In soccer, “FC” stands for “Football Club.” Since professional soccer is a relatively new sport in the United States, many Americans ask, “What does FC stand for in soccer?”  In this post, I am going to answer that question and give you some examples.

So what’s the FC thing all about?

Outside of the US & parts of Canada, Soccer is called Football. FC is the abbreviation for Football Club.

As in my favorite team and the English Premier League Invincible … Arsenal FC or Arsenal Football Club. Some people call it AFC or just Arsenal.

The origin of FC

The use of “FC” as an abbreviation for “Football Club” has its origin in England, in late 1880 many groups of workers in big corporations started to form groups of people who wanted to play soccer as a recreation activity after heavy work, these people named themselves depending on their location, for example, Liverpool FC, was a group of people from Liverpool who wanted to play soccer.

Even these Football clubs grew and became worldwide recognized brands, they decided to keep their original names as honor and acknowledgment to the founders of these teams.

FC in Spanish speaking countries

Teams from Spanish-speaking countries also followed this way of naming their soccer teams, the greatest example is FC Barcelona. Also, you can find teams like Club de Futbol America ( or America) and Club de Futbol Monterrey all from Mexico.

FC is MLS

Even in the United States where the word soccer is more used than football, there are some teams that have FC in their names, for example, Atlanta United FC and Chicago Fire FC, have FC as part of their names.

That is it if you were asking yourself What does FC stand for in soccer? now you know the answer, it stands for Football Club.

Thank you for reading.

It is a little bit more than two years since Manchester United appointed Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as their permanent manager, in that period he managed to get them 4 semifinals, One final (lost all of them),  third place and second place in the Premier League.

On the surface, he did well for them, even though he is yet to win a trophy, despite doing what we can agree to to the fact that he is doing a good job, but always there is a question mark about his ability to take Manchester United forward, ie winning big trophies for them.

He can not deliver in big occasions

When facing bigger teams or in the late states of competition, always Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will play a defensive game, it is like a man who is afraid to lose or does not trust his players.

His team struggles when playing the traditional big English clubs, most of the time he will set his team to defend and hoping to catch the opponent in the break.

For me, it is not a bad tactic, but most of my friends who are Manchester United fans disagree, they want their team to play in the front foot all the time.

Wrong substitutions

Another area where Ole comes short is when it comes to substitutions. It seems like he has a set of players that he will never take them out no matter how they perform.

Also most of the time he takes a longer time to make a change and this has const Manchester United matches, the recent example is the final of the Europa League when he made the first substation after 100 minutes of the game.

When they scored a goal to make it 1-1 he could have changed things and capitalize the momentum and win the game, but let everything too late and he paid for that when his team lost in the penalties.

The Van De Beek situation

Manchester United signed Don Van De Beek from Ajax last summer, this transfer excited most of the United fans but he never got a real chance to prove himself under Ole.

They used around 35 million pounds to sign this guy and they do not use him, either it was not his signing which shows his weakness or it was his signing which shows the lack of judgment. Either way, it reflects badly in him.

Is Ole Gunnar Solskjaer still the right leader for Man United?

No, for me he is out of his depth. I have seen him lost in the touchline, he looks lost and I  do not think he has the ability to deliver big trophies to the Manchester United team.

Should Man United sack Solskjaer? 

No, you can not sack a manager who just took you to the European final and finished second in the league.

Even though they finished far behind their city rivals, and they had many bad games last season, they should give him a chance, at least one season more to prove himself.

 

 

We have seen Manchester United fans protesting against owners, the protest was so big as it caused their match against Liverpool to be suspended.

Last week’s protest was not the first fan protest against the owner, Some Manchester United fans opposed Glazer’s takeover of the club, particularly once they realized the level of debt that the club would have to take on after having been debt-free for so many years

In this post, I am going to look at why do manchester United fans hate the Glazer famililly.

Bought the club under debt

When the Glazer family took over United they did so with loans and hedge funds – a leveraged takeover. They didn’t actually put their hands into their own pockets to complete the purchase.

From a financial point of view, Glazers are smart. Imagine you buying a house but in order to pay the house you get a loan from the bank, and you rent that house to other people you collect the rent, use that rent to pay your monthly loan payment and the extra money you put in your pocket, that is smart.

