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There have been, historically, two kinds of standout players in United States men’s soccer history. The first are good American players — the guys who make a career out of being really good in MLS, move over to a second-division European side, maybe even get a World Cup or two under their belts as a reliable contributor for the United States men’s national team. There is no shame in this, as you can have a very solid career and make a ton of money and be in the top fraction of a percent of humans to ever kick a soccer ball by being a good American soccer player. There’s also a bit of a misconception that this is a knock. It is not, as there are plenty of good footballers of English and Spanish and German descent, too, who never turn into world-class players.

The second classification: good players who are American. While the entire USWNT is comprised of world-class talent, this is a more rare distinction among the men’s team — think Landon Donovan, or Clint Dempsey, or any number of goalkeepers (Tim Howard, Brad Friedel) who could cut it in one of the top leagues on earth. France, for example, is really good at producing these sorts of guys. The United States, well, not so much, although there are a handful of indications that we’re getting to a point where we’ll see this caliber of player a bit more frequently.

Dudes like Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie, and other members of the nascent American “Golden Generation” are near the top of this list. None of these players are at the top of said list, though, as that distinction goes to Christian Pulisic. The 21-year-old Hershey, Pa. native plays for Chelsea, commanded $73 million on the transfer market when he jumped to the English giants, and has already earned the distinction of being the best player to ever wear the red, white, and blue.

This article was inspired in large part by the fact that Pulisic is in the midst of an absolutely torrid run of form for Chelsea since English football has come back from its COVID-19 hiatus. The Blues have played five Premier League matches and one FA Cup tilt in that period — Pulisic came off the bench against Aston Villa in the first match, scored, and has started every match since. This has included two more goals, one against Manchester City and one on Tuesday against Crystal Palace, and a whole lot of extremely impressive performances aside from the times he has found the back of the net.

There are a whole host of things that wingers at a club with aspirations as lofty as Chelsea are tasked with doing over the course of a match. Goalscoring is, obviously, a gigantic aspect of this, and in recent matches, Pulisic has done an admirable job. His goal against Aston Villa came by result of something that was discussed on the most recent episode of the Scuffed podcast: his ability to arrive in the box.

Against Crystal Palace, we got a glimpse of Pulisic using his weaker left fit to beat Vicente Guaita with a thunderous, upper 90 effort.

Pulisic being a clinical ambidextrous finisher who can put his left foot through a ball like this is a welcomed development — it would be for any winger — but with his goal against Manchester City, Pulisic showed off what has long been his best quality: making stuff happen with the ball at his feet. Pulisic pounced on a mistake, showing off incisiveness and burst, dribbled past a pair of defenders, and slotted in a tidy right footed strike past Ederson, one of the world’s best keepers.

Finishing is a tool that good wingers need in their toolbox. Pulisic showed some glimpses of this during his time at Borussia Dortmund and more than glimpses with the USMNT. With Chelsea, it’s again mostly been glimpses — it took 10 matches for him to score a hat trick against Burnley, and while growing pains were expected as someone who jumped to the best league on earth as a 20-year-old, a signing with his hefty price tag and the expectations of replacing recently-departed star Eden Hazard is expected to produce. One of the best players in the world and a club legend in London, Hazard was sold to Real Madrid last summer, and almost immediately, questions began popping up about Pulisic being his successor.

Now, soccer is a sport where like-for-like comparisons can be tricky, as the roles of players in nominally the same positions are constantly changing due to managers, the other 10 players on the pitch, all sorts of things. For wingers, though, the ability to make things happen in 1 v. 1 situations and the ability to create chances — whether they’re scoring or setting up their teammates — are usually going to be paramount. Hazard was quite good at both things, and so far, Pulisic has shown a whole lot of aptitude in these areas, too.

Let’s start with chance creation. An important thing to know about soccer is that chance creation does not necessarily mean that chances are converted into goals. This is the general idea behind expected goals (xG): to steal American Soccer Analysis’ explanation, xG “are the number of goals that can be expected to be scored based on where and how a shot was taken.” In simpler terms, a player is more likely to convert a chance from two yards away from goal than they are 30 yards away from goal, even if it tap-ins go astray and bangers from another county are converted. What xG tries to do is quantify the likelihood of chances going in, regardless of whether they found the back of the net.

