England

He’s been called the Chuck Norris of football. He’s referred to as a lord and “The Powerhouse”. Likened to “a blunt instrument with which to bludgeon defenses”, Emile Heskey changed the way we viewed the forward position during his playing days.

Heskey burst onto the scene with Leicester City back in 1994, and he reached his pinnacle with Liverpool during the 2000-01 season after scoring 14 Premier League goals in 36 matches.

As much as the people in charge would like for it to be a competitive tournament, the International Champions Cup is a collection of friendlies between big teams trying to grow their fan-bases in new, previously untapped markets. The players will run around a little, the coaches will evaluate some youth academy players and everyone will be nice before heading home. They're just friendlies. No one is taking them seriously. Except for Cesc Fabregas.

Look what happened when Cesc and Liverpool center back Ragnar Klavan go after the same ball.

Reading Football Club have gone above and beyond with the term "kit launch". Matter of fact, they've gone to (extremely Star Trek voice) Space: the final frontier.

Comedian John Oliver, host of HBO's Last Week Tonight, is a huge Liverpool fan. He wants you to be one too. Oliver appeared in a video for LFC championing the Reds before their USA tour officially kicks off. 

In his @LastWeekTonight style, @iamjohnoliver explains why you should watch #LFCtour!

The 1962 FIFA World Cup was the seventh edition of the international competition, and it will long be remembered as the most brutally violent.

An injury to Pele, a match between Chile and Italy that became known as the Battle of Santiago and the inspiration for the use of yellow and red cards to clearly define offenses are some of the lasting legacies of the '62 World Cup in Chile.

After the embarrassment of being knocked out by Iceland at Euro 2016, and the immediate standing down of former coach Roy Hodgson, the Football Association will reportedly name 61-year-old Sam Allardyce the next England manager.

Allardyce performed a small miracle with Sunderland last season by keeping the Black Cats in the Premier League. He was appointed with the club languishing in 19th place in October, but he managed to steer them above the drop zone.

For all the setbacks and empty promises of each generation of England's rising stars, the current crop of Under 21 and 19s talent is good. So good, in fact, that Gareth Southgate’s 21s took out the European Championship title in that age division – a stark contrast to the bumbling mess dished out by the first team.

This has been the year of the underdog in soccer. From Leicester City in the Premier League to Wales and Iceland in Euro 2016, upsets have come to the fore. 

Soccer is the most democratic sport in the world. Once the players enter the pitch, there’s little the coach can do to upset the proceedings. The nature of the game lends itself to unpredictability — 90 minutes of continuous action where a single mistake or moment of genius can decide the game’s outcome. 

The potential is there to make the England national team job an unheralded success, just not right now.

Euro 2016 outlined emphatically how a mixture of mental fragility and poor coaching results in outlandish failure, to the point of embarrassment and humiliation on a mass scale.

Too often the discussion revolves around potential that should be realized rather than world-class performances that actually are on show at major tournaments.

Much like Spain in the 1990s, the talent at the disposal of any incoming manager should be an appealing prospect.