It's an open question whether Jose Mourinho knows that he's blowing his Manchester United tenure or not. If beneath the princely hostility, he feels a sharp, shameful tingling, he wouldn't ever let us know. Read more »
Colin McGowan - Soccer Analysis
Jose Mourinho's Critics Have A Point, Now More Than Ever
The Surprising, Sudden Exit Of Yannick Carrasco From Atleti To China
On why Atleti decided to sell Yannick Carrasco after the January transfer window and to a Chinese team with financial ties to the club. Read more »
La Liga's Saudi Arabia Scheme Echos Ongoing Issues
La Liga suits are simply too lazy and unimaginative to effectively market and improve a league that's often fantastic to watch but frustrating to consume. Read more »
Pep Guardiola Always Has Talent, Always Has Ambition
Pep Guardiola doesn't achieve what he achieves improbably. But perhaps nobody in the world dominates as inventively as he does. Read more »
Why Valencia's Success Is No Early Season Fluke
Valencia attack directly now. They're defensively organized. The players work with and without the ball, or they don't play. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: AC Milan
There was a time where if AC Milan was not the best club in the Europe, they were the most stylish princelings. After several down years, their primed for a reboot under new ownership. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Juventus
For at least a few more seasons, Juventus is going to persist in this nigh untouchable stage of their history where they swallow opponents like a tranquilizing fog. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Borussia Dortmund
Since staring down financial oblivion in the mid-2000s, Dortmund have committed themselves to sustainability, and that means trying to balance squad continuity with selling players at a profit. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Bayern Munich
Soccer gives you more material than you can process and that becomes obvious when a club has been as dominant as Bayern has been over the past few seasons in the Bundesliga. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Real Madrid
Real Madrid are indisputably great and that's the only argument they care about. Method and style and ethos are unimportant. Then you study their trophy case and consider that you might be in the wrong here. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Barcelona
When your youth academy isn't producing world-class talent and you want to keep competing for domestic titles and Champions Leagues, you might start to look like the thing you define yourself in opposition to. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Atletico Madrid
Atletico Madrid are entering what you might call their corporate era. It would be inaccurate to describe what came before it as pre-corporate, but it was rickety and volatile and strange. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Manchester United
Even healthy relationships don't transcend two parties using each other, and that goes octuple for when millions of dollars are involved, but Mourinho and United's partnership reads as especially transactional. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Tottenham Hotspur
Under Mauricio Pochettino, Tottenham has lived in that blessed sliver of the sport's upper-middle class where they're just rich enough to compete with Chelsea and Manchesters (United and City) on the pitch without being able to touch them in the talent acquisition marketplace. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Manchester City
Pep Guardiola's mythology is more specific and ordinary than what's commonly said about him. He's convinced he can think soccer into submission. Which is probably what many coaches think, but they're not as bright or committed or fortunate. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Chelsea
We're coming up on 15 years since Roman Abramovich assumed control of Chelsea. Abramovich hasn't mellowed or grown less contemptible, but he has rivals in the oil baron/club owner sphere. He's been normalized. Read more »
End-To-End Stuff: Paris Saint-Germain
Neymar's going to cost some $550 million, because one unfathomably wealthy family have decided he's worth that much. Because sports matter to us that much, in more ways than we can know. Read more »
Real Madrid Has Become A Monster With Their Reformed Transfer Strategy
Real Madrid occasionally make dumb, exceedingly pricey signings, but they're rich enough to make big mistakes and still compete for trophies. They sign the most obvious players, but those players are obvious because they’re awesome. Read more »
How Strikers Fuel The Endless Vacuous Transfer Seasons
Goal-scorers are kind of like the headlines of soccer. They're the most easily legible players in the sport. Their primary job is obvious and uncomplicated. Read more »
Antoine Griezmann's Future And The Game-Adjacent Commerce Of Transfers
Antoine Griezmann's been going to Manchester United for six months, if you're prone to believe the British tabloids. Read more »