An unfortunate and ubiquitous reality in England and, probably soon, here in the U.S., are suffering carnival barkers who say they want you to win big but are actually trying to rob you. Read more »
Colin McGowan - Soccer Analysis
End-To-End Stuff: Sports Betting
End-To-End Stuff: National Federations
The USSF has revealed itself to be much more like a private, money-making concern than a benevolent nonprofit that's supposed to look after the welfare of American soccer and its most accomplished athletes. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Videogames
While the actual soccer world is vast, fraught, and fluid, videogames like FIFA, PES, and Football Manager create the illusion of a more legible universe. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: The Sweeper Keeper
It's not a new position, but the sweeper keeper is at its peak in 2019. It's closer than it ever has been to an orthodoxy. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: The Soccer Bar
When you strip away the peculiar trappings of American soccer fandom, the affectation and unctuous cultishness of it, you find people killing time together before they spill out into the street two hours later and the slow rhythms of daily life resume. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: The Number 10
James is a number 10 in a sport that hardly uses them anymore. Sometimes uniqueness is not an asset; it only makes you an awkward fit. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Political Action
Sports, especially a game as global as soccer, can and should be powerfully politicized. Why wouldn't you pull every lever available to you, to help create a world in which your greatest worry really is how well your team plays on the weekend? Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: The Long Throw
The viability of the long throw, and the way we think about it, depends upon how it's deployed. Does its use spawn from a searching ingenuity or simply a lack of other ideas? Read more »
Gareth Bale Is Stranded
Due to durability issues, due to inconsistency, due to his own insistence on being paid like a superstar, Gareth Bale was set to be done with top level soccer, more or less by his own choice. Read more »
Dissecting How Diego Simeone's Atleti Project Stalled
The reality is Diego Simeone's past few years at Atleti have revealed a certain cowardice within, an unwillingness to fail on unfamiliar terms and a comfort with losing so long as he's gone down using trusty methods. Read more »
The Delight Of An Unexpected Champions League Final
This will be a colorful clash of styles, and at the end of it we're going to see a European champion who hasn't summited that mountain in a while (Liverpool) or ever (Spurs). Read more »
Barca Still Testing The Limits Of Lionel Messi After All These Years
There is no full accounting for Lionel Messi, but the players around him-they can be found out more easily than Barcelona's record suggests. Read more »
Real Madrid Finally Reaches A Point Of Harsh Self-Assessment
The advantage of being the biggest club in the world is that when all else fails, you can afford to be spectacularly unsubtle, remake the shape of an entire squad in the span of a single summer. Read more »
The Presence Or Absence Of Imagination
In the end, the most important aspect of style is having one, to look like you're trying to do something a specific way, and succeeding. Liverpool and Atleti had styles in their UCL matches this week against Bayern and Juventus. Read more »
The Fundamental, Unavoidable Problem Of VAR
VAR is exhausting and the on-pitch litigating has only intensified, because the players don’t know (or don’t care) what’s supposed to be reviewable and not. Read more »
Liverpool Has Become The World's Most Stylish Team
It's satisfying when a plan comes together at a big club like Liverpool because it's a broad canvas finally being utilized properly. Read more »
Atleti's Confused Identity
Diego Simeone has a team that could soar, given a little more liberty, with a few new ideas. He's either reluctant to provide what they need because he's holding fast to some fading identity the club no longer embodies. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Christian Pulisic
Christian Pulisic's career is still firmly in its developmental phase, and he's a star only in terms of the attention he gets from folks who are eager for the USMNT to finally have a world-class player. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Gareth Bale
Gareth Bale exists in the two states: recovering from a calf injury and on the verge of a pulled hamstring. He's somehow been somehow invisible at the biggest club in the world, but that's changed with Ronaldo leaving for Italy. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Cristiano Ronaldo
We often ask athletes that they build their lives around the game they play, because we feel that if they're not doing everything in their power to play well, we're somehow being robbed of their potential. Ronaldo is one of the few players who clears that ridiculous bar and he still occasionally catches flak, because he's doing it for selfish reasons. Read more »