This Week in Sportsball (9/18/25 - 9/25/25)
- lavozlatinatu
- Sep 29, 2025
- 7 min read
By Jael Hernandez
Word Count: 1742
Estimated Read Time: 7-8 minutes
Soccer This Week
Ballon d’Or
On Monday, September 22, France Football presented the 69th annual Ballon d’Or ceremony, in which the best soccer players in the world were recognised. The biggest winners of the ceremony were Ousmané Dembele and Aitana Bonmatí.
Dembele has an inspiring story; he started his career at French club Stade Rennais, where he quickly drew attention from German side Borussia Dortmund, who picked him up on a five year contract. It was at Dortmund that he gained a name for himself as one of the world’s emerging young stars in the making. There was a special interest in his ambidexterity, which allowed him to play both sides of the field, and alongside his incredible speed, many of Europe’s top teams wanted him on their squad. Ultimately it was Spanish giants Barcelona who purchased him for a hefty $150 million, tying him with Paul Pogba at the time for the 2nd most expensive transfer of all time. However, his 5 year stint with Barcelona would prove to be disappointing, as he wasn’t the replacement for Neymar that Barca so desperately wanted. It was only 2 seasons ago that PSG bought him for around $58 million, where his career would change once again. In just two seasons, he would show the brilliance he showed in his early career, and during the 2024-25 season, he’d be instrumental in Paris’ domestic run and their Champions League run, where he’d be a part of the team that won the French team their very first Champions League. From an injury plagued player whose future seemed uncertain, with many questioning if he was a failed wonderkid, to being considered the best player in the world, Ousmané Dembele’s story is nothing short of beautiful.
Aitana Bonmatí’s story is also incredible, but for a different reason. Bonmatí has already established herself as one of the greatest women’s soccer players of all time, at just 27 years old. In 2023, when she was 25, she’d already won almost every honor available to a European player, and in the 2022-23 season, she had the most decorated season for any soccer player, male or female, where she’d win almost everything there is to win both as a player, and for her club team Barcelona AND her national team, Spain, something no one has ever done. On Monday, she wrote her name down in history, becoming one of three players, alongside Lionel Messi and Michel Platini to win three consecutive Ballon d’Ors. Aitana Bonmatí is a generational player and she’s earned her flowers time and time again.
Outside of those two, there were numerous other winners. Lamine Yamal won his 2nd Kopa Trophy, awarded for being the best player under the age of 21. The Spanish phenom also came in 2nd place in the Balon d’Or rankings at just 18 years old. He’s also rumored to be dating Nicki Nicole but that’s a whole other story.In terms of the Latino community; Brazil’s Raphinha and Vinícius Júnior, along with Argentina’s Alexis Mac Allister and Lautaro Martínez were put into the top 30 best players in the world right now. Brazilian youngster Estêvão finished 4th in the Kopa Trophy rankings. On the women’s side; Brazil’s Marta and Amanda Gutierres were also put into the top 30 women’s players in the world. Columbia’s Linda Caicedo made it into 2nd place for the Women’s Kopa Trophy at 20 years old, and Paraguay’s Claudia Martínez made 5th place at just 17 years old.
Baseball This Week
With the end of the season upon us, teams are fighting for the last spots in the playoffs. But there are other teams that join the Phillies, Brewers and Cubs in October.
For the 12th time in the past 13 years, the Dodgers have once again clinched the NL West division title with an 8-0 win over the Diamondbacks on Thursday. Despite suffering several injuries throughout the season, the Dodgers never wavered, continuing their dominance in the NL West. With stars like Yoshinobu Yamamoto or Shohei Ohtani, it’s no wonder why they’ve made it once again to October. They already won the World Series last year, so their goal is to make it back to back? But the Dodgers have a history of choking and/or losing (see 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023) despite having the best team in baseball. Can they run it back? Or will they, in typical Dodger fashion, burn out and crash?
Still in contention with the Blue Jays for the AL East title, the Yankees haven’t faltered. Despite losing last year’s World Series, they are dead set on making a return. Losing Juan Soto, and losing ace Gerrit Cole for the entire season, haven’t slowed the Yankees down at all and they’ve more than made up for it with depth and All-Star Max Fried stepping up and delivering another amazing individual season. And let’s not forget Aaron Judge who’s fighting for that AL MVP. All that’s left? Hope there’s no more errors that cost the game.