Pulisic is already quite good at creating chances. Per StatsBomb, Pulisic’s non-penalty xG+xA per 90 minutes in Premier League tilts — basically how many chances is he creating over one match without penalties factored into the equation — is 0.64. He has not played quite enough to qualify for the Premier League leaders in this statistic, but if he did, he would register the eighth-highest npxG+xA per 90 in England. Six of the seven players ahead of him suit up for Liverpool and Manchester City, while the seventh is his striker, Tammy Abraham. American footballers have been good in the Premier League in the past — Dempsey was tied for fourth in the league with 17 goals for Fulham in 2011-12 — but no Yank has been this productive for a Champions League side. (Dempsey’s Fulham team that year, while solid, came in ninth.)

Where Pulisic has always shined is his ability to dribble, particularly in 1 v. 1 situations. An example from Tuesday’s match comes at the 1:22 mark of the below video, as he gets the ball on the left wing, sheds one defender, then picks up a foul as he dribbles past another.

His aptitude with the ball at his feet is nothing new — we saw it with Dortmund and with the national team plenty of times. He’s also very, very good at recognizing when a window is opening and pouncing. This is something he’s done well, as we saw against Bayern Munich in 2017, and it was put on display with his goal against Manchester City. That’s a skill a player can learn, but it is much, much better for someone to inherently have this and refine it — think of it like a linebacker who just knows how and when to attack the line of scrimmage, or a shooting guard/small forward who has been good at moving off the ball their entire life.

There is still plenty of room, though, for Pulisic to improve. While he is growing as a passer, his first instinct is still to go, go, go with the ball at his feet. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, he can be a ball-stopper and, in turn, has a bit of a propensity for being wasteful. Pulisic is 19th in times being dispossessed among Premier League players (57), and among 216 qualifying players in the league, Pulisic is 154th in percentage of dribbles successfully completed (54.7 percent). For the former, he has the second-fewest touches among players in the top-20, and for the latter, there’s only one player (Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling, 45.7 percent) who plays forward for a top-four side and has a lower percentage.

Nor is Pulisic the best passer on earth, although there is optimism; his completion percentage has ticked up this year, he’s become a much better long passer, and his number of key passes (which are passes that lead to a shot) is near his career-high in league play, which was set in a year where he played 834 more minutes. Think of him like you would a 21-year-old point guard, one who is capable of doing the absolutely breathtaking stuff, but who still needs to grow into and fine-tune their mastery of their position. They turn the ball over more than you’d like and can get tunnel vision in spots, but as they year goes on, they more and more frequently remind you why they’re such a promising youngster.

It is impossible to know exactly what the future holds for Pulisic. There is an outcome where opposing clubs, now knowing exactly what he is capable of doing and the tendencies that make him dangerous, put the clamps on him and he’s not capable of consistently looking like one of the best wingers in England. The good news for him with this regard is that Chelsea’s attack next year has the potential to be among the world’s best — they’re adding RB Leipzig goal-scoring maestro Timo Werner and Ajax talisman Hakim Ziyech, and rumors indicate that Bayer Leverkusen attacking midfielder Kai Havertz could end up in London.

Even if Havertz doesn’t come, Werner and Ziyech are tremendous players, and as we’ve seen with Liverpool and Manchester City, opposing teams cannot focus too much on stopping one member of a blistering attacking trio because the other two guys will shred them to pieces. This bodes well for a player with Pulisic’s skill set, as he could find himself in plenty of 1 v. 1s and situations where chance creation is frequent. He assuredly won’t play every game — Werner playing on the left and Abraham lining up at striker is a dangerous option at Chelsea manager Frank Lampard’s disposal — but unless he hits an absolutely abysmal run of form or he misses time due to injury (something that has been a problem at points in his career), starts and minutes should be plentiful.

The United States has never produced a men’s player who is discussed in these terms. For every Dempsey or Donovan, there are handfuls of perfectly respectable players who just aren’t quite at the level of the Premier League or the Bundesliga. But even among that upper echelon of Americans, a player being a productive and promising contributor to the extent that Pulisic is on a top side in a top-flight league, let alone at his age, is unheard of. The “Golden Generation” talk could end up being premature, because none of us possess a crystal ball, but in the context of the men’s national team, even if he retires by the time you finish reading this sentence, there has never been anyone at the level of the precocious Pennsylvanian.

This summer, Madrid’s Mad Cool Festival was slated to celebrate its fifth anniversary. Not only did the festival confirm big-name artists like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Charli XCX, and Phoebe Bridgers, but Mad Cool offered a “festival experience flight,” which allowed passengers a luxury way to arrive at the festival grounds in style. However, Mad Cool’s plans were foiled when the coronavirus pandemic hit. Now, Mad Cool is looking forward to next summer by unveiling its first handful of artists booked for 2021.

