2019 Football Recap - June/July/August

Ahead of the end of 2019 and the start of a new decade, over the past few days we’ve looked back at some of the biggest football stories to take place this year month-by-month. Since the month of May saw the end of the majority of domestic leagues and competitions, we’ve decided to do a recap of June, July and August together instead of separately.

2019 Football Recap - January

2019 Football Recap - February

2019 Football Recap - March

2019 Football Recap - April

2019 Football Recap - May

The first day of June saw Tottenham and Liverpool meet at the Wanda Metropolitano in Madrid in the Champions League final, with Liverpool after their 6th European title, and Tottenham after their first Champions League title. Tottenham got off to a terrible start as a handball by Moussa Sissoko in the opening minute gave Liverpool a penalty and an early chance to take the lead, a chance which was taken as Mohamed Salah converted the penalty to give Liverpool the lead. In the 87th minute, Liverpool’s semi-final hero Divock Origi stepped up once again and double Liverpool’s lead to guarantee Liverpool their 6th European title.

As a result of their European success during the 18/29 season, both Chelsea and Liverpool met in Istanbul to compete for the UEFA Super Cup. Like he did in the Europa League final against Arsenal, Olivier Giroud opened the scored the opener for Chelsea before Sadio Mane grabbed an equaliser for Liverpool early in the second half. After a goalless second half, the game went to extra time where Sadio Mane scored his second of the game in the 95th minute, before Jorginho levelled the score 4 minutes later. The game went to penalties with Tammy Abraham's missed penalty being the deciding factor in the shoot-out and handing the trophy to Liverpool.

The start of June saw the finals of the UEFA Nations League commence in Portugal, with: England, Portugal, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The first semi-final saw Portugal play Switzerland in Porto with Cristiano Ronaldo running the show, with his hat-trick giving Portugal a 3-1 victory and a place in the final.

The other semi-final saw England face the Netherlands in Guimaraes. England got off to a perfect start after Marcus Rashford’s penalty put them ahead after 32 minutes, with Matthijs de Ligt levelling the score after 73 minutes to take the game to extra-time. An own goal from Kyle Walker 7 minutes into extra-time before Quincy Promes doubled the Netherlands’ lead in the 114th minute to give the a 3-1 victory and a meeting with Portugal in the final. England, on the other hand, would have to settle for a third-place play-off against Switzerland. Find both Nations League semi-final results below:

• Portugal 3-1 Switzerland
• England 1-3 Netherlands
  

As a result of England’s defeat against the Netherlands and Switzerland’s defeat against Portugal, the 2 nations faced each other in the UEFA Nations League third place play-off in Guimaraes. The game wasn’t anything special as the 2 nations couldn’t be separated for 90 minutes or extra-time, meaning the game would be decided by penalties. Both sides scored their opening 5 penalties, with: Harry Maguire, Ross Barkley, Jadon Sancho, Raheem Sterling and Jordan Pickford scoring for England. Eric Dier stepped up to score England’s third and Jordan Pickford saved Josip Drmic’s penalty to give England to win.

Meanwhile, in Porto, the final between Portugal and the Netherlands was taking place, with the winner cementing their place in history as the first nation to win the Nations League. After an uneventful first half, Valencia winger Goncalo Guedes put Portugal ahead just on the hour mark, with his goal proving to be the difference as Portugal went on to win the game and win the Nations League.

The 7th of July saw the start of the 2019 Women’s World Cup finals, with Phil Neville’s England looking to win their first ever Women’s World Cup since the tournament was introduced back in 1991. After getting passed: Scotland, Argentina and Japan in the group stage, England joined: Norway, Australia, Cameroon, France, Brazil, Spain, Italy, China, Netherlands, Japan, Germany, Nigeria, Sweden, Canada and the USA in the round of 16, with England facing Cameroon for a place in the quarter-finals. England comfortably beat Cameroon 3-0 to book their place in the quarter-finals and one step closer to the final. Find all of the round of 16 results below:

• Norway 1-1 Australia (Norway win 4-1 on pens)
• England 3-0 Cameroon
• France 2-1 Brazil (AET)
• Spain 1-2 USA
• Italy 2-0 China
• Netherlands 2-1 Japan
• Germany 3-0 Nigeria
• Sweden 1-0 Canada

Quarter-finals

England faced Norway in the quarter-finals, with France facing the USA, Italy facing the Netherlands and Germany facing Sweden. Similar to their round of 16 game against Cameroon, England comfortably beat Norway 3-0 to book their place in the semi-finals. Find all of the quarter-final results below:

• Norway 0-3 England
• France 1-2 USA
• Italy 0-2 Netherlands
• German 1-2 Sweden

Semi-finals

In the semi-finals, England faced a tough test against 3-time winners and current World Champions USA. England got off to a terrible start after going 1-0 down after 10 minutes, but responded quickly by scoring an equaliser 9 minutes later. The USA scored their second of the game after 31 minutes and England were unable to find a response as the game finished 2-1, with England missing out on the World Cup final.

