Last Tuesday, the Brazilian club Chapecoense was on the way to Medellin, Colombia to cap off a remarkable season with the first leg of a two-leg tie against Colombian giants Atlético Nacional in the Copa Sudamericana final, the South American equivalent of the Europa League. The moment was supposed to be the culmination of a wild ride that saw the tiny provincial squad fighting their way up the from fourth division of Brazilian soccer in 2009 to battling—and beating—some of the continent’s best sides in this season’s Copa. Instead, the fairytale ended in tragedy when the plane carrying the team crashed into the mountains near Medellin.

Of the 77 passengers on the charter flight from Bolivia to Medellin, 71 were killed in the wreckage, including coaches, technical staff, journalists and 19 of the team’s players. It appears that the plane ran out of fuel over Colombia, with the pilot radioing in a “fuel emergency” moments before crashing, corroborated by the absence of an explosion post impact.

Newspapers and investigators have raised serious questions about the airline Lamia’s fueling protocol in the wake of the crash. The distance between their Bolivian origin and Medellin was slightly outside the plane’s range, and as such, the plane also lacked the 30 minutes of additional fuel aviation experts say is a necessary precaution. Further, the pilot reportedly waved off a refueling stop in Cobija. Lamia’s reputation as a cut-rate charter operator raises further questions about the procedures and is particularly disturbing because the Argentinian National Team flew on the same doomed plane just two weeks before.

Hailing from Chapecó, a small provincial city of 210,000 in the south of Brazil, the Chapecoense had only been a professional side since the mid-1970s. Even before the Copa success, Chape had earned comparisons to Leicester City, the Premier League club who rose from similar lower league obscurity to capture last season’s title.

The club rose through the ranks in Brazil on the back of investments in training facilities and infrastructure and sound management that is rare in Brazilian soccer. This season, Chape was on track to finish a club record ninth in the league before the tragedy. Like Leicester, they found success on the back of journeymen like top scorer Bruno Rangel and captain Cléber Santana, most famous for brief stints at Atlético Madrid and Mallorca in Spain. The story of lovable underdogs clad in green and white punching above their weight and slaying giants like Argentina’s San Lorenzo earned them the admiration of fans continent-wide.

On Monday, the South American Football Confederation, CONMEBOL, declared Chapecoense the winner of the Copa Sudamericana, after Atlético Nacional asked them to award Chape the title to honor the victims of the crash. Other outpourings of support have come from Brazil’s top clubs, who offered to loan players to the club for next season in order to help get them back on their feet.

As tragic and gutting as such an incident may be, the crash will not spell the end of Chapecoense. Albeit to a lesser scale, Manchester United lost eight players to the Munich air disaster in 1958 and eventually rose to even greater heights. Part of what precipitated Chape’s meteoric rise from fourth division obscurity to competing for a major continental championship was their grit and determination, along with sound management. If history is any indicator, the club and its future squad will pull on those same traits to ensure that it and the memory of those lost do not go gentle into that Brazilian night (to paraphrase a better writer than myself).

Arsenal’s Brazilian defender Gabriel Paulista played under Chapecoense manager Caio Júnior and was obviously stricken by the crash. On the verge of tears, he said, “If you think you want to do something, just get out there and do it, because we don’t know what tomorrow brings.” I don’t mean to end on too sentimental a note, but his words seem especially sage in the wake of tragedy. Go out and do something you’ve been putting off today. 

What were you doing at age 17? The answer is likely not nearly as impressive as pulling on the Borussia Dortmund kit and taking the field in front of the famed Yellow Wall and 80,000-plus Germans at the Signal Idurna Park, which is exactly what the latest American wunderkind Christian Pulisic has done over the last 10 months.

A Hershey, Pa. native, Pulisic was spotted by Germany’s perpetual second superpower, Borussia Dortmund (BVB), while playing for the U.S. Under-17 residency program, essentially an incubator for young U.S. talent. He then made the hop to Dortmund at age 16, where he promptly made a name for himself by scoring an eye-popping 10 goals and adding eight assists in just 15 matches with the BVB youth teams.

