Football Metaphysics for the World Cup

[click the image to go to the collection]

World Cup 2026 is underway, and I have been posting up daily World Cup Metaphysics previews at my Southern Gothicc Futurism patreon. I did not grow up with the world’s football, but took to it in the past couple decades, after giving up on American football (too much brain damage). But the amazing thing I have enjoyed about the world’s football is how much geopolitics and history and strange cultural sediments are woven throughout it – far more than any other sport and most other cultural phenomenons. So my daily write-ups are not the basic “quirky sportswriting” preview style  you see online. It’s about the metaphysics, and in fact, the posts are daily incantations of three things, from the foundation of football metaphysics, that we (the People, as it is actually the People’s game, not FIFA’s) would like to conjure up. You don’t have to subscribe to my Patreon, as I’ve made this particular collection only $4.69, for a whole World Cup’s worth of football metaphysical meandering text! You know how many esoteric tangents I can pack into this baby? A lot. Support your local dirtgod.

16-Man Metaphysical Roster: NEW YORK CITY FC

{squeezed into Yankee Stadium for a long minute now}

[16-Man Metaphysical Rosters are divined using a football metaphysics methodology where minutes played over the past 50 competitive club matches determines which 16 players constitute the strongest psychic influence over a club’s current psychic trajectory. Intuitive analysis is then added, with a decidedly un-American foundation. Football metaphysics believes in the beautiful game, not the modern corporate spectacle. We have more of a love for Maradona in Mexico than Messi in Miami. One North American club is done each month, divided equally between Liga MX and the MLS, as they are the top two leagues in our home country of America (because in footballing terms, many parts of America are actually Mexico). This is now a solo project again by Raven Mack, but used to be a small group effort, so it bears saying, Rest In Peace Neil.]

Our first foray into an MLS club begins with New York City FC, who is a pretty good example of the strange position soccer is jammed into the American cultural landscape. In terms of ownership, they’re owned mostly by the same holding company that was built around owning Manchester City FC, hence the similarity in kits. But there’s also minority ownership from the Yankees ownership group. The club was not created as any grassroots effort by supporters to have a club, so much as created in a major city to seemingly fill a marketing void. U.S. soccer clubs in Major League Soccer don’t develop as blossoms of football culture followed and supported for years (which does actually happen in the U.S. in a lot of different places), but more as deciding where a new Whole Foods should be built.

But it’s a long-term process. MLS identified their desire for a second club in the greater New York City metropolitan area back in 2006. In 2013, the club started to come to fruition, finally playing in the 2015 MLS season. So the club exists, and with some high profile talent coming through as they are not lacking for financial support, as Manchester City looks to establish itself as a major American brand as well. But finding a home for the club has been more difficult, with various stadium plans dreamed up and abandoned, in various industrial sites along the margins of New York City’s five boroughs. In fact, there’s been abandoned plans for an NYC FC soccer-specific stadium in Queens, the Bronx, and Harlem, touching on all the potentially gentrified spaces needing “cleaning up” so to speak. It appears they may be closer than ever, with a site identified at Willets Point, next to the New York Mets stadium, and within sight of the U.S. Open tennis complex.

This in itself is a pretty solid exhibit of soccer in America. It has no obvious place, culturally, so it’s sort of sown into marginal spots as a sign of improvement, not unlike street mural festivals. It’s not the mainstream accepted sport like basketball of American football, but it is widely supported. The strange thing about U.S. soccer though is it seeks out the support of a privileged class, while shitting on poor folks from international backgrounds who might actually be much larger futbol fans. Willets Point being the site of their potential stadium is perfect example, as it’s been a thriving but chaotic used auto parts corner of the city for many decades. The streets are unpaved, but if you’re not afraid to venture in, affordable quick fixes for all sorts of car problems can easily be found. It’s one of those amazing places that still exists in NYC that feels like another country, and it’s mostly populated by immigrants or non-English speakers, many of whom come from places where futbol is just as religiously followed as American football is even in the football-heaviest parts of the country. But that entire area is going to be turned into a soccer stadium complete with development of hotel and commercial properties. It’s hard to imagine how long of a clean-up a giant unmonitored used auto parts zone is going to take, and it's sad to think of all the folks who were able to carve out a living in this desperate way, for years and years, who are just gonna get displaced, with no real alternative location for that chaotic mechanical type of flea market anywhere else. In its place will grow a waterfront commercial development anchored by a couple of sports stadiums that, to be honest, looks like a dozen other complexes around the country. A uniquely New York City environment displaced by just another shopping complex where white folks from suburban counties will ride the train in to watch a soccer match a few times a year, and enjoy an overpriced meal and drinks while they’re there.

So that’s soccer in America – simultaneously an outsider to the mainstream, while also being a gentrifying force that squats itself right over top the existence of poorer folks, who otherwise might be huge American futbol fans if any sort of outreach was done whatsoever. But poor folks don’t have money, and American futbol is not about actually being a cultural force so much as cosplaying as one, so wealthy Americans can act like they’re some sort of ultras group, and wave their rainbow flags of pride that don’t really give half a fuck about black trans folks or actual marginalized sex workers. It’s all kinda fucked, and makes it hard to pull for Major League Soccer as an entity, because it’s not pulling for me. It’s all about the money, but without the history of older domestic leagues elsewhere.

Nonetheless, New York City FC has existed now for nearly a decade, and been fairly successful in that short term. And somehow, by not actually having a home, a strange hominess has been found by them being forced to play in Yankee Stadium. They can’t always play there, due to it being the Yankees home first and foremost, but for the most part, they squeeze in a smallish version of a pro futbol pitch, and it’s one of the more unique set-ups in U.S. soccer, that has been forced to go on for so long while New York city tries to build a soccer stadium, that it’s made NYC FC matches have a strange marginal beauty. And in their short history, NYC FC has finished second in regular season standings twice already, and won the MLS Cup in 2021. They’ve firmly established themselves as a top MLS brand (lol), and with Major League Soccer player movement being so rapid and tied to money, they’ll likely remain that type of club, so long as the luster doesn’t wear off those baby blue kits as an off-brand version of Manchester City for U.S. soccer aficionados to claim as their own. And here are the top 16 players in terms of minutes played over the past 50 competitive matches, who weigh the heaviest on the club’s current metaphysics (through September 02, 2023)…

#1: KEATON PARKS – This midfielder’s name sounds quintessentially U.S. soccer… the privileged kid from a suburban background (Dallas area in Keaton’s case) who maintains his fees and remains in the pyramid scam that is youth soccer here, going from high profile high school to collegiate scholarship, then into the MLS after a draft. Except somehow Keaton Parks, despite that name, bypassed that traditional U.S. soccer path. After high school, he immediately signed with a semi-pro club in Texas, and got a few tryouts with Portuguese clubs somehow, ending up overseas for about five years, including making one of the Portuguese big three’s senior squad, at Benfica, briefly. In 2019, they loaned Parks back to America, which is how he landed at NYC FC, likely due to shared scouting with Manchester City perhaps? Anyways, whatever the path, he never played college soccer in the U.S., and after his move to NYC FC was made permanent in January of 2020, he’s become a mainstay on the squad, and will cross the 150 caps with club in the next month most likely.

#2: SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ – Uruguayan attacker who’d been an early star at one of that nation’s most prominent clubs, Nacional, before moving to a crosstown club Montevideo City Torque. NYC FC signed him on an 18-month loan early in the summer of 2021, which ran out after last season. It wasn’t clear if he was coming back, though NYC FC wanted him to badly, but he finally signed a permanent contract this past March, and is one of their key players on attack, wearing the precious #10 for the club.

#3: TAYVON GRAY – New York metropolitan area youngster who was born and bred in the Bronx but spent time in Jersey as well, and has been with NYC FC since the age of 15. Over the past few years (he just turned 21), he’s grown into key defender for the club. He also has Jamaican heritage so got his first call-up and appearance for the Jamaican national team earlier this month. He had played for the US at various youth levels, but made the move to the Jamaican team apparently, getting subbed into the match in the second half in the Reggae Boyz 1-0 win over Honduras.