But when you look at fans’ point of view they put the club under an unnecessary loan.

Season ticket hikes

Immediately after taking over, the Glazers made a habit of hiking the season ticket prices every season. Given the aforementioned information, it probably comes as no real surprise. They wanted to pay the debt.

Broken promises

When the Glazers took the club, they promised the fans to put a lot of money into the club, they did the opposite, the reports indicate that they have taken more than 1 billion dollars out of the club.

There is a small investment in the academy and the playing field, no maintenance of Old Trafford, all these broken promised made the relationship between the Glazers and the Manchester United fans worse.

Lack of football knowledge

One of the complaints from Manchester United fans is that there no football people at the board level.

There’s actually no denying that Ed Woodward is good on the money side of the business, he managed to get the best deal for the club. But when it comes to football, I am not sure.

This comes back to the fact the Glazers, and Woodward, are not football fans. Would the club be in the position it is now with a clever businessman born and raised in Stretford in charge? Almost certainly not.

European Super League

Manchester United was one of the founders of the super league, even though the owners have withdrawn from it and issued an apology, most united fans are still angry about the issue, and for them, this was the last straw and they want the Glazers out.

Final words

Manchester United fans have the right to voice their opinion and discontent against their owners, but the owners will listen and sell the club? Even if they sell the club how the next owner will be, for me changing the ownership from one Billionaire to another is not the simplest solution.

Since Thomas Tuchel took charge at Chelsea, the team has improved a lot, they are in the final of champions league after beating Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid, they in the FA cup final after beating Manchester City (by the way they have beaten them twice already under Tuchel and they are in course of making top 4 which seems impossible few months ago.

Five reasons why Chelsea has improved a lot under Thomas Tuchel.

So these are my five reasons why Chelsea has improved a lot under Thomas Tuchel.

1. Improved defense

One of the improvements the german has made to this Chelsea side is that they are solid at the back, they are playing as a unit and they are very organized as a result they concede few goals.

Using three center backs in the 3-4-3 has worked wonder for Tuchel, this is not the first time Chelsea has done that, I remember them using the same system under Antonio Conte and they managed to win the premier league with the same system, how long it will take for other teams to find the workaround it? I do not know but for now, it is working.

2. The role of Kante

Most people consider Ngolo Kante as a defensive midfielder, but when Mauricio Sarri went to Chelsea, he started playing him a little bit further.

Tuchel plays Kante in the same position that he used to play under Sarri and it is fair to say that the player has gone one step up in this game. 

I watched him play in the two Chelsea games in the semifinal against Real Madrid, he controlled that game, he made one of the best midfield units in Europe look very average, he was a man of the match in both games.

His improvement has made this Chelsea side a better team.

3. Clear game plan

One of the most frustrating things about Frank Lampard’s Chelsea was a lack of a plan, some time I was watching the game and struggling to see exactly what they are trying to do.

Under Tuchel, Chelsea has a game plan, you can see a play pattern and every player seems to know what is their role in the game.

4. Consistency

They say that consistency is the key to any success, Frank Lampard used to chop and change a lot of his starting lineup and formation, this led to confusion among the players.

This seems to disappear under Tuchel again every player seems to know their role, also I hear that even players that are not playing at the moment know exactly why they are not being picked and what the coaching staff is expecting from them.

5. The new manager bounce

When there is a new manager in town players tend to react and play better, I remember when Ole Gunner was at the wheel, or when Arsenal thought they were going to win the league when Unai Emery went 20 games unbeaten.

After few months some players will get out of the form, some will get tired of their manager and the real trouble will start, then we will see how good man manager Thomas Tuchel is.

Final Words

Thomas Tuchel is doing a fantastic job at Chelsea, in a week, he can win his first trophy as a Chelsea manager if he manages to beat Leicester City in the FA cup final.

But to be honest, I am not impressed with his style of football, do Chelsea fans will support his style of football when the team stops winning?

 

It is not a secret that Liverpool is having a poor season, in December 2020 they were in the top four but now with less than 5 games to go they sit 7th in the table and I think they will miss champions league football next season.

