Ryan Rosenblatt

@ryanrosenblatt.bsky.social

2603 Followers 129 Following

Work in ⚽️⚾️🎮. People who have paid me: @ESPN, @FOXSports, @Dodgers, @SBNation, @Eurosport. He/him. Contact: ryrosenblatt@gmail.com.

Nations League B draw with tons of beautiful island countries
AS Roma kit, off-white with red and yellow stripe across the chest. Large EUROBET.live sponsor underneath.
8 item Taco Bell order
Bonkers England/France shot chart
Mbappe as a protestor hanging from a streetlight
World Cup format using teams from 2026 - shows how the groups could have looked and a bracket with group winners straight into the round of 16, runners up and third place in a play-off round
There are Argentines who said beating England is more important than winning the World Cup. What could possibly make a semifinal more important than a final to some? If you read or watched much American soccer media, you might not even know. It’s not new for media outlets to be scared of politics or people to claim they want to leave politics out of sports3, but when sports has brought politics to the stands and the field, when the politics is right at the heart of the game, it’s especially ridiculous to ignore it. At that point, you’re not just making a decision about politics - you’re making a decision to cut a chunk of the game out, poorly serve your audience and, frankly, do your job very badly. The beauty of international soccer is that it encapsulates the whole world. The difficulty of international soccer is that sometimes the whole world can be quite dirty. Sometimes the countries involved have fought literal wars and people have died because of the two flags engulfing the pitch during the anthems. That is as much the World Cup as anything else, and if a network or media outlet is unwilling to recognize that, grapple with it and present it as part of the game the way it is, then they aren’t fit to cover the World Cup.
Text that reads: Tuchel is going to use this goal to try and Mexico this game away but Argentina isn’t Mexico and you don’t beat them in your defensive third, you do it in the middle third. Tuchel is gonna let them walk it forward and that’s going to be the game no matter how many centerbacks he’s about to bring on.
Argentina player holding up a sign that says "las Maldivas son Argentinas" on the field after the game
Pedro Porro celebrating his goal with a gigantic smile
Laine Yamal in a white shirt with red and gold trim and red shorts with gold trim
In the end, the top four teams in the world made it to the semifinals. The upstarts had been dispatched, the titans retained their places and the rich became richer. Corruption, ignored. Suffering, papered over. Failing institutions and a lack of trust in the integrity of the entire project, you got it. The most egregious capitalistic exploitation sports has ever seen, no doubt. And yet a handful of people reached mesmerizing heights, in an event that celebrated the best of human expression and culture to provide respite for billions of people. If that isn’t 2026 in one neat package.
Pulisic was healthy for one half of a game this World Cup and he had Paraguay in hell for those 45 minutes. The rest of the time, he was playing hurt. He plays hurt a lot, for club and country. If he ever gets a consistent run of health, he starts to look good, but that is rare and getting rarer by the year. Breaking down Pulisic’s impact when he’s fit versus when he’s not and how much the team differs without him would be insightful. Questioning why the USMNT lean so heavily upon a player whose body cannot be relied upon would be interesting. How you manage that type of uncertainty in the dressing room and how the Americans have to change when Pulisic isn’t fit would be the type of illuminating analysis that can be unique to former players. It’s a shame we don’t get that.
Achraf Hakimi: Born in Spain, Hakimi chose to represent his parents homeland of Morocco and has been terrific for the Atlas Lions, but imagine if he chose La Roja. With a midfield able to control the game like Spain’s does, he’d have total freedom to get forward and would help ease concerns about whether they could turn game control into chances. He alone might make Spain World Cup favorites, but it’s probably for the best. He and Lamine Yamal on the same wing might kill a left back.
Mbappé as a dictator
The problem is that to produce one first division professional player - not a star or even national team player, just someone who will have a full career - thousands of players have to go through the academy and fail, left to go into adulthood often with little education, few life skills and no direction. Anyone who has been around clubs, be they Premier League or in the third division somewhere, has seen the heartbreak of the day when teenagers are told they are being let go. That their dream is over and they have to go out into the world with little preparation for the rest of their lives. Even those who do make it to the professional level can be treated as little more than property, by clubs and agents, selling their rights and forcing them into transfers with little consideration for their career and directing the bulk of the money involved to themselves instead of the player.
Egypt shot chart with two goals from right in front and nothing else.
Gabriel on the ground, lounging in his failure as Haaland jogs away a goal scorer
Alex Morgan sipping tea after scoring on England at the World Cup
92' Senegal wanted to make two changes before extra time, but their substitutes were seemingly not ready.
Belgium in a gorgeous blue and pink shirt with black trum and white shorts.
France in blue tops, white shorts and red socks. Sweden in yellow tops, blue shorts and yellow socks.
Still of Morocco goal with 4 Moroccans in front of goal and 3 Dutch
Yuito Suzuki in a white Japan kit with black trim and green, blue, orange, gold and red stripes