Next year’s Mad Cool event is scheduled to take place from July 7 to 10 in Madrid and mark the festival’s five-year anniversary. So far, confirmed artists include The Killers, Carly Rae Jepsen, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Waxahatchee, Deftones, Major Lazer, Angel Olsen, Parcels, Cherry Glazerr, Yungblud, and many others.

This first wave of announcements marks 94 bands out of the 132 that will be part of the Mad Cool 2021 lineup. Festival organizers also teased that many artists who were confirmed for 2020’s event, other than Taylor Swift, will appear on stage next summer.

Check out Mad Cool’s first lineup announcement above.

Mad Cool tickets are available now starting at $85 for single-day passes. Get them here.

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Ed Sheeran is best known for his world-dominating pop songs, but he has long had a relationship with hip-hop during his career. From his 2011 EP No. 5 Collaborations Project to the similarly named sequel released last summer and beyond, Sheeran has shown off an at-the-very-lease passable ability to rap. It turns out that he can apparently hold his own against legitimate rappers, and did so on one occasion in the presence of Ty Dolla Sign, The Weeknd, Belly, and others.

Ty spoke with Zane Lowe in a recent interview, and when asked about his best story involving The Weeknd, he said:

“One time we went to Toronto and it was him and Belly. They both had like the top floor of this… I can’t remember what hotel it was.. but they had the resident side. And we went up there and he had a bunch of people over and we were playing pool. And he had my man Ed Sheeran over there, and everybody got into like a cipher, freestyling, and this fool Ed Sheeran came through and smacked everybody, bro. I’m like, ‘What the f*ck?’ Shout out, Ed. I was surprised. I was not expecting that. But he killed everyone, bro. Like real rappers. I’m not even naming people because it was f*cked up. That’s my most memorable Weeknd story, man.”

Sheeran is in the midst of a musical break after years of near-constant touring, and he said he will “be back with some new music when the time is right and I’ve lived a little more to actually have something to write about.”

Watch some of the Ty interview below.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

While promoting his latest series The Long Run, Idris Elba gave Luther fans a glimmer of hope that the gruff British detective will return to take down another round of ruthless killers. Only this time, it won’t be on the small screen.

After initially ducking a question about the future of the series and denying that there are any “formal plans,” Elba revealed to Sky News that he’s adamant about making a Luther movie a reality, and according to the actor, the chances are looking very good.

“I’ve made it very clear that I’d like to see Luther come back as a film” Elba said. “And I can tell you this, that we are this close to making a film of Luther.”

This isn’t the first time the actor has hinted at his theatrical ambitions for the British series. Back in 2018, Elba told Metro that showrunner Neil Cross was hard at work on a film that could take Luther all over the globe.

‘Luther has all the ingredients to echo those classic films of the 90s like Seven and Along Came A Spider and I think what we’d like to attempt is use that as a blueprint to create it. It will be more murder, more Volvos, more frowning Luther. Essentially we just want to try and take it to a much bigger remit and scale and perhaps international as well.’

Of course, the important thing is that Elba is even around to talk about a potential Luther movie. The actor was one of the first high-profile celebrities to test positive for COVID-19 back in March. Fortunately, Elba made a full recovery, but during his time in quarantine, he made it a point to share his journey with fans to inform them about the reality of the virus. He also went out of his way to debunk dangerous conspiracy theories that were running rampant on social media.

(Via Sky News)

During a media conference call on Wednesday, Spurs guard Patty Mills announced he would donate the rest of his 2020 NBA salary to organizations fighting against systemic racism in the United States and in his home country of Australia.

“I’m playing in Orlando because I don’t want to leave any money on the table that could be going directly to Black communities,” Mills said.

Many in the league have discussed where they will find their sense of purpose during the NBA restart, especially considering the situation in America and around the world right now. Even playing in empty arenas or without families around will make it difficult, but Mills is generating an entirely new purpose for the season, with each moment he’s getting paid to play in Orlando going directly toward Black Lives Matter Australia, Black Deaths in Custody, and We Got You, which Mills said fights against racism in sports back home.

Mills’ announcement comes after Dwight Howard decided to donate the rest of his 2020 salary to his own charitable organization, Breathe Again.

The Spurs have been among the most vocal during the NBA hiatus, with head coach Gregg Popovich frequently assailing the federal government for its response to the pandemic as well as the white supremacy he believes emanates from the White House. Guard DeMar DeRozan criticized the NBA’s lack of communication about regulations as players entered the bubble. And the Spurs highlighted the stories of its Black staffers and other people of color who work for the organization in a moving video series on its YouTube channel.

