Soccer Analysis

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 »

There are rare instances when a player develops an institutional bond with his club. Mauro Icardi appears to have one with Inter, having joined back in 2012 and stuck around through some lean years and now they're back on the upswing. Read more »

Thomas Partey, coming off a great season, has arrived in Atleti's midfield. Now he has to arrive again, repeatedly, in order to keep hold of what he's got. Read more »

If the Pogba-Mourinho relationship is to be mended, Pogba must be the one who bends. He's well within his rights refuse, which is why cataclysm at United looks increasingly certain. Read more »

Barcelona has built a muscular team around Lionel Messi that aims to devastate rather than transcend. Now 31, it's about time to take the measure of thes arc his career has traveled, and where it's headed. Read more »

While Pep Guardiola's City works to find improvements from the smallest details, Arsenal's first match under Unai Emery showed the club plays best when attacking vertical instead of side to side out of the back. Read more »

Everton and Wolves entered the season with tremendous optimism under new managers. Their 2-2 draw highlighted several key storylines to monitor this season. Read more »

Both Fulham and Wolves are expected to not only survive relegation, but push into the mid-table and beyond - all with style. Read more »

Here are the 50 essential players and managers you need to know about entering the start of the 18-19 Premier League season. Read more »

The spine of the national team side came largely from the clubs of Pep Guardiola, Antonio Conte, Jose Mourinho, Mauricio Pochettino and Jurgen Klopp. Instead of England's players getting off the island, managers have come to the island to help England. Read more »

Mo Salah had a breakthrough year. How are we to describe what he is coming out the other side of that? It calls out for a name, or at least a couple of adjectives. Read more »

Chelsea's season lies upon how much their 59-year-old manager is willing to struggle, learn and ultimately adapt without sacrificing his style. Read more »

Jose Mourinho may be the same quality of manager as he was a decade ago. But the world that has changed, and all that's left is what he's described as a difficult season ahead. Read more »

United's back line- good, but shaky; organized imperfectly- did us a favor last season in (accidentally) letting David de Gea cook with the club's league-best goals conceded tally standing as evidence of his brilliance. Read more »

Based on his current form, this could not only be the year of Bernardo Silva, but a breakout season could also represent the future of Manchester City's attack under Pep Guardiola. Read more »

We tend to feel grateful toward athletes who redraw the game's parameters for us, help us appreciate what we previously couldn't. We sometimes call them geniuses: a title Kante would definitely reject, but might deserve. Read more »

Harry Kane's relative isolation- his bone-deep nine-ness, if you will- allows him to affect matches in a peculiar way his more dynamic peers don't. He can arrive out of nowhere. Read more »

A player turns from prodigy to forgotten just as quickly. Except on Twitter, where we'll always have those brief moments to remind us of what a player could have been. Read more »

What's wrong with Neymar? He dives too much, with too much panache. That and a bunch of other stuff that's harder to explain. Read more »

Even though it's been previously stressed, more than any previous year, this season feels like the start of a new La Liga era with the players who once defined the league playing elsewhere. Read more »