The round of 16 of the Champions League is over and only eight teams remain. And for the first time in more than a decade, four of those teams are English. This is obviously good news for the Premier League, which hasn’t boasted a Champions League winner since 2012 when a Chelsea team led by […]
We write to you with elbows tucked, stroopwafels out — and a new understanding of what’s possible in soccer. Just half of the second-leg games in the Champions League’s round of 16 are complete, and already two titans of the sport are gone thanks to a youthful rebellion and instant replay. The prediction models are […]
The UEFA Champions League knockout stage draw happened today. Sixteen teams found out their next opponent on the road to the final. How pot-holed of a road did your club draw? Here’s what FiveThirtyEight’s Soccer Power Index thinks of the Round of 16 matchups. A lot has changed at Real Madrid since they won the […]
Goalkeepers have historically been the most undervalued players in the world soccer transfer market. Until very recently, even the richest teams in Europe rarely spent extravagantly to fill the position. When Juventus paid Parma $42 million for Gianluigi Buffon in 2001 — a record fee at the time — it was considered a staggering amount. […]
The Premier League, which kicks off Friday afternoon, is often regarded as the most competitive league in the world, if not the best. In fact, both of those assumptions might be false: While the Premier League boasts four of the top 10 and six of the top 15 teams in the world according to our […]