The U.S. Government is currently considering a ban on certain Chinese social media apps, including the massively popular TikTok. And it’s totally not because the President got trolled by a bunch of teenagers who conspired to falsely RSVP to his comeback rally over the app. In an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham early Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo indicated the United States was “very seriously” looking into banning the app, saying “With respect to Chinese apps on people’s cell phones, I can assure you the United States will get this one right too… I don’t want to get out in front of the President, but it’s something we’re looking at,” adding that American users of the app should only download TikTok if “you want your private information in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.”

According to CNN, while TikTok is owned by the Beijing-based startup ByteDance, the company has an American CEO and claims that data centers are located outside of China and therefore not subjected to Chinese law, and actively stores U.S. user data in the United States. In a statement following Pompeo’s remarks, a spokesperson restated that the company has “no higher priority than promoting a safe and secure app experience for our users.” Adding that the company has “never provided user data to the Chinese government, nor would we do so if asked.”

The issue at stake

The ban consideration comes amid heightened tensions between the United States and China, as President Trump makes anti-Chinese sentiment a key part of his reelection campaign. The app and 58 others were recently banned in India as relations between the country and China have escalated, and now faces a loss of as much as $6 billion, according to Forbes. Another dent in revenue brought on by a potential U.S. ban might post massive problems for the app, which was downloaded an unprecedented 315 million times in the first three months of this year, according to analytics company Sensor Tower, and that doesn’t even account for the number of people who joined the app for the first time at the start of the country-wide lockdown in March.

What makes TikTok particularly concerning?

Social media apps collecting your data isn’t anything new. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat all collect your location data, internet address, browsing history, and can identify the type of device you’re using. TikTok can collect your phone and social-network contacts, GPS position, age, phone number, and any user-generated content you post, according to the Wall Street Journal, and tracks your watching habits to get a better understanding of how to personalize individual user experiences.

However, Chinese apps, in particular, tend to collect more data than they actually need, according to senior technology fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, Jon Callas. This puts TikTok at a larger concern than American based apps as lawmakers and U.S. officials worry about the Chinese government’s mass data collection on American citizens.

Can This Actually Happen?

Absolutely. In his interview with Laura Ingraham, Pompeo pointed to precedent for such a ban in the FCC’s decision to designate the Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE as national security threats. According to the Wall Street Journal, the app has already been banned within the U.S. Military, and the House recently passed a bill that bans TSA officials from using the app. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission also slapped TikTok with a $6 million fine over the data collection practices of minors using Musical.ly, which was acquired by TikTok in 2017.

TikTok certainly wouldn’t be the first app under Chinese ownership to raise national security concerns. According to Tech Crunch, the popular dating app Grindr — which was acquired by the Chinese-based company Beijing Kunlun in 2016 — came under similar scrutiny after it was reported that while under Chinese ownership, engineers in Beijing were allowed to access the personal data of U.S. users, which included private messages and HIV status. When the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States told Beijing Kunlun that ownership of Grinder constitutes a national security threat, the Chinese company sold its 98% stake in the app.

TikTok is currently actively under a national security review by the federal government so if the app is revealed to be dangerously invasive, our days with the platform will be numbered.

Nashville rockers Bully are gearing up for the release of their third studio, Sugaregg, later this summer. After ushering in a new era with the disorienting single “Where To Start,” Bully returns with “Every Tradition.”

According to vocalist Alicia Bognanno, Sugaregg was written during a chaotic period. Bognanno brought her personal experiences to her songwriting and find clarity through music. “‘Every Tradition’ is one of the most literal songs on the record, forcing myself throughout the writing process to cut out the bullsh*t and put down on paper exactly what was going through my mind, silencing the paranoia of the different ways it could be received,” Bognanno said in a statement. “Some songs just call for that sort of process and ‘Every Tradition’ was one of them.”

Bully’s video accompanying “Every Tradition” speaks to this sense of earnestness. Bognanno shot the video alone in her home with the help of director Alan Del Rio Ortiz on FaceTime. The singer described her video’s shooting process in a statement:

“After we tested out this method (me shooting alone at my house and sending the footage to Alan to edit and put everything together) with ‘Where To Start’ I liked it so much I wanted to do it again and trusted Alan to turn my mess into a well put together music video. Surprisingly I was a lot more comfortable on my own as opposed to having a crew of people there like there has been for past music videos. I also have a newfound appreciation for any cinematographer because god damn it’s a lot of work.”

Watch Bully’s “Every Tradition” video above.

Sugaregg is out 8/21 via Sub Pop. Pre-order it here.

