January 11 – Chelsea are going to win the Premier League, Real Madrid will win Spain’s La Liga, Bayern Munich will top the Bundesliga and Juventus will champion in Italy’s Serie A. In France PSG will get knocked off their perch by Monaco for the Ligue 1 title.
January 9 – With FIFA set to announce the winners of the voting at its new ‘BEST’ annual awards event, the CIES Football Observatory has developed a more technical methodology and ranking of the best players in Europe’s big-5 leagues by position. And Cristiano Ronaldo tops the list.
January 5 – The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) has released a list of 148 college players for its 2017 NWSL College Draft which will take place at the same time as the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) Convention in Los Angeles on January 12.
January 3 – A tiny Welsh team have won a glorious place in the global footballing record books after beating the longest winning streak in top-flight football set by Johan Cruyff’s Ajax 44 years ago.
January 3 – New England manager Gareth Southgate says he would love to be the man to end the country’s record as the great under-achievers despite having a squad full of Premier League millionaire footballers.
December 30 – Bob Bradley, the former US national team coach sacked by Swansea City after only 85 days in charge, says he could have made a success of being the first American to manage an English Premier League side if he had been given more time by his fellow Americans who appointed him in the first place.
December 28 – It was always a somewhat risky appointment. But before he had managed to get his feet firmly under the table, Bob Bradley, the first American coach to take charge of a top-flight English club, has been shown the door at Swansea City after only 85 days.
December 28 – He may have only been England manager for 67 days but he was only out of the game thereafter for less than three months.
December 23 – Argentina, whose national association is under the control of a FIFA normalisation committee, will at least finish the year as the world’s number one nation on the pitch, according to the final FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking for 2016.
December 23 – An unheralded club in Wales is on the verge of making international football history. Welsh Premier League champions The New Saints have already established a Welsh Premier League record of consecutive wins but now they are close to setting a new world record of consecutive victories in all competitions.
December 23 – In football quality beats quantity every time, is the conclusion of the latest analysis by the CIES Football Observatory of the number of players used in the season to date in teams in 31 top division of UEFA nations.
December 23 – Former England manager Sam Allardyce, who lasted only 67 days in charge before being forced to resign following a newspaper sting, could be back in the spotlight before the end of the year.
By Samindra Kunti
December 9 – French champions Paris Saint-Germain are teetering on the edge of a crisis following a defeat against Montpellier and a draw against Ludogorets in the Champions League. On Sunday, they host league leaders Nice with coach Unai Emery in the pressure seat.
December 6 – FC Barcelona is taking its academy blueprint to China and is backing the build of a facility at the world’s biggest golf resort, Mission Hills, on China’s Hainan Island, near Hong Kong.
December 5 – Goalkeepers, often the old wise heads of top league teams, appear to be getting younger. Of four players under the age of 20 who have played every minute of every league match so far this season in the top divisions of 31 European leagues, three are goalkeepers.