KICK OFF

LUIS SUAREZ IS BACK

So here’s the thing: Luis Suarez really should retire. Watching him run physically hurts GOAL’s knees (and that’s not just because this newsletter writer needed surgery once). The Uruguayan’s body doesn’t quite respond to what his very clever mind wants him to do. He’s stopped scoring goals, and he’s also 38. He was also benched at the end of last season. Does anything here suggest that Suarez should sign a new contract and play another season? Nah. This is exactly why Suarez signed a new contract to play another season. But why? Partially because he’s Lionel Messi’s mate. But mostly because he could be the best backup striker in MLS. GOAL took a look at a silly deal that might just make some sense…

Hindle: “Yet there remains something undeniably sad about all of this. Suarez is a great of the game. A player of his stature should be scoring goals, winning trophies, and starting matches. Football is easy to romanticize, and in an ideal world, Suarez would have gone out on top, with just a little more left in the tank. He could have left Miami in 2024. He could, perhaps, have hung up his boots before ever moving to South Florida. This is a calibre of footballer that should not be asked to settle.”

TRINITY RODMAN AND THE NWSL’S CRISIS

Trinity Rodman is very, very good at soccer. She is one of the best talents on the ever-improving USWNT, and, by some distance, the most marketable player that the NWSL has to offer. And she might leave the league. It’s unclear, too, whether she actually wishes to do so. Rodman is a star that the NWSL cannot pay like a star.

Rodman should be pulling in millions every year - at least, that’s what her European counterparts can ask for. Yet when the Spirit offered her a deal that would average out to north of $1 million per year, NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman blocked it. Her reason? It breaks the rules. Well, that doesn’t seem very fair. Maybe the rules are stupid. Maybe the NWSL needs to change, or it will lose yet another top talent to Europe. GOAL’s Celia Balf broke down an intriguing yet maddening saga…

Balf: “Trinity Rodman’s future remains unsettled, but the questions surrounding it now stretch well beyond Washington. As the USWNT star weighs her next move, the NWSL finds itself at a crossroads.

The league’s Board of Governors is voting on a new roster mechanism that would allow clubs to pay select players well beyond the current salary cap - a significant potential shift that arrives amid mounting pressure to keep the league’s biggest stars at home. The timing is no coincidence. Washington’s attempt to secure Rodman with a multiyear deal was recently denied by the league, prompting the NWSL Players Association to file a grievance arguing the decision violated Rodman’s free agency rights.

What might have been a routine contract negotiation has instead become a flashpoint in a broader debate about player power, league control, and the NWSL’s ability to compete with Europe.”

CHECKING IN ON THE USMNT

So, if the World Cup started TODAY, where would the USMNT be? What would its squad look like? Who could be counted on to deliver in the big moments? It’s an intriguing series of questions, mostly because Mauricio Pochettino has eight-ish elite players, and then a whole bunch of others that he doesn’t quite know what to do with. In short, piecing the roster together won’t be easy. Some tricky decisions will have to be made. Well, that’s football, and we can all live with it. But it’s also worth breaking down. And GOAL’s Ryan Tolmich is going position by position. This time? The center midfielders, with Tyler Adams (who is dealing with an MCL injury) and then a bunch of other guys who might be good. Seriously, we’re really not that sure…

Tolmich: “Starting with Adams, who remains as vital to the USMNT as ever. A mainstay all through the 2022 cycle, Adams has seemingly gotten even better, particularly on the club level. He's added some goals and assists to his game recently while also remaining one of the Premier League's fiercest midfielders. As long as his recent injury doesn't impact anything, Adams should be heavily involved next summer. As for who is there next to him, that's a little less certain. It may end up being somewhat situational, with different games undoubtedly having different requirements from the midfield.”

WHO'S THE NEXT JAMES?

The year is 2014. It is the 28th minute of Colombia-Uruguay at the Maracana, and Colombia are playing pretty well. Abel Aguilar wins a header near the center circle, and the ball falls directly on the chest of a 22-year-old midfielder named James Rodriguez. The relatively unknown No.10 flicks the ball up, checks his shoulder, and with one smooth swivel and strike, bashes the ball into the top left corner from 30 yards. Colombia win 2-0. Two months later, Rodriguez goes to Real Madrid for a fee of €75 million.

