And win. Saylor’s goals have always involved the literal kind constructed from posts and netting. Her single-minded focus has cost her a lot, but it’s also earned her recognition as the top female college player in the US. She doesn’t get attached, she never gets distracted, and she could care less what anyone thinks of her. Meeting Adler Beck, the notorious player celebrated worldwide and coveted by women everywhere, challenges her indifference. But Saylor perfected the art of appearing unbothered a long time ago, and her scoring percentage is even higher off the pitch. Might as well add a gorgeous German to the tally. Because only a fool would fall for a superstar known for breaking hearts alongside records. And no one has ever accused Saylor Scott of being a fool.

    At last count, it had approximately 214 million social media followers, more than any other sports club except Real Madrid CF--and by one earlier measure, more than all thirty-two NFL teams combined. It has more in common with multinational megacompanies like Netflix or small nation-states than it does with most soccer teams. No wonder its motto is "More than a club." But it was not always so. In the past three decades, Barcelona went from a regional team to a global powerhouse, becoming a model of sustained excellence and beautiful soccer, and a consistent winner of championships. Simon Kuper unravels exactly how this transformation took place, paying special attention to the club's two biggest stars, Johan Cruyff and Lionel Messi, who is arguably the greatest soccer player of all time. Messi joined Bar�a at age thirteen and, more than anyone, has been the engine and standard-bearer of Barcelona's glory. But his era is coming to an end--and with it, a once-in-a-lifetime golden run. This book charts Bar�a's rise and fall.Like many world-beating organizations, FC Barcelona closely guards its secrets, granting few outsiders access to the Camp Nou, its legendary home stadium. But after decades of writing about the sport and the club, Kuper was given access to the inner sanctum and the people behind the scenes who strive daily to keep Barcelona at the top. Erudite, personal, and capturing all the latest upheavals, his portrait of this incredible institution goes beyond soccer to understand FC Barcelona as a unique social, cultural, and political phenomenon.

    From Buenos Aires to Colombia's Caribbean coast and back again, Hylland experiences the history and fanaticism at some of South America's football clubs along the way. Football is a global language, and he shares the stories and experiences from the terraces. It's a place where what happens on the pitch can rank low in terms of quality, but means so much off of it; where everything else, most notably the culture of the game, is unrivaled. Hundreds of thousands of football-mad visitors flock to South America every season. To the iconic stadia such as La Bombonera and Maracanã; to lower division teams in the shadows of some of the world's poorest slums and favelas. Tears at La Bombonera is a book rich in human interest, including the author's own personal experience of adapting to a new continent and way of life.

    Velocity is part of KB Worlds, The Driven World and coming soon in February 2021They say opposites attract, and Jett Spencer and I couldn’t be more polar if we tried.He plays by the rules— I make my own.He is like an addiction, when his honey eyes stare at me, it’s like a shot of adrenaline fuelling my system.He’s a guy every girl hopes to be their soulmate.A girl can dream, right?Only I’m done with the fantasy, and living life on the edge.The problem is he has no idea of my plan.And, I need him to pretend he doesn’t know me.Shouldn’t be a problem since he plays by the rules, right?

    Women’s National Team someday and the answer for them — and most of their parents — will be a resounding “Yes!” Among the most successful international teams in any sport in the past three decades, the USNWT has emerged as a collective cultural icon, with its individual members redrafting the very definition of female across the globe. With the lines blurring between male and female behavior, girls are competing ferociously and celebrating wildly without apology. Women are demanding gender and racial equity, while dressing and speaking authentically, and loving however and whomever they choose. The reality is that making the National Team is about as likely as winning the lottery. Of the tens of millions of soccer players since the team was formed in 1985, only 241 women have ever made it to the highest level as of 2020. In Raising Tomorrow's Champions, one of those players, 16-year professional Joanna Lohman, joins current soccer dad and 40-year journalist Paul Tukey to share the team members’ stories, from the early pioneers like Michelle Akers, Brandi Chastain and Mia Hamm, who are now parents themselves, to modern-day household names like Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe. For a true picture of what makes these women champions, Joanna and Paul also talked to their parents, coaches and teammates. The result of this unprecedented access to the National Team is a stunningly revealing portrait of what it takes to make it to the top, not just in soccer, but in life. Not every child will make the most elite team, but the choices they — and their families — make in the face of challenge and adversity may define their childhood, their high school experiences, their college options, and their path forward in life. Not every child will necessarily even play soccer, but the lessons shared within Raising Tomorrow's Champions can help him or her become accomplished, authentic, and satisfied adults no matter what path they choose.

    But I just found out one of his... My new stepbrother is insufferable.You'd think it wouldn't matter since I won't be here for long, but this guy gets under my skin like no one ever has. All-American, baby-faced, blue-eyed band dork and star soccer player. Everything about him is the picture of perfection—unlike me.I don't think Do Gooder knows I'm starting senior year late. And he definitely doesn't know why. I've got secrets I'm taking with me to the grave.Everyone thinks I moved to my dad's small town to play varsity football, but I've got other plans, and DG's trying to thwart them all. He's making my life worse than it already is.Having him around is a damn plague. But I can fight back.I found out a little secret about Mr. Perfect. He plays for the "other" team. That ball bat he's got stuffed into his gray sweatpants—it swings "that" way. The best part about this twisted game is when I find out it gets hard for me.The Do Gooder...he wants me. I don't know why. But I know how to make him pay.

    It is also an individual one, in which the emotions you feel are your emotions, the experiences you feel are your experiences, and nobody else can perfectly understand. Over the course of the 2019–20 season, two longtime Liverpool FC followers wrote to each other about those emotions and experiences. American writer Michael MacCambridge, living in Austin, Texas, is a devoted Liverpool follower. Five thousand miles away, his friend Neil Atkinson, Liverpool resident and a longtime season ticket holder, is the host of the popular podcast The Anfield Wrap. Each week throughout the historic season, Atkinson and MacCambridge exchanged letters, contemplating Liverpool’s progress, comparing and contrasting their different perspectives on the club and the sport, meditating on the manner in which their shared obsession for Liverpool works its way into nearly every corner of their personal lives, and discussing the differences between how the game is consumed in the United States and the United Kingdom and the role modern media plays in shaping our views of sport. Their collaboration was both timely and serendipitous, as Liverpool marched toward its first ever Premier League title and its first league title in thirty years, with a charismatic manager and the most entertaining team in the sport. In March, of course, the soccer story was overtaken by the larger story of the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc throughout the world, including sports events. In the course of their correspondence, Red Letters provides a real-time account of the pandemic that threatened the very existence of the season that Liverpool followers had been waiting more than a generation to experience.Red Letters provides a different way to examine the culture of a worldwide sport and development of a soccer season—game by game, in real time, with hopes and expectations tested and altered as the season progresses to Liverpool’s Premier League championship, with insight from two avid supporters.