Vintage

There’s no more compelling story than when a player like Jamie Vardy goes from being released by his club at the age of 16 to suddenly tearing up the Premier League at the age of 28, but the Leicester City striker’s path is a fit-for-Hollywood tale rather than the norm. The truth is that football is now a mega-industry and the reach of its tentacles knows no bounds — in the search for the world’s next great talent, no rock is left unturned and no YouTube highlight video is left unproduced.

Pelé’s always been everywhere. As a player, he appeared at four World Cups spanning three different continents, his Santos side traveled around the world like the Harlem Globetrotters and he even ventured into the backwoods of American soccer with the New York Cosmos. 

But he truly achieved an omnipresence after retiring and transitioning into life as the OG Cristiano Ronaldo, hawking goods and services like a door-to-door salesman while collecting honorary degrees for his contributions to the bicycle kick sciences.

It’s been nearly 14 years since Zinedine Zidane felled Marco Materazzi with a forehead to the solar plexus, but that moment from the 2006 World Cup Final still reverberates through time.

The statistic for goals in a calendar year is obviously a strange one since it combines feats from two separate seasons (the back-half of one campaign and the first half of the next), which isn’t really a useful metric. However, when looking at the top goal scorers from each calendar year over the past decade, there are a few interesting trends which speak volumes about the 2010s.

Any self-respecting Texan can vividly recall images of running back Earl Campbell plowing through defenders, his jersey turning to tissue as opposing players try in vain to bring him to the ground.

The biggest news of the Major League Soccer offseason so far has been the Chicago Fire’s new logo. For many, it was a bigger shock to the system than seeing Giovani dos Santos score goals for Club América.  

Named for the greatest story our city can tell - its own legend.

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