We’re sorry to bring it up, but directly following the USMNT’s fiasco at Ato Boldon Stadium, a lot of talking heads entered the debate surrounding how to fix U.S. Soccer without offering much in the way of concrete, actionable plans. But it was hard to ignore the insight offered from two of America’s most prized European exports: Borussia Dortmund’s Christian Pulisic and Newcastle United’s DeAndre Yedlin.
One year on from capturing the Supporters’ Shield, setting an MLS regular-season points record and finishing with a convincing MLS Cup victory over Seattle, Toronto FC is in very serious jeopardy of missing the 2018 playoffs entirely. With only 27 points from 27 games and one of the league’s worst defensive records, a November spent watching instead of defending the Cup is probably deserved.
So what happened to Toronto in 2018?
#1. Failure To Push Forward (Mentally/Personnel)
It really shouldn’t come as a surprise given the outcome of the 2017-18 UEFA Men’s Player of the Year Award voting (finishing order: Luka Modric, Cristiano Ronaldo, Mohamed Salah), but the three finalists for The Best FIFA Men’s Player 2018 are Modric, Ronaldo and Salah, leaving the likes of Lionel Messi, Antoine Griezmann, Kylian Mbappe and Kevin De Bruyne on the outside looking in.
In the footballing world, there are advertisements everywhere; soccer advertising is as ubiquitous as it is loud.
Soccer was one of the first sports to embrace ads on uniforms. Pitches are rimmed with advertising boards in stadiums named after sponsors. Pre- and postgame interviews are littered with logos. Many leagues now allow ads on jersey sleeves. One club even turned its bench into a giant beer advertisement.
September 1, 2018, marks just 279 days until the FIFA Women’s World Cup kicks off at the Parc des Princes in Paris. The competition at the event has never been stronger or deeper, and those who illuminate the tournament will rightly be elevated to the status of legend. Historically, the best female soccer players of all time have earned that moniker by dominating one of the seven previous editions of the tournament.
With FIFA 19 hitting stores on September 28 (unless you pre-order the Champions Edition or Ultimate Edition, in which case you can play three days before all of the peasants), anticipation is at an all-time high.
When most people think of the great Premier League strikers, names like Thierry Henry, Alan Shearer and Wayne Rooney spring to mind. But, Sergio Aguero is better than all of them. Yes, the speedy little Argentine is the GOAT of Premier League goal scorers.
OK, so he might not be at the top of the goal scoring list. In fact, he's only just broken into the Premier League all-time top ten. His hat-trick against Huddersfield nudged him past Dutchman Robin van Persie, with Aguero now sitting on 146 goals in the EPL.
Following Cristiano Ronaldo’s move from Real Madrid to Juventus, interest in Italy’s Serie A has increased tenfold around the planet. But even before Ronaldo made the move, the division was experiencing something of a renaissance with clubs like Napoli garnering immense praise for its playing style while traditional powers Inter and Milan began targeting glory again. With ESPN now committed to broadcasting the league stateside, an Italian revolution is upon us.
ESPN released a Luck Index for the EPL, a joint project with tech company Intel that supposedly examines “how the Premier League would look if luck were not a factor.”
Conducted by England’s University of Bath, ESPN aims to both galvanize the beautiful game with this pseudo-scientific study and pollute the culture of football by turning it into a maniacal math project.
The index states the following metric as the definitive measure of luck:
The transfer window in England has now slammed shut. Well, at least for all 20 Premier League clubs. It’s been a crazy window too, especially considering the two most expensive signings in the Premier League for this window were goalkeepers. Imagine telling that to someone at the start!
Some clubs have signed over 10 players, while one failed to sign a single player (no prizes for guessing who that was).
Here’s our verdict on each club’s transfer dealings.
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