So why is Liverpool struggling this season? There are a lot of known and unknown factors that contributed to the red’s poor season but for me, these 5 are the main reasons why Liverpool is struggling this season.

5 Reasons why Liverpool is struggling this season

1. Lack of fans in the stadium

I know now we blame pandemic for everything that goes wrong, but this is true for Liverpool, before the lockdown last season Liverpool was unbeaten, after restarting the League they lost 3-0 to then struggling Watford.

Their home form justifies this, let look at the numbers, on April 23 in 2017, Liverpool lost 2-1 to Crystal Palace at home, they went 68 games unbeaten at home in the premier league when they lost again at home on January 21 2021 to Burnley, they went and suffered 6 defeats in a row at home, reason? you guessed there were no fans to give them that extra push to wins games at home. 

According to ESPN, since the start of the pandemic, the away goals have increased by 18%, the home wins decreased by 2%, and the away wins increased by an impressive 26% this explains why some teams are struggling at home, for example, Liverpool.

I understand that this is the problem for all teams in the premier league but let be honest here most teams are intimidated to play at Anfield, but without the fans, it is not the same.

2.The injuries

Liverpool faced one of the worst seasons when it comes to injuries, they do not seem to catch a break, it is injury after another injury, there was a time all of their first-choice back 4 was out due to injuries, the injuries of the likes of Georginio Wijnaldum and Virgil van Dijk left a huge void in the first team that the reserve players could not fill.

3.Virgil van Dijk 

Before the arrival of Virgil van Dijk, Liverpool was conceding goals for fun, the arrival of the Dutchman changed that and Liverpool defense became very solid, this is a reason that when it was announced that he will miss the whole 2020-2021 season there was a fear of the worst among Liverpool fans.

They missed him a lot and I hope that when he recovers he will be able to reach the same levels again, which is very difficult to do after such a long injury.

4.The Klopp decision

After losing van Dijk and Joel Matip at center-back, Jurgen Klopp decided to use his best midfielders as center backs, for me, this was one of the worst decisions Klopp made but I understand why he did it.

He did not trust the young and inexperienced defenders to play at the back and he did not have funds to buy new defenders that is understandable but the decision made Liverpool even weaker at the midfield.

We have seen Jordan Anderson, Thiago Alcantara, Fabinho among the other playing at the back, this affected the way Liverpool recovered the ball and the way they constructed attacks.

This is what Arsene Wenger had to say about this.

 

Arsene Wenger explaining that any team losing Van Dijk would destabilise them, but losing him and then moving your best midfielders into defence is disastrous.

pic.twitter.com/2boV9G9wLl

— Watch LFC (@Watch_LFC) February 14, 2021

5. The front three is working less well

The famous Liverpool front three of Sadio Mane, Mo Salah and Firmino is not the same, Mane is lost, he looks like a guy who lacks confidence, the same can be said to Roberto Firmino, the only player who is trying is Mo Salah, but he can not do it alone.

The front three used to score many goals and even when the defense was back they could just outscore the opponent, those goals were so important in turning defeats into draws and draws into victory, but this season they seem to lack their mojo.

Final words

Those are the five reasons why Liverpool is struggling this season, it is not easy to pinpoint which one is the major factor but I think that when you have a lot of things going against you, it is very difficult to get results especially in the league as competitive as the premier league.

 

Villareal just dumped out Arsenal in the semi-final of the Europa League, as things stand right now Arsenal is not going to participate in any European competition for the first time in the last 25 years as they sit 9th in the premier league, so the question is why Arsenal is so bad?

Why Arsenal is So Bad In 2021?

There are many reasons that Arsenal is so bad in 2021 but for me, I think these 9 reasons contributed to the fall of Arsenal in 2021

Lack of stability at the managerial level.

When Arsene Wenger left three years ago, no one thought that three years after Arsenal could be a middle table team, they replaced him with Unai Emery.

Unai started his life as an Arsenal manager with a good string of results, but after the failure to get top 4 and the collapse in the Europa League final in Baku, he failed to recover from that and after 18 he was shown out of the door.

Most Arsenal fans did not like his football style and that was it.

After that, for few matches, Fred Lgunberg becomes the interim head coach and finally replaced by the current manager Mikel Arteta.

