After a 2020 that was, in many ways, a lost year for international soccer, the U.S. women’s national team went into 2021 with high hopes. The year ended with feelings of missed opportunities and the need for a rethink moving forward less than 20 months away from the next Women’s World Cup.
According to multiple sources, Napoli and Italy international Lorenzo Insigne has agreed to join Toronto FC in the summer after finishing out the 2021-22 season in Italy. It's an incredible coup for both Bob Bradley's Reds and MLS as the 30-year-old winger arrives at the height of his power.
One year ago, Daryl Dike was just another young American striker showing promise in MLS. Then a surprise last-minute loan ended Dike's off-season and sent him across the pond to EFL Championship side Barnsley.
Dike took to the English second tier as a Minnesota ice-fisherman takes to a frozen lake.
After being linked with Inter Milan, Sampdoria, Ajax and Wolves, it looks like one club has distinguished itself as the clear front-runner for signing Ricardo Pepi this January.
As reported by the only guy that now reports this sort of thing, Fabrizio Romano, the 18-year-old USMNT phenom is on the verge of moving to the Bundesliga from FC Dallas with Wolfsburg currently leading the race.
Wolfsburg is 13th in the table because of an attack that's generated only 17 goals in 17 matches. Lukas Nmecha and Wout Weghorst both have six goals and no other player has more than two.
The FIFA rankings are nonsensical 75% of the time and only truly matter for seeding of group stages at the World Cup. Three out of every four years these rankings mean squat, but in 2022 they matter a whole lot. The top seven teams and host get the most favorable seeds during the World Cup draw. FIFA has released the December rankings and the USMNT sits at its highest ranking to end a calendar year since 2005.
The U.S. is ranked No. 11. One spot above Germany.
If you would like to learn how to alienate a club’s fanbase, perhaps irrevocably, you would struggle to find a better case study than the NWSL’s N.C. Courage this week. On Sunday, the club announced the signing of a player, Jaelene Daniels, antithetical to the vast majority of the team’s and league’s fans. After two full days of silence, the club put out a shockingly meek “apology” late Wednesday night, only further upsetting the once devoted fanbase.
Christian Pulisic is in a bit of a form slump heading into the holidays with only one goal in his last 11 appearances. An inconsistent number of starts can be attributed to the poor form with only four of those 11 appearances being starts. Another issue comes in the form of a question. What position does Pulisic play?
Are you the kind of person who prefers to respond to emails and texts with GIFs instead of having to type something out? Do you also love the USWNT? If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, then you or a loved one may be entitled to a plethora of new USWNT GIFs.
As a sendoff for 2021, the USWNT social team decided to do its version of Spotify Wrapped in GIF form. You might want to put a few of these in your back pocket for a rainy day.
The USWNT released 18 total GIFs for your viewing pleasure. The18 (see what I did there?) USWNT GIFs are as follows.
In October of 2020, after a devastating summer for a country unwilling to reverse centuries of systemic white supremacy, Imani Dorsey and dozens of other Black women playing in the NWSL creating the Black Women’s Player Collective, aimed at advancing opportunities for Black girls in sports and beyond. On Wednesday, the U.S. Soccer Federation honored Dorsey, one of the BWPC’s founding board members, with the inaugural Social Impact Award.
In Europe there's a pretty established pathway to becoming a professional footballer: get signed to the academy of a professional club at an early age and hope that one day you're good enough to make the first team.
For an American with European dreams, the route is similar: either have a rich family that can send you abroad or hope that a European club somehow spots you.