Top Stories
Stories in Cleats that you’ll love, handpicked by our team.
World Football: Ranking the Top 1-6 Players In the World Right Now
This is one guy's list of the 1-6 best footballers on the planet right now. It's as easy as that. Let's be clear, though, about those words "right now." This list takes into account the players' current form with their club and country. If a player is not playing well right now—of if he's not playing at all—he doesn't make the list. But it's not all about the present. We've tried to balance current form with overall talent as best we can. We hope you like the list, but we've been around the block enough times to know that there will be plenty of dissent from the gallery.
Mintoo Kumar YadavPublished 19 days ago in Cleats
European Super League
As I write this, the news of the pending formation of a new “European Super League” is now hours old. Many of you may or may not be aware of the formation of this new league. But for those of you out there oblivious to the world of football (soccer) let me enlighten you about the impact of this announcement and breakdown its impending implications for football as a whole.
Sam HazelwoodPublished 20 days ago in Cleats
Is the European Super League about to bring the 1975 film Rollerball into existence?
Wow. Big statement. So Let me explain. The European Super League was announced to the public on the 18th April 2021. This involved 12 super clubs in European Football stating an intention to create a new breakaway tournament. The clubs who stated their intention were AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, Real Madrid, Athletico Madrid, Barcelona, Tottenham, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal.
Dear Megan Rapinoe, Thank You
“What we know is how successful women’s sports have been in the face of discrimination, in the face of a lack of investment in every level in comparison to men.” Megan Rapinoe, March 2021
Christopher DonovanPublished about a month ago in Cleats
The future is bright for the NWSL
Soccer is quickly becoming a more popular sport in the United States, mainly due to the overwhelming success of the U.S. Women's National Team winning the past two Women's World Cup championships. This has developed into more interest in the domestic women's league, the National Women's Soccer League. But despite more interest and success, the NWSL and the USWNT have faced many hurdles in establishing women's soccer as a force in U.S. professional sports.
Sean FraserPublished 2 months ago in Cleats
8 Life Lessons From An Arsenal Supporter
1.Learning To Win Ugly Is Imperative Arsenal is especially known for playing attractive football, but since 2004, we have found winning titles while playing well, impossible to come by. The likes of Chelsea under Jose Mourinho and subsequent managers have mastered the art of winning ugly and gone on to dominate English football in ways in which Arsenal fans can only dream of. Some may call it pragmatism or defensive footy, but so long as it leads to increased silverware, nothing else matters but winning.
Adebayo AdeniranPublished 2 months ago in Cleats
The Greatest Football Team In History
Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, and Macedonia were once a single nation by the name of Yugoslavia. The country split up in the 1990s as a result of a series of conflicts that stretched for years.
Oberon Von PhillipsdorfPublished 2 months ago in Cleats
Sports and Politics Walk The Line
Football’s greatest legends: Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi, Neymar and now Kylian Mbappé, choosing a worthy candidate for the title ‘Greatest Player in the History of the Game’ is both spectator sport and blood sport, and changes with the times.
Hamish AlexanderPublished 2 months ago in Cleats
Four decades since Zoff was on top of the world
The oldest player ever to win the Fifa World Cup turns 79 today, but surprisingly it’s almost 40 years ago that he achieved that status.
Steve HarrisonPublished 2 months ago in Cleats
If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It
Are you an NBA or Major League Baseball fan? Not many sports fans in North America follow the machinations of the European soccer leagues — “football” to those in the UK — but citing the NBA or MLB seems the most effective way to tell sports fans here about a crazy new proposal called “the Super League” that has the potential to upend everything footie fans have grown to like and love about Premier League soccer in the UK — and La Liga, the Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1 in other countries as well.
Hamish AlexanderPublished 3 months ago in Cleats
No Room for Racism
The ritual has become set in stone. Before each and every game, across the major leagues in UK soccer but most notably in the top-flight Premier League, players from the opposing sides kneel around the center circle. They kneel partly in homage to Colin Kaepernick, the one-time NFL quarterback who sacrificed his career to show his support for the Black Lives Matter movement, but mostly as a statement against racism in general, not just in soccer but at every level of society.
Hamish AlexanderPublished 3 months ago in Cleats
No Fans? No Fun.
The banner at Old Trafford stadium is easy to spot even in good times, and these are not good times. ‘Without Fans, We Are Nothing,’ it reads.
Hamish AlexanderPublished 3 months ago in Cleats