Pulisic’s strong performances earned him a call up to Thomas Tuchel’s first team last January. Since then, his career trajectory is best described as meteoric. Tuchel wasted no time in throwing Pulisic right into the fire, making his first two starts against Bayer Leverkeusen and in the “Revierderby” against bitter rivals FC Schalke, two of Germany’s strongest sides. He later became the youngest non-German ever to score in the top flight of German football at just 17 years old.

This season at just 18, Pulisic has cemented himself as a regular face in the Dortmund squad, tallying two goals and five assists in 10 matches across all competitions. Among those included a dizzying display of skill against reigning European champions, Real Madrid, where he darted past Danilo on the wing before charging into the Madrid penalty area to cross for the André Schürrle equalizer, snatching a precious Champions League point for the Black and Yellows.

All of this has the transfer rumor mill spinning already. Dortmund reportedly rejected an £11 million (roughly $14 million) bid for Pulisicfrom Liverpool in August, and that was before his superb start to this year’s campaign. Likewise, Barcelona—arguably the best team on Earth—is reported to be closely following Pulisic.

As enticing as it is to dream about American Messi donning the Barca kit and striding onto the pitch alongside actual Messi, Dortmund is undoubtedly the best place right now for Pulisic’s development. Dortmund is currently laden with talented youngsters (Emre Mor, Ousmane Dembélé, Julian Weigl) and manager Tuchel has shown a willingness to entrust young players like Pulisic with significant minutes. If he continues to get first-team action alongside the wealth of talent at Dortmund in one of the strongest leagues in the world, the sky is the limit (pardon the platitude).

Naturally, U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) fans are absolutely giddy. Pulisic represents the purest attacking talent the USMNT has seen since at least Landon Donovan, demonstrating incredible pace cutting in from the wing mixed with tremendous dribbling ability and pure football sense.

While the ridiculous technical ability draws the attention, his mental attributes are what set him apart. Pulisic plays with infectious confidence and fearlessness, highlighted by both the Madrid match and his performance last week against FC Ingolstadt, where he almost single-handedly erased a 3-1 deficit, providing the assist to draw BVB within a goal, then scoring the equalizer in stoppage time.

While there have been other ultra-hyped U.S. prospects in the last decade (Freddy Adu, anyone?), none have risen to such heights so quickly. Pulisic made his USMNT debut little more than seven months ago and already has nine appearances and two goals in World Cup qualifiers, making him the youngest player to score for the USMNT. The Pulisic hype-train is alive and well in US soccer circles.

With a looming date against archrivals Mexico in Columbus next weekend to kick off play in the Hexagonal, the final round of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying, Christian Pulisic has the stage to not just seize the mantle of the US’s next great hope, but to show that his time is now. Here’s to another famous “Dos a Cero” next Friday night.

