There is no good reason why leagues can't hit the ground running whenever they get the all-clear. The sooner the planning starts, the more enjoyable the soccer will be upon its return. Read more »
Colin McGowan - Soccer Analysis
It's Time To Start Figuring Out Next Season
Atleti Beating Liverpool Defies Expectation, Explanation
Liverpool were doing what they needed to do to come out on top. Dominating possession, driving Atleti into their own box, pulling even before halftime, working Jan Oblak, finally breaking through early in extra time. It was all very intelligible. Read more »
Atleti's Capacity To Beat Liverpool Remains Largely Theoretical
In what was either a doubling or a tripling back on what they actually are versus what most people believe them to be, Atleti were impenetrable and opportunistic on Tuesday against Liverpool. Read more »
Barcelona's Empty Sanctimony
The Barcelona board are a capricious, and, going by recent evidence, not particularly competent bunch. They belong to a uniquely sociopathic rich guy strain, one concerned only with revenue retrieval, status, and success. Read more »
Paul Pogba Isn't Young Anymore But He's Still An Enigma
Paul Pogba is 26 years old and should be in his prime. Yet what he is, at present, and what he still could be, in the future, remains hazy. Read more »
Tottenham's Risky Grand Vision Replacing Pochettino With Mourinho
Whether this feeling lines up with reality or not, Jose Mourinho's hiring is the opposite of capitulation, a bet that the past year under Mauricio Pochettino has represented a step backward rather than the beginning of a protracted decline. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Sports Betting
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 »
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 »