#4: THIAGO MARTINS – Brazilian central defender who excelled for a while with Palmeiras in his homeland, and did a stint in Japan playing for Yokohama F. Marinos for a few years, before returning to this half of the Earth when NYC FC signed him last year. Along with Gray, the backbone of the NYC FC defense now that Maxime Chanot (next up) has left.

#5: MAXIME CHANOT – French player who’s played around Western Europe, but spent his longest gig at NYC FC for 7 seasons, establishing himself as their key defender. He went back to France this summer, playing for a Ligue 2 club Ajaccio, that’s located on Corsica, so they got that dope bandana dude from the Corsican flag in their crest. He also remains key defender for the Luxembourg national team, which has never qualified for hardly anything, as one of the smallest nations in UEFA.

#6: LUIS BARRAZA – Barraza is a Mexican-American GK who grew up on this side of the border in New Mexico, so has been in the MLS youth system, played college soccer at Marquette, and been immersed in the U.S. soccer pyramid since he was 14, when he joined Real Salt Lake’s Arizona academy. He had only sporadic appearances for NYC FC’s senior team up until this year, when he’s become their primary GK.

#7: BRAIAN CUFRÉ – Argentine left back who made his name at Vélez Sarsfield back home, which got him attention from La Liga in Spain. He’s been contracted to Mallorca since 2020, and spent time loaned to Málaga in Spain as well, and was loaned to NYC FC at the beginning of this MLS season in February, which an option for a permanent transfer. He’s done well enough in MLS to become a key player for the squad, but they’re also buried in the standings outside the pretty large playoffs window, so who knows? NYC FC has been one of the consistently more successful clubs, and they seemingly still have a good foundation on defense, but need a strike threat to takeover for offense. But also MLS is even more fickle than normal football clubs, because MLS has so much more player movement than other domestic leagues. This whole list might get angrily shook up. I guess I hadn’t mentioned their manager is Nick Cushing, an English dude who had spent a longtime managing the Man City women’s team before coming to NYC FC’s coaching staff in 2020. Though his win percentage is only at around 30%, hard to imagine a guy so entrenched in Manchester City coaching style would get run off even after one less than exciting season in charge.

#8: TALLES MAGNO – 21-year-old winger, and one of a number of Brazilians on the NYC FC squad. Magno cut his footballing teeth with Vasco da Gama in Brazil, and joined NYC FC a couple years back, and has been considered a potential breakout player for MLS, but has yet to really seize that destiny by the throat. Still, a pretty good scoring threat to be part of the NYC FC arsenal, and having been steeped in Brazilian football culture, not afraid of any potential intercontinental draws against Mexican clubs.

#9: JAMES SANDS – NYC FC’s first academy player to make their senior roster. Sands was good enough to be loaned to Rangers in Scotland for part of last season (Scottish seasons, not American seasons, which don’t sync). Born and raised in Westchester County, just outside New York City proper, but a really good example of how more sports leagues should embrace performative names for competitors. “James Sands” is boring as fuck, I don’t care how good a defender he is. But change that shit to “Jimmy Sandman” and I’m gonna automatically be thinking, “Oh fuck, they gotta watch out for Jimmy Sandman!”

#10: GABRIEL PEREIRA – Pereira is a young Brazilian attack player who spent about 16 months with NYC FC, and became a key goal scoring threat for them. His performance caught enough attention he was part of the rush of talent to the Middle East this summer, though a less glamorous path, instead of Europe to Saudi Arabia, Pereira went from the U.S. to Qatar Stars League, signing with Al-Rayyan. Interesting to see how that fossil fuel money has so suddenly disrupted the football migration patterns we’re used to this past year.

#11: JUSTIN HAAK – Born in Brooklyn the day after 9/11. Also not even a real human being, but a composite cyborg AI tech creation performed in the MLS Laboratories to create the most American soccer-looking player possible, with the most Football Manager-generated sounding name possible. The reason they don’t allow green lasers in the stands in the U.S. like they use so extensively in African football is because the lights would cause cyborg creations like Justin Haak to overheat, thus ruining the illusion of “American soccer” being competed entirely by humans.

#12: RICHARD LEDEZMA – Ledezma is an American defender from Arizona who made enough of a splash at an early age to get signed by PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands, one of the Dutch Eredivisie’s biggest clubs. He did time on the reserve team and got a few starts with the senior squad as well, but had long been rumored as coming back to America. This past March, PSV signed him to a contract extension then immediately loaned him to NYC FC. He’s gotten one call-up to the US national team, appearing ina  single match against Panama in 2020, where he was subbed on in the 68th minute and got two assists.

#13: ALFREDO MORALES – Morales is an American player of Peruvian descent born in Germany as his pops was born in Peru but was an American and in the military. Morales actually spent his youth academy years moving up the German ranks, ending up at Hertha BSC, where he also started his senior professional career on their reserve team, eventually cracking the senior squad. He moved between a few different clubs, being sort of a tweener between Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga (second German division). But during this time, he also was recruited for the U.S. national team during the time Jürgen Klinsmann was shifting the national team recruiting philosophy to get more players who were based overseas. Morales had sporadic appearances for the national team from 2013 through 2019, though he toyed with playing for Peru up until 2015, as he hadn’t made an appearance yet for the U.S. The exposure on the national team got him more domestic attention, and NYC FC signed him in April of 2021 through the end of this year, with an option for another year. Hard to say if he’ll be part of their long-term plans or not, as he’s 33 and hasn’t exactly lit it up in MLS.

#14: MITJA ILENIČ – Spent his professional career entirely in his native Slovenia, finally becoming a main player for top Slovenian club Domžale befor eNYC FC signed him this past January. He’s made another of appearances with the club so far, and is only 18, and has already graduated to the U-21 Slovenian national team, their second youngest player ever. No diss to MLS but you gotta figure after gaining some first-team exposure, the Slovenian football federation is gonna want him playing somewhere in Europe. And at the same time, what fun it must be to be a young, carefree, professional soccer contract-having Slovenian living in New York City (although I’m going by memories of NYC, not what the modern gentrified weird ass NYC is).

#15: KEVIN O’TOOLE – Former Jersey kid who was a homegrown player for the New York Red Bulls, and spent plenty of time on their youth and reserve squads, and played for Princeton collegiately, but was left unprotected for the MLS SuperDraft (lol) last year, and NYC FC seized the opportunity to poach him from their local rivals. O’Toole can play a slew of roles, so gets plugged and played here and there as needed, but still hasn’t really settled as a steady starter in any capacity.

#16: MATÍAS PELLEGRINI – Argentine winger who briefly showed flash with Estudiantes in his native country before getting imported to Inter Miami early on in their existence. Pellegrini’s been an MLS mainstay ever since, but never really caught on at Inter Miami like expected. He got loaned back to Estudiantes multiple times, but the last time, they passed on purchasing the player back, so Inter Miami waived him and NYC FC claimed him last August. He’s been a bit player at NYC FC ever since.

16-Man Metaphysical Roster: CLUB AMERICA

{Club America taking over an American stadium}

[16-Man Metaphysical Rosters are divined using a football metaphysics methodology where minutes played over the past 50 competitive club matches determines which 16 players constitute the strongest psychic influence over a club’s current psychic trajectory. Intuitive analysis is then added, with a decidedly un-American foundation. Football metaphysics believes in the beautiful game, not the modern corporate spectacle. We have more of a love for Maradona in Mexico than Messi in Miami. One North American club is done each month, divided equally between Liga MX and the MLS, as they are the top two leagues in our home country of America (because in footballing terms, many parts of America are actually Mexico). This is now a solo project again by Raven Mack, but used to be a small group effort, so it bears saying, Rest In Peace Neil.]

