Analysis

Every 2025/26 Champions League contender’s biggest X-Factor
20Sep By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

Every 2025/26 Champions League contender’s biggest X-Factor

The Champions League is the time for all the brightest stars to come out and write their legacies in leading their clubs to victory, as the biggest legends of the modern game like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Neymar, Sergio Ramos, Luka Modric, Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Toni Kroos, and so many others have taken the opportunity to etch their names in history with remarkable Champions League campaigns. But Champions Leagues are also just as much about the X-Factors who step up in key moments or have career years to defy expectations. This is where the Alvaro Moratas, the Francesco Acerbis, and the John Stoneses of the world make their mark. Who could be the biggest X-Factors in the 2025/26 Champions League campaign? Here are eight players to watch from the ...
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Every Premier League club’s most valuable player of the 2020s decade so far
20Sep By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

Every Premier League club’s most valuable player of the 2020s decade so far

Debating "value" can often be difficult, because there are so many ways to ascribe a player's value to a team. It can be because of their brilliance on the field, statistical dominance, scarcity of position, lack of star players in surrounding areas, or by being part of a dominant team. Let's do a fun exercise and look through all the current Premier League teams with experience in the top flight this decade prior to the 2025/26 season (so Sunderland is out) and try to pick out each club's most valuable player from the 2020s decade thus far. Wolves Ruben Neves and Pedro Neto both have strong cases, and I think Rayan Ait-Nouri and Adama Traore merit honorable mentions somewhere in there. But the most recent Wolves star, Matheus Cunha, absolutely has to be considered the best on an indi...
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2026 World Cup Power Rankings: The 5 most important players to their country’s success
7Sep By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

2026 World Cup Power Rankings: The 5 most important players to their country’s success

As the 2026 World Cup qualifying matches rage on, it's time to continue our early preview of next year's tournament in North America by narrowing our focus from the key teams to the key individuals that could shape the latest chapter of international football. Although we don't yet know the final field of the 2026 World Cup - and it looks like there are some giants who may not even make it to that point - the most important players to their countries are still going to be pivotal in these qualifying stages. So let's rank the top five players based on their importance to their team's qualification efforts and eventual hopes of World Cup success. Since it's too easy to pick the one star player at a smaller country and because one player can't pull everyone up to success (look at Mohame...
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2026 World Cup Predictions: An early ranking of the top 5 projected Golden Boot winners
6Sep By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

2026 World Cup Predictions: An early ranking of the top 5 projected Golden Boot winners

Since the 2026 World Cup qualifying matches are ongoing and it is now less than a full calendar year before the World Cup in North America begins, it's more than fair game to start an early preview of what we can expect at next year's World Cup tournament. There are few players who make more headlines on the international stage than the superstars scoring the goals, so from regulars at the top of the scoring charts to new stars around world football, let's take a look at an early projection of the top five Golden Boot candidates at the next World Cup. 5. Brazil RW Estevao Willian Estevao Willian has been scoring wondergoals for years, even though he's still just 18 years of age, and the new Chelsea arrival has been arguably even better than advertised - and Chelsea fans were already h...
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World Cup 2026 Predictions: 5 European giants at most risk of flopping
5Sep By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

World Cup 2026 Predictions: 5 European giants at most risk of flopping

The 2026 World Cup qualifying matches are in full swing here in September with the 2025/26 league seasons already all under way, and while the "international break" is usually a time when most football fans take a break of their own, these national team fixtures with World Cup stakes on the line have piqued everybody's interest. And if fans weren't already keeping one eye peeled on the international fixtures with the World Cup in North America less than a full calendar year away, perhaps watching perennial disappointments Germany get upended 2-0 by Slovakia turned heads and served as a call for fans to take notice of what's happening in the qualifying rounds. In the spirit of Germany's dreadful defeat to the underdogs, let's look at five national teams that could flop at the 2026 Wor...
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Premier League Predictions: Every Big Six club’s biggest problem in 2025/26
5Sep By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

