As has been said on many occasions, football is a beautiful game. With it, we laugh, we cry and we sometimes throw things at our television screens, but that doesn't diminish our passion.
What might accomplish that, however, is the constant need for social media to single-handedly try and shatter the illusion that surrounds these overpaid heroes we watch week in and week out.
Football and fashion go hand in hand. Since the playing days of George Best, Pele and Johan Cruyff, we've always looked to footballers for the latest in style. Here are 13 footballers, both male and female, that have their own fashion lines or collections.
Christmas is widely considered to be the most wonderful time of the year by many, but football is different. There is no winter break and many teams will be thinking of the Boxing Day game as opposed to a turkey dinner, and it can be hard. What would make it even harder, however, is awarding those sides with what can only be described as the worst Christmas gifts of all time.
Chelsea — Crowd Noise Generator
The Guardian's annual list of the 100 best footballers is in the process of coming out. How does it compare with our list of 100 footballers? Check it out.
100. Joe Allen
99. Steve McNulty
98. Gabor Kiraly
97. Kolo Toure
96. Burrito Martinez
95. Hobbit Bermudez
94. Alex Teixeira
93. Fred
We're going to do you a big favor. We know that, right now, you are panicking because you haven't figured out what to get that special someone for Christmas / her birthday / Valentine's Day / graduation / insert whatever holiday you want here.
No matter what the holiday, the ten gifts below are perfect for the soccer lover in your life.
Football is a harsh business, particularly so for managers. Sometimes, simply winning matches isn’t enough to placate fickle supporters and owners. With exorbitant amounts of money being pumped into the game, the business of hiring and firing managers is a particularly trigger-happy one.
With clubs only a loss away from entering crisis mode, the decisions made are occasionally downright stupid. In modern football, at the risk of sounding old, the men in charge aren't given enough time to succeed.
Here are 10 managerial sackings that history will not look kindly upon.
There is no rest in professional sports. As soon as one champion is crowned, teams begin preparing to wrest their title away. Can the Seattle Sounders repeat in 2017? Can Toronto FC take the final step? What big players will move in, around or out of the league?
MLS quickly jumped into 2017 with the Expansion and Waiver drafts having already taken place. Here’s a look at the five biggest transactions to take place in this young MLS offseason.
In the sport of soccer, there isn’t anything worse than a diver, a flopper or a simulator, whichever derogatory term you prefer. Any half-decent spectator is appalled by the sight of these adults rolling around and screaming in agony when nobody even touched them.
It's one of the worst sins you can commit and thoroughly deserving of a yellow card. These eight gentlemen in particular would do particularly well on the diving board at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
You don’t ever work on your toe poke, admit it. It’s not a skill you frequently pull off after telling your mates which corner your about to put your shot in during warmups. You’d be called a child and laughed off the pitch, your ambitious toe punt looking nothing like a clean hit off the laces or a swerving effort with the instep.
But contrary to accepted reasoning, the toe poke is actually the hallmark of a genius. Legends like Ronaldo, Romario, Ronaldinho, Andriy Shevchenko and Diego Maradona all had the infamous action down cold.
It was over eight years ago on a cold night in Moscow that Manchester United defied the odds to defeat Chelsea and win the UEFA Champions League, their first victory in the competition since 1999. It was a monumental achievement from the Red Devils, and, to this day, it remains the club's last great European triumph.
Eight years on, it's interesting to take a look at what the 14 players who appeared on the night are up to now.