The Leagues Cup has been going on the past month, with the North American introduction to Lionel Messi (as well as refs disparately calling things in his goatness’s favor). This was the first one to include all the clubs in both MLS and Liga MX, and with the World Cup being hosted jointly in North America in 2026, I sometimes think we’re headed towards a multinational league (more so than the current US/Canada one); but also, I just don’t know. Mexico has the stronger and deeper football history, and to be honest, the better top clubs. But in order to make this big event happen, all the Mexican clubs had to agree to leave Mexico for the month and take no home matches. It’s very one-sided (as was the allocation of World Cup 2026 host cities), and I think the biggest obstacle to a unified North American land mass league is how far is Liga MX willing to compromise itself. The quality of the league (and the national team) has already suffered in recent years as Mexican clubs no longer compete in Copa Libertadores – a far more difficult and historic tournament than anything CONCACAF could come up with. That’s tied Mexican clubs to the MLS for international competitions, and a combination of MLS clubs getting better and Mexican clubs playing down to their opponents has closed the gap a good bit. But because of this long-term prognostication on my part that the business of football means the metaphysics will be compromised for some sort of hybrid MLS/Liga MX league of some sorts – even if it’s further expansion of this Leagues Cup nonsense – means I’m going to do a 16-man metaphysics for one North American club every month as well (hopefully, lol). I’ll alternate between Liga MX and MLS. And it only makes sense (even though I did actually use their performances in both domestic leagues and CONCACAF Champions League from the past 7 years in compiling this) to begin with Club América, which is like the Dallas Cowboys or Los Angeles Lakers of Mexican fútbol. In fact, in their appearances in Leagues Cup, it was wild to see how, no matter where in America (the county) they played, América (the club) had supporters turning out in huge numbers, turning stadiums yellow. The Chicago Fire match felt like an away game for the Fire, which was to be expected considering the large Mexican population in the Chicago area. But it didn’t really seem to matter where they were at, as supporters showed up for every match, making noise and dominating the stadium’s chant and cheer discourse. Club América is not on their best stretch though, despite still being a top club. They still have more Liga MX titles than anybody else, but they’re in the midst of a five-year dry spell (with Liga MX having two seasons per year, rather than just one); and they haven’t sniffed a Champions League title since going back-to-back in 2015 and 2016 (though they did lose the final to Monterrey in 2021). All of this despite being the home of major football figures both at the managerial and player level. Strangely, this past summer, there was a lot of talk of Gregg Berhalter coming in, as further sign of Mexican fútbol compromising itself for U.S. dollars, but thankfully that didn’t happen, and Brazilian André Jardine was brought in instead. Not exactly a proven entity, but obviously América felt the need to shake things up. Nonetheless, according to our advanced football metaphysics dorkmetrics (minutes played in the past 50 competitive club matches), here’s your top 16 forces on this Club América squad’s psyche (through August 08, 2023)…

#1: ÁLVARO FIDALGO – The flow of talent tends to be from the western hemisphere to Europe at a younger age, but if not good enough for the jump to Europe, a lot of Spanish-language South Americans come to Liga MX. And then fading stars make their way backwards on the exploitation migration channels as they age out of their prime. Álvaro Fidalgo is the somewhat rare example of a European player moving west (although one of Mexico’s biggest stars, André-Pierre Gignac of Tigres also went went), joining América on loan from a second division La Liga club in 2021, and then the move being made permanent. He’s become a fulcrum in the middle of the midfield for América, aiding in attack and distribution to more potent scoring threats (though he’s not above chipping in a goal himself). Fidalgo spent teen years at the Real Madrid youth academy, so he’s experienced football at a level a lot of Liga MX dudes have not, so even though he’s still only 26, he does have somewhat of an elder role with the club on the pitch.

#2: SEBASTIÁN CÁCERES – Cáceres is a young Uruguayan defender who made the jump from his youth team in his native country to América back in 2020. He’s actually gotten 3 appearances with the Uruguayan national team in the past couple years as well, but it’s doubtful he’ll grow into a player that makes the jump to Europe. Liga MX doesn’t have quite the same level of player movement every season that MLS does, but there’s still a good bit of it. A guy like Cáceres will likely see América get all they can out of him, then he’ll bounce between a couple other Liga MX clubs, before eventually heading back home a decade down the road. There’s an honorable tradition of South America players who aren’t quite great enough for Europe but can make a solid (and well-paying) career in Mexico, which is a top-paying league in this hemisphere.

#3: RICHARD SÁNCHEZ – Sánchez is honestly the fiery heart of this club a lot of times. The Paraguayan might not be as Mexican famous as Henry Martin or Julián Quiñones or Diego Valdés, but chances are if somebody has gotten pissed off and decided to angrily take over a match on offense, it’s gonna be Sánchez. My favorite club in Liga MX is Santos Laguna, and one of their best ever players in recent times was Brian Lozano (now at Atlas, and diminished after injury) but both Lozano and Sánchez similarly have this “fuck you” switch that you can actually get switched on, and know they are about to try and get as stupid as possible in owning a defender. And it’s great when it works. Sánchez has a whole lot more support than Lozano ever did, but they both have worked with Valdés, who definitely benefits from the presence of that type of attitude alongside him. I love Sánchez.

#4: DIEGO VALDÉS – Like I just said, I pull for Santos Laguna, and Valdés was a force for them for a while. He’ll hit 30 next January, so he’s obviously one of those dudes like I mentioned before that comes from a footballing nation (Chile) but not quite good enough to jump the Atlantic. He’s made a good living for himself, and remains a threat to score. Probably most notable for his time on the Chilean national team when he made racist slant eyes gesture before a match with South Korea in a friendly after World Cup 2018 had ended. Wears the #10 for Club América… an always important fact to note in Latin America.

#5: HENRY MARTÍN – #21 in your program, but number one in Club América’s supporters’ hearts, Martín has been figure on the squad for a long time now, having joined way back in December of 2017 when heavyweight coach (both figuratively and literally) Miguel Herrera was in charge. Martín’s also been a regular presence on the national team, and with both the national team and Club América occupying Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, it’s all helped Martín to be an outsized figure in Mexican football. That being said, the club’s lack of success in winning liguilla has corresponded directly with Martín’s time there. So I don’t know.

#6: ISRAEL REYES – Young defender who made the move to América from Puebla last winter, and has become key on that side of things pretty quickly. The exposure on a big club has helped him get more time on the national team this year as well, with 11 of his 14 appearances for El Tri coming in 2023. That gig at Estadio Azteca is still prominent at club level, to get you in the Mexican football mind’s eye.

#7: JONATHAN RODRÍGUEZ – Another Uruguayan who has bounced around Liga MX for a number of years, had a spell with Benfica in Portugal earlier in his career (but never stuck on the A team), and even spent the first half of last year playing for Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia, before the Cristiano Ronaldo torrent of European superstars took hold. Before the Saudi stint, he’d spent a number of seasons with Cruz Azul, who also play in Estadio Azteca, so the home of Mexican football has also been Rodríguez’s home since 2019 for the most part.

#8: MIGUEL LAYÚN – As Henry Martín is to the offensive side of Club América, Miguel Layún is on the defensive side. An elder statesmen of Mexican football, who spent a long time on El Tri, including at both the 2014 and 2018 World Cups, he had a major stint with América earlier in his career, bookended by prominent European experiences in Serie A with Atalanta and England with Watford. Layún played a number of years in Europe, in Portugal and Spain as well, returning to Mexico to join Monterrey in 2019, but coming home (sort of) to América in June of 2021. Even at 35, his presence looms large, often adorned with the captain’s armband.

#9: ALEJANDRO ZENDEJAS – Again, the migration pattern of players is generally speaking, Latin American players who aren’t going to a higher caliber league make their way to MLS, but you don’t see a lot of American players going to Liga MX. Alejandro Zendejas is the rare counter example, but also very much a part of both sides of the border, having been born and living in Juárez and El Paso. As a teen, he signed a contract with FC Dallas, but ended up joining Chivas pretty early on, and part of that deal was to agree to play for the Mexican national team rather than the US one, because Chivas wouldn’t have had him otherwise. He spent some time with Necaxa after Chivas, but then joined América January of last year. He’s steadily gotten minutes as a winger since then. He also became source of controversy between national teams last year, as FIFA investigated him being played in a couple friendlies by El Tri despite not having filed the proper paperwork for national team allegiance. (Zendejas played as a youth player for the US.) The eventual outcome was that Mexico had to forfeit all matches Zendejas appeared in (the two friendlies, plus a few U-23 matches he played in) and he switched back to the US team, even scoring a goal for them against Grenada in Nations League play. It seems shocking he’d remain in Mexico after all that, but thus far, he’s remained a part of Club América. Still only 25, I would not be shocked to see him come back across the Rio Grande to one of the Texas teams in the near future.

