Opinion

Hey all you cool cats and kittens, Tiger King has been the talk of quarantine — it's so cringeworthy that you can’t stop watching. It's a Netflix documentary that was supposed to expose the exotic animal trade and cruel treatment, but it had way more than just cat talk. From relationships to feuds and crime to exotic animals, Tiger King has it all. 

If, for some odd reason, the cast had to be put into a football match, here's who I would name to my starting XI:

You would be hard pressed to find a sportswriter in America who didn’t grow up reading Sports Illustrated. The iconic magazine brought the sports we love to life each week with superb writing and incredible photography.

Sadly, Sports Illustrated is being destroyed by The Maven, the company that now owns the publication.

Words can’t describe how I feel about the Belarusian Premier League. Trying to play through a pandemic is one thing but putting fake fans in the stadium to boost the atmosphere is a whole new low. FC Dynamo Brest does get some creativity points for how the club carried it out, but the Belarus mannequin situation is also pretty creepy.

Our fans from all over the world seem to be happy! Thanks for your support, guys! pic.twitter.com/wX4dCLDtUH

Two of the fastest players to ever play in the English Premier League were Eden Hazard and Theo Walcott. Both players have tremendous dribbling abilities and the two showed off those skills on April 8. Hazard in 2019 and Walcott in 2008. The only question is: Who had the best run of Hazard vs. Walcott.

OTD: Hazard vs. Walcott

Walcott Assist vs. Liverpool, 2008

You know that feeling after the World Cup group stage when, after feasting on three games per day for 15 straight days and growing used to having Rob Stone and Guus Hiddink as the most stable relationships in your life, it suddenly comes to an abrupt halt? That one day off before the start of the knockout rounds and the radio silence that comes with it hits you like a ton of sad, nostalgic, lonely bricks.

We like to think of soccer as being special, with teams that are “more than a club” and inspire you to never walk alone. But during the novel coronavirus pandemic, soccer is being exposed as the disgusting fraud it is, one that leaches off its fans with no shame. 

The last few weeks have been tough for football fans around the globe. Soccer has ground to a halt as leagues quite rightly do all they can to prevent the spread of COVID-19, leaving viewers with no sports to watch and the athletes themselves cooped up inside like the rest of us.

In football’s absence we’re left to discuss purely quantitative things: the 25-point gap between Liverpool and Manchester City, the number of days between now and a hypothetical restart of the season, the amount of money that everyone’s losing during the shutdown, etc. 

Amid all of the chaos and cancelations, soccer players around world have kept themselves entertained with the so-called “Stay At Home Challenge.” Lionel Messi showed his skills at juggling toilet paper, but there’s a new front-runner in town. In the lead now for the best stay at home challenge video is the Howard women’s soccer team.

Football clubs in Europe are among the wealthiest organizations in the world. They toss around nine-figure transfer fees like it’s nothing while charging exorbitant prices for entry into their stadiums. 

And yet, these same clubs who regularly lead the list of richest sports teams in the world have been among the first to claim they don’t have money to pay their players as soccer has screeched to a halt amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Whilst soccer has all but come to a halt around the globe, many fans have turned to Netflix to get their footie fix. The streaming behemoth has a fantastic library of soccer-centric movies, shows and documentaries; in fact, some of the best Netflix shows are about soccer.