The holiday period is a crazy time for the Premier League. Many of Europe’s top leagues take a break until the new year, but England continues its fixture list with a plethora of matches. The Christmas period is considered one of the toughest periods of the season, as the calendar for England’s top clubs is packed to the brim.
Well, 2018 was something, wasn’t it?
Soccer in 2018 had a thrilling World Cup in Russia and an engrossing Women’s World Cup qualifying campaign around the world. Real Madrid (again!) won the Champions League and Manchester City had a record year in the Prem. Atlanta United obliterated attendance records in the U.S. while the USMNT took more than 400 days to hire a coach. El Tri gave fans hope at the World Cup with a win over Germany, only to once again go out in the Round of 16.
When you break down soccer to its simplest form, it’s all about scoring goals. Score more than the other team and you win.
Not all goals are created equally. While it’s easy to pick out the strongest, toughest, most impactful goals from the biggest matches, we here at The18 have picked out our favorite goals of 2018 for you to enjoy.
Now, these aren’t all necessarily the best goals of the year (see: No. 17), just our favorites. Some were epic World Cup golazos. Some were literally from the training ground.
FIFA has some excellent soundtracks from all over the world with a wide range of genres. Any time I fire up a previous version of the game just for fun, the soundtracks that come on always hit me with a wave of nostalgia.
FIFA 19 was released in September of this year, ten years since the release of the popular (and one of my personal favorites) FIFA 09. In that time, each game's soundtrack has been a fantastic edition.
I am Connordinho.
When ESPN acquired the exclusive U.S. TV rights to Serie A back in August, we were excited about the prospect of easy access to a league that used to require a high-level cable subscription (or illegal stream) to watch, especially with Cristiano Ronaldo having just moved to Italy. The ESPN Serie A deal meant at least one match per week would be on ESPN networks, with the remainder on ESPN+.
If there’s one thing I’m certain of in the last 10 years, it’s that nobody is anybody until they have a mobile game. From Kim Kardashian to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, you gotta get in on those sweet micro transactions to really prove you’re famous. So of course there’s a new Cristiano Ronaldo mobile game out now.
It is settled: Club América is the best team in all Liga MX history. Beating Cruz Azul in a very level final on Sunday, Las Águilas claimed their 13th Liga MX title.
In doing so, Miguel Herrera's side surpassed Chivas Guadalajara, which has won the championship 12 times.
Given what we’ve seen over the last four years, it’s incredibly perplexing that the Netherlands has reached the finals of the 2019 UEFA Nations League and the country’s biggest club, Ajax, is now the favorite to advance to the Champions League quarterfinals at the expense of Real Madrid, the back-to-back-to-back European champions.
How times have changed at Real Madrid. pic.twitter.com/pk73V99p2g