Looks like it’s another year of falling behind the Dodgers. Luckily, they’ve kept most of their starting core from last year. Machado and Tatis Jr. stand out as the best players on the team and Jason Adam has an All-Star selection and is having a good season. But can they bring on their consistency to the postseason?
For the first time since 2001, the Mariners have clinched the AL West division title. Wow. Last time they made the playoffs was in 2022, where they broke their 21-year postseason drought. Since then, the past two years have not been good to them, they barely missed the playoffs in 2023 and 2024, but now they look to go far. With Cal Raleigh putting up a generational season, hitting 60 home runs, becoming the first catcher to hit 60 and joining Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Roger Maris, Babe Ruth, and Aaron Judge; as the only players to have hit more than 60 home runs in a season. Alongside Raleigh, there’s some Latino power with Julio Rodriguez, Randy Arozarena and Andrés Muñoz filling in as the other three All-Stars on the Mariners’ roster. Despite not having much playoff experience, I think they got the tools to go far.
Another Latino at the center; Vladimir Guerrero Jr., leads the Blue Jays to the playoffs. After years of constant rebuilding, the Jays have taken off and now they look to make their impact in October.
The Wild Card Race
Here’s where it gets exciting. At the time of writing, the Guardians, Tigers and Astros are locked in a tight race for the last two playoff spots in the American League. After leading the AL Central for most of the season, the Tigers have hit some rough bumps, and the Cleveland Guardians have had a spectacular turnaround to currently lead the top of their division. And on top of that, there’s still one more Wild Card spot, and the Astros want it. 3 teams, only one will make it.Over in the National League, the Mets and Reds look for that last playoff spot. The Mets, who dropped big bucks on All-Star Juan Soto and gave him a 15-year, $765 million contract, the largest in sports history, look to have something positive come out of this rather disappointing season. Coming in, the Mets were expected to dominate the NL East, but haven’t lived up to those high expectations. Not making the playoffs would be a huge red flag considering how much they’ve spent and the roster they’ve assembled. On the other hand, the Reds, with no All-Stars other than the electrifying Elly De La Cruz look to make their first postseason appearance since 2020.
NFL This Week
The sneaky good team vs the juggernaut that hasn’t reached full speed. No snow to screw the Rams over this time either. That first half was domination. Rams put the Eagles on a leash, and people were already calling fraud watch on Philly. Then the third quarter happened. Eagles brought that 26-7 deficit, to 26-21. Follow that with a missed field goal from the Rams, and with a minute left, the Eagles are up 26-27. Luckily Stafford has experience dragging shit teams along, and with a couple seconds left, they’re in field gold range. Then Jordan Davis happens. And that's game. Fat guy touchdown is one of the most beautiful sights in the world.
God often gives Cleveland his toughest battles. 2016 World Series, 2015, 2016, 2017 & 2018 NBA Finals and the entire existence of the Browns. The perennial shitshow against the up and coming powerhouse. But since most people don’t watch the Browns (because they’re not sadists), they don’t know about their defense. They’d be 1-1 if they had a kicker. Neither offense was able to get much going against the other’s defense. Green Bay struggled to move the football, and you can only triple-team Myles Garret for so long. Too bad Cleveland can’t do much of anything and Joe Flacco is only elite at getting booed by the crowd nowadays. And by the 4th quarter, the Packers are up by 10. Winning should be easy, right? Guess not.
This wasn’t anything close to a contest. America celebrates anytime the Cowboys lose. Cowboys are now without CeeDee Lamb for at least the next three weeks. Time for the George Pickens experience; one-handed catches that get dropped that then lead to picks. Not much else to say. But seeing Dallas lose always brings a smile to my face.
Now this one hurts. The box score shows that this was a close contest, Baltimore was only a touchdown away! But looks can be deceiving. Detroit got out the belt and went to town. The most thorough ass beating in Maryland in years. Lamar Jackson did pretty well, but there’s nothing he really could do, the Lions defense was on point.
And that’s all I’ve got for This Week in Sportsball! Remember, to win the game, you gotta win games. See ya next week.
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