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The Little Treble, What Is It, and Who Has Won It?
The treble, probably the most coveted achievement in club football, besides your club getting bought out by people who have done crimes against humanity to artificially pump it full of cash. But I digress. Only 9 clubs have ever managed this tremendous feat in Europe and only Bayern and Barcelona have done it twice. Interestingly…
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Every Dictatorship That Hosted the World Cup
In just a few days, the World Cup will be heading to one of the most repressive countries on earth. A place where freedom of speech is curtailed for the citizens who criticize the regime and is used as an excuse for the elites spewing their propaganda, a place where citizens are summarily arrested and…
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Robinho: The Lost Illusion
“People do not fall in love with reality. They fall in love with illusion.” Football has always been obsessed with wonderkids. The boys who dribble too easily. Who humiliate defenders with a smile on their face. Who seem to carry something supernatural within them. And maybe no one embodied this more in the early…
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The Death of the World Cup Breakout Star
When I was 8 years old, I believed that Senegalese forward El Hadji Diouf was one of the greatest professional soccer players of the 21st century. I had arrived at this opinion while sitting on the floor of my family’s TV room in Upstate New York, having just watched “The Official Review of the 2002…
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Every Team That Lost the Champions League Final: Where Are They Now?
Losing a Champions League final is heartbreaking. Apart from the World Cup and the Euros, it’s probably the biggest loss a football team could sustain. Some teams bounce right back, like Ajax, which lost the 1969 European Cup Final to AC Milan 4-1. It seemed that Catenaccio had triumphed against Total Football and that was…
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Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona: A Religion
On May 2, 2009, at the Santiago Bernabéu, in front of eighty thousand people who had come expecting a contest and received instead a sermon, Barcelona beat Real Madrid six goals to two. The scoreline is the least interesting thing about what happened that night. Real Madrid were not a bad team. They were…
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The Greatest Clubs To Ever Suffer Relegation
Relegation is possibly one of the most painful experiences a football fan can go through. With the newfound wealth of superclubs, fans of Europe’s biggest sides might think their teams are insulated from such a horrible eventuality. However, Manchester United this last season and Chelsea before them showed how managerial go rounds and haywire recruitment…
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Ronaldinho – A Midsummer Night’s Dream
“I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream.” – William Shakespeare Let me ask you something: A Brazilian talent, born in the favelas, who managed to rise from deep poverty and reach the…
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Yaya Touré and the Danger of Remembering Moments
When Yaya Touré is discussed, the same images surface. The Champions League final at centre-back. The 20-goal season. The solo run against Aston Villa. Those moments became memories. As they solidified, Touré became widely regarded as one of his generation’s best midfielders. Touré started at centre-back in the 2009 Champions League final, performing well…
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Carlos Tévez – War and Peace
“It is impossible to explain everything the streets taught me. And it was a lot.” – Carlos Tévez. Murder, crime, drugs, weapons. These were everyday realities in the Buenos Aires neighborhood known as Fuerte Apache. This is where Carlos Alberto Martinez grew up. His mother was an alcoholic. His father was shot dead. It…