Premier League Predictions: Every Big Six club’s biggest problem in 2025/26

With the first month of the 2025/26 Premier League season in the books, the big clubs in the English top flight are figuring out how their new-look squads are taking shape, especially after finalizing deadline day transfers on Sept. 1. Over the international break, managers around the Premier League will be busy tweaking their tactics in response to what they saw over the first three matchdays of the campaign Here is the biggest problem every Big Six club in the Premier League needs to address during the 2025/26 season, based on a combination of preconceived notions before the campaign began and what transpired across the first three fixtures. Manchester United Ruben Amorim's rigid marriage to his 3-4-3 system has been well-documented, though the Portuguese manager has shown signs ...
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Champions League Predictions: 5 clubs at greatest risk of facing complete turmoil in 2025/26 season
3Sep By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

Champions League Predictions: 5 clubs at greatest risk of facing complete turmoil in 2025/26 season

The 2025/26 Champions League campaign will officially begin in a matter of weeks with the league phase, as the summer 2025 transfer window has been wrapped up and sealed with a bow. Most of the big players in the Champions League, like Liverpool and Real Madrid, were also major buyers on the transfer market, as superstars like Alexander Isak and Trent Alexander-Arnold moved around this summer window. The Premier League's Big Six, in particular, were big spenders, proving the notion that the Super League is really just the biggest clubs in the Premier League isn't just a prognostication for the future; it's already rapidly happening in front of us. But as teams head into the 2025/26 season with boatloads of optimism, there is reason for trepidation among some of European football's...
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Grading the 10 most expensive Premier League transfers of the summer 2025 window
2Sep By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

Grading the 10 most expensive Premier League transfers of the summer 2025 window

The 2025 summer transfer window officially came and went, and the Premier League bossed every other league in European football with numerous record deals and blockbuster transfers, proving that there is indeed a growing gulf between the English top flight and all other leagues. All the spending and blockbuster transfers promise to make an already highly competitive Premier League even more intriguing in the 2025/26 season, and now that the dust has finally settled, it's time to grade all of the biggest transfers of the window. All prices are provided in euros and courtesy of Transfermarkt so that the ranking and comparison of fees can be consistent. 10. Viktor Gyokeres to Arsenal, 65.8M Arsenal had to snag a new striker this summer transfer window by any means necessary, and while...
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Premier League Power Rankings: The 5 most likely teams to be relegated in 2025/26
30Aug By Cody AcevedaNo Comments
Analysis

Premier League Power Rankings: The 5 most likely teams to be relegated in 2025/26

We’re two weeks into the 2025-26 Premier League season, and it’s already looking like it will be one of the most competitive in recent history. There are three teams fighting for the title and at least eight who could challenge for the top four. Let’s look at the other side of the table, though. Here are the five teams most likely to be relegated this season.  Wolves Wolves have been tipped to go down for at least a couple seasons now. They’ve managed to avoid the drop, and I think they’ll do the same this season. That said, this is set to be their toughest Premier League campaign in some time.  Matheus Cunha scored or assisted nearly 40% of Wolves’ league goals last season and Rayan Aït-Nouri is one of the best attacking full-backs in the Premier League. Losing them will be difficult...
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What can we expect from Gio Reyna at Borussia Monchengladbach?
29Aug By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

What can we expect from Gio Reyna at Borussia Monchengladbach?

There's nothing American football (wait, sorry, soccer) fans love more than hyping up one of their own, and finally, in the 2020s there have been a slew of young American footballers actually worth hyping up. Most of them found their first foothold in the Bundesliga, and with the success of Christian Pulisic, who would bag a Champions League trophy at Chelsea before becoming an even better player for AC Milan, there's been no shortage of fans scouring the German top flight for the next big thing in the USMNT. It was only natural, then, for the next big American talent at Borussia Dortmund, Gio Reyna, to be the next vict- I mean, uh, subject of the hype machine that is the entirely niche - and mostly stupid - so-called "mainstream" American soccer punditry. I call them "mostly stup...
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