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Good morning! Embrace all the footballs today. Inside:
New Obsessions: Help me pick a Premier League team
Hi! I’m Hannah. I co-wrote The Athletic’s World Cup newsletter over the summer, and in the weeks since it ended, I’ve plummeted down the rabbit hole of international soccer mania.
Actual footage of me jumping into my next sports fandom:
I was born into the swamps of south Louisiana and into the blood of two fandoms: the LSU Tigers and New Orleans Saints. About 15 years ago, I moved to New York City and adopted two more: the New York Knicks and the New York Mets.
Fate laid these alliances out for me. Now, something much more knotty: choosing my own fate in the form of a Premier League team.
How does one DIY that powerful concoction of emotional resonance, intellectual connection, community devotion and manic obsession — without the proximity? That is the grand task before us today. Generate new sports fandoms … together.
The first rule of joining Premier League fandom is: You’re entering a sacred space. Just as you wouldn’t walk into someone’s kitchen and start mucking about with their grandma’s china, when picking a club to support, it’s best to lead with curiosity, deference and a willingness to learn.
So, with that said, here are six ways to pick your Premier League team if you weren’t born into it. (Video version here!)
- Start by taking The Athletic’s Premier League quiz to give you a suggestion to test out. I got — *drumroll* — Arsenal! Defending champs, let’s gooooo! (As a Knicks fan, this feels right.) I got lucky here considering the next one…
- Any family or national connections? My sister is an Arsenal fan because her husband is an Arsenal fan because he emigrated from Russia as a kid, and when he started watching club soccer, Arsenal had a Russian star in Andrey Arshavin. Thus, a new family legacy began.
(If you want to follow U.S. players, some of our guys from the USMNT are spread across Bournemouth, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Coventry and Leeds.) - Any great local watch bars/pubs where you live? This is one of the BEST ways to recreate the communal devotion that the Premier League inspires. Plus, if you’re going to be drinking beer at the crack of dawn every Saturday thanks to time zone madness, you might as well do it with other d̶e̶g̶e̶n̶e̶r̶a̶t̶e̶ passionate friends!
- What’s your sports-fan personality? Do you love a villain origin story? Prefer the hopeful underdog? Require a good theme song? Will follow any team Idris Elba likes? I wrote something for you.
- Where would you actually like to visit? Sorry to most of the cities that aren’t London.
- What team do you actually fall in love with? This is the best method of all, and I recommend it as our final step. Take your time, watch matches, get to know some teams, get to know their fans, listen to their chants and let your heart lead.
🚨Paging all CURRENT Premier League fans: Make your pitch! What team should we ride for? Why should new fans go with your squad? Email us.
A few key storylines to know heading in:
- Arsenal are favorites to win it again. Only three managers have ever won back-to-backs in the Premier League era. Can Mikel Arteta (N.B. That’s a good-looking man!) do it? See the odds and our predictions.
- Almost half the teams have a new manager (coach). The most seismic shift is the departure of Manchester City’s legendary Pep Guardiola. In terms of Pep’s impact on the team, and English football as a whole, it’s not unlike Steve Kerr retiring!? (Check out this piece about how the Boston Celtics’ Joe Mazzulla studied Pep!)
- Erling Haaland is chasing a record-tying fourth Premier League Golden Boot. He won it last year.
Want more? Here’s our Beginner’s Guide to Premier League teams, with history, mascots, kits and the most surprising or delightful fact about each team from our reporters.
And here’s our mega guide on how to watch the Prem this season.
News to Know
Clive Brunskill / Getty Images
Skinner will miss the U.S. Open
Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner will not play each other in a 2026 Grand Slam — which is crazy given they made up seven of eight finalists in 2025. Less than a day after Alcaraz announced his return from a four-month injury absence, Sinner withdrew from the U.S. Open with a knee injury. The world No. 1’s absence means French Open champ Alexander Zverev will be the top seed while Alcaraz — if he’s near 100 percent — will see a clear path to his eighth major title. Our writers’ analysis here.
Big-name vets on the move
Two very accomplished NBA scorers appear to be landing in spots with solid swan song potential. DeMar DeRozan agreed to a one-year, $3.9 million deal with the Nuggets that gives Denver a still-excellent midrange shooter to pair with Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray, while Klay Thompson and the Mavericks reached a buyout agreement that paves the way for Thompson to sign with the Heat tomorrow.
