When Everton paid Arsenal an initial fee of £28 million for Alex Iwobi on August 8, 2019, plenty of eyebrows were raised; the general perception was that they overpaid, and rightly so. Iwobi at the time was a 23-year old squad player for Arsenal, with flashes of talent here and there but no real consistency…

Right-footed right-wingers are a bit of a dying breed in football these days. The current generation of young footballers grew up watching the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Arjen Robben cut in from their weak side and curl a shot to the far post; it’s almost become an expectation that wingers play on the opposite…

The Serie A season is far from being over but Hellas Verona have already achieved all their goals. First of all, relegation has been avoided for the second straight season as the team is sailing smoothly mid-table with ambitions of qualifying for the brand new UEFA Europa Conference League.   Manager Ivan Jurić, just like…

After barely surviving relegation in the previous season, Aston Villa have started the first half of their Premier League campaign with a strong showing of expansive football under manager Dean Smith. Currently sitting on 26 points, 8 points off top 4, Villa have found themselves comfortably in the top half of the table with 3…

Bolstered by the unshakable trust of Marcelo Bielsa, Patrick Bamford has come into his own in the Premier League this season since Leeds’ return to the top-flight last summer. A player who has previously proved erratic, a culmination of finishing maturity and refining his role in a highly functional attacking unit has seen Bamford catch…

In July 2017, Borussia Mönchengladbach signed a talented young midfielder from German second-tier club TSV 1860 Munich. His name: Florian Neuhaus. Gladbach then decided to send the 20-year-old back on loan to the second division with Fortuna Düsseldorf. Neuhaus helped the Flingeraner win the championship in the 2017/18 season, playing 27 league matches; scoring six…

Two developments have sparked some well-needed life into Czech football this season: That Tomáš Souček has surpassed expectations since signing for West Ham United last summer for €21 million, and the sudden rise of 19-year-old Senegalese striker Abdallah Sima, who has now scored seven league goals in just nine appearances for first-placed Slavia Prague, taking…

When Danish international Christian Eriksen joined Inter in January 2020, his unveiling by the club was a glamourous one. He was presented at La Scala, the premier opera house in Milan, and wore a stylish black suit, which was quite fitting considering the city’s status in the fashion world. Unfortunately for the former Tottenham Hotspur…

Despite a significant slump in local competitiveness and constant economic plights, the Argentine first division (currently known as the Liga Profesional de Fútbol) continues to generate interest all around the world as the search for the next up-and-coming world-beater to come from such a prolific line of production continues.   However, in recent years this…

Football has bore witness to countless rags-to-riches stories, but perhaps no country has had more than Brazil. Dani Alves would wake up every day at 5 a.m. to help his father pick melons, Rivaldo grew up in a poor area of Recife and lost several teeth due to chronic malnutrition, and Gabriel Jesus painted the…