The list of great Italian goalkeepers surpasses that of any other nation on the planet. The likes of Gianluigi Buffon, Dino Zoff and Walter Zenga, to name just a few, have all represented the Azzurri with great ability and longevity. On Thursday, we got our first look at the next great Italian goalkeeper, AC Milan’s exceptional 17-year-old Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Bobby Wood’s play hasn’t been dissected to the level with which we’ve examined Gyasi Zardes. Wood, at 23, doesn’t come with the ‘phenom’ label that’s attached to Jordan Morris. He doesn’t uniformly divide opinion like Jozy Altidore or Chris Wondolowski. Wood has endeared himself to USMNT supporters without ever triggering the American soccer hype machine.
We're always on the hunt for the next big thing in football. Whether it's on the basis of some short clip highlighting an up-and-coming 13-year-old or two or three good league games, we're quick to declare a player the next big thing. However, these three individuals, all age 21 or younger, have been consistently performing for a while now. There skills are undoubted and they've got the quality to become the next great players in world football.
Ronaldo confirmed his status as the best young player in the world after scoring 54 goals in 57 games across all competitions for PSV Eindhoven. “The Phenomenon” wasn’t even 20 years old yet when Barcelona became interested in signing the Brazilian.
Barcelona finally landed Ronaldo by paying a then world record fee of $19.5 million, with the striker set to join the side for the 1996-97 season.
The Russia 2018 World Cup may be a somewhat sad and empty affair. Lionel Messi announced his retirement from the Argentina National Team (whether he means it or not remains to be seen), Zlatan Ibrahimovic has officially retired from Sweden, Cristiano Ronaldo will be 33 and Wayne Rooney will be 32. The traditional stars of the world's game are fading away, and Russia will probably be the first tournament where that truly sinks in.
Xavi Hernandez is a Barcelona legend. While in the Blaugrana, he won damn near everything there is to win. He retired on top, having been an integral part of Barca's treble win. This begs the question, though, now that Xavi is comfortably living out the early stages of his retirement in the Qatari league, where is the next Xavi? How will Barcelona replace one of the best players in its history?
There’s something incredibly satisfying about seeing Neymar get embarrassed by someone, anyone. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s usually the one doing the embarrassing, and that he’s getting so good at it that it’s scary, and that makes it satisfying to see the tables turn. It reminds people that he’s not superhuman, just really-really-good-human. Neymar gets embarrassed by freestyler Sean Garnier in the vine below, and it’s petty, but no one ever said petty couldn’t be satisfying.
When we were 12 years old, we were just satisfied with putting the ball in the back of the net, no matter how it happened. Honestly, we were six years away from playing soccer like bees play tag. In the rare instance that one of us scored something that took any amount of skill, we we’re f***ing pumped.
The new FIFA 16 trailer is out, and it features a very special narrator: Pele. Pele, for those of you who don't know (and maybe found this site by accident, since it's all about soccer?) is the best player of all time.
Pele muses about the beauty of the beautiful game, and we get some shots of FIFA gameplay showing that beauty, like Messi scoring an amazing goal and Diego Costa getting into a shoving match with Jordan Henderson.
Will the real FIFA 16 be filled with as much beauty as this trailer? Only Pele knows.