Culture

If you've played indoor soccer before, you've undoubtedly been left mad as hell at your goalkeeper for making a total mess of harmless balls smashed off the walls. The corner is a particularly dangerous area for keepers with zero foot skills, but we've also all probably seen a traditional outfield player being forced into the keeper role and getting beat by the softest of efforts.

What I've never seen before is this: a player understanding all the angles, all the realities, and purposefully hammering one off the wall to outfox a keeper coming out to usher away a chance.

The global 2023 soccer calendar just doesn't relent from month to month with the usual suspects (Premier League, Champions League, etc.) demanding and receiving our attention, but a few soccer-centric things have flown under the radar in the new year. 

Update your Google Calendar, set a reminder with Alexa or just make a mental note of these five happenings.

After losing in the final stages of the World Cup and then suffering a first Ligue 1 defeat of the season this past Sunday, PSG teammates Kylian Mbappé and Achraf Hakimi quickly used their time off to get as far away from the sport as possible.

With the France and Monaco stars unlikely to feature whatsoever in Friday's Coupe de France Round of 64 match against third-tier Châteauroux, Mbappé and Hakimi departed for the United States and made a surprise appearance at Brooklyn's Barclays Center for an NBA game between the Nets and San Antonio Spurs on Monday night.

Soccer has a unique power. It brings people together and unites communities for the love of the game. It can be easy to forget about the humanity of a crowd when watching from afar. The match takes center stage and suddenly, the massive crowd in attendance is nothing more than a backdrop for the commentary crew to reference periodically. 

Not in Sevilla. Not for the fans of Real Betis.

With the USWNT just months away from defending its World Cup title out in Australia and New Zealand, it's only fitting that some of the team's stars should feature in ESPN's first ‘This is SportsCenter’ ad since 2019.

The beloved campaign returns this week with spots being shown throughout college football bowl games on ESPN. This one — featuring Megan Rapinoe, Becky Sauerbrunn, Sophia Smith, SportsCenter anchor Nicole Briscoe and Syracuse mascot Otto the Orange — debuts Friday night during the Capital One Orange Bowl between Tennessee and Clemson.

When we cover the San Marino national team here at The18, it's usually to report on players breaking down in tears after securing 0-0 draws with Gibraltar. 

The squad has attracted a global following by virtue of being the worst international team on the planet — San Marino sits dead last (211th) in the FIFA Rankings with an all time record of 194 matches played, one win, eight draws and 185 defeats with a goal difference of negative 770.

I saw something today that pointed out how it'd been exactly 31 days since Lionel Messi drove a dagger through the heart of Mexico from 25 yards out, and a part of me just stopped, stumbled and staggered. How could that be? An entire month has passed?

It's clear that although the Christmas period provided a welcome respite from the 29-day smorgasbord that was the World Cup, I was still experiencing harsh symptoms of withdrawal.