#10: NÉSTOR ARAUJO – Araujo’s another long-time Mexican defender for the national team, who spent long stints at both Cruz Azul and Santos Laguna, as well as Celta de Vigo in Spain for four years. As is often the case with big names that went to Europe, América was the most likely landing spot upon returning to Mexico. He and Layún make a pretty legendary tandem on defense, both huge names in Mexican football, but Club América specializes in those. Got no idea on how payrolls are in Liga MX, but nobody has TV deals and merchandise moving like América. They can afford people nobody else in Mexico can.

#11: LUIS FUENTES – And Fuentes is like the other side of a Liga MX defender to Araujo and Layún. Fuentes played a decade for Pumas, and has bounced around a few other clubs, so is well known in his three year stint with América. But he’s only had a single appearance of the national team in that long and competent career. He’s still strong by Liga MX standards, but also 36. They got a couple younger folks on defense (the two Reyeses), but damn, they got some age out there too.

#12: LUIS MALAGÓN – Mexican GK getting his highest profile gig after periods with Morelia and Necaxa. His signing was no small deal because he came in to replace Mexican legend Guillermo Ochoa, who dazzled the world at World Cup 2014. Malagón’s gotten a couple of caps for the national team himself, but he’ll never be at that level of Ochoa. However, Ochoa has gotten older, and current Malagón is an upgrade to current Ochoa, who took a contract in Italy to play last December the same time Malagón joined América. It’s tough replacing a national legend like that, even if Ochoa’s best moments didn’t come during that Club América stint, but Malagón has done well.

#13: SALVADOR REYES – The other of the dos Reyes who are the younger defenders helping keep the club up to speed. They’re not related, and Salvador plays on the left side, and has been with the club a couple years longer, but has found it harder to keep his minutes on América’s crowded roster.

#14: LEONARDO SUÁREZ – Suárez has a solid footballing pedigree, having grown up and first featured as at the senior level for Boca Juniors (one of the top clubs in this hemisphere), and then spending five years in Spain under contract to Villarreal. He came back to this half of the Earth in January 2020, joining América, and though he spent a year loaned to Santos Laguna, since he’s returned, he’s forced his way into the conversation as being a necessary member of their squad. Nonetheless, it’s a crowded squad, with Martín and Julián Quiñones needing their time as well, so Suárez is likely seen as expendable by the club ultimately. Wouldn’t be surprising to see him loaned out again to another Liga MX club for a year, or even make the jump to MLS. He’d do pretty good against American competition.

#15: EMILIO LARA – The youngest (21) most promising defender of all on this squad, who also has expectations for him at the national team level. Lara joined América at age 15 as a youth player, and the 2022-23 season really asserted himself as a key member of the squad. He also got his first national team appearance too, and thus far has spent his entire professional career at Club América. Even in Mexico, homegrown players can be rare, because on a club like this, rarely is a young player good enough to start in front of the expensive veterans, but Lara has carved his spot. And with the age of some of the older guys, his role will likely only grow.

#16: ÓSCAR JIMÉNEZ – Jiménez is another example of becoming a prominent player on big domestic club with zero international presence. He’s considered one of the captains of the club, and has held onto a GK slot over the years since 2017, despite being supplanted by first Ochoa and now Malagón. When he first came on, it was a back-up to a different guy back then, so he’s handled the role well, of maintaining that secondary beta position, but stepping up whenever necessary. It’s a rare aesthetic to be a highly competent back-up GK like that, but Giménez plays it well, which is why he is one of the club’s captains despite not being a regular member of the starting XI.

SONG OF THE DAY: Sardines For Dinner

Today in the old dorkball group chat, Davy Hamburgers promised me a cookout in the woods. I hope that shit actually happens. (When I don’t have formulated thoughts to really expound upon – which I don’t lately – I just type gibberish, although often times that gibberish is entirely true…like this.)

SONG OF THE DAY: Minuit

I listen to shit like this a lot to be honest, a real digital era “world” music dork connoisseur, wearing the post-modern traditional African garb of secondhand track pants and a soccer jersey for a club I don’t even support. For pretend white American Ramadan, I’ve been trying to read more, but my brain’s all fucked up from the internet, so mostly I just sit here wondering if my brain is fucked up because I’m getting older, or technology, or covid, or all of it, or none of it. Then I go into my basement and lift weights briefly, but the basement is outside the house and unfinished so it’s soapstone foundation with gravel floor and a bunch of old windows but a screen door I can shut, and do a few reps in a space I can’t even stand upright in, and it all feels okay ever so briefly, but also doesn’t, like not at all. Somehow simultaneously absolutely blessed and absolutely fucked at the same time – the yin and yang of 21st century life as a human being in the slowly dying American Empire.

SONG OF THE DAY: Old Firms

video 

There is no international break in the realms of the unreal.

SONG OF THE DAY: Tevez

People are complaining about “these linebackers” and shit like that on my timelines again, and it’s an annual seasonal reminder of how thankful I am I gave up the American football for the world’s football. 45 dudes mostly standing around, running head first into each for about 11 minutes over an almost four hour commercial-heavy mind-numbing suck at a screen? Like they hardly do shit the whole time, and yet somehow still obliterate their own brains. Is there anything more American? Extract all physical usefulness out of these young men in a small window of their prime physical years and leave the empty physical remnants walking around the Earth afterwards, broke more often than wealthy off the whole deal, like human slag piles from mining operations.

You know how much fucking money good soccer players get paid? And that there’s literally a slew of domestic markets around the world, with a variety of clubs within each of those markets, that would play for your services if you were good? And that you don’t give yourself CTE? I think America’s development of soccer should be based around that shit more, with youth from more marginal backgrounds, because there’s a fucking HUGE opportunity to actually get paid, with far less destruction of your own body.

Look at Carlos Tevez. Born in Buenos Aires, with a giant burn scar on his neck from getting scalded with boiling water as a kid. Shit his whole story is wild, because he was born Carlos Martinez, but ended up taking on his adopted father’s surname in some sort of dispute between his original childhood club, All Boys, and the infamous Boca Juniors, whom his family signed him with when he was 13. At Boca Juniors, he became a star. This is one of Argentina’s biggest two clubs, along with River Plate. River is sort of the club of the bourgeoisie, while Juniors is the club of the people, and was where the legend of Diego Maradona was born in the decades past. Tevez was featuring for Boca Juniors senior club at the age of 17, and it wasn’t long before he was sold to a wealthier Brazilian club for a season, then off to the deep coffers of the English Premier League, where he spent a single season with West Ham before moving onto stints at both major Manchester clubs, with two seasons at United before making the rare jump to heated rivals and playing four for Manchester City. He absolutely lit up the Premier League his first two season with them, with 52 goals over all competitions those first two seasons in the powder blue. All told, he got over a hundred goals in Manchester, at both clubs, before transferring for a couple of seasons to Italy’s premier club, Juventus, and another high profile gig.

All this time, he remained a wild spirit from Buenos Aires, never having to hide his feral side too much, and refusing to ever get cosmetic surgery to cover that burn scar. For the most part since 2015, he’s played back in Argentina for Boca Juniors, one of the highest paid players in South America. You can’t even say it was past his prime, because he got 29 goals in Italian and continental competition for Juventus his last season for them, strong numbers for a striker entering his 30s. And though he did play for a huge paycheck for part of 2017 in China, he’s been back at Boca Juniors since then, and is key to their Copa Libertadores efforts this season. They’d looked like they might not make the knockout stages, due to Covid wracking the club roster, and their aging manager actually even managing matches virtually, believe it or not, due to his high risk status to the virus. But Boca still looks to be moving forward, and that’s in no small part due to Carlos Tevez’s 36-year-old ass straight up stalking the pitch, as fierce as ever.

