Cleats

Welcome to the world of soccer and association football. From FIFA, to the Premier League, women’s soccer and more. Cleats is all about soccer.

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Stories: 2,174
Creators: 1,074
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Stories in Cleats that you’ll love, handpicked by our team.

Why Did I Care?
The 2022 UEFA Women’s EURO competition has set attendance and viewing records. It’s been accompanied by a commendable and long-needed rise in campaigning against misogyny and online abuse, including Not Her Problem and Her Game Too. These are fantastic strides in the right direction, and send an overwhelmingly positive message to future generations of players and fans, of any gender, that they are welcome participants in the world’s most popular sport. It’s wonderful to see how far we’ve come in respecting women as athletes. But this progress also serves as a stark reminder to me of my participation in a shameful culture of holding women back.
Madeleine Norton
Published 5 months ago in Cleats
Charlotte FC is Ready to Party
When Major League Soccer became the prominent professional soccer league in the US in 1996, no one could have imagined it would grow into the multi-billion-dollar league it is today. At the start average attendance numbers rarely exceeded 15,000, eight of the ten teams were renting stadiums from NFL teams, and the league lost an estimated 250 million dollars in its first five years of existence. A stark contrast to the 28-team league we have today.
Connor Jaramillo
Published about a year ago in Cleats
Why Maradona Is God , And Messi Isn't
Somewhere around 2013, I was at the gym, finishing my workout on the treadmill, when I glanced at the door and saw a short, chubby man walk in the door, followed by a bleach-blond woman 30 years younger and a personal trainer three times his size. His attitude was that of someone who owned not just the gym, but the whole city.
Taru Anniina Liikanen
Published 2 years ago in Cleats
Reconciling With Mistakes: A Football Point of View
2021 had a lot of football moments. The 2020 Euro Cup alone saw more own goals than the whole history of the tournament. And, in most cases, these own goals led to the defeat of the team. This made me think about the mental health issues faced by the players and the ways in which they deal with their mistakes on the ground.
A Elizabeth
Published 2 years ago in Cleats
The Life and Times of Romelu Lukaku
Romelu Menama Lukaku Bolingoli, aka Romelu Lukaku, was born in 1993 in Antwerp, Belgium to parents of Congolese descent, and when he played his first game for a senior club for Anderlecht at age 16 in the Belgian Pro League there was little sign that he would one day move to Chelsea Football Club in Kensington, London for a club-record £97.5 million ($135m USD).
Hamish Alexander
Published 2 years ago in Cleats
THE MESSI EFFECT
After two decades at Barcelona Messi said goodbye to the team where he became the alien and went to the billionaire team of Paris Saint Germain for two seasons with the right to one more.
Dalmy Alves
Published 2 years ago in Cleats
The proud lineage of Johan Cruyff's radical ideology that redefined football
The theories that Cruyff espoused with such stunning effect in Barcelona had their roots in the first international played by Scotland and England in Partick in 1872, a century ago. Undoubtedly, he was a radical, but he was a radical who understood that he was a part of a great lineage.
Siddharth
Published 2 years ago in Cleats
At Long, Long Last, the Champions League Final
The Champions League final between Manchester City and Chelsea to crown the best soccer team in Europe — even though the two sides both hail from the UK — was always going to be hyped as one of those games where both sides overthink things.
Hamish Alexander
Published 2 years ago in Cleats

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