“We didn’t expect to write about flowery wallpapers in 2024, that’s for sure. Or Taylor Swift. We did expect to write about Jurgen Klopp, Erik ten Hag, and Lamine Yamal, and Andy Murray retiring. It was a wild old year in the world of sport and we wanted to take a moment to look back at — and celebrate — the excellent work of our writers over the past 12 months, covering not just football (soccer), but tennis, the Olympics, the Paralympics, and athletics, too. We wanted to know what they liked, too, so we asked them to nominate articles, podcasts or videos produced by their colleagues and tell us why. So here are all the pieces of work selected by writers, editors and producers on The Athletic UK and North American soccer staff (the editors in the U.S. did their own version of this, too). Enjoy! …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)
Johan Cruyff and the incredible wallpaper drawings that explain modern football
Best of 2024 from The Athletic UK: Our staff pick their favourite pieces (by their colleagues)
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“Earlier in the season, Frank Lampard spent some time with 
“English football in 2024 served up a bit of everything: stunning strikes, comical own goals, baffling errors, refereeing controversies, promotions, relegations, trophies lifted, CVs sifted and much more besides. So as 2024 draws to a close, we have decided ignore those opposed to calendar-year stats and unify all 94 teams (yes, Sutton United and Forest Green Rovers, you may no longer be in the 
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“… The map. The map page shows a location-map for the 20 clubs in the 2024-25 La Liga, with recently-promoted and -relegated teams noted. (Promoted in 2024: Valladolid, Leganés, Espanyol. Relegated in 2024: Cádiz, Almería, Granada.) The map also shows the 17 Autonomous Communities of Spain, and the 20 largest Spanish metropolitan areas. Those 20 largest Spanish metro-areas, with their 2018 population estimates, are listed at the top-centre of the map-page. …”
“It had been a wasteful night for 
“It has been hard to find fault with 
“This week brings up the midway point of the 2024-25 
“Was it a winning goal that never seemed on the cards or a winning goal that felt inevitable. Either way, 
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“Barcelona have been prepared to play with fine margins under Hansi Flick this season, but the gap at the top of La Liga — just goal difference before the visit of in-form Atletico Madrid this weekend — is starting to feel uncomfortably slim. They took 33 points from a possible 36 to start the campaign but have since won just one of their last six games in the Spanish top flight. Their 
“A sharp, anxious intake of breath, followed by a round of applause that carries a mixture of quiet admiration and, more than anything, relief. On other occasions, it ends with supporters shaking their heads and asking why. We are talking about the crowd reaction to — and I’m borrowing this description from a colleague who is a regular at Stamford Bridge — ‘the most dangerous pass in football’. 
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“Amad scored a brilliant late winner in the Manchester derby shortly after earning the penalty that had put Ruben Amorim’s team level as 
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“The setting was 
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“Ruben Amorim has faced a range of clubs during his first six games as 
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“Even now, 20 years on, it is a moment which takes the breath away. Steven Gerrard had no right to score the goal that he himself described as the most important of the 186 he plundered for 
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“David de Gea said on day one that he wanted to ‘make history’ with 
“Less talk, more action? Having stepped out of Austrian football for the first time in his career, Christian Ilzer has taken the opposite approach as he seeks to establish himself and to find his feet at Hoffenheim. Appointed to the top job little more than a week ago, the new head coach took over an alarming situation, with his new European-qualified team teetering just above a weak-looking bottom three. Yet he immediately felt that making time to chat was the best start. …”
“While they were humbled by an attack-minded Monaco on Friday evening at the Stade Louis II, as 
“… A — Paulino Alcantara Not 
“A team flying at the top of the league playing at home against a side without a win in six games brought the result you would expect, as Arne Slot’s 
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“Five games into the new-look 
“The numbers alone are frightening. Viktor Gyokeres has made 25 appearances for club and country so far in 2024-25. He has scored 33 goals. He was top scorer in the Portuguese top flight for Sporting CP last season with 29 goals (eight more than anyone else). He has already scored 16 in the league this season (again, eight more than anyone else) and only failed to score in six of those 25 games in all competitions. He scored nine for Sweden in the recent Nations League group stages. He has scored 67 goals in 69 matches for Sporting since joining from 
“… Hello! 
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“Before every training session, the Sudan men’s football team line up together and link arms. The captain calls them to attention for a moment of silence, which is broken by another shout before they clap three times in unison. It doesn’t matter where they are; it’s when they put everything else to one side and focus solely on football. They can’t play matches at home because, since April 2023, the north-east African country has been gripped by a bitter civil war between the government-led national army and the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF). As many as 150,000 people have been killed, 
“Modern football coverage has never been so focused on individuals, at a time when the game itself has never been so systemic. The reaction to 
“At a time of significant uncertainty around 
“It was the elephant in the room that Arne Slot went out of his way to address. Up until the last international break, 
“From the local businessmen propping up boyhood clubs to the Gulf states chasing reflected glories, an eclectic mix has taken over English football’s top 20 clubs. Owners of 
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“The history of soccer in the United States is littered with failed leagues, all attempting to do the same thing: Americanize the world’s game. For nearly a century, proponents of the sport in the U.S. altered the long-standing rules of the game to make it more high-scoring, more action-packed, less… foreign. Some of those rule changes and innovations — the use of substitutes, for example, or the backpass law — were truly groundbreaking and 
“Has the Premier League title race been whittled down to two teams after just 11 games of the season? Leaders Liverpool had the dream weekend after victory over Aston Villa coupled with defeat for Manchester City against Brighton – and 
“Different season, same 
“Even before Galatasaray signed Victor Osimhen on loan from 
“The FA Cup – the oldest football tournament in the world – begins its 144th edition on Friday the 2nd of November 2024. The number of teams entered has increased from 732 to 745, and the growth of the 9th tier is the reason for the increase. The lowest-placed team to make it to the 1st Round this year is Hednesford Town (of south Staffordshire), who are in the 8th tier, in the Northern Premier League D1-West, and who are currently drawing an impressive 1,265 per-game (in home league matches). …”
“Today should have been Thomas Tuchel’s inauguration day. The man who 
“Fairytales continued in the 
“All of a sudden, 
“It was a very good weekend for Liverpool, and a pretty good weekend for the Premier League. It’s one round of games, and blips and quirks do happen. But that three of the top four on Saturday morning could lose felt not only invigorating – maybe this isn’t a league entirely predetermined by how much money you have – but also, perhaps, part of a pattern. And that pattern is of football that is a bit patchy, a bit scratchy, a bit lacking the sort of fluidity and quality we’ve become used to, which is perhaps not so good. Moisés Caicedo’s equaliser aside, Chelsea’s draw at Manchester United in 
“There is an understanding that a league table does not truly “take shape” until clubs have played 10 of their allotted matches in that season’s competition. It is an ancient and arbitrary threshold we have created for ourselves, but it has merit. First, it is a nice round number. Second, it’s… double figures. …”
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“Conventional wisdom has it that being tall is advantageous. The problem with conventional wisdom is that it’s often wrong. There are studies that correlate height with happiness and higher salaries, admittedly at the cost of shorter lifespans. In certain sports, elite athletes are almost exclusively big, such as basketball, rowing (except the cox) and volleyball (except the libero). Successful Olympic swimmers have become 
“Jhon Duran. Villa Park. Champions League nights. It is a combination that has provided nothing but unbridled joy to Aston Villa so far. 
“It was 
Scissors Kick 