With only a handful of matches remaining in World Cup qualifying, it’s become clear which nations are in serious danger of missing out on Russia next summer. While all will become clear in October, here are 25 global superstars who, if World Cup qualifying ended today, would either fail to appear at the tournament or would need to navigate a playoff to qualify.
Warning: Game of Thrones spoilers below (and Jean Michael Seri transfer spoilers if you're somehow DVRing that)
Transfer season is nearing its grand finale and storylines are all over the place and no one knows what will happen but everyone is excited. Similarly, America's favorite fantasy dragon incest jamboree has reached the conclusion of its penultimate season, and storylines are just as all over the place as the summer transfer window. In fact, I have noticed some striking similarities between the two.
Confirmation bias — the human tendency to solely interact with information that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs while simultaneously firebombing any real sort of learning or personal growth — has long been a massive hinderance to humanity.
Simon Mignolet is a solid guy. The 29-year-old Belgian shot-stopper isn’t renowned for his incredible reflexes, an impeccable command of his area or world-class distribution, but he’s pretty dependable. “He is solid, he is like a machine. You can always rely on him,” says Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp.
Wayne Rooney announced his retirement from international football on Wednesday, bringing a close to a tumultuous 14-year England career. While Rooney goes down in the record books as England’s all time leading goalscorer and most capped outfield player, his legacy is still a polarizing one given the profligacy of the Three Lions during that period.
Hey, so this is going well, don’t you think? To be honest, it's really going too well. Our Pulisic-O-Meter wasn't designed well enough to withstand this breakneck pace of USMNT wins in the Bundesliga.
After scoring against Bayern Munich in the German Super Cup to jump-start his 2017-18 season, Christian Pulisic opened his league campaign with a goal and an assist against Wolfsburg on Saturday.
Before Pep Guardiola came down from the mountaintop proclaiming the new age of the 4-3-3 with attacking width providing by the wide defenders, nobody knew what a full back was. Sure, Roberto Carlos once struck a football so hard that we all admitted their existence, but that was all anyone knew about the position. What did they do? Why were they there? It was hard to know and even harder to explain.
82 days have passed since we put a lid on the 2016-17 Premier League season, but now it’s time to do it all over again. We’ll be treated to the same storylines we’ve all come to know and love (Arsenal in crisis, Newcastle United on the verge of self-inflicted implosion, Manchester City spend a lot of money), but we’ve also been provided with some fresh takes to look forward to.
Christian Pulisic isn’t named Lionel Messi, he doesn’t play for Real Madrid and he’s never been on the cover of FIFA, so many North American and British folk are rightly confused about just how good he really is. He’s only scored five Bundesliga goals, so he must suck, right? Not so fast, Paris Saint-Germain’s latest die-hard supporter!
Why do you like Twitter? Because it’s an easy and convenient way to get highlights? Me too. If you gave any other answer you’re part of the world’s problems, and I truly hope you realize that.
I haven’t drank enough today to tell you about how it turns its ball and chain users into snidey, single-minded devilkin that prefer one marshmallow now as opposed to two later, but no social apparatus has ever been as unabashedly forward about how shallow and stupid it is while its users argue that it’s a wonderful tool for confirmation bias.