What Soccer Players Don't Need a Soccer Ball? Also: Check Out My Google Doc

Happy New Year! My latest piece for ESPN is up. I picked the 11 best players in Europe — without the ball:

On the left wing, we'll go with Barcelona's Raphinha. Per Soccerment, maybe we should be going with Kylian Mbappé, who despite a disappointing start to his Madrid career leads all players in xT received from passes. The problem: He's active off the ball only when his team is in possession. Sure, the threat of him on the counter means opponents have to adjust the way they attack in case they lose the ball, but otherwise, Mbappe is one of the worst under-30 defensive attackers I've ever seen.

Raphinha, meanwhile, was a fantastic presser at Leeds and does the same for Hansi Flick's Barcelona. On top of that, he fits perfectly on the opposite side of Lamine Yamal in what's becoming a common winger duo at the highest level of the game. One player touches the ball a ton and draws the defense's attention, while the other one crashes into the space created on the other side of the field. To put some numbers on that, Raphinha has received the 12th-most xT of any player in Europe, while Yamal sits all the way down in 108th.

Also, I was on Infinite Football guest and real-life great friend Kevin Lincoln’s podcast-slash-newsletter to talk about a million different things. He recently started the newsletter, Good Moves, to talk about how he gets smoked by 10 year olds when he plays chess, why he plays chess, and what it can all tell us about how we live. He’s my favorite writer; go subscribe.

Also, also: as you, a subscriber to this newsletter, may have noticed: I haven’t been able to keep up a consistent pace with this newsletter. Something about writing a thing about another thing I just spent a long time writing — not quite working for me. So, in order to corral all of my work in one place, I’m instead creating a Google doc , where I’ll post the links to everything I write or record, soon after writing or recording.

As for the newsletter: it will continue to exist, and I’ll find a way or a reason to keep sending out occasional updates. What exactly that will look like: I don’t know! But for now, here are two things I read and watched that I enjoyed:

-Read: Len Deighton’s Game, Set, Match trilogy
-Watched: Juror #2 (give me your Nicholas Hoult stock)

Happy, uh, Thursday!