And while Tevez is certainly not a political figure, at least not in any respectable sort of way, it’s hard not to compare that life trajectory of person through sport to Colin Kaepernick, for the sake of argument between American football and world football. Tevez was 3 when Kaep was born. As Tevez made his name known as a young star in South America for Boca Juniors and Corinthians, Kaepernick became a multi-sport athlete of some exception in California. From 2006-2010, Tevez moved onto England, to bigger contracts from West Ham to Man United, from Man United to Man City. Kaepernick, by American football’s design, spent five years as a student-athlete, with the diminutive financial benefits that come with that system, at University of Nevada.

From 2011-2016, Tevez continued to get paid as one a league superstar, in England, then Italy, and then returned home to Argentina as that nation’s domestic league’s biggest star in a number of years. A hero returned home. This same period saw Kaepernick battle his way to being the starter for the San Francisco 49ers, be condemned as not an elite QB, despite favorable statistics in two playoff runs in 2012 and 2013, and then get cast aside after a couple of rough seasons as star player on a team of 45 human beings, which also involved some high profile acts of protest which the NFL didn’t appreciate at all. There was no other league to go to though, no other country to go be a star in, no right to work anywhere else. So while Tevez has soaked in the adulation of his native Argentina, and become an absolute all-time legend at Boca Juniors, and even mixed in a well-compensated vacation to Shanghai, China, Kaepernick has been on ice, unable to get anything more than a performative NFL tryout after American police killed so many black men, the league felt guilty enough to capitalize on woke marketing to stage a Kaepernick workout.

So on one hand you have a sport that’s incredibly destructive, with a limited market for making money for yourself if you get good at it, where if you piss the bosses off, you’re locked out forever. On the other hand, you have a worldwide sport with literally layers and layers of pyramids where so long as you can still play to a certain level, and once you have made your name, you can find somewhere to get paid. And it’s physically demanding, like any sport is going to be, but you’re not obliterating your own ability to think, at least not with the sport itself. Why the fuck would you want to choose that shit for your kids? Why the fuck would you want to keep supporting it by watching it?

I guess mostly, it’s tradition. People in America grew up watching American football, so we continue to throw good brains after bad. But I understand. Why do anything less self-destructive and better for you if nobody did it before you? It’s better to run straight into that wall of seasonal anger and alcohol-fueled madness, because that’s all you know, yelling at TV screens during endless commercial breaks, where the last two minutes lasts for half an hour. All for nothing. Meanwhile, I’m feeling good on my wild lettuce tincture, enjoying high quality Copa Libertadores matches on a Thursday night, where that shit is signed, sealed, and delivered well within two hours. And usually, when it gets to South American club football knockout stages, you get a couple good fights in those last added minutes too, to get you hyped up as it ends. America is fucking cancelled in my opinion. We can’t even do toxic machismo in an enjoyable way.

SONG OF THE DAY: Maradona

It has been pretty nice to have football again, and not just have it but a giant smorgasbord throughout the week as the leagues that are finishing are trying to stuff three months into four weeks. Sadly, no return for African Champions League, or South American football thus far, which means it's a daytime only distraction. That's fine. It allows me to still hate the police in the evenings. Hopefully American football is dead forever. It is complicit in the rise of fascism, and the police state... like you can't even pretend otherwise with the Kaepernick situation. Fuck American football, world football #1, American football #zero, ptooey.

25-Man Metaphysical Roster: NORWICH CITY FC

EDIT: I'LL LEAVE THIS RATHER THAN DELETE IT BUT THESE POSTS SHALL NOW LIVE AT A NEW SITE CALLED FOOTBALLMETAPHYSICS.SPACE UPDATE YOUR MIND

-->

[The graphic above is when club hero, the Scotsman Bryan Gunn, who is perhaps responsible for Norwich City’s large Scottish pipeline, airballed a pass back during a match against bitter club rivals Ipswich Town back in the day. A sad moment which now lives forever in youtube clips of footballing failure.]

[25-Man Metaphysical Roster is a football metaphysics methodology utilizing dork methodology of minutes played over the past 100 club competitive club matches to determine which 25 players constitute the strongest psychic force on a club’s current trajectory. Then intuitive analysis is conducted utilizing football metaphysics, performed from an un-American soccer fan’s perspective. We do this every 1st and 15th of the month, cycling through the 20 clubs currently in the English Premier League, because it is the top domestic league based in an English-speaking country, which as un-American miscreants, we were all born to be saddled with this limited, segmented tongue of the global colonizer, oppressor, and capitalizer. Also, it is what comes on TV here in the USA most prominently, where we live. And yet, it is really important we clarify we hate English, and also America. Maybe we hate ourselves. Our panel consists of chairman Raven Mack, director tecnico Paul Robertson, and director rudo Neil Bulson. Our individual contributions to this 5000 words of gibberish will be noted by our name at the end of the blurb. If you enjoy this absolutely free internet content from an un-American soccer perspective, venmo me tips @ravenmack23. You may also enjoy the Sportsball 69 podcast.]

Let us discuss the football metaphysics of this Norwich City football club, which overtook all others and climbed to the top of the English Football Championship table this past season, to earn re-entry unto the very Premier League they were banished from multiple times over the years. They were one of the original Premier League clubs in 1992, but since a 2005 relegation, have bounced all around, mostly in the Football Championship, but with four other seasons in the Premier League (most recently 2015-16) as well as falling all the way down to League One once (2009-10). A couple years back, they hired their first non-British Isle manager in their long history, bringing in German Daniel Farke, who tbh has the foreboding physical aura of a Cormac McCarthy protagonist, which fits perfectly within the larger aura of Norwich City. You see, football metaphysics is not about pretending to know football, and analyzing pyramids with reverse metrics. It’s about the simple yet powerful tendrils of human existence somehow connecting in ways that make sense. And a foreboding German dude taking over a scrappy bunch of less-than-premier players on a club that – despite the national historical trend of boring blues and reds – sports bright yellow and green, as homage to their Canaries nickname, but such that an actual aura of something different is created, even if by accident. I tend to buy the most garish football tops I can to sport as everyday dirtgod apparel, whatever is on the most clearance priced price, and Norwich City always comes up in these searches. Such beautiful colors, and who the fuck wouldn’t want to be a canary?

This past season, of the three promoted clubs, only Wolverhampton was able to hold onto Premier League status, finishing a strong 7th. The other two (Fulham and Cardiff City) crashed back out. All three clubs promoted the season before held on, but two of them have struggled, and one was dropped this past season. And the season before that, two of the three promoted clubs were immediately relegated again. So Norwich City is attempting to escape this up-and-down status, and repeat the success of the previous Football Championship champion Wolves, and exorcise their own failure demons of bouncing back and forth, being a club not quite Premier League, but too good for the Championship. Are they equipped to do so? Wolves kept their core club intact, adding a few key upgrades. The two paths to success are to do that (if strong enough core), or stand relatively pat with what you have, plus pick up a few dudes from this season’s relegated clubs, and hope to finish outside the bottom 3 next season.

