tamil yogi
Toward the end of the longest (and sixth-best) FIFA World Cup on record, The Onion, America’s satirical newspaper of record, published a piece titled “Report: That’s Enough Soccer For Now.”
“Saying the nation had enjoyed a perfectly adequate amount of dribbling, passing, and loud chanting,” it mentioned, “a new report published Tuesday verified that was enough soccer for now. ‘Welp, that was fun, but we’ve got our fill,’ the report read in part.”
For a lot of Americans, that sentiment probably rang true. The Onion is really good at what it does, after all. But you? If you’re reading this piece, you’re different. The World Cup made you a soccer fan for good: You’re ready to live the soccer lifestyle. You’re not going back.
Here’s a little secret: Soccer is already a mainstream American sport. If that wasn’t true before the World Cup, it certainly is now.
Last fall, as Ryan O’Hanlon recently referenced, The Economist published the results of a survey saying more Americans listed soccer as their favorite sport than baseball. And this summer before the World Cup, a Nielsen survey suggested that the base of soccer fans in America is more than 60 million people and potentially the fourth largest in the world.
Editor’s Picks
Considering how many of my previously soccer-apathetic friends (A) hadn’t really heard of Erling Haaland two months ago, and (B) would absolutely die for him now, it’s safe to say that that audience is only growing.
But the next World Cup is four years away; the next Euros and Copa América are two years away. If you’ve only just now gotten into international soccer, but you’re hungry for more of this ridiculous universe, then club soccer is waiting for you. To its detriment, it doesn’t feature Scotland’s Tartan Army or the Oranje Army of Netherlands, but it doesn’t feature as much FIFA president Gianni Infantino, either. A fair trade, perhaps.
The club soccer world is also a pretty intimidating one, both because of its sheer size and the fact that if you’re just now looking to take the plunge, you’re going to feel pretty late to the party. It can be hard to find your way into the conversation. With the 2026-27 club soccer season on the horizon — actually, it already has begun for some leagues, as amazing as that sounds — let’s lay out 10 things that you, a burgeoning soccer fan, should know ahead of time to help with that conversation.
(Note: We’re keeping this list tied to men’s soccer. Women’s soccer is another incredible universe that deserves its own piece and will take center stage next summer with the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil.)
1. Erling Haaland plays for Manchester CityLet’s start with the basics.
Both my 70-year-old neighbor and my longtime, once soccer-agnostic college football analytics buddy fell harder for the sport than they anticipated this summer. But it’s unclear whether it’s the sport they now enjoy, or if it’s just that they’ve fallen head-over-heels in love with Norway’s goal-scoring, pastrami-sandwich-eating, cowboy-hat-and-taxidermied-raccoon-buying big striker.
Haaland’s summer of American love — combined with Norway’s charismatic quarterfinals run — seemed to do more for his worldwide popularity than any of the 162 goals he has scored for Manchester City over the past four years.
City actually led the tournament with 19 players on World Cup rosters. That list includes some players (Bernardo Silva, Nathan Aké, Manuel Akanji) who have since left, and Spain’s magnificent Rodri might also make a move to Real Madrid after recovering from a recent back procedure. But from playmakers such as Belgium’s Jérémy Doku and France backup Rayan Cherki to defenders such as England’s Marc Guéhi, Portugal’s Rúben Dias and Uzbekistan’s Abdukodir Khusanov, there were City players everywhere you looked. They also might soon add Morocco’s exciting teenage midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi.
Of the 18 clubs that employed at least 10 World Cup players, six of them come from the Premier League; Spain’s LaLiga had three, Germany’s Bundesliga had two, and no other league had more than one. That’s apt, as the Premier League is by far the richest and, at the moment, most successful league in the world.
If you’re looking to dabble in the club universe, you’re probably going to spend quite a bit of time with Premier League broadcasts on Saturday and Sunday mornings in the States. That will mean getting to know not only City, but also defending champions Arsenal — which employed 15 World Cup players, including three from Spain’s championship roster and four from England’s third-place squad — and teams like Manchester United (12 players, including Argentina’s Lisandro Martínez and Portugal’s Bruno Fernandes) and Liverpool (10 players, including Argentina’s Alexis Mac Allister and three Dutch players).
