Despite an injury-depleted squad, Liverpool managed to stay on top of the Premier League table during the festive season, despite dropping points against Newcastle and Southampton. A resurgent Manchester United follow close behind, while Leicester also is just one point behind. Only 4 points separate the top 7 teams in an exceptionally close season. On the other end of the spectrum, a struggling West Brom fired manager Slaven Bilic, replacing him with Sam Allardyce.
Despite a loss in the Madrid Derby, Atletico Madrid remained on top of the La Liga table with Real Madrid following in 2nd with Barcelona in 3rd. Having 3 games in hand over their nearest rivals, Atletico Madrid seems to be in a strong position to win the title. Surprise package Real Sociedad struggled, falling down to 5th place with Villareal hanging on to 4th. Lionel Messi broke the record for the most goals scored for a single club, breaking Pele’s record of 643 for Santos, during a game against Real Valladolid. (Although, the claim was disputed by Santos)
AC Milan maintained their position on top of the Serie A table, with city rivals Inter Milan following 3 points behind. Despite beating the leaders, Juventus have been inconsistent under Andrea Pirlo, remaining in 4th place in the table. Cristiano Ronaldo also moved past Pele on the records list, this time going past Pele’s 758 career goals while scoring a brace against Udinese.
Bayern Munich went into the Bundesliga winter break leading the table over rivals RB Leipzig, Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen. Borussia Dortmund bid farewell to manager Lucien Favre after a 5-1 loss at Stuttgart with caretaker manager Edin Terzic taking over. Archrivals Schalke remain in the relegation spots and have gone for nearly a year without a single Bundesliga win, coming near to breaking a 50+ year old record.
Cricket
Despite getting off to a strong start, Sri Lanka suffered a 2-0 loss at the hands of South Africa with injuries to several key players hampering the squad. The first test match saw Faf Du Plessis falling just short of a double century, falling for 199 in a match that South Africa won by an innings. In the second test, despite a strong bowling performance in the first innings with Vishwa Fernando getting his maiden test 5-wicket haul and a Dimuth Karunaratne century, Sri Lanka would fall to a 10 wicket loss.
The Border-Gavaskar trophy got off to an explosive start as an astonishing second innings collapse saw India dismissed for 36 after taking a substantial first-innings lead. Ajinkya Rahane took over as captain for the second test, with India hitting back immediately to win the Boxing Day test match at the MCG, on the back of a Rahane century.
New Zealand rose to No.1 on the test cricket rankings for the first time, completing a 2-0 series victory against Pakistan after a 2-0 series victory against the West Indies. The first test against Pakistan was a close affair with Pakistan surviving into the final session of the game before Mitchell Santner took the crucial final wicket. That match was also notable for Fawad Alam scoring his first test century in more than 10 years and Neil Wagner bowling with 2 broken toes. Kane Williamson’s sublime form saw him rise to the top of the test cricket batting rankings, overtaking Steve Smith.
The Big Bash League got underway with the introduction of several new innovations such as the Power Surge (Where the last 2 overs of the powerplay can be taken at any point after the 10-over mark in the innings), Bash Boost (where teams can get an extra point for being ahead of the opponents at the 10-over mark of the innings) and X-Factor (Which allows a team to substitute a player at the 10-over point of the first innings). Sydney Sixers currently lead the points table, with Sydney Thunder and Adelaide Strikers following close behind.
F1
F1 raced on December for the second time in history, the last time F1 race in december was the 2019 Abu Dhabi GP held on December 1st 2019
With Lewis Hamilton testing positive a wide variety of names were thrown around the paddock for who can replace the 7 time world champion.Finally George Russell was announced as the replacement for the Champion at the Baharin outer ring race. Jack Aitken replaced Russell at Williams.
Russell showed what he was capable of doing with the Mercedes car by being the fastest in 2 practice sessions and qualifying P2 behind Bottas with just 0.028 seconds off.
The race start was quite exciting for fans as all eyes were on the new star of the show. George got an absolutely stunning start getting Bottas by turn 1 and into the distance.
By turn 4 Leclerc locked up his breaks and crashed into Perez who spun round while Leclerc broke his suspension and was in the wall along with Verstappen who was in a wrong place, wrong time situation. Perez was last by the end of lap 1 but was quickly up the order due to the high speed and short track F1 raced on in the week.
With another safety car session about ¾ of the way during the race caused by Aitken crashing at the exit of the last turn, Mercedes decided to double stack the drivers which went horribly wrong with the pit crew mixing up the tyres of Russell and Bottas. Very un Mercedes like!
This disaster made a Mercedes 1-2 finish impossible and with the drama that unrolled Bottas was P4 and Russell was P5, After the restart Russell did a brilliant move on Bottas which the fans absolutely loved and was on the hunt for the win.Russell was upto P2 while he was said to pit again due to a slow puncture on his left rear. This stop made him drop out of the points.
This made way for Sergio Perez who was last at the end of Lap 1 on to his first win in F1 which after a brilliant effort he got, with Esteban Ocon taking his first podium at P2 and Lance Stroll finishing P3
Russell finished P9 with the fastest lap and driver of the day and earned his first points in F1 which could have been a first win for him.
Coming on to the Abu Dhabi GP the coming week it was still unsure if Lewis Hamilton was going to race the final race of the season. But on friday it was confirmed Lewis will be racing at Abu dhabi.
Russell was back in the Williams while Mick Schumacher debuted his first F1 practice session with Hass.
Mercedes seemed to struggle a bit at the track while Verstappen was fastest in all the sessions and taking his 3rd pole in his career in qualifying.
The race was quite boring to watch as there was not much track action happening due to the layout of the track which makes following the cars really difficult. But there were some moves done in the mid feild
Max Verstappen won the race with Bottas and Hamilton finishing P2 and P3.
Max Verstappen was on to get a Grand Slam (Pole Position, Race win, Fastest Lap, Lead every lap of the race) which would make him the youngest to do so, But on the last lap his former teammate Riccardo took the fastest lap.
What’s interesting is Riccardo was also the person who sabotaged Verstappen being the youngest pole sitter
Mclaren was P3 in the constructors championship which was a really tight battle between Renult and Racing point.
Sergio Perez was announced as the new teammate of Verstappen at Redbull with Albon being demoted as the Reserve driver for the team.
Yuki Tsunoda was announced as the second driver of Alpha Tuari. We now have a Japanese F1 driver since 2014
Lewis Hamilton is sey to be Knighted by the Queen of England on new years eve. But the knight still has a contract to be signed with Mercedes where there is rumored to be some irregularities in the clauses.
Nikita Mazepin is probably the most hated driver on the 2021 grid with his actions that were posted on his social media and was taken down very soon as the fans started to rage.
Australian GP is planned to be the Season opener in 2021.
RACALBS
Editor