After a year postponed and the swapping of high-profile matches at the home of the Colorado Rapids for individual training sessions in deserted local parks, GAM United’s Elijah Mwenebitu is looking at everything as an opportunity to be chased, which isn’t exactly a new way of operating for the 23-year-old midfield destroyer.
The 2021 MLS season marks the return of fans to stadiums across the league and, God willing, the death of fake crowd noise. Beginning with the start of the regular season on Friday, April 16, teams across the country will welcome back supporters at grounds with capacity generally limited to somewhere between 10 and 50 percent.
As much as we at The18 love women’s soccer, it’s a sad fact that the men’s game receives far more attention, whether it’s from FIFA, other media companies, potential sponsors or the fans themselves. (We could spend hours debating why this is the case, but that’s for another story.) Despite this, there are still a large number of women’s footballers who are far more famous than their partners, who are themselves professional soccer players.
There is an Irish saying that goes Tiocfaidh ár lá, which translates to "our day will come." This refers to the day that Ireland will no longer be divided; when Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will finally come together as the single nation they were before British rule.
It is a phrase that is strongly laced politically and has some negative connotations in connection with the IRA, but it is ultimately a fight for freedom guided by hope.
The hope that Irish people will one day be united.
Sometimes I wish that, through some glaring administrative error, I had been accidentally registered for the Ajax youth academy, even if it was just for one day. Then, in semi-good conscience, I could exploit that fact to have my own Wikipedia page, Transfermarkt profile and agent, allowing me to bounce around the world on one-year contracts — obviously being found out as total trash time after time — living my best life.
Every year it seems like there are more and more soccer streaming services to sort through, as cable companies push content for the beautiful game behind paywalls. From the Champions League to the Premier League, it’s more vital than ever to open up your wallet to supplement a cable TV subscription with a multitude of soccer streaming services.
Reggie Cannon is like a lot of Americans playing soccer abroad these days. He’s young (22), talented (13 USMNT caps already) and eager to help the U.S. do things it’s never done before in international men’s soccer. But unlike many (but not all) of the young Americans playing for top European clubs right now, he’s got an accomplished family helping inspire and encourage him.
Memories of the Premier League 10-15 years ago conjure up very specific visions, with the nostalgia usually centering around someone hitting the piss out of a classic Nike ball.
No 2000s soccer mixtape was complete without some random gangly defender hitting a 40-yard rocket to the top corner, Wayne Rooney burying a dipping half-volley or a center midfielder charging forward and doing unspeakable things to a one-touch shot from long range.
Monday, March 1 marked the first official day of preseason with all 27 teams reporting for a seven-day quarantine period and medical exams ahead of full training on March 8 and the start of the 2021 MLS season on April 17.
One team looking to improve on an exciting 2020 campaign that ended at the Eastern Conference Final stage is Bruce Arena’s New England Revolution, which began voluntary preseason training back on Feb. 22 at the club’s Revolution Training Center in Foxborough, Mass.
After the brutal police murder of George Floyd on May 25 in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis, daily protests turned into nightly riots that shook large sections of the Twin Cities for three straight days.
The message could be heard loud and clear from protesters — “No justice, no peace” — and read on the graffiti scrawled across Target stores — “Merchandise can be replaced. Black lives can not” — as the worst imaginable provocation coalesced with centuries of repeated injustice to trigger an outpouring of rage and grief.