinch their first ever playoff berth! Congratulations ladies, you’re doing us proud.

Paris Saint-Germain Deny €1 Million Cavani Penalty Offer

Soccer is a weird sport. Sure, strange things happen in football, basketball, and baseball, but some of the strangest headlines I’ve ever seen have been related to our beautiful game.

While this isn’t the weirdest one I’ve ever seen, it’s up there. PSG has denied offering Edinson Cavani €1 million to give up his role as the team’s designated penalty taker. Cavani apparently has a €1 million bonus clause in his contract if he finishes top of the Ligue 1 scoring charts, which might have played into his reluctance to give the ball to Neymar when a penalty opportunity arose a few games ago (or he’s just got a big ego, like every other footballer). Anyhow, P$G has denied that it essentially offered him a million smackaroos just to keep Neymar happy, but honestly I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they had.

Gareth Barry Sets Premier League Record

After starting for West Bromwich Albion on Monday night, Gareth Barry set a new Premier League appearances record with 663, passing Ryan Giggs’ old mark of 662. Having made his Premier League debut in 1998, Barry has almost been in the league for two decades, and also holds the record for most Premier League starts of all time. Unfortunately, the night wasn’t all happy as West Brom were downed 2-0 by Arsenal, courtesy of a pair of Alexandre Lacazette goals. Guess you can’t have it all your way, but congrats anyway, Gareth.

MLS Sets New Attendance Record

Elsewhere, other records were broken over the weekend as MLS set a new average attendance record with 21,794, bypassing last year’s number of 21,692. Eight of the 12 games played over the weekend had attendance numbers over 20,000, including the Lions’ game against Portland. I know it’s only a 102-person increase from the old average attendance, but hey, a record’s a record people.

Free Kicks

• This bizarre goal celebration.

• This incredible quadruple save.

• Today’s birthdays include tennis star Serena Williams, and singers Olivia Newton-John and Christina Milan.

That’s all for today’s links. Here’s hoping Wednesday’s game against the Revolution goes better than Sunday’s, or my liver is going to take an absolute pounding. Come on guys. Please, just do it for my liver.