by Tim Stannard

Pique praises trolling nature of Leo Messi ahead of Catalan derby with Espanyol on Saturday

What has Sports Burst been thinking? 

For years it has been pushing what it thought was every possible side of the Messi v Ronaldo debate. The best player, the most impactful footballer, most MVP to his club, biggest contribution to his country. But one aspect has been missing - who is the funniest?

And that's a tough call. 

Cristiano Ronaldo is not exactly known for his reflective, self-effacing humor and Leo Messi is not exactly known for his talking. Indeed, on a drinkie night out with either, the bar snacks are likely to be better company. 

However, Gerard Pique has shed light on the mystery. The Barcelona man was quite the raconteur on Spanish TV on Thursday night on a comedy show called 'La Resistencia' and had a blast revealing that Messi was a heck of a troll and has "quite the ironic sense of humor." 

Pique himself was quite the showman as well when looking ahead to Saturday's Catalan derby with Espanyol - live on beIN SPORTS at 11:15AM PT / 8:15AM PT - noting the number of non-work-friendly songs sung and his expense by Espanyol fans and also pointing out that he is superior to the entire Espanyol club in one particular way. "I'm worth more than the club's budget this year," joked the Barca stopper. 

Our Sports Burst panel - Gabrielle Amado and Thomas Rongen - might be coaxed into the Messi v Ronaldo: humor wars today on Sports Burst live at 12PM ET / 9AM PT on our beIN SPORTS Facebook page. 

Athletic starts late push for La Liga top four finish

Right, onto to games. At last.

The international break has been cast into the mines of memory and club football has returned. And that includes La Liga with Athletic Bilbao gearing itself up for a late, late charge for a top-four spot in the table but very much needing an away win at Girona to do this. That game is live on beIN SPORTS at 4PM ET / 1PM PT. 

There is a big 'fromage' playing in Ligue Un as well, with Lyon at Rennes and needing a victory to close down lil' Lille in second spot. That clash is on CONNECT at 3:45PM ET / 12:45PM PT. 

If you really cannot wait that long for some action that how about one of Africa's gilded games? It's the Super Cup which sees the two winners of the continental trophies going head to head. In this case, ES Tunis takes on Raja Casablanca - Tunisia v Morocco in quite the regional clash. That gets underway at 11:45AM ET / 8:45AM PT on CONNECT

Action from all these games as well as goals from the Bundesliga and Serie A can be found on the XTRA with Jeremy St. Louis at 7PM ET / 4PM PT - your home for the beautiful game. 

Colchester United hit by space burger

To be fair an awful lot of other stuff happened today.

The Tottenham players trained at their new(ish) stadium for the first time. Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp talked about the EPL title race. Ernesto Valverde tried to dodge commenting on all the aforementioned comments from Gerard Pique.

But the story that really has Sports Burst going on Friday is the mystery behind a hamburger being found on Colchester United’s training pitch a couple of days earlier. The burger in question was frozen, attached to a box and a GoPro camera. Turns out there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the mystery. The burger had fallen from space and chosen Colchester’s training ground as its final resting place. Of course.

Let Tom Stanniland explain - "I sent a burger into space using a weather balloon. It had gone about 24 miles up and the weather balloon popped. It's come back down, travelled over 100 miles and landed right here." Apparently, it didn’t taste too well revealed Stanniland eating the burger, before Gonzalo Higuain could get there.