Did the World Cup just end? Ya. But more soccer is just around the bend! The new season of Ted Lasso, sure, but also the 2026-2027 season of the English Premier League.
The first game kicks off August 21, so you’ve got a little bit of time left to decide in order to avoid accusations of jumping on any bandwagons should your new club turn out to be good.
I’ve done this once before, for the 2024-2025 season. If you’re curious about my credentials, philosophy, or how I came to pledge my allegiance to the Brighton & Hove Albion seagulls, you can find that story here.
Some EPL experts might outline the web of traditional rivalries, play styles, or club reputations. I don’t know much about any of that. But if you’d like to pick a club for a silly reason, read on. After all, why do we support any team in any sport but for the accidents of parentage and geography? Why can a good pun or oblique pop culture reference not serve just as well?
But enough preamble; you’re here for answers. Let’s begin.
Since I last proffered my advice, there have been some changes in our options. After every season, the three worst teams get booted out of the league, so if you gave your heart away to any of those it may be time to consider going in a new direction.
Would a die-hard, homegrown fan just switch allegiance to a new team if theirs got demoted to a worse league? No, of course not. But we don’t have ancestral ties to any of these teams nor the TV deals that would allow us to watch their games in the lower league. So I say it’s okay to pick a new one. At least until your first love makes a return.
If you backed Burnley, perhaps give Brentford a try. They’re the Bees and I always mix them up anyway cause they start with B.
If West Ham, I’d recommend Fulham. It’s more ham.
If Wolverhampton, maybe Nottingham Forest. That sounds like a nice place for wolves to lick their wounds and regroup.
Now, for those of you who are coming to this with no recent relegation baggage…
If you’re basic and a bit boring and want to root for a team who has won the league recently, is supported by lots of Americans, or has enough money to buy players you’ve actually heard of, go for Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, or Manchester United. Normally I’d put Tottenham in that list too, but they were an inch away from relegation last year so you’d be buying low currently.
But if you’re feeling ZANY and BRAVE, here are some others to consider:
If graphic design is your passion, one of the newly promoted clubs, Coventry City, has one of the best crests (logos) I’ve ever seen. There’s an elephant who might be a medic with a castle on its back and a couple phoenixes. Minimalism is dead.
If you enjoyed reading Devil in the White City, Crystal Palace FC gets its name from the Crystal Palace that hosted the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was basically a World’s Fair.
If you loved Treasure Planet as a kid (or still do), Hull City sounds like it could be the name of a port planet/moon/satellite they could’ve started the adventure from.
If you like to yo-yo, Ipswich Town got promoted to the league in 2024, then relegated in 2025, and then promoted again—what we in the biz call a yo-yo team.
If you were really into BBC’s Sherlock in the 2010’s, I’d suggest Leeds United. Cause you gotta unite those leads to solve those crimes.
If you find yourself rooting for the refs, Newcastle United will make you feel right at home thanks to their black and white vertical stripe kits (jerseys).
If you find yourself rooting against the refs, then go Newcastle’s historic rival, Sunderland.
These aren’t quite all of the teams, but hopefully that’s enough to get you started. I’d also recommend going down the rabbit hole of a club’s Wikipedia page—things like their songs, stadium, and nicknames can really help spark your affections.
And once again, whether you pick based on something whimsical, historical, tangential, or arbitrary, the important thing is that you stick with them (until they finish in the bottom three and you can’t find any bootleg streaming of their games in the second tier).
Happy cheering!
Christina Ribbens (’19) studied history, studio art, and data science at Calvin and public humanities at Georgetown. She now lives in the part of Virginia that’s almost Washington, DC where she helps award grants to arts nonprofits. She takes a lot of walks to admire the landscaping in peoples’ front yards, mostly listens to British comedians’ podcasts, and likes to make friends via sports.
