Here you go, the class of 2016....

On Wednesday, 23 December at 10am GMT we will publish the #IBWM100 for 2016 - our list of the most exciting young players in world football.

In December 2014, after many months of in house argument, deliberation, research and deep reflection, we identified 100 young footballers across the globe that we believed to be the most exciting around.  

Sport is defined by its iconic and unforgettable moments and within those moments are the photographs which encapsulate them.

Jorge González probably wouldn’t have survived in modern day football. Or rather, let’s say, it wouldn’t really be for him.

On September third, the Republic of Korea played Laos as part of their qualification campaign for the 2018 World Cup. But instead of playing in the Seoul World Cup stadium, or any other World Cup stadium for that matter, they played in the Hwaseong Stadium, built four years ago, in the middle of nowhere, and without a professional tenant club.

Bosnian footballers have been no strangers to European Football; Safet Sušić was one of the greatest players of his generation in the 80s, and since the nation’s independence, Elvir Bolić and Hasan Salihamidžić have both picked up Champions League medals with Real Madrid and Bayern Munich respectively. 

Earlier this summer the Chilean national football team finally reached its manifest destiny, after 99 years of hurt they won the Copa America.

In the 1963/64 season Celtic had begun to show the pedigree in Europe that they would become known for over the following decade.

It begins with a haunting memory- a trauma. A memory that serves as the demonic gateway back to that day.

“No one defends the badge of Sporting better than the products of the youth academy”. 

There are very few figures in world football who have enjoyed managerial careers just as successful as their playing days.

As half-time fare it seemed a little unusual.

The Playhouse Theatre stands pertly next to the bulgingly prominent Omni Vue cinema complex within the cultural and commercial hubbub of Edinburgh’s New Town.

Constantine, the eastern capital of Algeria, is situated atop two steep plateaus some eighty kilometres inland of the Mediterranean coast. 

It’s ten minutes to five on a lush summer afternoon in Yerevan, Armenia, and Champions League history is about to be made. 

A day before Valentine’s Day in 1908 Patrick William Groves a former labourer with Edinburgh Corporation, passed away.

The duplicitous exposure of experience between Brazilian and European minds demands regulation. 

When you think of Dennis Bergkamp numerous superlatives instantly spring to mind; perfectionist, genius, artist, visionary.

Football and British politics may seem uneasy bedfellows with very little common ground. 

The war to end all wars, had itself finally ended in 1945; most of the World was in tatters either literally or monetarily, and in many places both.

Iraq is a nation not only known for its rich and venerated history as the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia and the birthplace of revered artistic talent like Kadhim Al Saher, but also for its cherished football culture and folklore.

Each World Cup leaves you with unique abiding memories, those stand out tournament moments that will live with you forever.

An African nation would win the World Cup by the end of the 20th century.