Stay ConnectedThe Athletic’s team of soccer writers cover the beautiful game with daily short-form and in-depth episodes focusing on the USMNT, MLS, European football, the Mexico national football team and the Canada men’s soccer team.
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Copyright: © 2021 - The Athletic
Preseason is officially underway for every MLS team this week. There have been some big acquisitions, some interesting trades, and in Atlanta…an upcoming contract situation for the team’s star player.
Felipe Cardenas is here with the latest on Josef Martinez’s contract situation, why he’s asking for it, and why the Atlanta united front office may want to be pragmatic.
Felipe’s story on Josef Martínez: https://theathletic.com/3057263/2022/01/07/i-want-to-die-here-josef-martinez-hoping-to-see-out-his-career-with-atlanta-united/
Union Berlin fullbacks: https://theathletic.com/3072878/2022/01/17/bundesliga-how-union-berlins-wing-back-tactics-put-them-top-four-contention/
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We have just one week to go until World Cup qualifying starts up again, which means there’s plenty of interesting storylines we’re keeping track of here on The Athletic’s U.S. soccer desk. We had yesterday off for Martin Luther King Day so this episode will be a quick, guest-free rundown of what we’re following this week.
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There are a lot of ways to define play style. The Athletic’s John Muller has come up with another one. The five kingdoms of football is a new, graphical way to describe how teams play, and it’s just so interesting. John Muller is here to talk about it, and why it makes one under-the-radar game this week much more interesting than you might think.
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After a new year’s period where a lot of teams solidified their positions or brought in reinforcements, the second half of the European calendar is underway with a ton of great games this weekend.
Brooks Peck is here to break down the whole schedule, hour-by-hour, along with big games in the Africa Cup of Nations and Liga MX.
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Last year, Lorenzo Insigne was one of the best players on an Italian national team that won the European Championship. He has long been a key striker for Napoli, has played plenty in the Champions League, and is generally considered to be among the world’s best players. He’s 30 years old and this summer, he’s coming to MLS.
Josh Kloke is here to explain why Toronto FC made the big-money move for Insigne after one of their worst-ever seasons.
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Over the past several months, the Washington Spirit have won the NWSL championship, and also been at the center of a very public tug-of-war over ownership of the club.
On one side: Steve Baldwin and Bill Lynch, two co-owners who together had or controlled a majority of votes among the club’s ownership group. Baldwin and Lynch have been looking to sell the club. On the other side is Michele Kang, another co-owner, who offered well over market value for the club, but has also been publicly critical of Baldwin during his time as controlling owner of the team.
Though Kang’s offer was for $35 million dollars, The team was thought to be on the verge of a sale to another group for $25 million dollars. On Tuesday, a group of the Spirit’s minority owners were key to a complete flip of the script.
It’s a lot to take in, but Steph Yang is here to help parse through some of the details.
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Mexico’s 2021 could probably be considered a disappointment overall, but the Mexican federation’s president has big goals going into 2022.
Felipe Cárdenas traveled to Mexico for a chat with Yon de Luisa late last year. Today, Felipe joins the show to discuss that interview, and what El Tri will be focusing on this year.
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2022 Is underway and we’re back with a slightly shorter edition of the show. We may do more of these going forward; just sort of a short summary of what games are on today, and what stories we’re keeping track of.
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To end 2021, we’re talking to each of the North American soccer vertical’s eight full-time staff writers about their favorite story of the year.
Today, to wrap up this series, Pablo Maurer joins to talk about his deep dive investigation into an obscure bit of MLS history: The guys that were in the original Columbus Crew logo.
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To end 2021, we’re talking to each of the North American soccer vertical’s eight full-time staff writers about their favorite story of the year.
Today, Matt Pentz discusses his profile of Lynn Williams. It’s a great profile that was written early in 2021, and looking back at is an interesting study in how much the circumstances of a story can change over the course of a year.
Matt's story: https://theathletic.com/2364457/2021/02/03/lynn-williams-uswnt-courage/
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