Lionel Messi has retired from the Argentina national team, closing an extraordinary chapter in the history of the sport. We start by looking back at what Messi has meant to Argentina and to football more broadly before getting into the debates that inevitably follow a moment like this: Messi or Maradona? Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo? […]

For generations of players, pickup soccer wasn’t a development program. Nobody had to manufacture it. You found a park, put two shoes down for goals, picked teams, and played. And you figured things out. There was no coach stopping the game. No parent protecting you. No age bracket ensuring everyone was at the same stage […]

U.S. Soccer is taking over U.S. Youth Soccer, the largest youth soccer organization in the country. The move is being framed as an effort to unify a fragmented youth soccer landscape—but what does it actually mean for the American soccer ecosystem? We examine the potential consequences of consolidating more power under U.S. Soccer, particularly given […]