Three managers in three seasons it not ideal for the team like Arsenal. I know this model works good for Chelsea but at Arsenal it does not work.

Lack of experience of the manager.

After the sacking of Unai Emery, Arsenal appointed Mikel Arteta as their next permanent manager, even though I think he will become a great manager in the future, he had zero experience being a manager.

He made some mistakes so far, this is due to the lack of experience at the job, the only experience he had before taking an Arsenal job was being Pep Guardiola assistance, in my opinion, that is no good enough.

Lack of investment in the playing squad.

Not only that they appointed a rookie manager, but they also did not back him with some quality signings, the team was screaming for a creating midfielder and they did not buy one, instead they bought Thomas Partey, even though Partey is World-class he can not create and the team suffered especially in the first half of the season, we saw some improvement after the introduction of Emile Smith Rowe and coming of Martin Oderngard.

The main problem of Arsenal this time is that they can not score enough goals and in order to do that you need someone who can create chances.

Lack of accountability from the owners. 

The owner of Arsenal Football Club, the KSE, seems to be watching Arsenal from far, they do not attend many Arsenal games, they do not invest in the team, and they take too long to take action, all these contribute to the team not to perform.

A lot of changes in leadership level.

I wrote about the change in managers in the last three years, also there were a lot of changes in leadership level.

After Wenger left, Ivan Gazidis jumped ship to AC Milan 6 months later, Sven Mislintat who was supposed to lead the new arsenal scouting system left after falling out with Raul Sanlehi who left few months after all these changes hindered the team development inside and outside the football stadium.

Lack of winning mentality among the players.

The current group of Arsenal players lack a winning mentality, they lack urgency during the matches and they pick which matches they will show up, this is not coaching, this is the thing that either you have it or not. 

It is ok if you have one or two players who do not give all effort during matches but when you have the 5 to 7 players it is very difficult to manage, for me only academy players seem to have the right mentality.

Lack of a clear plan.

When Arsenal appointed Mikel Arteta as their manager, I thought they will go with the young players and build for the future, but then they signed William.

You can not have both ways, yes I know that kids will lack the consistency that is why you need few senior players, but in my mind, I was thinking of having 2 to 4 players who are between 25 and 29 years and mix them with young guys was a good strategy.

I do not mind buying older players, if that what they want to do but they need to buy higher quality players that can instantly improve the team.

For me, you need a clear plan, either you buy next-generation players or you buy high-quality players not making Arsenal a retiring home.

Bad signings. 

In the past few years, Arsenal made some bad signings, who paid 35 million euros for Mustafi? Henrik Mkhityran, Sokratis, William among others.

This group of players were signed with a lot of money and contributed very small or they were signed for free and paid huge wages without having a significant contribution to the team.

 

Bad handling of players’ contracts.

Yes, they let Aaron Ramsey, Alexis Sachez, Mesut Ozil, Danny Welbeck, Jack Wilshere leave Arsenal for free.

Can you believe that all those players left Arsenal and the club received the sum of zero pounds? This is bad business.

The laughable of all is that Arsenal is still paying Mesut Ozil’s salary, seriously? I wonder why Arsenal is shit.

This money could have helped to rebuild the team, this is poor business from Arsenal.

 

For me, those are the reasons why Arsenal is so bad in 2021. Why do you think Arsenal is so bad? Let me know the answer in the comment section below.

The announcement of the European Super League caused a lot of unrest between the football fan base and the owners of the clubs, even though most of these clubs withdrew from the supposed super league still most fans want to change at the ownership level of their clubs.

Arsenal fans protest

After the announcement of the super league we have seen a lot of fans protesting and the last Friday just before Arsenal vs Everton at Emirates, we saw a cloud of estimated 3000 Arsenal fans protesting against the owners of Arsenal football club, Kroenke Sport and Entertainment (KSE).

The main aim of that protest was to send a strong message to the owner that they are not wanted by Arsenal fans and to make things worse for the owners, in the midst of this crisis some guy named Daniel Ek tweeted that he would like to put his hat in buying Arsenal.

As a kid growing up, I’ve cheered for @Arsenal as long as I can remember. If KSE would like to sell Arsenal I’d be happy to throw my hat in the ring.

— Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) April 23, 2021

 

Who is Daniel Ek?

Daniel Ek is a 38-year-old Swedish billionaire entrepreneur, best known for creating Spotify with Martin Lorentzon.

According to Fox magazine, Mr. Ek is worth 4.5 billion dollars and he is putting together funds to buy Arsenal.

According to the reports Mr. Ek will present and of around 1.8 billion dollars to the owners of Arsenal Football Club, the Kroenke’s family. The bid is expected to be rejected by KSE.

Also, Mr. Ek is an Arsenal fan since he was 8 years old, being 38 now means he started supporting Arsenal in their glory days and grew up idolizing the likes of Henry, Viera, and co. 

Who is supporting Daniel Ek’s idea?

Thierry Henry, Patric Vieira, and Dennis Bergkamp. Three of Arsenal’s most famous Invincibles have joined Spotify’s billionaire founder in a £1.8 billion bid to buy the club from Stan Kroenke and have received the backing of supporter groups and high-profile fans.

What is Arsenal worth?

Arsenal, meanwhile, is currently estimated to be worth $2.8billion (£2.02bn), which is a notable increase of 23 percent over the past two years.

So the bid is a little bit low from the real value of the football club.

 

 The KSE response

When Mr. Ek expressed in public his desire to buy Arsenal Football Club forced the current owners to respond and their stand is clear Arsenal is not for sale. Here is KSE’s public statement.

Stan Kroenke Networth

The net worth of the current Arsenal owner is estimated to be around 8.2 billion, which is almost twice as much as Daniel Ek’s net worth.

Also, it is good to mention that Stan Kroenke’s wife, Anne Walton Kroenke is from a family that owns Walmart, and she has an estimated worth of 8.9 billion, she is richer than her husband, as a couple, they are very rich.

How likely is Daniel Ek to buy Arsenal?

For me it is very unlikely that Mr. Ek would buy Arsenal, first the opening offer is below the current value of Arsenal Football Club, I am sure he will come up with a better offer but I do not think it will be enough to make KSE sell.

Second, most part of Ek network is from owning Spotify, it estimated that he owns 9% of the shares, if he had to make a serious offer, he would have to sell most of the shares, I do not think it is a good business strategy on his part.

Third, KSE is known for not selling their asserts, they said they are not going to sell and I think for now that will be unless Mr. Ek offers a ridiculous amount of money to the 3 to 4 billion dollars.

KSE spent around 1 billion dollars to secure Arsenal, I think it will take triple that money for them to consider selling, does Daniel Ek is willing to invest that money? Time will tell.

 So what is for Arsenal now?

For now, I think Arsenal will be still under Kroenke ownership for a few more years until they get tired and decide to sell or someone is crazy enough to offer them crazy money for this big underperforming club. 

Yesterday 12 big European clubs released a joint press release indication their intention to form their own league that they will call European Super League.

After that announcement, most, UEFA, FIFA, TV pundits, and fans have been losing sleep and their mind, that is why I decided to write about what we know up to this moment. 

What we know about the super league

What is the European Super League?

The Super League would be a 20-team league made up of 15 permanent members with the remaining five members of the league comprised of teams that qualified through domestic European League competition.

What are the 12 super league founding clubs

These are the 12 super league founding members.

AC Milan   From Italy 

Arsenal    From England

Atletico Madrid   From Spain

Chelsea     From England

Barcelona   From Spain

Inter Milan   From Italy 

Juventus  From Italy 

Liverpool   From England

Manchester City  From England

Manchester United From England

Real Madrid From Spain

Tottenham Hotspur From England

It anticipated that 3 more clubs will join the list of founding clubs, my guess is that those three clubs are 

Bayern Munich From German

Borussia Dortmund From german

Paris Saint Germain From France.

These three clubs are opposing the proposition but they are expected to join other big clubs.