2. Barcelona and Bayern Munich are impossibly funThe best ball might be played in the Premier League, but you can’t really say it’s the most enjoyable. The tactics are somehow both intense and cagey, and there are times when it feels as if teams can score only via set pieces. You’ll know what you’re watching is of the highest class, but you might have to go elsewhere to find the most aesthetically pleasing version of the sport.
As my annual Watchability rankings can attest, if all you do is watch Bayern and Barça matches, you’re going to think soccer is the greatest sport in the world. Bayern manager Vincent Kompany and Barça’s Hansi Flick (who led Bayern to the 2019-20 UEFA Champions League crown) deploy the boldest attacks in the sport, risking counterattacks and defensive breakdowns in the name of creating endless scoring chances.
Barça have winger Lamine Yamal (aka maybe the most successful teenager in the history of the sport) and a number of other key players from Spain’s championship team — tournament-winning goal scorer Ferran Torres, Dani Olmo, Fermín López — and they just added England forward Anthony Gordon, plus well-coiffed German speedster Karim Adeyemi. Bayern, meanwhile, have England’s legendary striker Harry Kane, plus France’s extraordinary string-puller Michael Olise, Colombia’s Luis Díaz, Germany’s Jamal Musiala and, in a recent move, Morocco’s exciting attacking midfielder Ismael Saibari. (Germany’s 18-year-old starlet Lennart Karl missed the World Cup because of a thigh injury, but you’re also going to enjoy him very much.)
There are plenty of other teams that should be super fun this season — and a lot of them, as always, play in the attack-friendly Bundesliga — but start with those two, and you’re going to enjoy yourself immensely.
Any given Major League Baseball season lasts around seven months. The NBA season lasts eight. The club soccer season lasts nine months in earnest, but really it lasts even longer than that.
The first round of qualification for the 2026-27 Champions League began on July 7, the same day as Argentina’s World Cup round-of-16 win over Egypt. Granted, this was for the smaller domestic champions that didn’t have anyone active in the World Cup — winners in the first qualifying round included Azerbaijan’s Sabah FC, the Faroe Islands’ KI Klaksvik and Ireland’s Shamrock Rovers — but the domestic season began in Scotland and Belgium this past weekend, and the Polish season began even earlier than that.
You can almost always find soccer on TV, and you have to understand in advance that pacing yourself is important. We’ll see plenty of big-name matchups pretty early in the club season, and the Champions League’s league phase will begin in mid-September, but the impact of any given match isn’t going to be super important. That’s in part why everything else in soccer — the singing crowds, the rich club histories — ends up creating so much value.
Even if we don’t really know the stakes yet, an early-September match between Chelsea and Arsenal is always going to feel like a huge event. The same goes for a mid-August German Supercup Klassiker between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, or a mid-September Madrid Derby, or late-October “El Clasico“ between Real Madrid and Barcelona. The first time we hear the Champions League theme belted out is going to be fun, even if the first of eight matchdays which last until late January isn’t loaded with jeopardy.
Even if we’re pacing ourselves, in other words, it’s still useful and fun to look at the schedule ahead and pick out some must-watch games. Let’s walk through what the first couple of months of the season will have to offer, starting in mid-August.
All of ESPN. All in one place.
Watch your favorite events in the newly enhanced ESPN App. Learn more about what plan is right for you. Sign Up Now
Of Europe’s major leagues, Spain’s LaLiga is the first to kick off, but the biggest matches of this week will be the Community Shield matchup at Wembley (where the Premier League Champions, Arsenal, face FA Cup winners Man City) and the last round of Champions League qualification, inevitably featuring some fun underdogs that we’ll get to know pretty well in the fall and winter months.
Last August’s Liverpool-Newcastle tilt was one of the most enjoyable Premier League matches of the season, and it will be an early showcase for new Reds boss Andoni Iraola. Plus, we get an early hint at whether anyone can stand up to Bayern in the Bundesliga this season as German Cup (DFB Pokal) winners Dortmund take them on in the Supercup, and the league campaigns of both Real Madrid and Barcelona get underway.