Amidst a dismal season in Dortmund, Jürgen Klopp, the charismatic manager who brought Borussia Dortmund (BVB) out of the wilderness and back amongst Europe’s elites, announced his plans to step down at the end of the season after seven years at the football club. By resigning, Klopp leaves large looming questions about the club’s future, while setting himself up as the hottest managerial commodity in soccer. When Klopp arrived from Mainz in 2008, Dortmund was far from its past heights. Teetering near bankruptcy in the mid-2000s, the club suffered on the field as a result of player transfers and payroll cuts, finishing seventh, ninth and 13th in the Bundesliga in the three seasons immediately preceding Klopp’s appointment. Klopp brought a charisma and energy to BVB, manifested best by his roster, which was restocked with young talent like Mario Götze, Mats Hummels and Robert Lewandowski, and the team’s counterpressing system, a style not unlike Barcelona’s. After winning back possession though, Klopp’s team serves as sort of the antithesis to the methodical tiki-taka passing of Guardiola’s Barca, setting up lightning quick, direct attacks, that are exhausting but simultaneously exhilarating and beautiful.   For a time, it was also incredibly successful. Dortmund climbed out of mid-table anonymity in 2008 to back-to-back league titles in 2010/11 and 2011/12, including the double of the league and DFB-Pokal, the German equivalent of England’s FA Cup, in 2012. While the team fell short of three consecutive titles, it made it to the Champions League Final in 2013 before falling to bitter rival Bayern Munich. Success comes at a price, though. Bayern pilfered and modified the counterpress to suit its skilled passing game. In its 2013 season, Bayern won three trophies, including the Champions League title, then went on to poach Götze and Lewandowski  from BVB in consecutive years. This season, Dortmund, hampered by injuries, was bottom of the table midway through the campaign. After stringing together recent wins, BVB has climbed to ninth, but will certainly miss out on next year’s Champions League. Thus, the Klopp era at Dortmund ends not with a league title, but a whimper. As a replacement, Dortmund is set to bring in Thomas Tuchel, who, like Klopp, was the manager at Mainz before taking the Dortmund job. Tuchel is regarded as a brilliant tactical mind, and for good reason. At Mainz, his teams have effortlessly switched between formations and different play styles not just from match to match but within matches as well. Perhaps his most successful tactical scheme is the transition from a high press in an attempt to win back possession, to a lower-stacked defensive line, content to sit back and absorb pressure. Switching between the two distinct defensive structures can catch the opposition off guard, and it provides the flexibility necessary to counter different playing styles. Tuchel’s tactical acumen and flexibility alone should breathe fresh air into a squad that has looked stifled at times this season by Klopp’s one-dimensional style.   Klopp’s departure also raises important questions about the future of the roster. Captain Mats Hummels has been heavily linked to Manchester United for a summer move. Marco Reus, for my money one of the most exciting players in the game, has also been heavily rumored to be leaving this summer. With Klopp leaving, it will be interesting to see if Dortmund’s stars follow suit. Already swirling are the potential landing spots for Klopp, who will undoubtedly be linked to every high profile opening, especially in England, where he’s expressed interest in managing next. He’s been mentioned as the frontrunner for the Manchester City job, amidst rumors that Manuel Pellegrini will be sacked after a very disappointing season defending City’s Premier League title. City is in dire need of a retool, with one of the oldest and most expensive squads in England, and Pellegrini is a likely casualty of any rebuild. A more likely destination, should it choose to move on from Brendan Rodgers, is Liverpool. It’s not that Rodgers has been awful—his squad was within a Steven Gerrard slip of the title last year—but his transfers have been questionable, and Liverpool’s top-four chase is quickly losing steam after the team was flattened by Arsenal and United in recent weeks. It’s hard to imagine Liverpool sticking with Rodgers should Klopp express interest in the position. Klopp is a charismatic manager who thrives on emotion. A packed Anfield singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” seems a much better fit for him than the new money of Manchester City. For that, a job like Liverpool seems a more realistic next step for Klopp.

While the race for places in next year’s Champions League heats up in Europe’s domestic leagues, the quarterfinals of this season’s competition are set to kick off next week. The round of 16 saw continued English futility as Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea all got bounced—the latter two in ties they probably should’ve won. Hipster darlings Borussia Dortmund also exited the tournament. 

I unpacked my crystal ball to predict the teams who will move one step closer to being crowned European champions.

On Tuesday afternoon, Italian champions Juventus will meet “the dullest team in Ligue 1,” Monaco, in Turin. Juve flew past Dortmund in the Round of 16, cruising 5-1 on aggregate. The team from the Principality squeaked past Arsenal on away goals after a 3-3 aggregate draw, but was especially impressive in a 3-1 win at the Emirates in London in the first leg.

Perhaps more than any of the other ties, this matchup will pit fiercely clashing styles against each other. Monaco hasn’t earned the “dull” moniker for nothing; the team is quite content to sit back and absorb pressure and then attempt to score on the counter, a tactic it employed to devastating effect in the first leg against Arsenal. 