Halloween Kills, the sequel to 2018’s Halloween (not to be confused with 1978’s Halloween or 2007’s Halloween), was scheduled to come out on October 16, 2020, emphasis on the “was.” Universal has pushed Halloween Kills, as well as Halloween Ends, back one year — the new dates are October 15, 2021, and October 14, 2022. Also delayed: Candyman (new date: October 16) and The Forever Purge (July 9, 2021).

The announcement was made by director David Gordon Green and horror maestro John Carpenter, who wrote, “We write this to you heartbroken over the fact that the delay of our film is even a discussion, but if there’s one thing that a career in the film industry has prepared us for, it is the unexpected. Over the past few weeks, our film family has looked at the forecast of theatrical exhibition with obvious concern. We have discussed and struggled with how best to present Halloween Kills to the loyal fans around the world, as well as the new audience we hope to invite to this experience.” They continued:

It was a wild and vibrant production. We lined up a cast of legacy characters like Laurie and Tommy, Lindsey, Lonnie, Marion, Brackett, and The Shape, then alongside some new faces, we aggressively made the second chapter of our Halloween trilogy.

It unfolded into an experience that was a creative playground and we feel confident that our misfit pleasures will be seen as an unexpected entry into this franchise.

If we release it in October of this year as planned, we have to face the reality that the film would be consumed in a compromised theatrical experience. After weighing our options, we have chosen to push the film’s theatrical release by one year… We’re going to have time to complete the film with the quality that fans deserve. And preparation on Halloween Ends has begun as well. It is an honor to be working with these characters and spending time in Haddonfield. We look forward to sharing our next chapters with you.

On the bright side, at least there’s a teaser trailer, which you can watch above. Laurie’s “let him burn” is an extremely 2020 mood.

Back in May, Portugal’s NOS Alive Festival announced they would be canceling their 2020 iteration due to the pandemic. Instead, they focused their energy on making next year’s event one to remember. Staying true to their word, NOS Alive has announced the first wave of 2021 headliners.

NOS Alive 2021 will be held from July 7 to 10 in Lisbon’s Passeio Marítimo de Algés. So far, the festival has shared a handful of acts they have confirmed for the upcoming event. Headliners include veteran rockers Red Hot Chili Peppers along with Angel Olsen, Alt-J, Two Door Cinema Club, Caribou, Fontaines DC, Alec Benjamin, Moses Sumney, Parcels, Caribou, Hobo Johnson And The Lovemakers, and more.

This year’s NOS Alive festival was supposed to see many big-name artists like Charli XCX, Anderson .Paak, Haim, Kendrick Lamar, Jorja Smith, and others. In a statement announcing this summer’s cancelation, festival organizers wrote: “We are feeling positive and committed about working towards making the 2021 edition the best one ever. Staying true to our signature that we want to maintain: the best line-up always!”

NOS Alive tickets are on sale now starting at $78 for single-day passes. Get them here.

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Earlier this week, on 50 Cent‘s birthday, T.I. challenged his fellow rap mogul to a hits battle on Verzuz, the head-to-head music showcase that has been entertaining music fans on Instagram Live for the past several months of the trash fire of 2020. In his challenge, T.I. included plenty of his characteristic trash talk as he goaded 50 with reminders of his release day L to Kanye West in 2007 and declarations that T.I.’s catalog of hits would demolish 50’s. While 50’s original response was as flippant as it was dismissive, it appears he’s reached his boiling point — such as it is.

Rather than responding directly, 50 instead resorted once again to social media trolling, this time posting video to his accounts of T.I.’s “Crime Stoppers” PSA. In the PSA, T.I. relates his nickname, Tip, to the anonymous “tip line” whose purpose is for citizens to provide information to law enforcement for prevention or investigation of local crime. 50 capped the video with a clip of his verse from G-Unit’s T.O.S.: Terminate On Sight cut “You So Tough,” which obliquely references T.I.’s 2007 arrest for gun possession and gently implies that T.I. snitched to avoid a longer sentence.

“What’s today’s mathematics? Sh*t ain’t addin’ up
Get knocked with 10 machine guns, only get 12 months”

Of course, none of that really has anything to do with whose discography is better, but for better or worse, this is who 50 Cent is now. He’s more interested in promoting his other endeavors, like executive producing Pop’s Smoke’s posthumous album, than he is playing his hits for a streaming audience for free. While he has said he’d battle opponents like Snoop Dogg on Verzuz, it doesn’t seem likely we’ll see such a thing anytime soon.

See 50 Cent’s latest response to T.I.’s Verzuz challenge above.