If you’re searching for a sporting narrative chalked full of risk, drama, and determination to make it at the top, look no further than Jamaica’s Leon Bailey.

The new European season is quickly approaching, and teams are scrambling to solidify their rosters as current players are busy training and competing in preseason friendlies, both domestically and abroad. 

With the season rapidly approaching, clubs across Europe are like a mob of ravenous fish attacking a few flakes of smelly fish food at the top of a tank. Teams are wheeling and dealing, panicking, spending, selling, buying, succeeding, and failing. 

Throughout the decades of ups and downs in U.S. Soccer, there has always been one thing that fans of the men’s national team have been able to count on: a good goalie between the sticks. Tim Howard, Kasey Keller, and Tony Meola each earned at least 100 caps since 1988, and a host of dependable reserve keepers since that year has kept the position completely solid. 

Talent doesn't guarantee success. It doesn't take a genius or Ph.D. in history to know this. 

It’s a warm, mid-May Friday in Bielsko-Biała, Poland. Afternoon turns into evening as Ukraine take on the United States in the second matchday of the 2019 U-20 World Cup. Mykola Musolitin receives the ball from deep, turns around, and launches it forward. A lanky, curly-haired American steps in front of the searching long ball and plays it to his teammate with one touch. A skinny blonde Ukrainian flails his arms in frustration, once again outdueled by his adversary.

This summer is full of international competitions in soccer to keep us going before the new club season begins. With the Gold Cup in North America, the Copa America in South America, and, of course, the Women's World Cup going down over in France. 

Federico Chiesa is a hot name on the transfer market — partly to do with his famous surname, but mostly to do with his incredible ability at just 21 years old. The Fiorentina star has been linked with moves away from the club for almost as long as he has been in the first team, and those rumors took another step forward in Wednesday morning’s edition of Italian sports newspaper Corriere dello Sport.