Analysis

MLS is a retirement league no longer. The American top division is now the leading talent developer in North America and a go-to destination for young South and Central American stars hoping to get noticed by European scouts. Foreign players, like Miguel Almirón, Jack Harrison, and Jhon Duran all broke through in MLS. As did domestic stars, such as Alphonso Davies, Tyler Adams, and Brenden Aaronson. Who will be next to join this list of illustrious alumni of MLS players in Europe? We can’t say for sure, but here are the MLS players who deserve a transfer to Europe this summer. Thiago Almada (Atlanta United, 21) We start our list off strong with perhaps the best young wonderkid applying his trade in MLS right now. Thiago Almada always seemed too good for MLS, but this year he’s real...

Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass is a little over a month old. If you’ve not already subscribed, the new platform lets fans watch every MLS game no matter where they are in the world. MLS Season Pass also comes with coverage for each team and additional MLS programming that covers every game and storyline in the league. This deal is one of a kind among top leagues so we were eager to give our honest thoughts about it, but we also wanted to give MLS and Apple enough time to work through the growing pains of starting a streaming service from scratch. Now that enough time has passed, here are our five takeaways from Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass so far. Apple is all-in on MLS Season Pass If you’re in the US and have watched any sports content over the past few months, you’ve probably seen MLS Sea...

Think of Madrid and you think of Real Madrid, the city's giant football club plays a leading role in Spanish football, let alone in the nation's capital. But, Madrid is far from a one-club city. This Sunday, Rayo Vallecano and Atlético Madrid will face off in LaLiga. A brief history of Atlético and Rayo I'll start with the more well-known club of the two, the city's second club, Atlético Madrid. Founded by Athletic Club fans in 1903, they quickly became more than a Basque project in the capital, but have never quite been able to topple Real Madrid off its perch as the city's number-one club. During the Second World War they became the team of the air force, calling themselves Atlético Aviación de Madrid, and in the 1950's they had something of a golden era. Under the management of Hel...

Bayern München have always been known for poaching not only the best Bundesliga players, but signing them from their nearest league competitor. Throughout the years, particularly since the turn of the century, every time a Bundesliga challenger appeared (Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund, and most recently RB Leipzig), their best players would always finish up at Bayern. Bayer Leverkusen: They challenged Bayern for the Bundesliga title in 2002 and reached the Pokal Cup and Champions League finals. Despite failing to win any of those competitions and giving rise to the club’s unfortunate nickname            ‘Neverkusen’, Bayern wasted no time in picking apart their team. The following season, Bayern signed Ballack and Zé Roberto, and then Lúcio a few seasons later. Since then Lever...

The 2023 NWSL season is upon us, as the most exciting league in world football will be back in action this weekend. After the unpredictability of the last campaign, there is plenty of anticipation in the air for the new season, with the NWSL boasting more star power and up-and-coming talent than any other league while providing more than enough parity to keep fans intrigued until the Final. Before the season begins, let's take a look at the best players in the NWSL right now, ranking a top 10. This list is weighted on players who make the most difference for their team, so it is heavy on attacking players and those who score highly in key analytics like chances-created and progressive actions. 10. Racing Louisville LB Carson Pickett To some, new Racing Lousiville acquisition Carson Pi...

The saga of Barcelona's payments to a company owned by former referees committee vice president, José María Enríquez Negreira, continues as more information reveals the extent of the club's association with Negreira. Although the prosecutor’s office is only investigating the payments between 2016 and 2018, Barcelona’s involvement with Negreira goes back as far as 2001 with total payments from the club reaching €7 million. It's also been revealed that the Blaugranas quadrupled the payments to Negreira in 2009 under the presidency of Joan Laporta. It will now need to be seen whether Barcelona face any serious punishment. However, the suspicion that has constantly surrounded Barcelona about receiving beneficial treatment has magnified and brought up many controversial moments that have inv...

Being a forward, specifically a striker, is probably the most envious position to play. Goals are the currency of football, goalscorers are more well-known than say a technical midfielder to the layman. A striker can have a poor game, but as long as they find the back of the net once it doesn't really matter.  So what about the breed of forward whose play style encompasses more than scoring? The idea of having a striker who is there for more than just scoring, or even isn't supposed to be scoring at all in theory, is not a new idea. The idea of the False Nine, a striker who drops deep and acts like an attacking midfielder, was around in the pre-war era. The great but sadly unheralded Jimmy Hogan had a direct influence on the Austrian Wunderteam of the 1930s and the Hungarian Mighty Magy...

I like kit numbers, there I said it. I'm weirdly invested in what numbers players wear, why? God knows, best not to question it, leave that to the litany of therapists who'll try and work out why I know about Serie A number assigning in the 1990's and not why I cry myself to sleep. In 2023 they're wild, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I believe as a self-styled kit number aficionado we could all do with a refresher. The origins of kit numbers Kit numbers were first spotted on the backs of players in the 1910s, and by the early 1930's they were beginning to catch on, having first featured in European football competitively in 1928, but were still different to what we would see now. There were no set rules on how numbers should be assigned yet, so in the 1933 FA Cup Final Everton ...

Tottenham's season under Antonio Conte hasn't been going as many had originally expected. The Italian came in the middle of the 2021/2022 season and changed the team's fortunes by qualifying for the Champions League ahead of arch-rivals Arsenal; a competition that the club had not qualified for since 2019. After sticking with Conte, there was a sense that Spurs could not only win that long-awaited trophy, but also be outside challengers for the Premier League title. However, those Premier League chances quickly evaporated and so have their hopes of winning a trophy. Domestically, they were eliminated by Nottingham Forest in the EFL Cup and then by Sheffield United in the FA Cup. Meanwhile, they were eliminated in the Round of 16 stages of the Champions League by AC Milan who (despite th...