The Bundesliga and Serie A seasons get underway, and we’re fully rolling. More importantly, the Silliness Firehoses that are the DFB Pokal and Italy’s Coppa Italia also get fully underway.
Now we get the big-brand matchups. We get a big London rivalry game between the defending Premier League champs and a Chelsea team that might actually have their act together this year. (Or they might not. We’ve been wrong before.) Meanwhile, Juve-Milan pits the winners of 42 of the past 72 Italian titles, two-time European champions PSG get an interesting visit from Monaco, and the biggest matchup in the Dutch Eredivisie comes around as well.
And then the first Champions League matchday arrives.
This week is not as big. But we still get a Manchester derby that will tell us semi-useful things about new regimes at both clubs.
The weekend before the season’s first international break should be wall-to-wall entertainment led by the Madrid Derby and a couple of Bundesliga matches that might tell us who, if anyone, is most likely to challenge Bayern for the league title.
We return from the break in fifth gear, with City-Liverpool and a full slate of midweek UEFA competitions.
Manchester United vs. Leeds United at Elland Road brings a unique level of hostility to the table. It’s a big one whether or not either team is particularly good. And then we get more UEFA action.
Two months into the season, and it’s El Clasico time!
This is a lot to follow, and we’re talking about barely a quarter of the season. Stay hydrated.
5. There are Americans everywhereChris Richards (Crystal Palace), Tyler Adams (AFC Bournemouth), Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United), Antonee Robinson (Fulham) and Haji Wright (Coventry City) will all play in the Premier League this season, and World Cup teammates Sebastian Berhalter and Max Arfsten just joined fellow American Aidan Morris at second-division Middlesbrough.
Christian Pulisic (AC Milan), Weston McKennie (Juventus) and 2022 World Cup midfielder Yunus Musah (AC Milan) play in Serie A. Malik Tillman (Bayer Leverkusen), Joe Scally (Borussia Monchengladbach) play in the Bundesliga — so does FC Augsburg’s exciting teenage defender Noahkai Banks, who is currently deciding between the U.S. and Germany for national team ties.
Alex Freeman (Villarreal) and Johnny Cardoso (Atlético Madrid) play in LaLiga. Folarin Balogun (Monaco), Timothy Weah (Marseille), Mark McKenzie (Toulouse) and Tanner Tessmann (Lyon) and, in a recent development, Giovanni Reyna (Strasbourg) play in Ligue 1, though Balogun could also move soon. Sergiño Dest and Ricardo Pepi play for PSV Eindhoven, the best team in the Netherlands.
No matter where you choose to start your European soccer journey, you’ll have some familiar American faces waiting for you.
As fun as the USMNT’s run to the round of 16 was (until it wasn’t), if the World Cup made you a soccer lover, it’s also probably because of all the other teams. Now you have all of this sudden knowledge about Cape Verde, Paraguay, Congo DR, Australia, Egypt, Ecuador, and especially Norway, and you have nothing to do with it.
Then again, the players who made the summer such a delight play club ball too. You just might have to work a little harder to find them. Here are some teams you might be interested in following.
SunderlandThis Premier League team will be pretty easy to find compared to some of the other names on this list.
Sunderland overachieved beautifully in the league last season and earned a spot in the Europa League, and though I’m a little worried they’re going to overextend and regress this season, adopting the Black Cats would give you access to both a fun home crowd and a number of familiar faces. That includes Switzerland veteran and captain Granit Xhaka, Haiti’s Wilson Isidor (scorer of another World Cup screamer), Senegal’s Habib Diarra (who scored twice this summer), stalwart Paraguay defender Omar Alderete and Netherlands’ Brian Brobbey, whose form looked as if it might turn the Dutch into contenders until manager Ronald Koeman went overly conservative in the knockout rounds.
