Social Media

Danny Gildea set a goal. He had seen others have success with soccer training videos online and didn’t see any reason why he couldn’t do just as well, if not better. So he set a target of 30-40,000 followers and created @gps_soccerassassins on Instagram.

He now has more than 450,000 followers and has worked with some of the biggest soccer companies in the world, including Adidas. For comparison, USMNT captain Michael Bradley has 97.5K followers on Instagram, Jozy Altidore 207K and Landon Donovan 165K. 

Cristiano Ronaldo is an inspiration to 30-somethings everywhere. He shows us that despite no longer being the target market and despite no contemporary pop songs being written about our nightly hijinks (“I don’t know about you but I’m feeling 33” just sounds sad), we are still human people. We are still capable of launching ourselves towards the heavens like a SpaceX rocket before getting one over on those nasty, garbage bin 40-somethings in goal.

Last week, U.S. Soccer announced its first youth initiative since the USMNT’s World Cup failure. Bio-banding was presented as a new way to encourage technical development in youth players big and small. It was an idea put forth by the U.S. Soccer High Performance Department. But it turns out, U.S. Soccer should have just asked Facebook, because scores of our readers responded and apparently every single one of them knows exactly how to fix U.S. soccer. 

AS Roma did it. The Giallorossi rallied from a three-goal, first-leg deficit to knock off Lionel Messi and Barcelona, 4-4 on aggregate on away goals. It was a thrilling win, with two players who scored own goals in the first leg making up for it with goals in the second leg. But perhaps more thrilling than the incredible comeback on Tuesday was the response from the AS Roma Twitter feed in the aftermath. 

We may have done it — we may have found the biggest fair-weather football fan on the planet. All it took was one incredible kick of the ball. 

Football fans typically pride themselves in devoting themselves to a team. Normally fans will support two teams: their local club and their national team. Americans might add a European team as well, but typically the most dedicated fans focus on one or two teams. 

Then there’s this guy, Moe. 

Mario Melchiot knows more about football than you or I. He knows more about football than the both of us combined. A native of Amsterdam, Melchiot was a product of the legendary Ajax youth system, making his debut for the first team as a 20-year-old before transferring to Chelsea at just 22.

He played extensively in the Premier League for the Blues, Birmingham City and Wigan Athletic, as well as amassing 22 international caps for the Netherlands over an eight-year international spell.