Somewhere in an alternate universe, Lionel Messi is the best player MLS has ever seen, Luis Suárez and Edinson Cavani are both pushing for their third MLS Cup and the United States is the premier destination for global footballing talent.
In the meantime, we'll have to settle for a new signing who, while not quite as well-known, is arguably more intriguing than any player to ever put on an MLS kit.
Sometimes I think about how little that vast majority of life and its hard-knock lessons pertain to David Beckham. Yes, he once gave Diego Simeone a love tap on the knee-pit, but that 23-year-old incident hardly caused Golden Balls to shrink from being fully alive for the rest of his days.
Portuguese football fans will be understandably aggrieved following the goal-line controversy in Saturday's World Cup qualifier against Serbia. It's important to remember though that the Seleção is still tied for first in its qualifying group — a very easy group at that.
After 14 long years, Scottish football legend Scott brown is leaving Celtic. The 35-year-old midfielder announced Thursday that he is joining Aberdeen at the end of the season on a free transfer, where he will act as a player-coach.
On the surface, the rivalry between Sheffield United and West Ham United seems to be one of the most obvious derbies in English football; Sheffield is nicknamed the Blades because of the city's connection to the steel industry, while West Ham is known as the Hammers for its roots in the local ironworks of London.
But the rivalry between these two clubs extends beyond the metalworks and is centered around another important resource: money.
Sometimes I wish that, through some glaring administrative error, I had been accidentally registered for the Ajax youth academy, even if it was just for one day. Then, in semi-good conscience, I could exploit that fact to have my own Wikipedia page, Transfermarkt profile and agent, allowing me to bounce around the world on one-year contracts — obviously being found out as total trash time after time — living my best life.
In soccer, rivalries are an important part because playing a “Derby” or “Clásico” is a privilege. However, a special flavor to these duels is tasted when remembering those players who, without any remorse, put on the shirt of the hated rival and played for both teams. These are the authentic "Judases" of soccer that will remain in history for their controversial passage from one team to another.
Here we bring you the biggest players who played for the hated rival.
The old cliche about veteran players is that they've seen everything during their career. For 43-year-old Dungannon Swifts goalkeeper Roy Carroll, that adage holds true — but it doesn't even begin to encompass the struggles of a shot-stopper that has played professionally in four different decades.
Now, a new club in 2021 could be the fitting final act for a player who is still competing well-beyond the prescribed shelf-life of a footballer.
Memories of the Premier League 10-15 years ago conjure up very specific visions, with the nostalgia usually centering around someone hitting the piss out of a classic Nike ball.
No 2000s soccer mixtape was complete without some random gangly defender hitting a 40-yard rocket to the top corner, Wayne Rooney burying a dipping half-volley or a center midfielder charging forward and doing unspeakable things to a one-touch shot from long range.
Not long ago, the American soccer landscape was a barren wasteland devoid of talent. Americans either played for boring MLS teams or obscure European clubs, always moving laterally and rarely improving.
Kids these days have Christian Pulisic at Chelsea and Sergiño Dest at Barcelona. We had a promising central defender at Birmingham City that now works at a financial company. Man, they have it easy.