Colo-ColoA heavyweight in Chilean soccer, they just signed your favorite 40-year-old goalkeeper, Cape Verde’s Vozinha, and their social media team understood the assignment.
𝐁𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐃𝐎
𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄
𝐁𝐄𝐌-𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐎Te esperamos en el Estadio Monumental 🏟⚪️⚫️#VamosCacique pic.twitter.com/ymqPvFTYGS
— Colo-Colo (@ColoColo) July 25, 2026
AtalantaThe Italian club are a consistent presence in European competitions, and they employ not only Musah and World Cup stalwarts such as Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Sead Kolasinac and Ivory Coast defender Odilon Kossounou, but also one of the most impressive scorers of the knockout rounds: Belgium’s Charles De Ketelaere, who posterized Tim Ream during Belgium’s win over the U.S. and was the only player in the tournament to score on Spain. (Transfer rumors suggest he might not still be with the club by September, but we’ll see.)
TrabzonsporA spicy coastal-city club and light-heavyweight in Turkish football, they employ your second-favorite Cape Verdean, Sidny Lopes Cabral, (scorer of that wonder goal against Argentina). They’re also in the playoffs for a spot in the Europa League, Europe’s second-level competition after the Champions League, and are reportedly set to sign ex-Liverpool star Mohamed Salah.
WatfordIf you’re keeping tabs on Berhalter and others in the English Championship, you can also tune in to Watford matches as well to say hello to friends like Australia’s speedy forward Nestory Irankunda, whose goal ruined Türkiye’s World Cup plans, and hard-nosed Congo DR midfielder Edo Kayembe, maybe their best player during their surprising draw against Portugal.
The 17-year-old attacking midfielder was a vital creative weapon during Mexico’s World Cup run, and though he can currently be seen playing for Club Tijuana in Liga MX — he scored in his season debut against León on July 25 — the transfer rumor industrial complex has tied him to countless clubs from Liverpool to Borussia Dortmund to Benfica (which also employ forward Andreas Schjelderup, Haaland’s curly-haired attacking partner for Norway.)
I’ve been focusing this piece primarily on the soccer world that awaits you in Europe, but if you’re a burgeoning American soccer fan, your own backyard also features some soccer-flavored delight.
Major League Soccer is facing a major existential moment as it attempts to capitalize on this wave of soccer buzz, but it prides itself on verifiably delightful fan environments, and it boasts not only brand-name stars such as Lionel Messi (Inter Miami), Son Heung-Min (LAFC) and now Antoine Griezmann (Orlando City) and Robert Lewandowski (Chicago Fire), but also increasingly dynamic teenage talent such as forward Julian Hall (Red Bull New York), winger Zavier Gozo (Real Salt Lake), midfielder Adri Mehmeti (Red Bull New York), full back Peyton Miller (New England), central defender Lucas Herrington (Colorado) and 16-year-old attacking midfielder Cavan Sullivan (Philadelphia), who’s already committed to a move to Manchester City when he turns 18.
MLS combines familiar faces with the future of the USMNT in a way you might find awfully appealing, though the fun continues further down the ladder. The USL Championship has both recognizable talent — Curacao goalkeeper Eloy Room plays for Miami FC, for example (though his return to club ball didn’t start swimmingly) — and, again, heartening fan culture. From Portland (Maine) to Miami to Portland (Oregon) to San Diego, there’s probably a nearby professional club you’d enjoy following.
8. Follow your Heart(s). Pursue Bodø/GlimtIf the World Cup’s underdog runs helped to rope you in this summer, I have good news: Those runs exist in club ball as well. Mind you, they’re every bit as disappointing in the end — you’ll end up celebrating quarterfinal runs and near-titles, not necessarily actual trophies — but they’re still life-givers.
One of my favorite stories last year came in Scotland, as Edinburgh’s Heart of Midlothian (Hearts, for short), one of the oldest clubs in the world, spent most of the season looking as if they would win their first Scottish title since 1960. They won their last seven home matches of the league season, and the atmosphere at every one of them was incredible. But they dropped quite a few points on the road, and a loss at Celtic on the final day of the season meant they finished two points short.