 

The Format of the League

• 20 participating clubs with 15 Founding Clubs and a qualifying mechanism for a further five teams to qualify annually based on achievements in the prior season.
• Midweek fixtures with all participating clubs continuing to compete in their respective national leagues, preserving the traditional domestic match calendar which remains at the heart of the club game.
• An August start with clubs participating in two groups of ten, playing home and away fixtures, with the top three in each group automatically qualifying for the quarter-finals. Teams finishing fourth and fifth will then compete in a two-legged play-off for the remaining quarter-final positions. A two-leg knockout format will be used to reach the final at the end of May, which will be staged as a single fixture at a neutral venue.

Who will fund the super league?

According to Yahoo Finance, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), the American financial company, is behind the financing of the European Super League. Funding for the new competition is said to total between $3.8bn (£2.7bn) and $5bn.

Will super league affect domestic leagues?

The original plan of the super league is to play mid-week and leave weekends for the domestic leagues, in the statement they call it a fundamental of club football.

But in terms of quality, it will affect domestic leagues, since the economic gap between the top clubs and small clubs will be even huge, and basically the founding clubs will not have to qualify for the super leaguer, the qualification is automatic, this will reduce the competitiveness of the domestic leagues.

The leadership team

The leadership team will be composed of a chairman and 4 vice-chairmen.

Chairman

Fiorentino Perez From Real Madrid

Vice chairmen

Joel Glazel From Manchester United

John Henry From Liverpool

Stan Kroenke From Arsenal

Andrea Agnelli From Juventus

Reactions 

There are reactions from everywhere fans, FIFA, UEFA, Football Associations.

Fans

Most fans are outraged by the decision, being a soccer fan myself I understand that, this league is monopolizing soccer and it is not good for football in general.

Soccer Pundits

Most of there are hypocrites, they work in organizations that do the same thing, not long time ago Sky Sports wanted to charge fans 15 pounds to watch one soccer game on TV, not per week or per month one soccer game and they said nothing.

These companies change schedules and arrange games in difficult times without the consideration of the fans, today they want us to believe they are fighting for the funs, not true they are just trying to protect their companies’ pockets.

FIFA and UEFA

Soccer associations are considering kicking out all clubs that will participate in domestic leagues, and FIFA and UEFA will ban players who participate in these competitions from any national competitions, including the EUROS and the world cup.

Kicking out big teams from domestic leagues or banning big players from participating in Euros and the world cup will only reduce the amount of sponsorship and views, this will affect their income, for me, it is a very bad move.

These organization there are not fighting for the fan, they are fighting for the money in their pockets that now is going to different pockets.

Final words

That is all we know for now about the European Super League. I will publish more information about this when we know more, thank you for reading.

 

 

This is my first post in this blog, so I decided to try to predict which team will win the UEFA champions league edition 2020-2021.

At the time of writing this article two matches of the quarter-finals have been played, PSG advance to the semi-final after beating Bayern Munich in away goals after a 3-3 draw during the two legs.

Chelsea also advanced to the semifinals after beating Porto 2-1 over two legs.

So here are my predictions for the rest of the matches.

My UEFA Champions League Prediction

Liverpool Vs Real Madrid

Real Madrid goes to Anfield after winning 3-1 in the first game played in Alfred Stefano stadium, so on paper Real Madrid is the favorite to go through.

Despite Real Madrid being favorite I can see Liverpool fighting for their lives and adding to the fact that Real had to play another difficult game on the weekend against Barcelona, this will cause fatigue in their legs and Liverpool can take advantage of it.

The problem with Liverpool is that they have a shake defense, so despite seeing Liverpool scoring two goals but I do not think they will keep a clean sheet, so I am predicting this game to be 2-1, Liverpool.

With this score, Real Madrid will advance to the semifinal and face Chelsea.

Borussia Dortmund Vs Manchester City

Most pundit and betting companies are giving City an advantage in this game, City won the first round in Manchester 2-1, and in my opinion, it is not a huge task to turn around, I have seen teams turn this scoreline many times.

The issue with Manchester City is that they have a tendency to shoot themselves on the foot when it comes to the final stages of this competition and Dortmund is 5^th in the Bundesliga, there is a reason for that, they are bad.

I have a sneaky feeling that Dortmund will show up in this game and give City some real trouble and eventually win the tie.

I am going for 3-1 Dortmund and Dortmund will face PSG in the semifinals.

These are my UEFA champions league predictions, what are your predictions? Let me know in the comment section below.