July 14, 2012 marked the first-team debut of a 13-year-old kid from Drammen, Norway. Since then, the world has been witness to the record-breaking career of one of soccer’s fastest rising stars: Martin Ødegaard.
When you are a kid, it’s easy to get caught up in your own fantasies. You can day dream about having superpowers, find a cool looking rock and think that it has magical properties, see something totally explainable but think you’ve just witness a miracle. There are no ground rules when it comes to interpreting situations as a kid, and the situation in which these 55 kids were placed in 2013 was ridiculous to begin with. How would you react if you were seemingly between the ages of 7 and 10, and had to face two professional athletes? In soccer kids fail sometimes, but this a unheard of.
It's obvious that the overall development of USA youth soccer is critical to ever seriously be a men's World Cup contender.
If American soccer clubs continue to focus on team training in age group sessions, plus focus on excellence in speed and agility work and functional training, players can reach their maximum potential. This needs to be done on a comprehensive basis.
It appears this is the case, as a sampling of recent All-American prep players would indicate.
Unless you are a diehard fan of Spanish football, you may not have even heard of Unión Esportiva Cornellá (or UE Cornellá as they are more commonly known). This small team from Catalonia was founded in 1951 and plies its trade in Group 3 of the Segunda División B, which represents the third tier of Spanish football.
Literally two seconds into this video, you get hooked. One guy nutmegs Man City, and it is amazing.
Want to feel bad about yourself? Watch this amazing La Masia goal that will leave you wondering why your soccer skills are so futile. These two kids literally just dystroyed an entire defense, and it looked effortless. Lets break it down:
Barcelona’s La Masia seems like an unstoppable, unending flow of talent, and this La Masia goal seems to reinforce that.
The famed academy recently was forced to release several of its players, but that doesn’t seem to have made any difference in the slightest, because the goals are still flowing and the talent is still high-five-ing.
Behold, the La Masia goal of the week, courtesy of the Alevin A (U12) squad.
Who is Alvaro Morata? Well, soon he could be a legend. In only his second season with Juventus, the 22-year-old Spanish striker has already carved his name into Juventus’ record books.
He netted his fifth goal in five consecutive Champions League matches for Juventus, tying the record set by legendary striker Alessandro Del Piero in 1995-96.
If you haven’t watched a single minute of soccer in your life, you still know who David Beckham is – even if you don't know who David Beckham's son is. That’s the status he has raised himself to, and it was his career in soccer that allowed him to reach it.
It was without a doubt a big week for soccer fans all around the world, with the UEFA Champions League kicking off its campaign. Millions of fans gathered to see their favorite team compete on the biggest club soccer stage in the world. And while Messi, Ronaldo, and Co. are working hard to lift the trophy at the end of the campaign, another UEFA tournament kicked off simultaneously.