Last week, European soccer—and, by extension, the sport worldwide—was rocked to its core with the announcement late Sunday of a new European Super League (ESL) consisting of 12 of the continent’s most elite teams. Less than 72 hours later, the league had all but disbanded and one of the biggest ruptures in the history of sports was already in the rearview mirror.
What happened?
Here’s the brief backstory. Twelve elite teams from England, Spain and Italy announced they’d leave the high-level European club competition called the Champions League—for which teams qualify annually on the basis of their performance in national league play—to start their own league playing midweek matches against one another.
