The moment when Dallas won the ball with seconds left and stood around trying to figure out how to kick the ball forward was MLS heritage

Frenkie is at his best on the left side of a double pivot, Pedri between the lines, Dembele playing one-on-one wide right, Balde overlapping, Sergi Roberto as an elbow back, and Busquets without having to cover ground. Xavi’s tactics tonight put all of them in their best roles

Leeds' goal difference, xG difference, and SPI are all better than last season despite selling Raphinha and Phillips. And even after these losses, the models and bookies don't think they're that likely to get relegated. This doesn't have to be a crisis

Penalty kicks are the biggest injustice in sports theathletic.com/3161748/2022/0…

You want to learn scanning, come drive in India. No football coach will be able to impart that calibre of training.

Which says nothing about Klopp but a lot about the insane way people talk about managers

“What do Liverpool do? We cannot act like [Nottingham Forest]. It is not possible. There are three clubs in world football who can do what they want financially. It's legal and everything is fine.”

The plan? Put the world’s best player in a league nobody watches and use copyright law to make sure it stays that way

Starting to think 35-year-old throughball merchant Messi might actually be my favorite version of Messi

Is firing Gerrard going to make three of Aston Villa's biggest signings this year uninjured or nah

Oh my god they put the Mourinho meme in a legal complaint

No amount of drawing arrows on stuff can convey how disgusting it was when Pedri spun around backwards and hit this throughball

Feels like most gripes about Barcelona’s style of play come down to “We forgot what it looks like to break down a low block without Messi”

The first Castrol Index explainer is so old it's in 240p, but it would be years before this kind of thing went mainstream youtube.com/watch?v=XmPJis…

American icon

Nottingham Forest should have spent those transfer fees to replace their entire team with the San Jose Earthquakes. They would still have zero shots or penalty area touches against Brighton but it would be funnier

My book, NET GAINS, is out today! It's about why the 'data revolution' in the world's most popular game trails far behind sports like basketball and baseball, how that's changing, and how far it might all eventually go. Buy it wherever you buy your books: abramsbooks.com/product/net-ga…

My book, NET GAINS, is out tomorrow! The first excerpt is up at ESPN. Forget the eye test; it's about a midfielder who was signed purely because of algorithm. espn.com/soccer/story/4…