Related in spirit, I – Raven Mack the Dirtgod Imam of Football Metaphysics – have brought on two fellow life scientists of the metaphysical sporting arts, in my pals Neil and Paul, who will here forth assist me in these expositions of English Premier League clubbings. I hope this helps us maintain this schedule, and add to the compendium of Americans by birth writing about the world’s football, in the hopes that Americans who love the world’s football don’t have to keep reading such dumbass commentary that is too American-centric to be good. It is fitting we relaunch this 25-Man Metaphysical Roster according to the already established schedule on this day of Champions League finales, when the world – even in America – is watching the pinnacle of club football, while it features a pair of English clubs. [Raven]

#1: CHRISTOPH ZIMMERMAN (his FIRST METAPHYSICAL STAR, which is some shit we made it up for the dudes who finish first on these lists) – Hailing from Dusseldorf, known for its fashion and arts scene, young Christoph was sent to Borussia to make a name for himself, first with Mönchengladbach, and then with Dortmund, but was stashed away on the reserve teams in his native land. Sold to the English, he ended up in Norwich, which is probably a far cry culturally from Dusseldorf, with its fashion and arts scene, since Norwich is, well, Norwich, and is maybe most famous for producing carnies like that Paige chick in WWE who rose to fame fucking the entire locker room. Young, abandoned by his country, young Christoph nevertheless has been a stalwart for Norwich City the past two years, and even put on the captain’s stripe this past season as Norwich took the English Championship by storm. He is 26, 6’4” of fine Aryan stock, and his entire life is laid out in front of him, which is usually when shit goes bad, but the only way out of Norwich is either fucking the right carnies or proving yourself a leader of men. Maybe both. I don’t know. This probably isn’t the life he expected for himself. I imagine he dreamed of staying in Germany and fucking their carnies, but life isn’t fair, and sometimes you have to find yourself in new worlds, with new carnies to fuck and you speak different languages but the fucking is all the same, and out of that you find yourself the captain of a football team, the center-back serving as the backbone for the whole fucking deal, and maybe that is your way back home, or maybe you find you like it here, settle down with a carnie, as much as one can anyway, and make a life of your own in a strange land with strange people. Now thrust into the Premiere League, Christoph will find whether this is home or whether home is just a bittersweet memory. Do the girls in Dusseldorf still think of Christoph? Or is he just an exile making the best of what life made for him? Does life wait for him or does life beckon from some further place with its own carnies and its own fucking? These are the energies Christoph Zimmerman brings to Norwich City. It is an energy that can go either way, but fuck man, that’s just life. [Neil]

#2: JAMAL LEWIS – Hailing from Luton, young Jamal is just that: young. 21 years young. Oddly, he plays for the Northern Irish national team when he isn’t busy holding down the left back position for Norwich City. I say oddly, because you wouldn’t think a 21 year old black kid from Luton would rep the orange Irish way, but I guess his mom is Belfast born, so fuck it, don’t listen to me when it comes to making possibly racist assumptions. Young Jamal has spent his entire footballing life in the Norwich City system, which means that he is part of the heart and soul of their rise to the Premier League. He is not bought and paid for, a mercenary from the continent, but true Norwich. There is a purity in that, a clean energy, a positive energy that isn’t littered with past failures or abandonments and not many of us get to go through life like that, so shit, more power to him, I guess. But the world is just opening up for Jamal Lewis, son of a wild Irish woman no doubt, and he hasn’t suffered his first pain yet. That is still to come, and so it’s hard to trust in the spiritual energies of a dude who’s had it all work out for him for the most part so far. What happens when the Premier League stage is too big for him? What happens when his mom runs off with Thin Lizzy or what’s left of them? Jamal Lewis’ test is coming, and whether it makes or breaks him might tell the tale for Norwich City’s psychic spirit energies. That is a lot to bear, but fuck it, there’s gonna be a jailbreak somewhere in this town and Jamal and the boys need to be getting up and going down. [Neil]

#3: TIM KRUL – Krul is a Dutch GK who only came to Norwich City this past season, but he (as all good GKs should) played every minute of every match in their main competition. Krul historically has had some injuries, but did have multiple seasons of Premier League lower-level consistency as the minder of the posts for Newcastle United the early part of this decade. But he also spent a lot of time on loan after injuries, and while part of Brighton & Hove Albion Premier League squad in 2017-18, did not return to prominent role at that level. While he does give the Canaries someone with immense PL experience, this is exactly the type of philosophical choices that need to be made ultimately to determine whether a club looks to simply survive the Premier League (finish 13th to 17th) or make a move for a younger talent to try and thrive like Wolves did this past season. I imagine they’ll stick with Krul happily and hope for the best. [Raven]

#4: MAX AARONS – I'm always a mark for the young scrappy defender on the lower level Premier League clubs. Personally, this is the Alfie Mawson rule, but that might vary per your personal rooting interests. Max Aarons is that dude for Norwich City, came up through youth academy and they've been his only professional club (thus far). Turned 19 in January, which means he was born in the 2000s. Also his full first name is Maximillian, which I can get behind because my government last name is built off that same linguistical framework. He got the Football Championship Young Player of the Year award, but that also means he's getting attention from elsewhere, notably from Tottenham. Seems like a prime choice to be signed then loaned back for a season to the club he got sold from, because he's not gonna be starting for Spurs, and they're gonna want him to get some PL experience. [Raven]

#5: TEEMU PUKKI – In writing these profiles, I’m naturally going to be drawn to ex-Celtic players—dudes that I have actually watched play throughout a number of matches. So appropriately, my old bhoy Teemu is up first. To be honest, I’m both pleased for him and surprised as fuck that he broke out as big-time goal-beast with Norwich—30 strikes in 45 appearances is damn impressive. When he was with Celtic, he seemed to be in that non-scoring forward/striker mode—pull the defense out of position with some solid movement and then open things up for a strike partner or some roaming midfielder (what Football Manager labels the “defensive forward” or the “false nine”, I guess). I remember supporter-folk were excited because we picked him up from Schalke (Bundesliga!!!). But Schalke are to me one of the most boring clubs in football, maybe because their dull blue and white colors remind me of the Indianapolis Colts from when I followed American Concussion Ball as a kid. So Teemu never really made the breakthrough at Celtic, although you could tell there was a halfway decent player in there, of some sort. So he goes back to his Scandinavian roots, with Sweden’s Brondby (which maybe was fraught, given Swedes think Finns are degenerate trash and not really Scandinavian, or some such national-racist bullshit). He gets better and better there for a couple seasons, then claims his move to the English promised land (albeit the Championship) and just goes goal-wild. Maybe it has something to do with appearance, because at Celtic he seemed like this fuzzy little smiling tow-headed moppet, instead of some Finnish tundra-beast. But now he looks all unkempt, balding but hairy. That’s a thing, in my years of watching football—I’ve noticed many a player that was only at his best if he looked like he’d been battling pneumonia while living in a dumpster attendant’s shack. Clean them up (shave, haircut) and if they didn’t play like absolute shit, they were at least noticeably diminished. Anyway, good luck Teemu—maybe he’s a bit of a late (29) bloomer, but I suspect he’ll be back to running around but not scoring in the EPL and then back down to the Championship, or maybe a return to Germany and the lower reaches of the Bundesliga. [Paul]

#6: MARCO STIEPERMANN – First time foreign manager is always gonna build his philosophy through people who speak his metaphysical and sometimes actual language. Stiepermann joined Norwich City as part of Farke’s first wave of signings in 2017, and has helped establish their offensive style in the midfield. He had 46 appearances out of 51 matches this past season, and with just one season left on his contract, tacked on a two-year extension to continue what they’ve done under Farke (hopefully). With Zimmerman as the German anchor on the back defensive line, Stiepermann works as the main German voice on the other end of the ball (along with Moritz Leitner and Tom Trybull), which gives the club the shared voice of Farke’s vision, although not nearly as obvious as the Portuguese visiting club that Nuno Espirito Santo built with Wolverhampton. It’s still very interesting to see these various national influences on English clubs at the top level. [Raven]

#7: ONEL HERNANDEZ – Winger Onel Hernandez is an interesting figure with Norwich City’s promotion. He’s German by national team identity, so it makes sense with the Farke movement he’s on this club. But he’s not your stereotypical German, being physically born in Cuba, and with Cuban heritage, having emigrated to Germany with his ma dukes and sister when he was 6. In fact, with Norwich City’s promotion, Hernandez will become the first Cuban to play in the Premier League. And, the main reason he’s in the German national team system instead of Cuba is because Cuban football only allows players based in Cuba onto the national team. He also just got engaged to be married, announced on his Instagram, where he has WILL YOU MARRY ME laid out in red rose petals for his girlfriend at a resort in Bali. In fact, his somewhat oddball (by careful footballer standards) social media presence made him a cult figure with Norwich supporters. [Raven]