Ecuador in yellow with blue shorts, Germany in navy with teal.
3 points, even goal difference 99% through. Minus 1, 92%. Minus 2, 80%. Minus 3, 64%.
Paris World Cup team: Maignan; Kounde, Konaté, Saliba, Aït-Nouri; Koné, Rabiot; Mahrez, Akliouche, Mbappé; Mateta
Cabo Verde free kick goal with swinging doors for the wall
Japan fans waiting at every corner of Shibuya crossing then when the light changes, they run into the street, jump up and down and cheer before sprinting back to the sidewalk.
VAR visualization of Taremi's offside being almost entirely due to his butt
Japan barely keeping the ball from going out to score the winning goal to beat Spain at the 2022 World Cup
What does it take to reach the knockouts? 3 points positive GD -94% 3 points even GD -91% 3 points -1 GD -75% 3 points -2 GD -54%
Everyone hated this stadium when it opened. How could Chivas leave the famed Estadio Jalisco for a new place on the edge of town that, to everyone’s horror, had artificial turf. Well, 16 years later it really feels like a great place for top level soccer and a proper World Cup stadium. They ditched the turf at this stadium years ago, did a better job decking it out in Chivas garb and the time that’s passed has made it the site of enough memorable moments that it just feels right now. That’s a good thing too because the design for this place is terrific. The two levels of general seating are close to the pitch, with the premium seating in between less intrusive and space-consuming than you see elsewhere. The white roof holds the lights and sits on supports that create a lot of air between the top row of seats and the covering, making it almost feel like it’s floating above the stadium. The stadium is also surrounded by lush green that grows all the way up the exterior of the stadium, making it look like the roof is floating on top of a grassy hill from the outside too. It’s beautiful and gives you a feeling unlike any other venue I’ve been to.
When the game ended, you could spot Mexicans and Koreans dancing with each other. An old Mexican man tried some Korean meat for the first time and was delighted by it, but said it needed a tortilla, so someone else ran down to the taco truck at the corner and came back with a single tortilla for him to put the rest of his food in.
Giannai Infantino scowling next to Canada's prime minister celebrating his country going 4-0 up on Qatar
BC Place has been in the soccer news recently and not for good reasons. The Vancouver Whitecaps might move from the city because they cannot make enough money at BC Place to satisfy their owners or entice buyers to pay hundreds of millions for the club, but that doesn’t make it a bad stadium or justify the Caps’ owners belief4 that they are entitled to extract wealth from the team. It’s actually a rather nice stadium in a great location. The two-tier bowl with minimal premium seating brings everyone right on top of the pitch and you can feel the energy from the lower level move up, just like you can feel the upper deck energy transfer on town. When BC Place gets rocking, it’s a really special environment. Toss in a gorgeous exterior with iconic white supports holding its retractable roof in place, the windows letting light into the stadium and feeling that it’s a proper soccer stadium5 that memorably hosted the 2015 Women’s World Cup final, and it’s easy to look past the dated concourses and other small issues. This is a fun place to take in a game and that MLS can’t make it work here says more about them than it does Vancouver or BC Place.
South Africa shot map with 10 shots outside the box
A punt returner getting blown up
20. Rashford on audition Marcus Rashford was the future of Manchester United, until he was a disrespectful, spiteful young man for checks notes feeding children, then a throwaway player nobody wanted, and, this last season, crucial to Barcelona’s title winning team in a massive bounceback year for a player who is somehow still only 28. Now he’s back on the market as United try to offload him for a song, which makes this World Cup an audition for a player who, once again, could change a lot of good teams’ front lines. We rarely getting a player trying to play his way onto a great team at a World Cup.
A still on the pass for Croatia's goal that showed the CM on the right, the left wingback over the top in the center, the center forward on the left, the right winger in the middle of the park and the left winger in the back line.
Luka Modric hitting a trivela pass so well it will make your jaw drop
14. Portugal’s Ronaldo problem Portugal have a good back line, potentially the tournament’s best midfield with Vitinha, João Neves and Bruno Fernandes, and more than their fair share of forward talent. They should be a contender to win this World Cup. So why won’t they? They will insist on playing Cristiano Ronaldo. They will insist on playing him a lot. He’s been an anchor on this team for several tournaments now because that’s what guys in their late 30’s generally are to a team. Now he’s 41 and Portugal’s best hope is Roberto Martinez parks him on the bench so they’re pretty screwed.
Messi in Argentina's white and blue shirt with dark shorts.
A beautiful blonde dog slash fennec fox
International football, and the World Cup in particular, has given little evidence that having an elite manager makes a big difference. Or that the best boss might not be the countryman who understands the national team set up best and can maintain a healthy dressing room. That tactical brilliance is wasted in a competition with little time to prepare and drill, or even the ability to select players from a transfer market and instead take whatever mishmash is available. Maybe international football lends itself to a Keep It Simple Stupid approach that neuters some of the skills we associate with the best managers in the world.
Ryerson with a very stark bleach and tone (a well done one, according to my hair stylist partner)