While most of the soccer world is in midwinter break, the English Premier League forges ahead with the traditional full slate of games on Boxing Day, Saturday, Dec. 26, with all 10 being shown live across NBC and its networks, from 6:45am through until about 3:45pm.

Barcelona further cemented their position as the best team in the world, by crushing South Amer­ican champion River Plate 3-0 to win the Club World Cup on Sunday, their fifth trophy of 2015.


Farewell to:

• “The Special One,” Jose Mourinho, who was fired this week as Chelsea coach.

• Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, banned from the game for eight years on Monday by the FIFA ethics committee, following an investigation into a $2 million payment that FIFA president Blatter made to UEFA president Platini in 2011.

• Abby Wambach, whose emotional finale for the U.S. national team was barely marred by a 1-0 loss to China (the U.S.’s first home loss in over 11 years). The outspoken all-time international scoring leader won’t be soon forgotten; she made headlines earlier that same day, by saying that, sorry, no hard feelings but, “I would definitely fire Jurgen [Klinsmann, U.S. men’s coach]” – thus becoming the first person inside U.S. Soccer to openly say what many have been thinking. See her “drop the mic” farewell at www.foxsports.com/video?vid=587372099673.

This article appears in December 25 • 2015.

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