It is an immense quirk that we get about 10% of the way through the soccer season before the rosters are actually locked into place. It's difficult for an American sports fan to grasp, I'm sure. In college football, rosters are mostly set three months before the season starts. In professional sports, you've got a trade deadline -- which more-or-less matches the purpose of soccer's January transfer window -- but you don't see blockbuster trades two games into the season. But in soccer, we already saw pretty dramatic shifts in expectations before we even knew for sure who would be playing for, say, Chelsea and Manchester United.
Odegaard, Haaland, Thiago, Pedri and more: The 25 most important players for the 2022-23 season
