Aoashi is simply one of the best sports anime to come out in the last 5 years.
(This review may contain spoilers for first 2 or 3 episodes)
I am gonna be calling the sport football in this review. This is a soccer anime. Clearing this up at the start. Football animes have been coming out around 1 a year and most of them are usually quite good, so how does Aoashi stand out from shows like Farewell, my dear Cramer, DAYS, and Aoyama Kun? It just does more with its characters and story. Both of these will be explored in detail in their respective sections, but I can't understate how important it is in sports anime to have good interactions and character moments away from the sport itself. The 3 I mentioned are all good, but you can tell they are all trying to tell one narrative. This might not make sense in writing but you can tell if you have seen enough shows.

Characters As for most sports anime, Aoashi has quite the large cast of characters, but let's start with Aoi, our MC, first. Sports anime like so many other anime tend to avoid home life and finances in order to not take away focus from the main topic. Even the best sports manga and anime will do this, although to what degree does vary a lot. Aoashi chose to instead focus on this aspect. Making Aoi a poor kid with a single mom struggling to make ends meat makes everything else feel more important and relatable. It's not his entire character, far from it, but it's such a great underlying motivation.

The side cast is also quite good. Sports anime especially can fall into the trap of 1 note characters. The side cast for this show is diverse enough in terms of motivations and attitudes and the story taking place at a very nice academy and an expensive program makes Aoi contrast heavily with many of his teammates. While I wouldn't say there are any truly great characters, there are no bad characters and the main 2 characters are very good.

Story

It is a sports anime, it's about high school kids playing football. So what is the hook then? Well, it's Aoi and the situation he gets into. Everyone he plays with or against has the ultimate goal of going pro. Aoi plays and sees the game differently than almost anyone else and lacks any true stand out skills. But he does have the edge in something and this becomes the driving force for events related to football. It is not the sole force though, if it was this show wouldn't be rated as I have it. As mentioned in the character section, Aoi coming from a poor family out in the sticks is a massive part of his character. Almost all of his big decisions stem from this. His relationship with his mom and brother, his teammates, the coaches and others are equally important.
There is a major development near the middle of the season which completely subverts how you expect the show to go. It was a very refreshing twist and feels like a gut punch without being too forced. There isn't any insane event that happens out of nowhere and those who really know the sport of football could probably pick up what's gonna happen.
At the end of the day, it is a sports anime, the main narrative is football. Practicing, discussing it, playing it, watching it, etc make up a large portion of the show. Like other great sports anime, it does find that balance of not only showing the sport and letting its characters exist outside of that small world.

Audio and Visuals

The 2 OPs are both wonderfully animated and sound really good. It's nothing too revolutionary, but I could see either being on someone's playlist. Similar tale with the endings.
The Voice Acting is good. There are a couple standouts like Aoi, but some are just meh. Almost everyone sounds natural and I was never taken out of the episode because of the VA work.
The sound design for the show was wonderful. Every kicked ball felt crisp, the sound of running on grass or the rain just felt right. It was nothing over the top, but that works a lot in a grounded sports anime. Just enough to make the big moments feel important and the low moments really hit hard.

The overall visual design was very good. Art style is subjective, but I prefer the anime version of these characters. The manga definitely has a lot of style and personality to it, but it also feels quite rough and the anime essentially cleans everything up. The football scenes are mostly animated in 2D which I give major props to the studio for. Unproven sports manga being adapted usually get a bunch of 3D visuals for all the scenes involving the actual sport. I get why, characters moving in fast and complex ways while interacting isn't easy to animate and takes a lot of time and effort. They do resort to images with movement lines, sometimes having the music carry the moment, but it's never to a point of being distracting.

Enjoyment

This is where a lot of the score for this review comes from. I am a sucker for sports anime. I grew up playing sports, I enjoy the tropes, and the narratives are simple and easy to get behind. I usually rate sports anime higher than most and I fully admit this. Personal enjoyment is the most important part of any show or piece of media. I am not blind to the flaws and shortcomings of this show however... Its not perfect.
I also have a massive soft spot for messy home lives and poor MCs. Hits close to home and I cared more than I think most people would have.

Conclusion

Aoashi is a wonderful anime. Probably my favorite sports anime of the decade so far. A very easy watch and at 24 episodes is long enough to get yourself fully invested.