Brazil is to soccer what New Orleans is to jazz – the most beautiful form it can take. Brazil is always a contender to win the men's World Cup or any other competition it plays in. The national side sacks managers for only reaching the quarterfinals but no further. A last-eight finish is a waste […]

Don Revie was Jose Mourinho, Sam Allardyce, Kenny Dalglish and so much more wrapped into one. Yet, today, many younger soccer fans cannot name him or point to why he is relevant. Except, of course, that he was played masterfully and villainously by Colm Meaney in The Damned United. To many fans, especially those supporting […]

How do they do it? When confronted with a dramatic situation for our favorite club or a stressful moment in an engaging match, we usually regress to unintelligible sounds or a series of annoying semi-connected syllables. Broadcasters, conversely, not only need to keep their cool and convey the moment, but transmit the gravity of what is going […]

A few weeks back, American superstar Christian Pulisic made waves in the media with quotes about his relationship with then-manager Thomas Tuchel. Excerpts from his book, Christian Pulisic: My Life So Far, describe his disappointment with alleged promises of playing time in the Champions League, plus highlighting areas of disagreement during his Chelsea tenure. The […]

The beautiful game has an ugly side. This is what soccer fans quickly learn as they grow as fans. They learn about match fixing, the violence, the seamy characters and the political manipulation. It is this last one getting full attention as the first November World Cup takes place in Qatar. Just four years prior, […]

Berlin is an interesting place. I remember my first visit a few years back when I went for a work conference. My first reaction was how big of a city it was. In many ways, it felt like a city in Texas: sprawled out, impossible to see all of it, and full of different zones […]

The football fan autobiography is a classic genre on our sports’ bookshelf. Soccer, more than any other sport long invited fans and authors to write about their rooting experiences. These develop into valuable recruiting tools in places where European football fandom continues to grow. This author is a fan of Arsenal because of Fever Pitch, […]