Putting aside Messi and Ronaldo, what are the best individual seasons of the 21st century?

Don’t think @alimaxwell.bsky.social is fully taking account of the heat and altitude impacts of playing in a Mexican summer at midday but I do think this is an interesting question.

I’m interested in the type of books that those reading over 50 get through in a year. I try to read as broadly as possible, across subjects and genres.

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to read more. 2024 was my best for probably 20 years and managed to roughly double that tally this year to average a book a week (combination of books and audiobooks). Hope to maintain that next year.

Ahead of the World Cup, am looking for some related reads. What’s the best World Cup connected book I might not have read?

New blogpost: Team of the Decade 2015-2025 Featuring the amazing @zonal-marking.bsky.social , @justin-kraft.de and @robfielder.bsky.social footballarguments.wordpress.com/2025/12/23/t...

Am currently working on something considering greatness in different eras. One of the problems pre 1954ish is the top players virtually never played against each other which meant we have very little idea of how good they were. Now they hardly stop playing each other.

Question: I think there’s a general consensus now that the Champions League is a higher level of football than the World Cup. Is that due to player quality or the extra time that clubs get to train together?

The points listings remain one of the most interesting bits of these for me.

We’ve made it to 1957-58 in our team of the season series. Some of history’s greatest ever figures feature in one of the most competitive editions yet.

It took a bit longer than usual, but then again the season ended in an unusual way. But here it is! New blogpost: Team of the Season 2024-2025 With player portraits by the amazing @lgambrose.bsky.social and @robfielder.bsky.social ! footballarguments.wordpress.com/2025/08/01/t...

Final plug for the new blogpost!

As always, really enjoyed being able to contribute to this.

New blogpost, once again with the wonderful @robfielder.bsky.social: Team of the Season 1956-57 Di Stefano produces a GOAT season, Argentinians en masse, the last full season of the Busby Babes - a memorable year for reasons both good and bad! footballarguments.wordpress.com/2025/03/23/t...

I’m not sure why this thread got so little engagement, whether it’s just not an interesting topic or something about the way Bluesky displays threads. But at long last, I got to the end.

A couple of observations on my Liverpool selection. One of the hardest to pick a timeframe on and one most disadvantaged by the 3 year timeframe. Over a longer period they would obviously beat a lot of other teams.

Maybe not the time but I reckon Gordon Banks and Bobby Moore would have had a shot.

New blogpost: Team of the Season 1955-56 The first European Cup, the first Ballon d'Or, the end of the Hungarian reign, Fiorentina somehow not conceding a lot... lots to unpack in this historical year! Featuring the great @robfielder.bsky.social! footballarguments.wordpress.com/2025/01/17/t...

I struggled with which was Bayern’s best team. This one, the turn of the century team, Pep’s side or the 2013 CL winners.

This is so linked to the days before Christmas for me. Overall I think it’s an ok list in a tough year. Most of the voters seem to have stuck to the brief and focused on the calendar year.

Earlier this month we were lucky enough to enjoy a few days' stay at @shakespeareandcompany.com and our part of the bargain was David having a conversation about the History of Ideas. It really was a fantastic event, one of our best. Have a listen 🎧 ⬇️

Remember how the English bid wasn’t allowed more than 2 stadiums in London and only one city with more than 1. But Qatar were allowed to use stadiums in “cities” not built that were in a tiny desert location.

“Get the guitar out”

I’m often intrigued as to whether lists like this for other sports are halfway credible. Because with respect, most football journalists are generally terrible at these because they’re not historians so they tend to just copy previous lists.

I found rating this Arsenal side one of the hardest to slot in. Domestically so good but never showed in European competition that they were truly among the Continent’s premier teams.

I’ve “read” more this year than for quite some time and a big part of that has been getting Audible. I used to be a bit snobby about audiobooks but they are a brilliant resource and some of the free ones available are superb, with the narrators really adding something to the experience.

One of my highlights of the season is the Financial Times’ books of the year edition. And very nice to see @samfr.bsky.social deservedly featured.

I’ll defend Allison Pearson’s right to be obnoxious – as she should defend mine | Kenan Malik

Harry Kane now has more top flight league goals in total than Alan Shearer scored in the PL. Still 20 behind overall when you include Shearer’s Division 1 goals.

The 50 Best Club Teams of the Last 100 Years Before I get into my list of the best 50 club teams of the last 100 years, I wanted to lay out some of the criteria behind it.

The worst thing about this was it made it entirely unacceptable to have an umbrella at a football game, even at grassroots. Have to stand there getting soaked instead for fear of being compared to McClaren.

I commend this thread (and all of this output) to anyone with an interest in football history.

One current project of mine: Re-watching the 2002-03 Season Once again I aim to watch ~50 full matches, with a clear focus on the best teams and players. In the end I compile a Team of the Season.

Anyone care to hazard a guess at the cost of this charming top on Mr Porter?

Introduce yourself with four footballers

I was probably best known on Twitter for various lists of great players. So should I start on Bluesky with a list of the 100 best players in the world from 1974 or the 50 best club sides of all time?

Something about the width of stripes is very Perfumo, Masantonio type era. I’ve already got an Argentina top but this is hard to resist.

I firmly believe that for a period of time (probably 1996-2001), Veron was as good as any midfielder in the world.

With football Twitter rapidly reassembling here, one plea to help leave the toxicity behind: your football club is not a person. It doesn't have feelings, it doesn't experience disrespect. Love your club by all means, but recognise that it does not need you to fight for its honour on social media.

Placar 1981 selections of an all-time XI from prominent journalists.

I'll allow myself a second plug for @robfielder.bsky.social 's and mine most recent adventure in the depths of football history. We watched all the matches available (ahem, 4) from the 54-55 season and wrote about the outstanding players of the time footballarguments.wordpress.com/2024/11/10/t...

Thought this was excellent. Once again, players harking back to a golden era that never existed. Just go back and watch a random league game from 2005 and tell me the quality of football or entertainment was genuinely better.

Michael talking a lot of sense here as per usual.

To start my time on Bluesky, how about a thread on the history of World Soccer magazine. Here is a thread of every issue, starting with the very first in October 1960 with Robert Bolle as editor.

What better way to start this than link to our newest blogpost. The great Rob Fielder and I have watched all we could find for the 1954-55 season and came up with a Team of the Season: footballarguments.wordpress.com/2024/11/10/t...