Alphonso Davies might not have enjoyed his 8 a.m. soccer practice runs as a youth alongside the North Saskatchewan River in his hometown of Edmonton, Canada. But today, one of the fastest players in European club football can look back at those memories a bit more fondly. “It helped me a lot having to run […]
When Mohamed Salah set up for a penalty kick in just the second minute of the 2018-19 UEFA Champions League final, he had a chance to score the potential deciding goal in one of global sports’ biggest contests. With a reported 63,272 fans in the stands, an estimated 380 million to 400 million people watching […]
Compared to football, baseball and basketball, the “big three” American sports, soccer is a uniquely fluid game: no set possession length, a continuously running clock, a tiny number of actual scoring attempts and constant transitions that blur the line between attack and defense. That’s made it much more difficult to quantify. Lionel Messi is better […]
The big leagues in continental Europe have been dominated by their superpowers for years. Bayern Munich won the German Bundesliga title each of the past six seasons. In 13 of the past 14 seasons in Spain’s La Liga, either Barcelona or Real Madrid has taken the crown. The trio has also combined to win the […]
On any given week during peak soccer season, FiveThirtyEight offers projections for dozens of club soccer matches across the globe. The sheer volume of matches taking place this time of year can be paralyzing. With that in mind, we’ve added a feature to our club soccer predictions that rates upcoming matches on their quality and […]