Juventus, on the other hand, thrives with possession, allowing its world-class playmaking midfielders like Pirlo and Paul Pogba to break down defenses and set up incisive finishers like Carlos Tevez. This season is probably the Old Lady’s best opportunity for European glory before Pirlo retires and Pogba moves to greener pastures in England or Spain. Juventus will cruise past Monaco and into the semifinals.

Tuesday’s other match is a Madrid derby between Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid, a rematch of last season’s Champions League Final, where Real triumphed in extra time to claim its 10th European title. Despite its high-octane attack, Real looked vulnerable in the last round, squeaking past Schalke 5-4 on aggregate. Atletico wasn’t much better, only advancing past Bayer Leverkeusen after a dire penalty shootout.

Despite Real’s flashy names and history, Diego Simeone’s men seem to have their crosstown rival’s number. Atletico humbled Ronaldo and Real with a 4-0 victory the last time the two met, and has lost its their last 6 derbies, dating back to last year’s final. With 52 total yellow cards in those six matches, the tie will be a physical affair, with Atletico looking to impose its will physically at the back and in the midfield to counter Real’s skill. 

Atletico has skill of its own though; forward Antoine Griezmann is one of the most underrated players in Spain and will prove the difference on the counterattack as Atleti continues its recent stranglehold on the Madrid derby and advances into the semis.

Wednesday sees Bayern Munich, the 2013 European champs, take on FC Porto in Portugal. Bayern demolished Shaktar Donetsk 7-0 to advance, while Porto had a similarly easy time, defeating Basel 5-1. The two sides met in the 1987 European Cup Final, a 2-1 Porto triumph.

Bayern should have no trouble advancing past a pesky Porto side. The Portuguese squad’s only real hope is to get up early in the first leg, as Bayern will be electric in the return at the Allianz Arena in Munich. Porto has class up front in Jackson Martinez and Christian Tello and creativity in the midfield with Yacine Brahimi. That trio will need to be on top of its game to give Porto a fighting chance. Although recovering from a torn ab muscle, Arjen Robben is having one of the best years of his career; he and Bayern’s variety of other weapons should have no trouble providing the firepower to advance.

In probably the most intriguing matchup, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) meets FC Barcelona on Wednesday afternoon. PSG advanced in a thrilling match with Chelsea, coming from behind twice despite being down a man for over 90 minutes. Barca dispatched of Manchester City with relative ease, winning 3-1 on aggregate.

All the oil money in the world hasn’t been able to buy PSG European success yet, as this is the team’s first time in the quarterfinals since the Qatari takeover that propelled them into European soccer’s financial elite, but Laurent Blanc’s squad will be eager to show that it has exorcised its Champions League demons with its gutsy triumph over Chelsea. 

PSG’s laundry list of injuries and suspensions will make that difficult. Talismanic striker Zlatan Ibrahimović is suspended for the first leg, as is Marco Verratti, the key cog in the PSG midfield and one of the best young players in Europe. David Luiz and Thiago Motta are both injured and will miss the match. PSG’s best chance is to dictate the game in the midfield and keep the ball away from Barca’s forward line of Messi, Neymar and Suarez. While the teams met twice and split their matches in the group stage, smart money is on the Catalans, as PSG is too banged up to contain Barca over two legs.

The return of the Champions League means another chance to watch Europe’s best on display. Barcelona, Juventus, Atletico, and Bayern will continue their respective quests for European glory and advance to the semifinals.

After a 10-minute hearing in Italian court last week, Parma F.C., with it’s outstanding debt estimated at nearly 200 million euros, was declared bankrupt. This means that for all intents and purposes, the club is dead. Long live Parma.

For a club that collected four European trophies and four additional Italian trophies in the late 1990s and early 2000s while swashbuckling around the pitch in its blue and yellow striped kits emblazoned with the logo of dairy giant and club benefactor Parmalat, the fall from grace has been swift.