Few knew about Rodriguez before the tournament. But after, he was considered one of the best players on the planet. World Cups are pretty good at churning up these kinds of storylines. But which player could be next? Who will be the James Rodriguez of 2026? GOAL takes a look at the main contenders…

Hindle: “There are plenty of talents out there - some known commodities, others not so much. Yan Diomande of RB Leipzig seems an obvious candidate after his performances for the Ivory Coast. But there are others, too, playing for both Mexico and the USMNT who could break out on the world's stage.”

LET’S GET NERDY WITH THE AMERICANS ABROAD

Here’s some content for the nerds. So the year in soccer is more or less over. We have enough of a sample size to make ill-informed sweeping declarations and write them in a newsletter that is released every Friday morning. But is there any science behind what is said? And, more broadly, what are the defining statistics of all of this anyway? Soccer is a vibes game. But Tolmich took a look at the numbers in recent weeks…

Tolmich: “Good news, then, for fans of the USMNT: there's plenty of good form to go around right now. The USMNT's attackers are humming, scoring goals all over Europe. Everyone knows how well Christian Pulisic has been doing this season, but he's not the only one. No, there are plenty of attackers who are making things happen at the highest levels the game has to offer.”

REMEMBERING 2002 AND “THAT” HANDBALL

So, 2002 was a pretty good year for the USMNT. They made it to a World Cup quarterfinal, which is pretty impressive when you think about it. That was an inexperienced team that scraped their way to the latter rounds of the tournament. It’s a lovely little narrative. But USMNT fans will tell you that they deserved more.

In the 50th minute of their quarterfinal match against Germany, the USMNT had a pretty compelling call for a handball on the line. The European side would almost certainly have been down to 10 men, while the U.S. would have been awarded a penalty. It’s one of those butterfly effect moments. But the broader point is that the USMNT massively overperformed and showed a little World Cup magic. Tolmich chronicled the tournament in full:

Tolmich: “Even now, 23 years later, the USMNT is still chasing that summer. The team has yet to match the heights of 2002 and, while there have been some big World Cup moments in the tournaments since, none have reached the same dizzying level. It was, in many ways, the USMNT's true introduction to the elite of the game. Everything that happened after can be traced back to that 2002 team.”

PLAY GOAL8 

So there’s this thing called GOAL8. What you do is pick a bunch of scorelines for games that are randomly generated by our very clever machine, known as the internet. Eight games, eight scorelines. Get all eight correct, and there’s a $100,000 prize on the line. Last time out, I got an agreeable 90 points. Not a bad shout. Here are a few misguided predictions…

Aston Villa 2-1 Man United

Liverpool 2-0 Tottenham

Leeds 1-1 Crystal Palace

Chelsea 3-2 Newcastle

Juventus 1-1 Roma

Atletico Madrid 2-2 Girona 

Real Madrid 2-1 Sevilla

Barcelona 3-1 Villarreal

PLAY AGAINST ME IN A PRIVATE LEAGUE HERE(!!)

VIDEO REVIEW

Who gets the ball from 60 yards out and goes “let’s have a pop, then?” Leicester’s Abdul Fatawu, apparently…  

AROUND THE GROUNDS

A few other things you need to know to impress your pals at the bar, ruin your social feed or generally be a snob about this sport:

• There are tons of Mo Salah drama at the moment, but that doesn’t matter because Hugo Ekitike can ball… right? 

• NC State’s Nikola Markovic was the No.1 overall pick in the 2026 MLS draft. We talked to him about what it all means… 

• Alyssa Thompson is balling like CRAZY for Chelsea at the moment… 

CHECKING THE MONITOR

Is this real, or has AI simply gone too far?

POSTMATCH HIGHLIGHTS

Our Rondo guys took a look at football’s biggest what ifs

MATCHES NOT TO MISS

• December 20: Premier League, Chelsea vs. Newcastle, 7:30 a.m. — USA Network

• December 20: Premier League, Liverpool vs. Tottenham, 12:30 p.m. — NBC

• December 21: La Liga, Real Madrid vs. Sevilla, 3 p.m. — ESPN+

• December 21: Premier League, Aston Villa vs. Man United, 11:30 a.m. — NBC

That’s all for this edition of The Rondo. Irritate me directly with questions/comments/insights/incorrect opinions @tom_Hindle_

Cheers for reading!