The other semi-final saw the Netherlands and Sweden compete for the final spot in the World Cup final. After a scoreless 90 minutes, it took extra-time for a winner to be decided and it turned out to be the Netherlands as Jackie Groenen scored in the 99th minute to give the Netherlands a 1-0 win over Sweden and a place in the final. Find both semi-final results below:

• England 1-2 USA
• Netherlands 1-0 Sweden

Third Place Play-Off

After their defeats in the semi-finals, England faced Sweden in the third place play-off, and unfortunately for England, they faced defeat once against as Sweden were victorious in a 2-1 win. Meaning that Sweden finished third and England had to settle for fourth.

Final

The USA were on the brink of becoming World Champions for the fourth time and the Netherlands were aiming for their first World Cup ahead of the final in Lyon. It ended up being the USA who were victorious as 2 second half goals gave them a 2-0 win over Sweden to give them their fourth World Cup in 28 years.

July saw 2 new managerial appointments in the Premier League, with Frank Lampard leaving Derby County to take over at Stamford Bridge die to Maurizio Sarri returning to Italy to manage Juventus.

The second managerial appointment saw former Sunderland boss Steve Bruce takeover at Newcastle, due to Rafa Benitez’s decision to leave the club and join Chinese club Dalian Yifang.

Manchester City's domestic treble meant that the 2019 Community Shield would be contested between themselves and their 18/29 title rivals Liverpool. Raheem Sterling opened the scoring against his former club with his goal after 12 minutes before Joel Matip brought Liverpool level with 13 minutes left, taking the game to penalties. City converted all 5 of their opening penalties and a missed penalty by Georginho Wijnaldum was the turning point in the shoot-out, as City emerged victorious.

August saw the 19/20 Premier League season commence with Liverpool kicking off the season with a 4-1 victory over Norwich at Anfield. Reigning champions Manchester City also started the season with a win after their huge 5-0 victory over West Ham at the London Stadium. The biggest game of the opening weekend saw Manchester United host Chelsea at Old Trafford, with United making a huge statement by beating Chelsea 4-0 in Frank Lampard’s first Premier League game as Chelsea manager.

Find below some of the key results from the Premier League games to take place in August:

• Liverpool 4-1 Norwich
• West Ham 0-5 Manchester City
• Newcastle 0-1 Arsenal
• Manchester United 4-0 Chelsea
• Manchester City 2-2 Tottenham
• Chelsea 1-1 Leicester
• Wolves 1-1 Manchester United
• Manchester United 1-2 Crystal Palace
• Norwich 2-3 Chelsea
• Liverpool 3-1 Arsenal
• Tottenham 0-1 Newcastle
• Southampton 1-1 Manchester United
  

Below are some of the biggest signings of the 2019 summer transfer window:

• Eden Hazard to Real Madrid
• Wesley to Aston Villa
• Leandro Trossard to Brighton
• Aaron Wan-Bissaka to Manchester United
• Danny Ings to Southampton
• Mateo Kovacic to Chelsea
• Tanguy Ndombele to Tottenham
• Angelino to Manchester City
• Ander Herrera to PSG
• Phil Jagielka to Sheffield United
• Ayoze Perez to Leicester
• Rodri to Manchester City
• Marko Arnautovic to Shanghai SIPG
• Tyrone Mings to Aston Villa
• Youri Tielemans to Leicester
• Fabian Delph to Everton
• Sebastien Haller to West Ham
• Kieran Trippier to Atletico Madrid
• Lys Mousset to Sheffield United
• Joelinton to Newcastle
• Idrissa Gueye to PSG
• Tom Heaton to Aston Villa
• Nicolas Pepe to Arsenal
• Allan Saint-Maximin to Newcastle
• Moise Kean to Everton
• Harry Maguire to Manchester United
• Neal Maupay to Brighton
• Laurent Koscielny to Bordeaux
• Aex Iwobi to Everton
• Andy Carroll to Newcastle
• Daniel James to Manchester United
• David Luiz to Arsenal
• Romelu Lukaku to Inter
• Ryan Sessegnon to Tottenham
• Kieran Tierney to Arsenal
• Joao Cancelo to Manchester City
• Joao Felix to Atletico Madrid
• Adrian to Liverpool
• Luka Jovic to Real Madrid
• Antoine Griezmann to Barcelona
• Matthijs de Ligt to Juventus
• Phillipe Coutinho to Bayern Munich (loan)
• Lucas Hernandez to Bayern Munich
• Mauro Icardi to PSG (loan)
• Nabil Fekir to Real Betis
• Eder Militao to Real Madrid
• Julian Brandt to Borussia Dortmund
• Giovani Lo Celso to Tottenham
• Ferland Mendy to Real Madrid
• Kosta Manolas to Napoli
• Aaron Ramsey to Juventus
• Wissam Ben Yedder to Monaco
• Malcolm to Zenit
• Hirving Lozano to Napoli
• Raul Jimenez to Wolves
• Thorgan Hazard to Borussia Dortmund
• Mats Hummels to Borussia Dortmund
• Alexis Sanchez to Inter (loan)
• Patrick Cutrone to Wolves
• Pablo Fornals to West Ham
• Henrikh Mkhitaryan to Roma (loan)
• Dennis Praet to Leicester
• Chris Smalling to Roma (loan)