I'm left with this question: How could a comfortable member of European football’s middle class burn through three different owners in the past six months and ultimately end up in bankruptcy court?

The Parma story starts with Parmalat, which bankrolled the team through its glory days. On the back of the vast dairy money, Parma seemed secure as a member of the Italian top flight, with aspirations to challenge traditional Serie A giants like Juventus. When Parmalat imploded during a massive financial fraud scandal in 2004, Parma was declared insolvent before being bought by Tommaso Ghiradi.

Under Ghiradi, Parma found mixed success on the pitch, but qualified for European competition as recently as last season with a sixth place league finish. While it was not claiming UEFA Cup titles, the club seemed to have stabilized after its financial struggles.

The first cracks in the façade appeared when UEFA kicked the club out of this season’s Europa League for an unpaid tax bill. Ghiradi chalked the issue up to a clerical mistake rather than underlying financial issues. 

He proved to be a poor liar though, as the depths of the club’s financial struggles were revealed over the following months. 

Players haven’t been paid since August and are now forced to do their own laundry and drive the team bus to matches. Meanwhile, the club has had to cancel home matches because it quite literally can’t keep the stadium lights on. The youth team can’t even afford water bottles.

In December, Ghiradi sold the team for a single euro, passing on its debts to a Cypriot-Russian company, which promptly sold it—again for a euro—in February to Giampietro Manenti, a Milanese businessman. Manenti promised to pay off debts, including back wages for the players. His failure to do so, culminated in Parma’s day in court. Manenti was arrested on money laundering and embezzlement charges last week.

After the bankruptcy ruling, Parma looks doomed. The club has already received an emergency loan from the other clubs in Serie A in order to complete its season. Unless a financial backer steps forward to buy the team and pay off the massive debts, the club will dissolve at the season’s end, forced to start again under a new name in the lowest professional tier in Italy.

It’s hard to assess blame for Parma’s demise without laying the bulk ofit at Tommaso Ghiradi’s feet. When he bought the club before the 2006-2007 season, Parma’s gross debt was estimated at 16.1 million euros, a substantial amount, but relatively insignificant in comparison to debt at other football clubs. Under his watch, the debt ballooned to its current levels.

Since the Parmalat bankruptcy, the club has clearly spent beyond its means. By my count, it has over 150 players on its books, an absolutely massive amount, with most out on loan throughout Europe. For comparison, Chelsea, a club notorious for snapping up young talents then sending them out on loan, has about 50 players on its books.

The problem though is also an institutional squeezing of the football middle class, especially in leagues like Serie A and Spain’s La Liga. The biggest problem is the massively inequitable split in TV revenues in those leagues, with the vast majority of the money going to a few titans like Real Madrid, Juventus and Barcelona. This stands in stark comparison to the relatively even split in the Premier League. Clubs from smaller areas face other issues as well. 

They can’t depend on large ticket revenues and therefore have to spend outside their means to challenge for titles.

Parma’s tale is a tragedy, but it’s not entirely uncommon, especially in Italy, where corruption and shoddy management seem inexplicably linked with football. Fiorentina and Napoli both underwent similar deaths in the early 2000s and have since returned to competitiveness in both the Serie A and Europe. 

Outside of Italy, storied clubs like Glasgow Rangers, Leeds United and Portsmouth F.C have “died” and been resurrected, although they have yet to reach their prior heights. So while Parma certainly seems dead and gone now, there remains a sliver of hope for its future. 

Only one Premier League player has 20 goals across all competitions this season and his name isn’t Costa, Aguero or Sanchez. It is Tottenham’s Harry Kane. He plays with a certain unbridled energy reminiscent of a golden retriever, gleefully chasing after the ball in manager Mauricio Pochettino’s high-pressure game plan.

Kane’s rise from near obscurity to the most in-form striker in England has Spurs in the thick of the muddled race for the top four and a Champions League berth.

