All About The Beautiful Game
Charles Erb Wrexham AFC has enjoyed a remarkable rise in the past few years. The historic Welsh club — one of the oldest in the world — was languishing in the English non-league after years of mismanagement as recently as 2020. Then, out of nowhere, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney dropped a bombshell: the celebrity duo had … Read more
Right now, there is a big demand for strikers. Bayern Munich has been playing journeyman Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting up top: a capable player, but not exactly a star. Chelsea has, despite heavy spending, been unable to find a solution at number nine. Manchester United has struggled for a consistent striker, although Rashford has been successful up … Read more
Spain’s top flight has been, with little doubt, one of the strangest leagues in Europe this season. Defending Champions League winners Real Madrid currently sit a distant second, twelve points behind Barcelona. Barcelona themselves have been dominant in Spain but again were dumped out in the Champions League group stages — and then again in … Read more
Back in 2019, everything was going Brescia’s way. The Italian club stormed to the Serie B title, earning promotion back to the top flight for the first time in eight years. Journeyman striker Alfredo Donnarumma bagged 25 goals in his debut season with the club, enough to finish as the league’s highest scorer. Talented midfielder … Read more
The Polish national team has traditionally been very dependent on its league, the Ekstraklasa. However, that is a trend that is gradually shrinking: in the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, just four and three players from the league made the final roster, respectively. In each of their prior two appearances at the tournament (2002 and … Read more
For years, I’ve written about u21 (or u23) talents either with expiring contracts or no contracts. In the first of these articles, in 2020, I chose four exciting talents: Angel Gomes, Malang Sarr, Abdul Mumin, and Luca Zidane. Nearly three years later, Gomes and Sarr are in Ligue 1, Mumin is in La Liga, and … Read more
In 2021, German super club Bayern Munich announced a new project: the World Squad. The team was made with the aim of creating “an additional opportunity for talents from all over the world to realize [their] dream,” in the words of World Squad coach Christopher Loch. You can find the first episode here. The series, … Read more
The MLS has established itself as one of the best development leagues in the world. I’ve talked about this extensively over the years, but it’s easiest to see right now. The latest season saw the MLS sell a whopping nine U23 players overseas, with the clubs ranging from Barcelona to Rosenborg. Even the Chicago Fire … Read more
In 1960, the first European Championship was held in France. Four countries participated in the inaugural tournament: France, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union. Hosts France was, on paper, the best side: two years earlier, they advanced to the World Cup semifinals, and they had one of the world’s best forwards in Just Fontaine. However, … Read more
Over the years, many of the Czech Republic’s finest players have featured in the German Bundesliga. Tomáš Rosický spent five years with Borussia Dortmund, having left Sparta Prague when he was 20. Jiří Němec spent nine years with Dortmund’s rivals Schalke 04, having also featured for Sparta. All-time top scorer Jan Koller spent five years … Read more