Moving up through Germany’s youth national teams and becoming one of the Frauen-Bundesliga’s foremost midfielders over a number of years meant that Julia Šimić’s 2016 entrance to the full international show was almost as long-awaited as it was welcome. However, feeling eager anticipation with a stage in her sight is not all that unfamiliar for the current VfL Wolfsburg performer. Read more →
Photo: KAS Eupen/David Hagemann
The sight of an ecstatically exuberant Jeffrén Suárez celebrating Barcelona’s fifth goal in an El Clásico thrashing of Real Madrid was beamed around the world in November 2010. It has been an often-changing image for the Venezuelan international since his career’s infancy under Pep Guardiola and you currently find him in Belgium, where life has left him appreciating an altogether truer essence. Read more →
Photo: Millwall FC
Breezing through the Walsall backline to announce his first-team arrival in some style last season, Millwall right-back Mahlon Romeo has added fresh fervour to the fight as the Lions bid to break back out of the League One enclosure. While unmistakeably chief producer of his own life’s track, the 21-year-old is from a proud musical heritage, and on the Antiguan international’s playground, both ball and beats are indispensable. Read more →
In some of the most desolate times for a famous old club, Guylain Ndumbu-Nsungu was one who offered flashes of hope and excitement to Sheffield Wednesday supporters. Over 12 years since he departed Hillsborough, much has changed for both the Congolese former frontman and his first English club, but there are unmistakably blue and white echoes of the Steel City still safe in his thoughts. Read more →
Photo: ISI Photos: Daniel Bartel
The New Englander identity is one Stephanie McCaffrey could never shake off, and nor would she want to. Having spent her young life around a city decked out in winning sporting heritage, the Chicago Red Stars forward has flown the Boston nest in search of some champion consistency of her own, with recent starlit spectaculars to add to the soundtrack reminders of her heartland. Read more →
Beyond the dance-move celebrations and the headphone-clad player stepping off the team bus, lies a whole world connecting football and music. Beats & Rhymes FC tells the stories of how a song lights the fuse on match day, how bands and artists colourise a player's life outside the game, and how music itself can bond an entire team.
The nostalgia of a first album, the weakness in the knees before an initiation song, or even those who've swapped the stadium for the studio. Since 2011, the performers and the personalities from all around the men's and women's game have stepped into this arena to share their soundtrack and more. The features also cover career talk, the teammates, the memories and the lessons learned from a life in this magical game.
