Could it just be that 2016 is the last time he's a significant part

There is always another game. Always another tournament or league or competition. And in soccer, as sure as the sun rises and sets, there is another storyline. It's why we're besotted by that sport of ours.

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It isn't just one team against another, a battle between billionaires' playthings. It's tribal. And geopolitical. It matters profoundly. Fans feel it down into their bone marrow. And it just so happens, or perhaps it's exactly because of all this, that the stories in soccer are somehow always bigger, bolder, more grotesque than in any other sport. Even corruption is somehow more craven in the world's favorite game.

Here, then, is FC Yahoo's Starting XI of stories we'll be watching in 2016.

Happy New Soccer Year, everybody.

Sepp Blatter

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Of course, Sepp Blatter. Ask yourself when was the last year he wasn't a storyline? Could it just be that 2016 is the last time he's a significant part of the conversation, though? If his eight-year suspension from soccer does indeed hold up in front of the Court of Arbitration in Sport, and he really vacates office in February, we might have finally and happily seen the last of him.