Serial winners like City, Real Madrid, Bayern, Liverpool, and PSG play with an air of inevitability. Arsenal? They play with the weight of expectation and the fear of falling short. Until they shed that mental baggage, even the most gifted squads will struggle to cross the finish line.
AFCON 2023 was one for the ages, one where every kind of football prediction was defied. From Côte d’Ivoire going from losing 4-0 in front of their fans and on the brink of a group stage elimination to tournament victory, to Ghana exiting in the group stage without winning a game,
One thing Madrid-born Rodrigo Hernández Cascante, also known as Rodri, probably never envisaged while growing up was him being the spark for a civil war there. Having left there in 2019 to go to Manchester, it was even more unlikely.
The French top division, also known as Ligue 1, is a league well known for constantly producing world class talents.