EddCFC retweeted
We're so proud of you, @BukayoSaka87 🌟
ALT Bukayo Saka with his Sócrates Award trophy
ALT Bukayo Saka gives a speech after receiving his Sócrates Award
An inspiration on and off the pitch 💫
Winner of the Sócrates Award at tonight’s #BallonDor ceremony: @BukayoSaka87 ❤️
ALT Bukayo Saka: Sócrates Award winner
EddCFC retweeted
VICKY LOPEZ IS THE 2026 WOMEN’S YOUNG TALENT OF THE YEAR!
✅ 2025
✅ 2026
Back-to-back winner.
#ballondor
There is one massive sneak here 🤣
It is a complicated picture, with a multitude of factors, but perhaps the flip side of the Premier League’s greatest selling point, its strength from top to bottom, is that it has become less attractive to the biggest talents in the game.
It certainly doesn’t look a whole lot of fun for creative players right now.
Florian Wirtz, at Liverpool, is the most obvious case, but Cole Palmer, Bukayo Saka and Phil Foden have all found it heavy going at times over the past couple of seasons.
Then you look at Michael Olise, Luis Diaz and Harry Kane at Bayern Munich, at Anthony Gordon, Raphinha and Lamine Yamal at Barcelona and, in particular, at Desire Doue, Ousmane Dembele and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia at Paris Saint-Germain and it looks like they are playing a different sport, one played with joy and freedom of expression.
Trophies, glamour, recognition, status, sunshine (in Spain at least), the opportunity to express yourself without fearing that every game is going to be a war of attrition.
It is not just that the Premier League lacks stardust by comparison.
It is also that stardust often seems to vanish into thin air in the Premier League, lost amid the blood, the thunder and the driving rain.
📝 @OliverKay
🔗 nyti.ms/4z2RDIi
This all started with FIFA merging it with its World Footballer of the Year award, and when it became a big pointer in the Messi - Ronaldo 'debate'
The Ballon d’Or has gone from being something desirable — the icing on the cake for a player who has enjoyed a successful season with his club or national team — to something lusted after and pursued single-mindedly.
Just two decades ago, the prize remained relatively low-profile, with Michael Owen feeling "a little sheepish" about his win in 2001.
But now in its 70th year, the Ballon d'Or has grown to dominate the landscape, and occupies the headspace of some of the players nominated for this year's award.
Ahead of the 2026 ceremony, @OliverKay breaks down the history and evolution of the trophy.
Read for free: nyti.ms/4i7TnZy
And this is the reason anyone can involve Messi in some stupid "GOAT" debates when he is quite clearly the best ever to step on a football pitch
They surrounded him with Europa league level players
EddCFC retweeted
Love this every time it pops up. Men are so rarely complimented. It's a tragedy. I've never met a single man who didn't appreciate a compliment or even awkward flattery. I HAVE met a man who kept a printed copy of an email he got from a girl telling him she appreciated him and thought he was a wonderful person. He never asked her out, tried to date her, or anything he was just thankful and kept it like a prize. I don't know that he ever got rid of it. It was the first time anyone outside of his family had ever done such a thing. READ THAT AGAIN. The first time ANYONE had said that to him and he was a good dude. That shit is crazy to me.
On the flip side a girlfriend of mine in college completely lost her temper in the parking lot when we were headed to an event on campus because... another friend of ours, a guy, dared open the car door for her. She berated him for TEN MINUTES...it was insane. I don't remember the event at all, or what happened before, but I'll never forget watching a woman degrade a man like that for something so polite as opening a door for her.. mind you he had opened mine too and it was MY car... he was also a seriously wholesome and awesome guy. We almost dated, but I was a stupid girl, lol. It did help me find a good man later though <3
