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Day 2 is in the books, and it belonged to Mauricio Pochettino’s US Men’s National Team, who produced one of their best ever performances in an absolute 4-1 beatdown of Paraguay. Paraguay had conceded just ten goals in their entire 18-game qualification campaign in South America, but they folded like a house of cards against […]
First Sealed First
Good Rejected Back
Day 1 is in the books, and for a while, it looked like it might feature more red cards than goals. But then late game exploded to life with three second-half goals seeing Korea come from behind to beat the Czech Republic. I felt the Czechs could’ve started playing a bit earlier than the last […]
Marc Cucurella has been the focus of recent transfer rumors linking him with a potential summer departure from Chelsea, but for our left back, that’s all just noise and distraction and unnecessary worry at the moment. He’s fully focused on his first World Cup (he was not selected in 2022) and on delivering another trophy […]
One of the last remaining card-carrying members of Chelsea’s Bomb Squad is veteran defender Axel Disasi, who’s been surplus to requirements for two of the three years he’s been on the books, and has been trying to engineer an exit for at least the last 18 months. So far, he’s only managed two half-season loans, […]
USA 1994 was the first World Cup I was old enough to truly follow — a treasured family heirloom is the commemorative Italia 1990 Coca-Cola can my mother brought back from her visit to Venice that summer, but I was like eight at the time and have no real memory of the tournament itself. But […]
New chapter Stepping down Signing
Portugal and England both played their final preparatory matches for the World Cup last night, with both teams walking away with credible victories, 2-1 over Nigeria and 3-0 over Costa Rica, respectively. The win was especially notable in England’s case as Thomas Tuchel rolled out what very much seemed like his first-choice lineup “concept” for […]
The Premier League published their annual list of players released (or set to leave for free at the end of their contracts) from each club yesterday, which included the confirmation that four Academy youngsters are heading out the door at the end of the month. Chelsea’s list was actually among the shortest of any team. […]
Drama Involved Hmm
Argentina, on their tour of NCAA college football’s greatest settings, took on Iceland for their second and final preparatory match ahead of the World Cup, at Auburn University. And though the second half belonged to Lionel Messi, the first half belonged to (soon-to-be) our very own Valentín Barco, who scored one and set up another […]
Chelsea face yet another critical summer transfer window, the ninth in the reign of BlueCo, who seem no closer to actually executing on their grand promises of winning and competing for trophies. They’ve said a lot of big words and wrote a lot of big checks on a lot of massive contracts (certainly in length, […]
Expensive Only Hmm
The day undoubtedly belonged to former Chelsea Academy prospect Michael Olise, who scored all three goals for France in their 3-1 warm-up (and send-off) friendly win against Northern Ireland last night in Lille. But Malo Gusto also had a pretty decent game after coming on at the half, collecting the assist on the third goal […]
Gabriel “Gaga” Slonina was a bit of an unknown when he arrived in 2022, in BlueCo’s first window, but he arrived with a pretty strong resumé from MLS, especially for an 18-year-old. He was the second youngest signing in league history at the time (now eighth), becoming the youngest ever starting goalkeeper a couple years […]
Most Hmm First
The 14th year of the WAGNH Community Ratings is in the books, and the highest rated player throughout the course of the season is thus automatically declared the WAGNH Player of the Year. Admittedly, this methodology is not without its flaws, but I think there’s some intrinsic value in using the immediate reactions after each […]
Preparatory matches ahead of the World Cup are continuing all around North America, and in some cases, are even drawing some impressive crowds, like the 90k+ who showed up to watch Argentina against Honduras last night in College Station. College Station is home to Texas A&M University, and in true Texas fashion, houses a stadium […]
The World Cup starts later this week, which means all the participating teams are now fully focused on their preparations. For most, that includes one or two warm-up friendlies as well, though it’s unclear what the point of any such games may be when you use 22 players for one half each — it’s not […]
Termination Hmm Keen
Involved Sealed Hmm
Catalan media have started to make a fair bit of noise over Marc Cucurella in recent days, with a story in La Vanguardia making some of the strongest and most definitive claims yet about the left back’s future. As they put it, Cucurella “believes his time at Chelsea, after four seasons, has come to an […]
It’s turned into a rebuilding year for Chelsea Women, with plenty of changes behind the scenes, quite a few disappointing results on the pitch, and multiple seismic shifts among the playing squad, but the future’s still looking bright given the ambition and the talent of the team. Case in point: two of the six nominees […]
Hard working Long Lol