The Best International Football / Soccer Websites

As a fairly recently converted (now rabid) international football fan, it was hard to find good sources of news on football transfers, match analysis, and manager mind-games at first.

Now three years into my obsessions with Chelsea and Tottenham (That’s right, both. I don’t follow the convention that you have one team and stick with it. Imagine if you were a Leeds fan…), I’m up on more transfer rumors than I can handle.

I’m mostly interested in Premier League football, but I do check up on the rest of Europe, too.

What are my sources? Here they are in order:

5) ESPNSoccernet: www.soccernet.com

Probably the first place most Americans go, the good is that when a signing is reported on Soccernet, it’s official. Also, they do a good job posting relevant links that cover most Premiership news. The bad? The editorials are relatively poor and infrequent, and transfer rumo(u)rs are ignored for the most part.

4) Goal International: http://www.goal.com/en/

The best thing about Goal’s international football coverage is the sheer quantity of news available. The dealings of the Italian, Spanish, French, and English leagues are exhaustively reported, but like ESPN, editorials are poor and not focused. Goal is mostly an AP regurgitater.

3) The Times Football: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/

The Times has great post-match content and sums up the Premier League transfer market well. Their site is cluttered and oft-not updated for hours, and their team pages are pretty damn weak.

2) Daily Mail Football: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/index.html

Daily Mail Football is hilarious literally and unintentionally. About five times this summer, the Mail has reported officially that Kaka’s transfer to Chelsea is done, Ronaldinho was on his way to Man City, and Shevchenko is still the best player in the world. While the Mail is not to be trusted, no site provides more compelling transfer rumors, and the Hatchet Man and Insider provide superb commentary on the English game.

1) Guardian Football: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football

The Guardian’s clean lay-out, dependable reporting, daily editorials, and unrivaled excellent post-match reports are all top-class. But the best features of Guardian Football are the daily Rumour Mill (The Fiver is not bad either) and minute-by-minute match commentary. No one “bangs it” in the rumour mill as uproariously as Tom Lutz, and I’ll refresh his minute-by-minutes during matches, too. Paolo Bandini, Paul Doyle, and Barney Ronay crack me up with their clever prose and impress me with their footballing intelligence as well.

Got some favorites of your own? Think I'm missing some? Let me know in the comments section...

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