JamieZ

Were Veretout, Amvai, Toure and Gueye all here at the same time? There were some fantastic players on that woeful team.

Just watched Jordan Veretout score his second of the day against Juventus. He's turned into quite a player.

I'm a big fan of the away. Sharp.

Oops. I am ashame.

Perhaps it's because he's a capped Norway international. Southgate could technically still get Reyna, but he won't. Gio's American, through and through.

Dortmund's young (and English-born, strangely enough) attack is remarkable: Reyna (17), Bellingham (17), Håland (20), and Sancho (20) all looking like players who'll be playing at the top level for more than a decade to come.

He's either been the victim of club politics or particular situations that just haven't worked out for him in recent years, because he's clearly a hell of a player.

No Champions League hangover for Bayern. They're absolutely frightening. Schalke are already looking like relegation candidates. With Weston McKennie off to Juventus, I just don't see what's going to keep them up.

That's a fair point. Bayern are looking to bring in American right back Sergiño Dest from Ajax, as well, which would allow Joshua Kimmich to move into midfield and Benjamin Pavard to move to centreback, which would go some way toward making up for the loss of Thiago to Liverpool.

For what it's worth, I've been watching Jude Bellingham this pre-season for Dortmund and he looks like quite a player. He doesn't look remotely fazed by the leap in quality. Between him and Gio Reyna (who has also been remarkable) ready to take the next step to first team action, young stars like Håland and Sancho, and established veterans like Reus and Hazard and Brandt in attack, the biggest challenge is going to be getting them all onto the pitch. I know this is the story every year, but if Bayern have a wobble, they're going to have some serious competition for the title.

Nike cuts are usually pretty flattering. I don't understand why the Spurs shirt is cut like an improvised rain poncho made out of a plastic garbage bag.

Foden is 20, but looks 16. Perhaps they were working with the average.

Strangely enough, I think I would have been fine with it with black shorts and red or white socks. But not that. For the love of God, definitely not that.

To me, it's the broken line down the side stripping. It's absolutely distracting to me. It looks like it was cut in half by accident and then poorly taped back together.

Nice kit, though.

The impression I've always had (and I am by no means an expert) is that they were Mussolini's team, but that apart from that association, there doesn't seem to be anything about the club that is intrinsically fascist, per se. But the emergence of the Irriducibili ultras group in the '80s seems to have kind of brought any existing far-right elements to the forefront of the public consciousness—and certainly club identity has sort of coalesced around that in the years since. And that's enough for me to have a healthy disdain towards the club in general, but yeah, I guess it's like St. Pauli (of whom I'm a supporter) where the club identity is the result of more recent historical developments as opposed than something innate to the founding of the club.

The new Lazio Champions League kit is rather fasc-ionable.

For what it's worth, I dig that Manchester United kit. The dazzle camouflage is a bold look, and I think it works on a third kit. I like the away strip more than I did since learning it's supposed to resemble the cover from 'Unknown Pleasures', but if we're being honest, both home and away are pretty unremarkable.

I really like this Charlton away kit. Class from Hummel.

Agreed. The France shirt has clean, unbroken lines, balance, and minimal styling. It's quite nice, if a bit plain. The England kit looks like a non-branded department store knockoff with a badge slapped in the middle. I think centre-aligned badges look cluttered (even on a blank shirt), and all of Nike's design quirks this year irritate me (and my OCD): the broken lines down the side, the bits on the back of the collar that should clearly be on the front or nowhere, and that weird sublimated fingerprint etching (if you look, the England kit has it and the French doesn't appear to) on everything. It's all try-too-hard.

Errea basically made the collar on that Nike template a tad less ridiculous and came out with the basis for a pretty smart kit, akshually. And then they made it even cooler with sunglasses indoors.

Welp, McKennie to Juventus is official. I'm sad and excited at the same time.

I never suggested he wasn't up to the standard. I simply said it was surprising to me, based on his stated goals, his attributes as a player, and the nature of the destination. On the surface of things, I would pick McKennie as the U.S. player destined for the Premier League, even before Christian Pulisic. He's physical, combative, and full of running. The aspects of his game that are currently lacking (again, tactical nous and positional discipline) will absolutely leave him exposed in Serie A. If he gets the opportunity to develop those at Juve and become a more well-rounded player in the process, great, but that's the reason for my surprise.

Yeah, so the McKennie to Juventus thing seems a bit out of left field to me. I'm not saying it can't or won't happen, just that something doesn't seem quite right about it. Based on no evidence either way, so take it with a pinch of salt. Juve will be going through a bit of a revamp, for sure, and maybe McKennie is exactly what they're looking for. They're a team loaded with quality players, but lacking a bit of je ne sais quoi. Maybe McKennie has that. Pirlo will want to put his stamp on the team and he has experience in MLS, of course, but no connection to McKennie, who has only played senior minutes in the Bundesliga. And not to assume that a manager will inevitably want to mold a team in his own image, but McKennie and Pirlo couldn't be more different. McKennie has remarkable attributes, but he's no regista. On one hand, Serie A would offer McKennie an opportunity to develop his weaker attributes (tactical nous and discipline), but the Premier League seems like a better match for the attributes he already has in spades (Jerry Bruckheimer action). As an American who has followed his career from the beginning, McKennie to Juventus would be an eyebrow raiser to say the least.

I guess I don't understand all of the anxiety largely in view of the fact that they players we're being linked with aren't being signed by other clubs. That indicates that these transfers are ongoing and that it's not like our primary targets are being snatched up and we're being left in the dust. To the contrary, it seems like we're hearing about our interest in quality players (Rashica, McKennie, Edouard) emerging while other clubs seem to be dropping out of the chase. I'm impatient for the obvious reason we're all likely to be impatient: new signings are exciting and we want to see our club strengthening in key areas. But I'm not worried that we haven't signed all of our targets just yet, because it just doesn't seem like we're behind the game—unless we're expecting to make signings like Chelsea, in which case we're all going to be disappointed no matter what happens.