Leicester City's astonishing run to the Premier League title last season left bigger and richer clubs draped in embarassment. No fan base felt the pain more than Arsenal, which topped all of its major rivals only to finish second

Twenty-seven years after its first title, Colombia's Atletico Nacional won a second Copa Libertadores championship with a 1-0 win over Ecuador's Independiente del Valle that gave it a 2-1 aggregate victory.

In recent years, the MLS All-Star Game has been a chance for foreign opponents to showcase their American players: Roma with Michael Bradley in 2013, Bayern Munich with Julian Green (whose image was plastered on trolleys all over Portland) in 2014 and Tottenham with DeAndre Yedlin in 2015. Bradley was gone by winter, the other two have yet to break into the first team.

Julian Green, who two years ago became the youngest player to score a World Cup goal for the USA, is one of 10 reserve and youth team players on tour in the USA with Bayern Munich, which faces AC Milan in Chicago on Wednesday, Inter Milan in Charlotte July 30 and Real Madrid in New Jersey Aug. 3.

You don't need to be a meteorologist to know something serious is going on with weather patterns. A heat dome persists over much of the country. Weekend afternoon action in MLS was painful. At least if you were New York City FC or Seattle Sounders fans. Bad weather in China had its effect also: Monday's Manchester United-Manchester City was canceled at the last minute. The decision was made "due to the extreme weather events in Beijing over a multiple-day period." Torrential rain made the field at the Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing unplayable.

A new world awaits Wayne Rooney. Managerial changes by Manchester United and the England national team have whetted his appetite for goals and trophies.

Julen Lopetegui may have the hardest job in Europe, at least on the national team level. The 44-year-old former goalkeeper, unemployed since January, must replace Vicente del Bosque, who in his six years as national team coach led Spain to the 2010 World Cup title and Euro 2012 championship.

It looks like Jurgen Klinsmann isn't leaving his job as U.S. national team job any time soon. Or Steve Bruce his job, for those Hull City fans wondering. British reports suggest that 61-year-old Sam Allardyce will be named as England coach, replacing Roy Hodgson, at Thursday's FA board meeting.

Last week, when Bayern Munich unveiled its new coach, it served bruschetta, penne with zucchini and vitello tonnato. Three years ago, it offered tapas, Serrano ham and crema Catalana. An Italian, Carlo Ancelotti, has replaced the Spaniard, Pep Guardiola. The introductions, however, had some similarities.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is full of himself. We know that. The Swede who once said his former club, Paris St. Germain, was too good for the French league and he was too good for the Swedish league in which he debuted, now finds himself in a battle for the mantle of the best of Manchester United.

Little Leicester City joins the exodus of Premier League clubs seeking preseason riches, and Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is giving a few of his stars additional rest following the European Championship. It all makes for a unique mosiac of programs and matches.

Antonio Conte was hired as the new Chelsea manager with one goal in mind: Win back the English Premier League title that the Blues last one in 2015.

If the English national team faced a promotion/relegation battle, Sam Allardyce would be an easy pick.

Perhaps because Portugal has fielded some of the greatest players ever to grace a soccer field -- Eusebio, Luis Figo, Cristiano Ronaldo -- it's easy to forget that Portugal is an overachiever in the soccer world.

Portugal didn't win a game in the group stage of Euro 2016 and led only once in seven games after 90 minutes and for all of 73 of the 720 minutes it played. It lost its best player, Cristiano Ronaldo, in the first half of the final. Improbably, it won its first European Championship with a 1-0 victory over host France in the final.