#8: EMI BUENDIA – Norwich City is shockingly Eurocentric, with only two players on their main squad with non-European national identities. But Buendia, one of those two, added a lot with his presence. The young Argentine winger/midfielder aided the club’s expansive attack immensely second half of the season, once he was comfortable after joining last June. Beyond scoring threat, he was by far the club leader in assists (18!), and just generally helped create their flow of attack. Buendia previously played for Getafe in Spain’s La Liga, but his form this past season has star potential (Norwich didn’t win a single match this past season where Buendia didn’t play), so likely the club will enjoy a limited window of this young man before he moves on to bigger and more lucrative pastures (at a good profit to the club, which of course, is the bottom line of this shit to a certain extent… capitalism ruins everything around me, CREAM fuck the money, dollar dollar bill y’all). [Raven]

#9: BEN GODFREY – Another top young defender who, with Aarons, gave Norwich City the solid defensive line that allowed the offense to flourish. Godfrey's getting a lot of interest from Man United now, and you gotta figure there's no way Norwich City are gonna keep both Godfrey and Aarons, because let's be real, they're not gonna turn down that money. If I was a young promising footballer, I'd dread going to Man United right now. Then again, if I was a young promising footballer, I wouldn't be ruled by metaphysical idealism; I'd be getting paid the most I can, and fucking Instagram models without birth control. [Raven]

#10: ALEXANDER TETTEY – So continuing with some Scandinavian football metaphysics, we have Ghana-born but Norway-repping Tettey. A product of the Rosenborg academy, he dominates with them for a couple seasons as they perennially destroy the rest of Eliteserien, before moving on to France (or more correctly, Brittany, because like England, France did its Celt-oppressing colonial foreplay close to home) with Stade Rennais. Doesn’t look like he was an automatic first choice, owing to injury bligh, while there, though he did have a respectable number of appearances. Norwich picks him up for about a million pounds, and he’s gone on to be a Canaries mainstay as they’ve bobbed between the EPL and the Championship. Tettey fulfills one of those ethnic-national football archetypes—the west/central African defensive midfielder soul-eater; disrupting, destroying, harrying, and generally oppressing any strikers or attacking midfielders getting notions within 40 yards of the goal. But Tetty looks like he has some subtlety, as my man has collected the fuck out of some yellow cards over the years, but has yet to be sent off in his entire career. I can’t get into some bullshit-anthropology discussion in this limited space, but if I was building a team, a Ghana DM is the way to go. (Irish dudes are also solid in this position, so maybe it’s an Afro-Celt thing?) [Paul]

#11: TIMM KLOSE – As I was gathering the minutes for the past 100 competitive matches, I always start at the farthest end of this for these promoted clubs that I don’t have any of the data for. So I can tell you that though he’s sitting at 11th on this list, Klose was at one point a way more prominent front and center player for this club. Norwich City signed this Swiss defender in January of 2016, when they were in the midst of their last previous Premier League season, desperately trying to restock during the midseason transfer window to avoid relegation. It failed, and Klose went down with the club. He was a starter in the majority of their Championship matches the for two seasons, but this past one only started about half the time, and became more of a sub than outright starter, as age has set in. But he also just signed a new deal to remain with the club, and as one of their elder players, and one of the only ones remaining from that last Premier League squad, he gives them guidance more than minutes. Plus, I have to admit I’m a sucker for dudes that do the double “m” thing at the end of really normal ass names. Although also there was a shitty pretend good restaurant in the small town I used to live in, the kind of place that works the rural American marks by offering “prime rib” or “seafood” specials, who also did the double “m” Timm thing, and now mid-blurb I’ve completely changed my mind. But being I went through the emotional labor of this thought process, I’m not deleting this part of the blurb. In fact, you should pay me for my emotional labor (Neil and Paul, too, to be honest). The venmo is @ravenmack23. [Raven]

#12: TOM TRYBULL – The young Trybull was another German import that came with Farke taking over in 2017. Norwich City moved from mid-table to top the second half of this past season by becoming an offensive force (which actually was pretty enjoyable to watch the couple times I caught them). Trybull, echoing the German keys theory I have posited to Farke’s success, was an important fulcrum of that shift, as he was near the top of the Championship in tackles, creating offense to move forward to the passing machinations of Moritz Leitner or Emi Buendia, which ultimately fed a goal-scoring growth led by Pukki. It will be interesting to see how this holds up with better Premier League defenses, or if the chemistry that came together second half of this past season can stay sweet with the addition of new players. Then again, that’s always an issue. It’s fucking football. [Raven]

#13: MARIO VRANCIC – One of the most studied realms of football metaphysics for me personally has been football and the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Because of my own spiritual paths, I’ve come to follow especially close Bosnian dudes, because that often means “white” Muslim, or somebody forced into Yugoslav diaspora who is Croat or Serb but chooses to identify at national team allegiance level with Bosnian multiculture. Vrancic’s story is the latter, moving to Germany as a wee tike, and eventually making it onto Bundesliga Mainz squad as a teen under Jurgen Klopp. When Klopp went to BvB, he brought Vrancic along. So the dude has pedigree. But beyond this, he’s part of Norwich’s collection of deft passing offensive options in the midfield. What sets Vrancic apart is his missile of a left foot, which in fact nailed the goal that sealed Norwich’s promotion. This past six months, it has seemed as Vrancic has grown scruffier, he has grown stronger. I hope the Premier League bump causes this to ascend into full-blown sweaty longish hair bearded Balkan spirit warrior, in the non-superclub nether regions of the English Premier League, where such forces can exist nicely without being forced into semi-retirement on a crowded Big 6 squad. [Raven]

#14: MORITZ LEITNER – Leitner is a German striker who was supposed to be Borussia Dortmund's next big thing, but got loaned out a number of times, most notably to Lazio. Finally he was sold off to lower level Bundesliga club FC Augsburg January of 2017, but didn't even make a first team appearance. That caused him to land in Norwich on loan January of last year, where he actually, you know, played. He got a permanent transfer before last season started, but he hardly came across as a dude worthy of the #10 kit, though he did make himself a supporter's hero by scoring an equalizer late against bitter rivals Ipswich Town in the East Anglian derby. [Raven]

#15: TODD CANTWELL – Cantwell joined the Norwich youth academy at age 10, and it's been his only club, outside of a loan to a Dutch club right after he made his senior debut. A young homegrown talent in a crowded midfield likely not gonna get a lot of PL playing minutes, but they can't get rid of a homegrown hero, can they? Of course not; they extended his contract. In a sport full of people not from England but during this time of UKIP-style blind nationalism, you're not gonna let an English kid (who is uhhh "traditional" English) slip away, even if he'll rarely get quality time in the Premier League. [Raven]

#16: KENNY MCLEAN – Here is all you need to know about this fool Scotsman named Kenny McLean – when Norwich City had their parade through town to celebrate their Championship title and promotion to the Premier League, McLean was drunk off orange Mad Dog 20/20, and declared himself the mayor of Norwich. That’s quality fucking metaphysics. [Raven]

#17: GRANT HANLEY (previously ranked #17 for Newcastle United on 01-Dec-2017) – Oh man. Grant Hanley. Let me just say, that in the same way Landon Donovan embodies everything that is wrong with US soccer, Grant here does the same for Scottish football. There are like 20 slight-variations of Grant Hanleys bouncing around the nether reaches of the English football system. Generic central Scotland urban belt name? Check. Scottish, but not Scottish like “Angus MacTavish” or some shit. As an aside, I bet there’s like 50 Northern Virginia/Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle/Atlanta suburb upper middle class white kids names Grant Hanley, waiting to play lacrosse and hopefully get pepper-sprayed all-to-fuck when they get too han[d]ley with some poor young woman. Came through the Rangers youth setup? Check. Made a couple dozen appearances for the Scottish National Team, in which he was part of a backline travesty that got wacky-sax destroyed by some Baltic or Balkan national team? Check. Yet still gets picked by the succession of shite Scotland managers because he plays in England and/or has a Rangers pedigree? Check. Hanley somehow got appointed captain of Norwich, but then promptly got injured and then couldn’t get back in to the starting 11. Which is probably at least 50% of why Norwich is getting promoted. I supposed he’ll probably be cover while the club tries to survive the EPL, but I’d bet on Hanley pitching up in lower Championship/League 1 after another season, or maybe heading back to Scotland with a mid-upper club like Aberdeen or Hearts (though hopefully his English-experience will tempt Rangers into paying some stupid fee and wages for his less-than-mediocre ass). My final thought on Grant here is that the Scottish Football Association finally got some damn sense and appointed a hyper-competent manager in Stevie Clarke. Though supposedly healthy, I see that Hanley didn’t make Clarke’s call-up cut for some important Euro qualifiers, so I’m taking this as the expected sign that Hanley and his ilk are finally excised from the national setup. [Paul]

