Informational/Did You Know

What does it mean to dream about soccer? 

The most popular sport in the world has inspired players and spectators alike with waking dreams of glory. One would expect thoughts of the beautiful game to seep into our dreams at night from time to time. Maybe it’s a good dream about winning the World Cup with Pelé and Maradona by your side; maybe it’s a bad dream about missing a penalty kick to lose the big game.

But what does a soccer dream mean?

NBCUniversal unveiled the plan for its upcoming streaming service Peacock on Thursday. Comcast’s answer to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Disney+, ESPN+ and Apple TV Plus is coming this year, featuring all the reruns of The Office and Law & Order you could ever want.

And there’s soccer.

Women’s soccer is a massive sport these days, drawing more than 1.1 billion viewers to the 2019 Women’s World Cup. Leagues across the planet are growing steadily and women’s footballers are becoming household names throughout the U.S. and Europe. 

The 1958 World Cup Final remains an iconic match due to the fact that a 17-year-old Pelé spearheaded Brazil’s 5-2 beatdown of host nation Sweden with two fantastic goals. But rather than turn the page there, why not take a closer look at the Seleção’s first-ever world title?

Having just watched the entire 90 minutes for the first time myself, I’m happy to report that the showpiece event of the sixth World Cup definitely didn’t disappoint. It was a different era — one full of strange skills, uplifting sportsmanship and a certain nostalgic sense of the human collective.

There’s a handful of footballers on the planet that immediately demand your attention — when they speak, it’s time to stop what you’re doing and listen. Cesc Fàbregas is one of those players.

The statistic for goals in a calendar year is obviously a strange one since it combines feats from two separate seasons (the back-half of one campaign and the first half of the next), which isn’t really a useful metric. However, when looking at the top goal scorers from each calendar year over the past decade, there are a few interesting trends which speak volumes about the 2010s.

There are many ways to define a club’s ambition. Perhaps the easiest is a straightforward look at which club spends the most money.

As the 2010s come to a close, we at The18 looked at which 18 clubs spent the most money over the last decade. No surprise, Manchester City is at the top having spent $1.71 billion. (Note: All numbers used in this article are from TransferMarkt.com.)