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It’s been nearly half a year since The18 dropped a Spotify playlist. It’s about time to dust off the records and pump out another 18-track playlist banger. This summer’s Best Soccer Songs Mix has some of 2021’s biggest hits, along with a couple songs I promise you haven’t heard before.

Leave it to Fox to fuck up the biggest soccer match of the year. The 2021 Copa América final was supposed to be on cable on FS1, a baseball game getting the network broadcast on FOX. But the match was nowhere to be found on FS1 as it kicked off, thrown to the obscure FS2 because of another boring baseball game going long.

Then things really got bad.

Have you ever turned on men's soccer at the Olympics and wondered, "who the heck are these guys?" The two sides on the field usually consist of a few players you might have heard of before, along with a bunch of nobodies. Unlike other international tournaments like the World Cup or Copa América, only certain players are eligible to play because of a Olmypic soccer age limit — which FIFA put in place to delineate the Olympic tournament from the World Cup. 

International tournaments often seem like a red carpet event for the biggest names in world football, yet often the most intriguing players on the pitch are the up-and-coming stars, the b-listers of the footballing world, if you will.

Euro 2020 introduced us to a wide range of talented young players. Some were familiar by name and statistical output, but this was the first chance for them to prove themselves on such a large stage. Others were relative unknowns, ony entering the public footballing consciousness within the last month.

Soccer is unique in so many ways, and perhaps no play in all of sports is more meaningful than the penalty kick. 

Points are more scarce in soccer than they are in any other sport, and no other sport includes one play with such a high percentage chance of scoring.

A game that features 22 players on the pitch is condensed into a one-on-one battle for a few crucial seconds, and in the end, there are only two possible outcomes: either a goal is scored or the ball fails to cross the goal line — with the former being the most likely.