Born in North London, Kane spent a year in the Arsenal youth academy, before finding his way to the Gunners’ archrivals Spurs. He developed in their youth system before bouncing around on loan to various clubs in the English football league system. Cracking into the Tottenham first team last season with three Premier League goals, he’s roared onto the scene in recent months.

Making his name early in the Europa League, Kane seized his Premier League opportunities and impressed, setting up Eric Dier’s winner on opening day, stealing points with a last gasp winner against Aston Villa, and sparking Spurs’ rally with an equalizer against Hull.  His New Year’s Day match against league leaders Chelsea served as a true coming out party.

Kane terrorized the Cahill-Terry central defense pairing, scoring two goals, assisting on another, and drawing a penalty, willing Spurs to a 5-3 win at White Hart Lane. This inspired performance, in which Kane grabbed the game by the scruff and manhandled the best defensive unit in England, was the apex of his dazzling run of form, and also helped Tottenham’s creep back into contention for the Champions League places.

Kane has found the most scintillating vein of form in England, banging home six goals in Spurs’ last five Premier League matches and 23 across all competitions, while writing himself into club lore by vanquishing Arsenal with two goals in the North London derby. This season, he’s put together all the various tools showcased during his loan spells and is scoring goals at a dizzying pace.

All the ridiculous talk about building the English National Team squad around him aside, Kane has developed a remarkably complete game. He’s perfectly suited to Pochettino’s system, playing with an impressive workrate and tracking back to defend, while still occupying a traditional center forward role. His hold up play has created space and an outlet for the midfield, and his directness and finishing provide a nice foil for the creative talents of Christian Eriksen and Erik Lamela.

Kane and Eriksen have resurrected Spurs’ season, with the two stealing the squad a league best 12 points in the 88th minute or later this season—enough to put them in sixth place with 13 matches left, three points outside the top four. The North London derby victory has complicated the race for those Champions League spots, with five teams vying for the third and fourth place spots behind Chelsea and Manchester City.

Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham all have solid chances of latching onto one of the remaining top-four spots. Liverpool is starting to look like last season’s team that was one Steven Gerrard slip away from the title. With star striker Daniel Sturridge healthy again, Liverpool will have no problem scoring, but will play a number of tough fixtures down the stretch that may prevent them from reaching the Champions League for a second consecutive year.

The North London derby proved a massive missed opportunity for Arsenal to put distance between them and Spurs. But they are rounding into form, turning in brilliant performances recently against Manchester City and Aston Villa. Their match against Manchester United at Old Trafford on the penultimate matchday of the season may prove vital if they cannot distance themselves against weaker opposition in the coming weeks.

Current top-four teams Southampton and Manchester United are smart money picks to drop out of the Champions League race. A feel-good story all season, the Southampton bandwagon is running on fumes. Ronald Koeman’s team is struggling to break down defenses, with just one goal in its past three matches. The Southhampton defense is still the stoutest in the Premier League, but its tough to see them sticking around much longer without an offensive spark.Manchester United, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars spent this summer on transfer fees, has a comical lack of depth in midfield with their best attacker, Wayne Rooney, often forced to play as a deep central midfielder. Their lack of depth will force them out of the top four, as they complete the season with the toughest run of fixtures out of any of their rivals. Tottenham sit just three points off fourth place, with important matches left at Southampton and United. The supporters at White Hart Lane cheered during recent matches, “Harry Kane, he’s one of our own; he’s one of our own, Harry Kane”. If he can continue his marvelous goal-scoring run and drag Tottenham into the top-four, the Spurs faithful may well crown him King Kane.

As Europe’s top leagues enter the second halves of their respective seasons, Major League Soccer (MLS) opened preseason training camps last week, uncertain if they will even make it to the season. The collective bargaining agreement expired last Saturday and negotiations between the league and players’ union are seemingly at an impasse. The specter of a work stoppage looms large.

