The 30 nominees for the 2018 Ballon d’Or award were released today by France Football, and although The Best FIFA Football Awards got tongue’s wagging back on Sept. 24, the gala for the sport’s most prestigious individual prize is expected to follow in a similar vein. (Read: Luka Modric will win, denying Cristiano Ronaldo a third straight triumph.)
Pep Guardiola frequently says he considers himself “a great thief” as everything that he does he’s seen it somewhere and took it for himself and his teams. Well Pep, if that’s the case bud, keep going because it’s working pretty darn good.
As Jean-Paul Satre once said, “In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.” Breaking down an opponent has puzzled the world’s brightest minds since the beginning of time, but this process has eventually yielded a collection of the best team goals ever.
Some of these goals are the finest examples of a style purveyed by a team throughout an era (Arsenal under Arsene Wenger, Spain’s golden generation, mid 90s Ajax, etc.), while some are simply instances of 11 footballers momentarily achieving authentic telepathic clairvoyance.
Donald Trump becoming president of the U.S. was unexpected. Leicester City winning the EPL was unexpected. Croatia making it to the World Cup final was unexpected.
But Lionel Messi ranked in fifth place for FIFA The Best Awards is just crazy. Fifth place? Are we serious right now? WTF?! Let’s pack our bags people; the apocalypse is coming: the white walkers or an "Independence Day" type of alien invasion. Or worse, we humans will manage to blow up the planet.
In news that will surprise no one, Qatar is still exploiting migrant workers in the build up to the 2022 Qatar World Cup.
Qatar has not done enough to reform its “kafala” system, through which employees are bound to single employers, often to abusive ends, according to a recent report from Amnesty International.
“Brazilian, Brazilian, you look bitter today/ Is it that Maradona is better, better than Pele” you hear thousands of Argentinians chanting, jumping and waving their arms, mocking their neighbors over the Maradona vs Pele debate. For they think Diego was better than O’rei (The King) Pelé, but truth is that in the albicelestes' hearts, Diego was the greatest of all, not only on top of Pelé, but also of the other Argentinian legends like Leo Messi or Alfredo Di Stefano. All four of these players could be argued to be the GOAT, so why Diego Maradona in particular?
As captains of their respective national teams, both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo were given votes in deciding The Best FIFA Men’s Player 2018. It’s an award that the two have dominated — in it’s various guises — ever since Kaka was named FIFA World Player of the Year back in 2007 (Messi finished second and Ronaldo third that year).
Luka Modric has claimed The Best FIFA Men’s Player 2018 award ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo and Mohamed Salah (and dare I say it at risk of being murdered, Lionel Messi), but that contentious decision pales compared to everything else that unfolded at a star-studded gala (sans Messi and Ronaldo) in London on Monday evening.
Italy is synonymous with soccer. They have always been one of the top-ranked teams in the world. The Italian national team has won the World Cup four times (tied with Germany for second, behind Brazil). They've been a team others have simultaneously envied and been afraid to play. A team that generated stars like Paolo Rossi, Roberto Baggio, Alessandro Del Piero. A team with grace, class and a wondrous reputation.
Failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup was hard to digest, very hard, so our hot soccer-blooded hearts make us feel that everything is wrong, and our soccer is the worst. That’s just the heat of the moment; truth is that U.S. soccer is pretty good, and it has gotten better and better over the last couple of decades.