Luis Paez-Pumar

Philadelphia

Co-Owner and Writer at Defector

co-owner and staff writer @defectormedia | [email protected] | Squid Dad and Gustav Forever 🇻🇪

Articles

FIFA Says Yes To Racism

1 week ago | defector.com | Luis Paez-Pumar

The Club World Cup kicked off over the weekend in the United States, and it's been a wild ride so far, in the most derogatory way possible.
Nuno Mendes Made The Nations League Worth The Hassle

2 weeks ago | defector.com | Luis Paez-Pumar

The Nations League is, at its core, a money grab. Replacing international friendlies with an ostensibly meaningful tournament is a sensible idea on paper, but UEFA's (and later CONCACAF's) main motivation for it was to wring more money out of the previously low-stakes, low-interest midseason international breaks. When taken in that context, it's easy to dismiss the tournament as yet another monument to soccer's ruling powers' insatiable greed.
Seattle Sounders Players Protest For Fairer Share Of Lucrative Club World Cup Bonuses

3 weeks ago | defector.com | Luis Paez-Pumar

By sheer power of will, determination, and lots and lots and lots of money, FIFA is looking to turn the previously irrelevant Club World Cup into a quadrennial summer-time blockbuster. Traditionally, the event has been a global supercup of sorts, each year pitting the seven winners of FIFA's seven federations' continental tournaments against each other in a brief, midseason contest that virtually nobody really cared about.
The Pacers Were Just Too Much To Handle

3 weeks ago | defector.com | Luis Paez-Pumar

Playoff basketball is intense and complicated, full of minuscule decisions that can swing a possession, a game, a series, a season. But, at its core, it can be, and often is, quite simple: The better team tends to win more often than not. In the case of the Eastern Conference Finals, after some twists and turns, this axiom proved to be true, as the Indiana Pacers bounced back following a lackluster Game 5 to close out the New York Knicks on home court in dominant fashion, 125-108.
Paris Saint-Germain Left No Doubt

3 weeks ago | defector.com | Luis Paez-Pumar

After coming close in the 2020 final, as well as plenty of other knockout exits over the last decade and a half, Paris Saint-Germain finally won the club's first Champions League trophy, thanks to a 5-0 stomp of Internazionale that, somehow, wasn't even as close as that record scoreline—the biggest in a Champions League final ever—would suggest.
Definitive Edition' Is What A Remake Should Be

4 weeks ago | defector.com | Luis Paez-Pumar

Welcome to The Backlog, a series in which we will take a look back at 12 games from 2020 that, in one way or another, had a lasting impact on the video game industry. Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, is yet another remake that was released in 2020, and the third such game to appear in this column. The lesson it provides is that sometimes the best way to remake a game is also the simplest.
Tottenham Slogged Its Way To Glory

1 month ago | defector.com | Luis Paez-Pumar

I don't know what I expected from a European final between the 16th- and 17th-placed teams in the Premier League, but it wasn't that. Maybe I was fooled by the stature of Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United as two of the biggest clubs in England, or maybe I figured that a final would bring out the best of two sides just crawling through a doomed domestic season in hopes that summer cures all ills. Instead, the 2025 Europa League final was ass. Butt. Garbage.
The Stage Is Set For A Wild Serie A Finale

1 month ago | defector.com | Luis Paez-Pumar

Across Europe's so-called top five men's leagues—the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1, and the Bundesliga—there is little intrigue left in the season. Germany and France both wrapped up their 34-match leagues this past weekend, crowning familiar champions in Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain with plenty of time left over. Liverpool clinched the Premier League title at the end of April, and Barcelona claimed its trophy last Thursday.
Expedition 33' Makes Your Wandering Worth It

1 month ago | defector.com | Luis Paez-Pumar

When I play a new video game, I am a dirty walkthrough follower. I never feel like having three monitors is more useful than when I can play the game on my main one and have a guide on a secondary screen. The reason I do this is simple: I like thoroughness in my gaming. I don't want to miss the secretly overpowered item in Act I because I didn't know where it was. I want to see it all, even if that means being guided by the hand.
Inter Survived A War For The Ages

1 month ago | defector.com | Luis Paez-Pumar

It seemed impossible to top the first leg of the Champions League semifinal between Internazionale and Barcelona, a beautiful concerto of impossible goals and individual stardom. And yet, the two clubs, fighting savagely for a spot in the final, went out on Tuesday at the San Siro and not only topped it, but sent the entire tie into tournament lore.