Despite this, the biggest stories going into camp have been the massive transfers of European stars to the U.S. Recent months have seen Frank Lampard, David Villa, Kaka, and Steven Gerrard all announce moves to the MLS. All are international superstars that bring exceptional talent to a league looking to fill a star power void left by Thierry Henry and Landon Donovan.

Toronto FC (TFC) stole the headlines though, landing the out-of-favor US Men’s National Team star Jozy Altidore from Sunderland and, even more shockingly, the diminutive Sebastian Giovinco from Italian champion Juventus. The Jozy deal was damn smart business and impressive in its own right. TFC shipped the unhappy Jermain Defoe back to England in exchange for Altidore, getting younger in the process and, by most reports, gaining a nice chunk of cash in the swap. Despite his struggles in England, Jozy had already excelled in the MLS and is one of the most recognizable faces for US Soccer, which is a great marketing opportunity when he hits the pitch next to his US national teammate Michael Bradley.

The real big fish though, somewhat ironically, is Seba Giovinco. At just 5’4,” but full of energy and with an incredible work rate, Gio lives up to the nickname “La Formica Atomica”—the Atomic Ant. He’s an incredibly creative talent with tremendous pace and versatility. That versatility will allow him to play anywhere from a second striker position behind Jozy to outside on the wing, to an attacking midfield position, all while creating space for Michael Bradley with his pace, dribbling and ability to take on defenders.

The Giovinco move is massive not just for the quality of player that he is, but also for how and when he decided to make the switch. While Gerrard, Lampard, and Kaka are all fantastic players in their own right, they are all on the wrong side of 30 and are well past their prime. Gio just turned 28 and still has his best years of football ahead of him. The MLS has improved by leaps and bounds over the past decade, but still needs to buck the “retirement league” moniker that, true or not, has dogged it in recent years. Snagging a player of Giovinco’s caliber at his age should help change that perception.

Perhaps just as importantly, he reportedly turned down offers from Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool, and numerous other flashy-name European clubs. Other players of his caliber have moved to MLS in the past, but none have done so in their prime and turned down the top clubs in the world simultaneously.  

The Giovinco move could be the start of a seismic shift that puts the league at least in the same neighborhood as the top European leagues. Seba’s Italian National Team manager Antonio Conte certainly thinks so, stating about the move, “In a few years players will elbow each other to go there. [The MLS] will grow so much”.

Let’s not pretend that Giovinco is doing the MLS a favor, though. He’s still getting paid. A lot. His new deal will make him the highest-paid player in the MLS, and the highest-paid Italian player in the world by most accounts. Despite all the inroads made toward developing into a major league, the MLS still has to overpay its stars, as every large name recently has received a deal well above their market value, highlighting some of MLS’s major issues. The wage discrepancy in the MLS is stunning, with the big-name designated players making upwards of $6 million per year, while the MLS median salary hovers around $90,000. Younger players are forced into semi-guaranteed contracts, where they can be terminated without compensation by the clubs at almost any time, leaving many without safety net. 

All of these issues are ever more salient as the league and players union try to hash out a new collective bargaining agreement to prevent a work stoppage. Free agency remains the sticking point for the union, as the MLS still bizarrely operates without a free agency system, but issues like increased league minimum salary and salary cap, and guaranteed contracts remain at the forefront of their disagreements.

It’s hard to believe the owners when they cry poor after doling out massive contracts like so many of them did this offseason, and it seems the players agree. With no real progress made in the negotiations, all signs point to a work stoppage, which would cripple the post-World Cup wave of momentum the MLS garnered at the end of last season. World soccer is a competitive marketplace for attention and money, and it remains to be seen if the MLS can afford to lose ground while mired in a labor dispute. In the players’ minds though, they might not be able to afford not to. 

