The Premier League is back

👋 Welcome to The Tap-Inn

Happy Friday, folks.

The wait is over. In a few hours, the Premier League is back, and there's a full ten games between now and Monday night.

Here's what's on tap today:

• 👀 Five things to watch as the Premier League kicks off

• 💸 Troy Parrott completes his move to Spain

• 🏆 The last seven Champions League spots are being fought over

Ready? I thought so. Let’s pour.

🥃 TOP SHELF

5 things to watch as the Premier League season starts

Ten months. 380 games. One long shift behind the bar. Here's what to keep an eye on before the first pint gets poured this afternoon.

“Joe, what are the key things to know going into this season?”

Let’s start with last year’s champions.

1. Arsenal have to do it again

Arsenal won the league in May for the first time in 22 years. A whole generation of their fans had never seen it happen. Then they turned up in Cardiff on Sunday and beat Manchester City 3-0 without breaking a sweat. Winning once is a story. Winning twice makes you a dynasty. Mikel Arteta's side open at home this afternoon, and the whole league now shows up wanting to knock them over.

2. Pep Guardiola is gone

The most influential coach of the last twenty years walked away in May. Ten years at Manchester City, 20 major trophies, six league titles, and the Champions League in 2023.

Asked why he was leaving, he said not to ask him for reasons, because there weren't any. He just knew it was time. Enzo Maresca has the job now. His first competitive game ended 3-0 to Arsenal. Every dominant era ends. This is what the week after one looks like.

3. Manchester United are the Dallas Cowboys

Enormous fanbase. Enormous revenue. A stadium you can see from space. And a highlight reel that stops dead in the mid-nineties.

That's United. Twenty league titles, three European Cups, and nothing since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013. But last season was good. Rubén Amorim was sacked in January, Michael Carrick stepped up as caretaker, got the job permanently, and finished third. They're back in the Champions League for the first time since 2023-24.

“So what does a good season look like for United this year?”

Not the title. Top four again, get out of the Champions League league phase, and win a cup. Any cup. Anything less is another year just like the Cowboys. Great merch, lots of fans but no Super Bowl in January (or trophy in May in soccer terms). They're at Hull on Saturday.

4. Three clubs are playing for their lives

Coventry, Ipswich and Hull came up from the second division. Come May, three teams go back down. That's the part American sports don't have, and it's the best thing about this league.

Coventry are the story. They haven't played top-flight soccer since 2001. In between they fell to the fourth division, fought their own owners, and spent years playing "home" games miles from Coventry. Frank Lampard took over in November 2024 with the team two points above the drop. Last season they won the division by 11 points. This afternoon they walk out at the Emirates.

5. There are eight Americans in this league

If you want a shortcut into caring about a club, follow the players who came through the US game.

Tyler Adams starts at Bournemouth. Chris Richards is first-choice center back at Crystal Palace. Antonee Robinson at Fulham was one of the best left backs in the league before injuries slowed him. Brenden Aaronson is a regular at Leeds. Zavier Gozo has just moved from Real Salt Lake to Crystal Palace. Two more sit on Chelsea's books without playing much.

And Haji Wright, who scored for the USA at the 2022 World Cup, got 17 goals last season to drag Coventry up. He plays at the Emirates this afternoon.

🗣️ SOUND LIKE A REGULAR

“Honeymoon period”

/ˈhʌ.niˌmuːn ˈpɪr.i.əd/🔊

phrase · soccer

1. Definition: The early stretch after a new arrival where fans, media and even players give the benefit of the doubt, regardless of what the performances actually look like.

2. Origin: Borrowed from marriage, where the early weeks of a relationship are all goodwill and no real tests yet. Applied across sports to describe the grace period a new manager or signing gets before anyone starts judging results.

USED IN A SENTENCE

"Maresca's still in his honeymoon period. Ask me again for a review in October."

🗞️ THE WEEKLY TAP-IN

Premier League preview

Matchday One is finally here.

Ten months of waiting, and it starts in a few hours.

Today it's Arsenal vs Coventry City at the Emirates (3:00pm ET). Champions against a club that was in the fourth division nine years ago.

• Hull City vs Manchester United (Saturday, 7:30am ET). Promoted side against a big club, early kickoff. The classic banana skin fixture.

• Brentford vs Tottenham (Saturday, 12:30pm ET). Roberto De Zerbi's first full season in charge of Tottenham after last year's relegation scare.

• Newcastle vs Liverpool (Sunday, 11:30am ET). Pick of the weekend. Andoni Iraola's first game as Liverpool boss, against a Newcastle side under a brand new manager and missing half the players you'd recognize.

• Fulham vs Chelsea (Monday, 3:00pm ET). Xabi Alonso's first league game as Chelsea manager.

Pace yourself. It's a long ten months.

Champions League draw is almost here

While the Premier League cleared its throat this week, the last places in Europe's biggest competition were being fought over.

