Lists

The 2018-19 season has been packed full of drama, emotions and even comedy. What happens on the pitch is usually in focus — players making tackles, scoring goals, playing beautiful soccer; all of that takes the cake in media attention. But managers get that attention too. After a goal or an important moment in a match, the camera always pans to the manager, showing their jubilation, anger or their stoicness. 

Thank you @StatsBomb. Thank you, thank you. When it comes to statistics, dribbles, key passes and xG tell us some, but they don’t tell us enough — namely, (Ronaldinho, Ronaldinho on the wall) who is the filthiest of them all?

But thanks to StatsBomb.com, we can now discern which footballer earns his keep in a metaphorical pigsty, living amongst the grime and fetid squalor like Jack London in “The People of the Abyss.” 

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the AS Roma Twitter feed is the best account in the business. If you don’t follow @ASRomaEN on Twitter, you may as well give up internetting. 

As ever, 2018 was a great year for the Roma Twitter account. With the year now over, the Roma admins ranked their top 50 tweets from 2018.

Peace, love and tolerance to all 

 
 

  
 
 

 
 

 

We had a lot to be thankful for in 2018 — a World Cup, a historic Real Madrid three-peat, the remarkable seasons from Luka Modric, Mohamed Salah and Kylian Mbappe, other things that I’m forgetting because I'm a goldfish boy. 

Here are 10 trends that I’ve managed to remember in the footballing calendar year of our Lord Gourav Mukhi 2018. 

Top Soccer Trends 2018

#1. Wall Tactics to the Fore 

Marcelo Brozovic's sliding stop.

To coincide with The Guardian’s excellent list of the 100 best male footballers in the world — compiled by a panel of 225 experts from 69 nations — we here at The18 have compiled our own list over the last couple years. There are no experts involved, there’s no rhyme or reason for anything, but we do hope you’ll join us on this adventure into the bowels of the beautiful game.

Stars — they're just like us! (Except for David Beckham and Zlatan Ibrahimovic — they're celebrating the holidays like only they can.) Here's a collection of how some top footballers celebrated Christmas.

Lionel Messi and family

Well, 2018 was something, wasn’t it?

Soccer in 2018 had a thrilling World Cup in Russia and an engrossing Women’s World Cup qualifying campaign around the world. Real Madrid (again!) won the Champions League and Manchester City had a record year in the Prem. Atlanta United obliterated attendance records in the U.S. while the USMNT took more than 400 days to hire a coach. El Tri gave fans hope at the World Cup with a win over Germany, only to once again go out in the Round of 16. 

When you break down soccer to its simplest form, it’s all about scoring goals. Score more than the other team and you win. 

Not all goals are created equally. While it’s easy to pick out the strongest, toughest, most impactful goals from the biggest matches, we here at The18 have picked out our favorite goals of 2018 for you to enjoy. 

Now, these aren’t all necessarily the best goals of the year (see: No. 17), just our favorites. Some were epic World Cup golazos. Some were literally from the training ground. 

FIFA has some excellent soundtracks from all over the world with a wide range of genres. Any time I fire up a previous version of the game just for fun, the soundtracks that come on always hit me with a wave of nostalgia.

FIFA 19 was released in September of this year, ten years since the release of the popular (and one of my personal favorites) FIFA 09. In that time, each game's soundtrack has been a fantastic edition.