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Five things for football fans to be thankful for this Thanksgiving

By on November 26, 2015

Barcelona’s golden trio

“I’m lucky. I’ve played with so many wonderful forwards over the years,” said Lionel Messi, per Eurosport. “I had a great connection with Ronaldinho. I played with Samuel Eto’o, with Thierry Henry, with Pedro, David Villa, Alexis [Sanchez]. But I have to say that it is hard to top lining up alongside Neymar and Suarez. They are two players at the top of their games.”

Barcelona have had many great attacking forces over the years. There were the days of Romario, Koeman, Stoichkov, and Laudrup in the nineties and then Pepe Guardiola heralded an even better dream-team lineup as a coach this time with Lionel Messi, Samuel Eto’o and Thierry Henry. Now Barcelona are blessed again to find yet another such trio on their hands: Messi, Neymar, and Luis Suarez. Forget Barcelona, this front-line is gunning to become the best of all time.

Like Alfredo Di Stefano, Francisco Gento and Ferenc Puskas at Real Madrid in the fifties, or George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton in Manchester during the sixties and Gerd Mueller, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Uli Hoeness with Bayern Munich in the seventies, Barca’s trio are a once-in-a-generation sight to behold. Last week, they destroyed Real Madrid 4-0, with Messi coming on only as a sub. When Messi returned the the starting lineup against Roma in the Champions League, well…there’s no use attempting to describe it with words. THIS happened:

Suarez is at his peak, Messi has been at an unparalleled plateau for years, and Neymar is still growing as a superstar. When Messi was injured, the Brazilian took another step up and has scored twelve goals in eleven league games so far this season. Together, the trio have bagged one-hundred-and-twenty-one goals in the calendar year of 2015 so far — fifteen more goals than Real Madrid’s entire squad.

The only thing that stands between this trio and the golden legends of old are back-to-back championships. Last season Barca won the treble, one more this year would cement this side in the history books. They’re certainly on their way, currently leading La Liga. Real Madrid’s front-line of Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema simply cannot compete with the coherency that Barca’s trio have demonstrated. But as Jimmy Bullard might say: “No, football’s the winner.”

Jamie Vardy and Leicester City’s historic run

Every year, there’s a breakout team in the Premier League to be romanticized. In recent years it has been Southampton, Swansea City or West Ham United and this time around Leicester City are sitting atop the league table, their squad spearheaded by record-breaking scorer Jamie Vardy, who is enjoying a meteoric rise from non-league football. But as opposed to years past, there’s less hyperbole here. Leicester have only suffered one loss of their opening thirteen matches of the campaign and have won five out of their last six matches playing attractive, attacking football.

Vardy has scored in ten consecutive league games to make Leicester the top scorers in the league, but he’s not just representing The Foxes; his fairly-tale rise form the depths of English football has inspired a generation of young English players.

Admittedly, their story may not last much longer. This weekend they face Manchester United, then Swansea City, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, and Manchester City in December. If that doesn’t take Claudio Ranieiri’s men down a notch or two, then a meeting with Tottenham in mid-January and a run of fixtures against Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal in early February seems likely to knock them back towards mid-table. But let’s enjoy the run while it lasts.

Sepp Blatter’s demise

If any lasting memory of this year will endure in the football world, it will be for Sepp Blatter’s downfall at FIFA. It took the world’s media, the US and Swiss governments and the vehement hate of many millions of football fans, but now FIFA’s Blatter infection is finally cleansed. Here’s to a cleaner, Blatter-free FIFA in 2016!

Managerial round table in the Premier League

The beauty of it is sometimes lost in mires upon mires of rumors, speculation and scandals, but it’s not every year that we get to witness so many of the world’s most renowned, outspoken, and flamboyant managers battling it out in the same league as Jose Mourinho, Jurgen Klopp, Arsene Wenger and Louis van Gaal go head to head in the Premier League. Pep, the door is wide open, come on over and we’ll have a complete set next season!

New stadiums bringing European atmosphere to MLS

Over the course of their twenty-year history, the San Jose Earthquakes have drove up and down the Bay Area to train and play. This season, however, they christened their new Avaya Stadium and a training facility to boot. The gorgeous arena joins thirteen other soccer-specific stadiums in Major League Soccer, which is continuously developing European-style arenas that bring the league to a new level in atmosphere and matchday attendance. The last four teams in the MLS Cup this year all operate their own venues.

Football Every Day wishes you a happy and warm Thanksgiving!

Homepage photo credit: By Danilo Borges/copa2014.gov.br Licença Creative Commons Atribuição 3.0 Brasil [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.