Amazing

In some respects, 2018 was a marvelous year for U.S. Soccer. The USWNT went unbeaten, won its 500th game and qualified for the 2019 World Cup with ease. 

In many other respects, 2018 was a poor year for U.S. Soccer. The USMNT didn’t record a single win of note and both the U-20 and U-17 women’s national teams flamed out in the group stage of their respective World Cups. Plus, U.S. Soccer had a divisive presidential election campaign, eventually settling on Carlos Cordeiro.

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. 

No one is going to deny Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are two of the greatest footballers of the last 20 years — perhaps even all time. But what if they didn’t play for the best clubs in the world? What if they played in smaller leagues? What if Messi and Ronaldo played in Ligue 1 and Liga NOS?

Well, they’d be Hatem Ben Arfa and Bas Dost, respectively.