The Premier League is back, and as if that’s not enough to get exited about, so is Fantasy Premier League.
It’s the moment of truth!
Good luck, #FPL managers pic.twitter.com/cUpe8bxa4E— Fantasy Premier League (@OfficialFPL) August 9, 2019
This past weekend, a photo emerged on Twitter of a bloodied young Liverpool supporter standing next to star attacker Mohamed Salah. That child is 11-year-old Reds supporter Louis Fowler, who’d spotted Salah leaving Liverpool’s Melwood training ground in his car and attempted to keep pace with the vehicle while waving at the Egyptian.
Unfortunately for Louis, in his heightened state of distraction he ran directly into a lamp post, knocking himself out and breaking his nose in the process.
Although the Premier League kicked off this weekend and demands our undivided attention, I think you’ll be pleased to see a couple things outside of Pep Guardiola spending $1 billion on assorted full backs. I give you two videos unashamedly taken from r/soccer.
If you don’t know, r/soccer is a sort of void that begins in the pit of your stomach before lodging at the back of your throat — it’s the ultimate representation of what it means to see fear in a handful of dust. It’s like Twitter in that respect.
With all due respect to Whitney Houston, who had one of the greatest voices ever, we think Alphonso Davies has just performed the greatest rendition of “I Will Always Love You.”
Manchester United and Liverpool have dominated English football for decades. Liverpool was the dominant team for years, only for Sir Alex Ferguson to lead the charge to overtake the Reds as the winningest club in England.
The rivalry runs deep between the country’s two most successful clubs; the North West Derby dwarfs all other derbies in the soccer-mad nation.
Anyone who has watched the first four nights of Democratic presidential primaries debates this summer can attest: There are too many candidates, too little time for real dialogue and too many old white dudes.
But we here at The18 have an idea to fix all of this. Instead of deciding the Democratic presidential candidate based on boring things like debates and voting, the DNC’s nominee should be picked based on something we can all agree is great: soccer.
We have a feeling it would go something like this:
Oh no.
How did we get here? Why are there horoscopes on the hallowed pages of The18.com? Why aren’t there more extremely interesting transfer mongerings like the ones over at ESPN FC? (Sources: Man Utd pray Dybala arrives in transfer exchange for Phil Jones . . . Sources: Coutinho rejects Tottenham and mind-body dualism . . . Sources: We don't have any sources.)
These astrological signs better at least be rooted in scientific fact, The18, or I’m going batshit crazy in the comments section. You're not ready to feel the wrath of my keyboard.
Good vertical jumps are touch and go in soccer — some footballers have it, some don’t. It’s not always a necessary skill when playing the game, but it sure is nice to have. However, there's one player who has it in abundance: Cristiano Ronaldo. The man has BOUNCE.
In fact, his 30-inch vertical might be even higher now since the stat was officially recorded in 2014, because we all know how much he loves to train. Below, we’ll look at his vertical compared to a few other athletes, past and present, from various sports.
• Cristiano Ronaldo: 30 inches
We here at The18 are all for clubs doing goofy, weird, absurd and just strange things in the spirit of differentiating themselves, so we were excited to see this new Wigan mascot unveiled Friday.
And yet, I can’t help but think this anthropomorphic pie will haunt my dreams for years to come.
Introducing, Crusty the Pie!#wafc
Full disclosure, I’m a FIFA person. My first taste of the game was World Cup 98, and I’ve been steadily wasting my own money since World Cup 2002. That’s not to say I wholeheartedly believe FIFA to be a superior product to Pro Evolution Soccer. In fact, when some gamers tell me that PES is superior to FIFA, I genuinely believe them. Why shouldn’t I? FIFA can be really annoying.