The Double Pivot: Soccer analysis, analytics, and commentary

Latest Episodes:

It Begins: All the Takes from the First Weekend Sep 16, 2020

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Leeds and Liverpool played a classic and (parts of) the popular narrative about it are more right than the shot stats might suggest. Arsenal were good and Chelsea were bad but does it mean anything? Oh yeah and Everton - Spurs.

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Premier League Preview Extravaganza Eleganza: Part I Sep 10, 2020

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It's that time again! A new Premier League season kicking off and we preview all 20 teams and try our best to stuff it into two hours. Here's the first hour!

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The Top Four(?) Race(?) Sep 03, 2020

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The Premier League season is almost upon us, and we've seen very different strategies so far from the teams we'd rate 3rd to 9th in the Premier League as they approach another run at the Champions League places. Who's doing it right, Everton or Spurs, Wolves or Leicester, Arsenal or United? We break it down. (Chelsea... Chelsea's fine.)

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Champions League Final, Everton Aug 26, 2020

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Goodman and Caley walk through a tactically fascinating but sadly short of actually great Champions League Final and appreciate how Bayern replaced Arjen Robben with Serge Gnabry and became the best team in the world again. Then they turn to Everton, a team with no plan that will probably be good and fun anyway.

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Champions League Semifinals Aug 20, 2020

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A fascinating if not super competitive pair of semifinal matches are in the books. We look at everything PSG did right and, as is typical for us, spend a lot of time perserverating on what went for a Bayern team that won 3-0.

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Champions League Quarters, Part II Aug 17, 2020

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Wow. Bayern-Barca was the perfect crescendo to everything we'd predicted and City-Lyon was.... not. We talk about the distinct patterns of the Bayern match and consider whether Pep's shit works in the playoffs.

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Champions League Quarters, Part I Aug 14, 2020

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Two quarterfinals are in the books and one semifinal is scheduled. We break down two very exciting but tactically meh games -- Leipzig did enough to break down Atleti's profoundly negative side and PSG almost got football'd by an exhausted Atalanta but... didn't -- and then we give you our preview of that semi.

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The Final Day and What We Learned Jul 28, 2020

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We break down the big games, Leicester-United and a little bit on the others (Watford-Arsenal!) and then ask, well, what did we learn from these 90 matches since the shutdown? Kinda turns into a City pod.

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The Final Day, Part I Jul 24, 2020

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We have actual final day drama in the Premier League. Six teams with everything on the time, five crucial matches. We tour the games with plentiful tangents, here's part 1 with Manchester United and our picks for the relegation chase.

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CAS saves Man City but can anything save Barcelona? Jul 17, 2020

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We break down the ruling against UEFA from the Court of Arbitration in Sport, and how it crystallizes the fundamental issue here: there are no good guys, and UEFA got caught breaking its own rules, but nothing about the ruling exonerates City either.
And then we have Real Madrid's title, how Zidane put together a title-winning team despite crucial things going wrong early in the season, and what the future of La Liga will look like -- maybe without a great Barcelona side for a long time?

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