The Athletic is getting into soccer. And sure, we all saw it coming. That the most exciting thing in sports journalism would dive into the world’s favorite sport was about as expected as a Cristiano ab-flex, and it didn’t require crunches or healthy eating.

Not that I’m a total stranger to discipline, having run, for the last six years and on the frailest of shoestring budgets, a quarterly magazine about soccer. I will always be proud of the work we published in Howler, which passes into the capable hands of a new editor, and now I am eager to put the resources of this company to work on a similar mission: to examine soccer in all its dimensions, bring light to overlooked stories, hold decision-makers to account, and seek to understand a complex world through a profoundly simple game.

Joining me on the editorial staff is Brooks Peck. I’d been reading Brooks’ wicked satire on his blog, Dirty Tackle, long before we started working together several years ago. He’s especially good at taking all the big-idea stuff I like about soccer and finding the most devastating, most delicious joke. We’ve been assigning and editing stories for a few weeks now and the balance feels good.

So what about these stories?

We intend to keep serving you a rounded diet of local soccer reporting, something The Athletic already does well. We have writers covering a number of MLS teams and we’ll be adding to that roster in the coming weeks—hello Atlanta, LA, and Portland—and that’s just for starters.

At launch, the plan is to cover the areas we think our readers will care about most and expand from there. This includes the U.S. men’s and women’s national teams, El Tri, clubs in the Premier League and elsewhere in Europe, and, of course, the World Cup.

Paul Tenorio is joining to cover American soccer. Cesar Hernandez and Raul Vilchis will be writing about Mexico, North America’s best hope for World Cup glory. Caitlin Murray will be writing about the U.S. women’s national team (and the Thorns and Timbers). Paolo Bandini, Graham Hunter, and others will be filing from Europe. Mike Goodman and Michael Caley will be filing from behind their tactics whiteboards. Will Parchman will join longtime soccer exec Peter Wilt in offering an unfiltered look at the business and culture and development of soccer here in the United States. There are more writers, more subjects. Let’s try to keep a little mystery; it’ll be more fun that way.

There is no shortage of soccer writing on the web—we know this. So what will set The Athletic’s offering apart? First, we will entertain you. We’ve all watched a boring game, but there’s no reason reading about soccer should be anything but a pleasure. You will be presented with a thousand FA Cup final previews, so why not read one that sings?

Second, we want to build a digital home for soccer that, we feel, currently doesn’t exist anywhere else. A place where a community of soccer fans from the U.S., Canada, and beyond can get closer to the world’s game through stories that are worth paying for. That’s a fundamental part of the deal: we need to convince you to support the work we’re putting out by purchasing a subscription. I love this model because it means we’re accountable to the reader, not an algorithm. And it means we can offer an all around better experience. The stories are completely free of ads and you’ll never want to murder your screen because a video started playing and WHERE IS THAT NOISE COMING FROM!?!??

This week on the site, we’re making sounds about Rafa Marquez’s bid to play in a fifth World Cup, Alex Morgan’s new role as a winger, Michael Bradley’s future with the U.S. national team, and how Mo Salah surpassed Neymar to become one of the top three players in the world. Click here to see everything we published on our first day in action. Check back next week as we turn to the Champions League final, and the week after that as we get started on the World Cup.

We invite you to check it out with a free, seven-day trial, then continue through the World Cup with us for 33% off the first year. (In footballer wages, that comes out to 77 cents per week.) Keep in mind that we’re just getting started, and we want to expand into the areas that interest you most, so please help guide our coverage by telling us what you want to read about. Now excuse me while I rip off my shirt, do my best Cristiano scream, and flip the switch on The Athletic’s soccer coverage.

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