Another eligibility twist
For those in the “I just can’t anymore” camp when it comes to news about college sports eligibility (✋), we’ll keep this simple: We’re a week away from college football season and thousands of players from the 2022 class who looked like they’d be eligible to play after a court ruling are now again not eligible because an appeals court paused that decision. But for those who are named plaintiffs in state-level lawsuits over the same issue? Totally different! Examples:
- Ex-UCLA point guard Donovan Dent is transferring to LSU for his fifth year of eligibility after a California injunction (joining fellow ex-Bruin Skyy Clark in Baton Rouge).
- Former FSU quarterback Tommy Castellanos was granted an injunction in Kentucky that could allow him to bolster Texas Tech’s thin QB room.
More News
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Somehow more than half the tickets to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles have been sold already.
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Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx owner Marc Lore is selling his controlling interest in the teams at a $4.5 billion valuation. Details here.
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Former Browns All-Pro running back Nick Chubb is retiring after eight seasons. Good reflections in his statement.
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Missing trophy alert: The replica 35-pound, sterling silver Walter Cup belonging to Professional Women’s Hockey League champs Montreal was lost in transit.
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Worth watching this outrageous throw from Braves right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. The Brewers won, though, becoming the first to 80 dubs.
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Baltimore Ravens wideout Rashod Bateman faces a family violence charge after a June incident in which he’s accused of breaking the windshield of a car carrying his 3-month-old daughter and her mother. Full story.
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Phillies players hit golf balls from the upper level of Citizens Bank Park to determine the order of their fantasy football draft. They aren’t the only team going about this ridiculously.
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The person accused of throwing a green sex toy on the court of Thursday night’s Sparks-Dream game was arrested and banned from all WNBA and NBA games. (A similar thing happened last night at Sky-Valkyries. Argh.)
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Lionel Messi was fined by MLS for lightly slapping Union attacker Quinn Sullivan.
Watch Guide
📺 EPL: Everton vs. Crystal Palace
10 a.m. ET on USA Network
Weekend morning sports are so back. Both teams bring managerial intrigue, for opposite reasons: Crystal Palace has a new boss in Pierre Sage, while Everton’s Will Moyes is in the final year of his deal. There’s also an American connection here, as USMNT fixture Chris Richards plays for Palace. Full EPL schedule here.
📺 WNBA: Fever at Liberty
7 p.m. ET on Prime Video
Game 1 of a back-to-back for a surging Indiana team, as we covered earlier this week. New York is also in playoff position and has won seven of its last 10 games. Star-studded, this one.
Get tickets to games like this here.
Pulse Picks
Illustration: Eamonn Dalton/The Athletic; Getty Images
More Premier League links to peruse:
🏟️ Richard Sutcliffe has been to ALL 72 stadiums in the English Football League, the three divisions below the Premier League, and he ranked them all. This is about VIBES, and I loved every second of it.
🎽 Speaking of rankings: KIT RANKINGS!!! Nick Miller, with his signature brand of lightly mean quippyness, ranks all the Premier League home and away kits this season. LMAO at the one that looks like Rachel’s baby daddy’s sweater from that “Friends” episode?? Aston Villa’s are my favorite for both.
🎸 I’m sure you’ve always wondered: If Premier League coaches (“managers”) were rock stars, what rock star would they be? Wonder no more because our Tim Spiers has the definitive list, plus a “rock n roll” rating for each.
⚽ Soccer may have been born in England, but it’s the world’s sport now. If you want to learn more about international soccer, here’s a GREAT, digestible video from Henry Bushnell explaining soccer around the world and how to pick what to follow.
📈 You know what they say: Sometimes all it takes to get the hot water back on is an American billionaire and $27 million. I absolutely LOVED this story about how Sheffield Wednesday (yes, that’s a real ! team ! name !) is attempting to turn around a 2-44 season (two ! wins ! only !) into a climb all the way back up the table to the Premier League. That’s kind of like a D3 school getting into D1.
Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: The Reds managing to lose after dropping a fly ball that would have been the game-ending out.
📫 That’s all for now! Say hello at thepulse@theathletic.com, and check out our other newsletters.