#18: ANGUS GUNN (previously ranked #16 for Southampton on 15-May-2019) – Gunn was a Norwich City youth academy kid, local wonderkid who was absorbed into Manchester City’s youth academy factory at age 15, where he remained as part of their stockpiling/hoarding of football talent. Two seasons back, he was finally given a chance to shine as a senior team player, on a season-long loan back to his childhood club, where he appeared in every match for the Canaries (only dude to do so), endearing himself to club supporters as a homemade Anglian hero. Of course, he was only on loan, and this was just Man City giving him a showcase to finally move him, so he went to Southampton, where he has appeared sparingly as back-up to Alex McCarthy. No diss to Tim Krul, but it’s hard not to want Gunn to comeback to the Canaries, and play for his childhood club in the Premier League, AGAINST MANCHESTER CITY! WHERE HE MAKES A WIN-PRESERVING SAVE IN THE FINAL SECONDS AND THEN IMMEDIATELY RUNS OVER WITH HIS GIANT ASS GK LANKY BODY AND BEATS PEP GUARDIOLA INTO AN SHRUNKEN ACCORDION NECK CARTOON MESS TO THE CHEERS OF ALL THE DRUNKS AT CARROW ROAD! [Raven]

#19: JAMES MADDISON (previously ranked #15 for Leicester City on 15-Jan-2019) – A midfielder from Coventry, James Maddison is only 22 years old, but he’s already managed to blow through not only Coventry but Norwich City and found his way to Leicester City like a quick passing storm. I’m not sure what sort of psychic metaphysical energies are still lingering from James Maddison in Norwich, but to be honest, with a name like James Maddison, they are probably well rid of him. I’m not saying that he is the reincarnated soul of former American President James Madison, but I can’t say that he isn’t either, and since Madison is one of the OG Founding Fathers, no one needs a psychic legacy of old Virginian plantation stock. The father of the Constitution is the sort of thing that sounds good, but not when you look at it from the perspective of marginalized people, for whom the Constitution was merely a codification of an existing oppressive capitalist oligarchy. What does this have to do with James Maddison the young footballer, or more specifically, for Norwich City, who fucking knows. It can’t help, but since he isn’t even around anymore, it probably can’t hurt either. James Madison was a slaver, he even complained late in life when the Northern states tried to curtail the ways of the slaver south. Fuck him and his plantation. [Neil]

#20: IVO PINTO – A wanderer, Ivo Pinto comes from the small town of Lourosa, Portugal. From there he no doubt dreamed of making his way to the big city, maybe fucking some Brazilian girls with his Portuguese paternalism, but life doesn’t always go the way people want it to. Fuck, it almost never does. And so Ivo Pinto knocked around Portugal before being sent off on loan to Romania, where he actually managed to land in the Champions League for Cluj, but a loan is a loan and he was sold off to Croatia, where his Portuguese charms were likely wasted on the Zagrebian ladies who cared nothing of Portugal and laughed as their Croatian gangster boyfriends slapped around the queer kid from the pervert Iberian peninsula. He then moved on to Norwich, where he tried to find a home, a place where he belonged, as the right back for their football team. But poor Ivo again finds himself being sent away, unable to enjoy the Premier League sluts, and is now back with Dinamo Zagreb. Maybe this time he will find a home, a place to root himself to and be a hero, but he’s pushing 30 and it probably doesn’t get better from here. Not wanted by his home country, tossed out of Romania and then England like a gypsy, barely tolerated in Croatia, Ivo Pinto’s energies aren’t looking so good. But that is his problem now, not Norwich City’s. [Neil]

#21: JOSH MURPHY (previously ranked #15 for Cardiff City on 15-Apr-2019) – Longtime Norwich City player in the first part of this decade, along with his twin brother Jacob, both as wingers. Josh even made 9 Premier League appearances for the Canaries back then, while Jacob never did. But they separated paths, and Jacob ended up at Newcastle United, where he’s been playing in the Premier League the past two seasons. Josh was excelling at Norwich City, so was moved to Cardiff City this past season, as part of that bastard club’s attempt to build a Premier League-quality roster. Their efforts failed, and after a single season of being at Premier League level with his twin bro, Josh is back to the Championship, while Norwich City is back up. He’ll likely get sold off to some other Premier League club, but a return to Norwich City is looking unlikely. [Raven]

#22: HARRISON REED – Reed is actually a midfielder for Southampton, but he spent the entirety of the season before last on loan to Norwich City, thus he made this list. It's actually good to see how much of Norwich's 25-man metaphysical roster is signed to the club, and not them winning promotion with a handful of loanees and former PL washouts. It gives you hope they might be able to continue their success, and somewhat duplicate what Wolves did this season. I mean, it's gonna be hard to finish that high (7th is like winning the PL minus the big six clubs, which also is why Leicester City winning it a few seasons back is even more impressive in retrospect), but Canaries look equipped to not be in a relegation slog. Maybe. [Raven]

#23: JORDAN RHODES (previously ranked #23 for Middlesbrough on 01-Apr-2017) – Ahh, Grant Hanley on the flipside of the halfway line. Rhodes is yet another archetype—the tallish Scottish “striker”, that was actually born in England, who “puts himself about”…..and maybe scores one goal every five games or so. See also: Sheffield Wednesday’s Steven Fletcher and Raven’s Swansea boy Oli “Burn-Dog” McBurnie for comparable examples of the genre. Rhodes went hog-wild for several seasons with Huddersfield and Blackburn, such that I can recall a fair bit of Celtic supporter chatter about bringing him up to Glasgow. Followed by the usual recitation of how interested the player supposedly is, to play for such a glorious club that he also probably supported as a child, yet Celtic can’t pay either the asking price or the player’s wage demands (because of England’s standard lucre). In fairness, I think Rangers also have to deal with the same narrative in regards to whatever English-based troglodyte they’re coveting. But Rhodes’ appearances and productivity absolutely nose-dived, and you start getting Celtic chatter about “reviving his career in Scotland” and…fuck man, it’s really hard to mire yourself in following the SPL. He’s also done fuck-all for the Scottish National Team (which he qualifies for on some super-tenuous technicality about living there for a few years as a kid, despite being English as fuck). Rhodes is done—even after going back to Sheffield Wednesday when his loan is over. They’ll probably be looking to unload him, and I really do not want to hear anymore shit about bringing him to Celtic. [Paul]

#24: NELSON OLIVIERA – The second half of the season is when the Canaries really started firing on all cylinders, surpassing Leeds United as the top club in the SkyBet Championship. (I have refrained from using the sponsor title but I didn't feel like typing the long thing out that time just now, which caused me to then type this out, which means ultimately I fucking lost, again, because of succumbing to capitalism.) That second half of the season, Oliviera was seen as surplus, and loaned out to fellow Football Championship (ha!) club Reading. There was talk of a permanent transfer now, but it hasn't happened yet. If he was surplus at second level, he's definitely gonna be football detritus at the top level. [Raven]

#25: DENNIS SRBENY – Yet another German. How does Brexit prejudice apply to Germans? I guess that question assumes one thinks of Germans as blonde-haired fair-skinned Germans, not the diverse reality of German citizenship in 2019. It’s weird how enculturated all these fucked up things are in our heads. Is that just an American thing? Obviously not with Brexit and Marie Le Pen and even the Brazilian dude and Filipino dude and fuck man what a time to be alive. (Any time is what a time to be alive though, tbh.) In conclusion, YET ANOTHER GERMAN. (See y’all on the 15th!) [Raven]