Master the basics of soccer before the World Cup
The fact is, Nerdy American Sports Fan, you know way more about soccer than you realize. All those sports you already follow — your football, your basketball, your baseball, all those things you already debate, and fight over, and spend hours reading about when you’re technically supposed to be working — apply to soccer as well. You can already speak the language of soccer nerd-dom, you just need to learn the dialect: the lineup formations, field spacing, shot selection, tactical chess moves, one-on-one battles, even analytics. They’re all there. You just need to know where to look.
And so, with this summer’s World Cup just around the corner, it’s time for you to find out just how much you already know about how soccer is played.