And then they lost a couple of their best players, and manager Derek McInnes, to Scotland’s other heavyweight club, Rangers.
I never mentioned this stuff was for the faint of heart.
Happy stories don’t usually have happy endings in a haves-and-have-nots world, but the best moments from a given season usually come when the Davids pull one over on the Goliaths.
Norway’s Bodo/Glimt is one of the sport’s most reliable Davids of late: They beat Porto and Italy’s Lazio on the way to the Europa League semifinals in 2024-25, then took down Manchester City, Atlético Madrid and Italian champion Inter Milan on the way to the Champions League round of 16 this past winter and spring. As a bonus, they’re also super fun to watch, occasionally sacrificing defensive stability for all-out attacking sequences and belting out “Chelsea Dagger” after home goals.
There are thousands of Bodo/Glimts to choose from in this universe. Italy’s Como is attempting to become a Serie A force and will play in the Champions League for the first time this season. The Netherlands’ NEC Nijmegen finished third in the Eredivisie last season and will soon compete in a playoff for their first Champions League spot as well. The gloriously named Viking toppled Bodo/Glimt for last year’s Norwegian title, their first in 34 years, and will soon compete for a Champions League spot.
If you’re looking for even greater degree of difficulty for your underdog stories, adopt Germany’s Schalke, an impossibly passionate club returning to the Bundesliga after three years in the second division. Or Saint-Étienne, 10-time French national champions who have fallen on hard times and are attempting to fight their way out of the second division. There’s also England’s Sheffield Wednesday, who finally escaped toxic ownership and will attempt to rebuild in the third division. Or if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, Girondins de Bordeaux, six-time French champions who haven’t yet escaped toxic ownership and have been relegated all the way to the sixth division. Know that this story really might not have a happy ending — their existence as a club is currently in doubt.
Of course, there’s always Wrexham, too. That one goes without saying.
9. Take in the Real Madrid soap operaSoap operas aren’t really my thing, but reality TV shows prove that people really enjoy mess, and Real Madrid are frequently the messiest club in the universe.
Last season, Real Madrid seemed to acknowledge that their player-first environment, which generally produces pretty loose, “superstars will figure things out for themselves” tactics, might be a little bit outdated; they hired former Real Madrid star and up-and-coming manager Xabi Alonso to modernize their tactical approach last season … and then fired him in January, in part because those superstars didn’t want to press and actually work within a structure.
It was a major “inmates running the asylum” sort of moment, and forever-messy club president Florentino Perez decided that the only solution from there was to hire the messiest of managers: Jose Mourinho.
Mourinho is an occasional tyrant who’s always happy with a microphone nearby — and he hasn’t won a league title anywhere in 11 years — and in his last job he sure seemed to question the character of Real Madrid star Vinícius Júnior after a potential racial abuse incident. Meanwhile, all the recent training reports have focused on words like “intensity” and all the things Alonso couldn’t coax out of this squad.
With Kylian Mbappé, Jude Bellingham, Vinicius Jr. and countless other talented stars, Real Madrid still have the potential to be immensely successful. Maybe Mourinho will produce some magic before his inevitably messy (second) divorce with the club. Or maybe immediate mess is unavoidable. And maybe that’s right up your alley.
We don’t only get international soccer during the summer. The club campaign features international breaks throughout the season, and the first one pops up on the schedule at the end of September.
It will include group stage matches for the UEFA Nations League — sort of an in-between-competitions competition that features stakes for qualifications and seeding for bigger tournaments — and matches like England vs. Spain, Netherlands vs. Germany, Italy vs. Belgium, Spain vs. Croatia, Portugal vs. Norway, Belgium vs. France, and France vs. Italy. Meanwhile, the U.S. just scheduled four friendlies, including one against Mexico in Arizona on Oct. 3, and qualification for next summer’s Africa Cup of Nations tournament will begin as well.
Again, soccer never stops, even when it does.
✔ today silver rate
✔ 2026 winter olympics
✔ chat gtp
✔ silver rate today
✔ silver rate today live
✔ 2030 winter olympics
Sports