Quick explainer: 36 clubs make up the league phase. 29 clubs qualify automatically. The final seven come through a play-off round, two legs each, home and away. Win and you're in the big time. Lose and you drop into the Europa League, which is still a perfectly good night out.

Biggest results from the first leg of fixtures:

• Celtic 3-0 LASK of Austria. The Scottish champions all but through. LASK need to score at least 3 goals without reply in the return fixture to have a shot.

• Everyone’s favourite underdog, Bodø/Glimt 3-1 at NEC Nijmegen of the Netherlands. The Norwegians from north of the Arctic Circle at it again.

• Slovan Bratislava 1-1 Celje. All still to play for in the Slovakia vs Slovenia rivalry.

The draw for the league phase takes place next week.

Read more:

• The Champions League explained

Wrexham second season in the Championship

Wrexham finished seventh in the Championship last season, the best finish in the club's 162-year history, just two points behind Hull City in the final playoff spot. Three straight promotions, then a genuine playoff push in year one at this level. Remarkable stuff.

This year looks a lot harder. Their net spend this summer sits at the bottom of the division, roughly £8m in the red, and the business has been shaped more by departures than fresh arrivals. Compare that to the £30m-plus they spent in each of the previous two summers just to keep climbing.

They opened Monday with a 1-1 draw at Cardiff, their first league meeting since 2002. A solid start. But this is being called a genuine reality check for a reason: repeating seventh place with less money and stronger opposition would be a bigger achievement than getting there the first time.

📝 ASK JOE

"Looking at the video you shared of the Messi vs Ronaldo Clasico match from 2012. You see a contested ball between 17 for Barca and 4 for Real Madrid. I believe the pass was intended for the Barca player... my mindset is coming from American football where both would be considered eligible receivers. What do the rules consider acceptable play when contesting a ball and what... is not permitted even when unintentional?"

Thanks to Reuben for this one. The video went out in Monday's edition — the moment's right here.

Here's what trips up everyone coming from the gridiron: there's no such thing as an 'intended receiver' here. A pass being for someone gives them no claim on it. Every ball is up for grabs, and going in after it is perfectly legal — shoulder to shoulder, arms tucked in, may the best man win.

What matters is who gets there first. Ramos (Real Madrid, No.4) wins it ahead of Pedro (Barca, No.17), and once he's played the ball, the ball is gone. So when Pedro's boot arrives a beat later, it isn't a challenge for the ball anymore — it's a boot arriving at a man. Run the same collision the other way round and the free kick goes the opposite way. Same tangle of legs, different order, different call.

Then there's the manner of it. Both had their feet high, but Pedro's studs are showing and he catches Ramos somewhere no man enjoys being caught. Studs-up isn't written into the laws as a crime of its own, referees just use it to judge how dangerous a challenge was. And danger is the whole ballgame.

Which is where your last question answers itself. Careless gets a free kick. Reckless gets a yellow. Anything that endangers an opponent's safety gets a red, no questions asked about what you meant. Balogun found that out against Bosnia at the World Cup, sent off for standing on an ankle. Nobody thinks he meant it. The ankle doesn't care.

Want to submit your own question about soccer? Just reply to this email — I read every response.

🔥 HOUSE SPECIALS

Goal of the week:Sondre Brunstad Fet's opener for Bodø/Glimt at NEC Nijmegen on Wednesday, kickstarting their 3-1 Champions League playoff win.

Fanzone: The Premier League runs an official bar finder, hundreds of soccer pubs across the US searchable by city. Bookmark it. That's ten months of Saturdays sorted, not just this one.

Flashback:Match of the Day turns 62 tomorrow — Britain's SportsCenter, on the BBC every Saturday night since 1964. Clubs were so afraid TV would empty their stadiums that the BBC wasn't allowed to say which match it had filmed until the games kicked off.

Underdog corner: Sunderland were in League One four years ago, now they’re back in Europe for the first time since 1973-74.

Wardrobe watch: Irish striker, Troy Parrott, fresh off the plane, looking fresh in a Real Betis kit for the first time after signing for the Spanish club in a $19 million deal.

Most clicked from Monday:Cristiano Ronaldo talks his greatest rival.

🎺 LAST CALL

A trophy nobody agreed to play for

Right, gather round, because this one's a beauty.

Fulham played a friendly against Málaga last week. Finished 2-2. Normally that's a handshake and everyone's on the bus home. Not this time.

Málaga thought there was a penalty shootout to settle the trophy. Fulham reckoned both sides had shaken on skipping it. New Fulham boss Álvaro Arbeloa got himself sent off arguing the toss with the ref, and then, and I love this bit, his entire squad just turned and walked off. Down the tunnel. See you later.

Except Málaga didn't follow them. One of their lads strolled up and tucked a penalty into a completely empty net, in front of 17,000 fans who'd stuck around for exactly this. His teammates piled on top of him like he'd won them the actual World Cup. Málaga lifted the trophy.

Nobody comes out of that looking clever. Everybody had a smashing night regardless. That, folks, is preseason in a nutshell. Thankfully we got through it.