The Weekly Rekrap: GOATS and puns

The World Cup starts next week. It’s a time for the world to come together and enjoy the beautiful game as the age old question of who will Germany beat in the final will again be answered. It will no doubt be a fascinating tournament with teams featuring world mega-stars and local heroes alike trying to represent their country on the world’s stage. Maybe Messi will even finally bring the World Cup Trophy back to Barcelona once and for all.

Anyway, a lot happened, this week - let’s take a look at some of it here in the Rekrap...

Gas crisis, what gas crisis?

America has a long and rich soccer history from the 1930 World Cup to the NASL. While the pro league would fold, at least once, it did provide with some fantastic moments and let fans see Pele and Johan Cruyff play on American soil. In addition, it had some fantastic commercials. Take a look at this set that Pablo Maurer dug up...

This week in altered photos...

You like memes and photoshop? Well so do some of our favorite athletes, who knew? Emily Sonnett took to the internet with her latest work of art settling once and for all who the GOAT is. IT’S EVEN A PUN.

Speaking of tax issues...

Aston Villa has them. It turns out that owner Tony Xia was keeping the club afloat but that doesn’t seem to be happening still. As a result, a massive tax bill piled up and the failure to win the playoff against Fulham to join the Premier League meant that no extra funds to pay the bill were coming in. But the team had a plan. Or did it? Catch up with everything happening with the storied club over on 7500 to Holte.

Politics and sports don’t... well, yeah it turns out they do...

Argentina cancelled their last pre-World Cup friendly which was scheduled to be played against Israel. The match was moved to Jerusalem by the Israel FA. As a result, the FA from Palestine protested the match saying that it was a PR stunt being used to give Israel good press after over 1,000 unarmed protesters were shot and dozens of Palestinians were killed last month. Deadspin has the whole story including reactions from some Argentina players.

World Cup ads galore...

World Cup ads are one of the best parts of the excitement around the tournament. When done well, less resemble advertisements, but more cinematic events with a more involved plot than Solo. This one from Beats by Dre is particularly good.

A new structure for the women’s leagues in England...

The FA has announced that it will restructure and re-brand its women’s soccer leagues. Teams will be split into two tiers under the name Women’s Super League with WSL 1 and WSL 2 having 10 teams each. In addition, the FA restructured the entire women’s pyramid and will be using promotion and relegation to determine where teams should be in the pyramid in future seasons.

Hope Solo with a World Cup bid endorsement...

A lot of people will be upset that Hope Solo is apparently actively campaigning against the US hosting the Men’s World Cup in 2026, but I hope that this opens the door for the former USWNT great to get a seat on the FIFA Executive Committee or whatever it’s called now. In response to the news, the former USWNT World Cup champion took to her own blog and clarified exactly what in the world she was talking about.

It isn’t everyday...

that you know your favorite players are reading the things you have to say about them (or other writers for that matter - DOYLE UN-MUTE ME YOU COWARD). As a lowly blogger I am beyond thrilled that I get a comment or two or a twitter like here or there, really, it’s the highlight of my life. So it must be pretty cool that the nice things that are said about players are being read by them out loud on the internet:

Your goals this week...

Here’s just a wonderful goal of a second division team beating an MLS side thanks go a goal scored by a man who trucks a defender into the ground.

FC Barcelona Femini won the Copa de la Reina thanks to this goal - in extra time - in stoppage time last weekend.

You should read...

About what internet posts turned an AI into.

You should listen to...

Something I somehow just now discovered - the I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats podcast. It has nothing to do with soccer, but a commentary track about how a song was written is a pretty cool concept and this is exceptionally well done.