The combined USA / Mexico / Canada bid is everyone’s front-runner for the 2026 World Cup. That said, though, Morocco is just the kind of country that FIFA loves picking, because FIFA loves nothing more than brand-new shiny usless stadiums to show off during the World Cup.

This seemed like a good time to make fun of FIFA, then.

Things got out of hand at West Ham last week, with fans verging on a riot against club ownership. That doesn’t happen in America, unless an owner tries to steal someone’s team. It’s a reminder for MLS: #SaveTheCrew.

College soccer is kind of a weird thing. They play an entirely different game in college, one that’s full of substitutions (nearly unlimited) and with frequent games (two in a weekend, three in a week, usually, in order to fit the entire season into the autumn).

Men’s college coaches are leading a push to make the season span across both fall and spring, in order to ease the schedule burden, but for the moment the NCAA and pro soccer are two very different things.

Soccer Insider tries to cover a little of this.

This week’s Soccer Insider looks at why the NASL died while the USL thrived - because one worked with MLS, while the other worked against it.

It’s time for the SheBelieves Cup, the tournament with the bad name and all the best women’s national teams - the USA, France, Germany, and England. The USA is still rebuilding its defense after its 2015 World Cup win - and this tournament will be a key test on its road to the 2019 World Cup.

Soccer Insider this week looks at Toronto and Tigres, the favorites for the 2018 CONCACAF Champions League.

Soccer Insider this week covers the arrival of Ezequiel Barco, MLS’s record transfer signing - and what the future might hold for MLS as a league overall.

This week’s Soccer Insider is a bit of a history lesson. LAFC takes the field this year, the Miami Beckhams start (officially, for sure, for real, no worries this time at all, gang!) in 2020 - but MLS has tried both a second LA team and a Miami franchise before. Both of them went pretty poorly.

There’s only one title race in Europe right now (at least among the leagues that you can regularly watch on TV here), and it’s taking place in Italy. Even better, the war between Juventus and Napoli isn’t just about soccer - it’s about north vs. south.

I tried to come up with five things American soccer can do to make 2018 a positive year, though the truth is that about the only thing that would definitely accomplish this involves a time machine and less failure in Trinidad and Tobago.