It’s a season that Landon Donovan probably never wants to end, but luckily for him, he’s got one more game to play. Donovan’s LA Galaxy eliminated the Seattle Sounders last weekend on an away-goals tiebreaker after a 2-2 draw across two legs of competition, setting up a date with the New England Revolution this Sunday in the MLS Cup final. The final will be Donovan’s last game as a professional footballer, as he announced his retirement from soccer in August.The Galaxy took a 1-0 lead into Seattle for the second leg but quickly fell into a hole. After Brad Evans scored early for the Sounders to tie the aggregate score at one, World Cup hero Clint Dempsey put a weak dribbler past LA keeper Jaime Penedo six minutes later to put Seattle on top.

Brazilian midfielder Juninho leveled the score at two apiece with a low rocket from outside the box that tied the aggregate score at two and gave LA the advantage by virtue of its away goal. Seattle tried desperately to find a late winner, but the Galaxy held on to advance to their record ninth MLS Cup final.

In the East, the New England Revolution faced the New York Red Bulls and another retiring legend in Thierry Henry. The Revs took a 2-1 lead into the second leg at Gillette Stadium and went through to the final behind two Charlie Davies goals, winning the two-legged tie 4-3 on aggregate and dashing any hopes of Henry and Donovan facing off for the Cup.

There are plenty of storylines to be gleaned from Sunday’s matchup. The Galaxy are seeking an MLS record fifth championship, while the Revolution are looking to claim their first  title despite having already competed in four finals. The two franchises have met in the Cup final twice before, in 2002 and 2005, with the Galaxy claiming both titles.

But there’s also Donovan, who is probably the biggest storyline of all. He has decided to hang up his cleats at the relatively young age of 32, and throughout his career he has accumulated five league titles and pretty much every major scoring record in the MLS. It is puzzling that he is retiring now, as he’s still a prolific player. This season alone he posted 13 goals and 15 assists. 

Donovan is a complex character. He has publicly acknowledged the role that soccer has played in perpetuating his depression. He’s stated many times during this playoff run that he would quit when the game was no longer fun and when it “felt right.” In that sense, retiring now is Donovan’s career in a nutshell; it’s him doing things on his own terms, whether that is leaving England for the MLS, taking a sabbatical from soccer during World Cup qualifying, or quitting with miles left in the tank.

Standing in the way of a Hollywood ending for Donovan’s career is a red-hot Revolution team featuring MVP finalist Lee Nguyen and U.S. national team phenom Jermaine Jones. The Revs won 10 out of their last 12 matches of the regular season to climb to the No. 2  seed in the East heading into the playoffs. 

The difference for the Revs was definitely the acquisition of Jones late in the season from Turkish club Besiktas. Manager Jay Heaps has built a strong, scrappy team by compiling castoffs from other teams like Nguyen and Davies, while trading for and drafting players like Teal Bunbury and Andrew Farrell. 

Davies is a great story on his own, because he has returned to strong form after a near-fatal car crash in 2010. New England are surely the underdogs going in, but are peaking at the right time to battle for their first Cup.

The Galaxy are a veritable juggernaut, holding the statistically most productive offense and stingiest defense in the league. LA is home to many of MLS’ flashy names to complement its gaudy stats. The attacking trio of Donovan, newly crowned MLS MVP Robbie Keane and Gyasi Zardes combined for a ridiculous 48 goals and 29 assists this season, making them the most electrifying attack in the league. Anchoring the backline are Omar Gonzalez and Robbie Rogers, two of MLS’s best defenders.

It’s hard to pick against this Galaxy team. The image of Donovan leaving on top in front of a home crowd at the StubHub Center is certainly compelling, and his team will surely have extra motivation to cap off his legendary career. 

The Galaxy also waxed the Revs 5-1 in their only other meeting this season, with Keane and Zardes both scoring twice. If New England can pull off the upset, it will be on the back of Nguyen, who has carried the Revs all season, and Jones, who will need to be massive in front of the backline to stall the prolific LA attack. 

As hot the Revs have been lately, I don’t think even they can stop destiny: Donovan will retire a champion as the Galaxy claim their fifth title.