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After a chaotic final day of the 2020-21 EFL Championship campaign — during which Derby County was relegated, safe, relegated, then finally safe again, all within the space of 90 minutes — the Rams had secured their status as a Championship side.

At least that's what the final table said. The club still awaited judgment from the EFL regarding serious breaches of financial fair play regulations. In the end, the Rams were spared a points deduction and stayed in the second tier.

A bit of confusion arose when Arsenal U-23 midfielder Tim Akinola received an offer for his first senior loan spell with Dundee United, and understandably so.

Most people would think of ice hockey as the most popular sport in Canada, and in a sense, you wouldn't be wrong. Hockey is among the most common Canadian stereotypes, along with maple syrup, Tim Hortons and those great Candian accents (oh yah?).

At the professional sports level, this assumption holds true as well. Canada has seven teams in the NHL versus a combined five teams in the NFL, NBA, MLB and MLS.

Since the advent of the sport in the 1800s, England and football have been intrinsically linked. This bond started with schoolboys on muddy fields, with the objective to get the ball from one end of the field to the other by any means necessary — no rules, no limit on numbers, only brute force.

Football has now evolved into an organized game; manicured, well-lined pitches, tidy uniforms, and 11 players on each side. Kicking the opponent was outlawed and shinguards were installed should a stray boot make contact with the tibia.

In Europe there's a pretty established pathway to becoming a professional footballer: get signed to the academy of a professional club at an early age and hope that one day you're good enough to make the first team.

For an American with European dreams, the route is similar: either have a rich family that can send you abroad or hope that a European club somehow spots you.