Soccer Page 139 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Saudi money putting an expiration date on soccer stars’ charisma

There’s a weird gray area for soccer stars after they turn 30. They’re still good, maybe not great, yet are so established that they command larger sums of money than a younger player or two who is not yet a household name and could Moneyball their teams the same production. In past instances, those...

Luis Rubiales' mom locked herself in a church and is on a hunger strike

Newcastle keeps being Newcastle, which isn't quite good enough

What Newcastle’s “problems” are depend on what their own expectations are. While they’ve certainly cemented themselves as one of the land’s biggest clubs, they’ve rarely, if ever, been touted as potential title challengers this season. Certainly none of that noise is coming from within. It appears t...

Christian Pulisic is having fun

If you’ve found yourself lost on soccer Twitter the past week, and it is a haven for the truly wayward as we’ve all had our brains addled by too many pre-dawn wakeups and day beers, you’ve probably seen a lot of “Pulisic is so back!” tweets and hashtags. Whether Pulisic is actually “back” is another...

Luis Rubiales finally resigns over forced-kiss of Jenni Hermoso [Updated]

UPDATE Sep. 10, 5:20 p.m. EST...

Luis Rubiales is going down kicking and screaming

Spanish soccer chief Luis Rubiales was expected to resign Thursday amid backlash over his kiss on the lips of soccer player Jennifer Hermoso during the country’s World Cup medal ceremony. Instead, he attacked the spin head-on, said he won’t step down, called the process a “witch hunt,” claimed there...

The grunt work for Lionel Messi’s stay in South Beach is about to begin

Lionel Messi’s Major League Soccer debut is Saturday. Since signing for Inter Miami officially on July 15, he hasn’t actually played in a game for the league he intended to play in. The Leagues Cup and US Open Cup have taken his focus. All of the dazzling moments that have taken over North America h...

USWNT captain Lindsey Horan said the quiet part out loud

It started to percolate during the latest Summer Olympics, delayed a year to 2021 because of the pandemic. The United States women’s national team — the former two-time-defending World Cup champions — not only looked vulnerable, but they also appeared average. Not average for the Stars and Stripes —...

Man United prove a team can be shamed, as long as it's also incompetent

Make no mistake, Manchester United wanted to bring Mason Greenwood back. They wanted to follow the cynical path of pretty much every other sporting entity in the world, the calculation that fans will eventually forget what a player has been credibly accused of or has done as long as the totals on th...

What if Man City have Kevin De Bruyne II, but faster?

Hello again! This is the second iteration of something we’re trying every Monday, wrapping up the Premier League weekend through five things we learned or liked or bothered us or confused us (we’re always confused). Hope you like it, and if you do please share it around to that guy who supports the ...

World Cup Final: What if the managers switched brains?

There’s some lesson to be learned that Spain won the World Cup with a manager they reviled, while the USWNT faceplanted in the round of 16 with a manager who got hired mostly because all the players loved him. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but it probably has to do with what really matters is the...

FIFA president: Women soccer players need to ‘convince men,' 'pick right battles' in order to gain equality

The 2023 Women’s World Cup hasn’t resonated stateside like it typically does. The USWNT never looked good, weren’t healthy, and were heavily criticized by people eagerly awaiting a stumble. Considering that, coupled with the time difference in Australia and New Zealand, one could suppose that a lack...

OK, but what if Spain winning the World Cup is actually a good thing?

If you bounce around the non-Spain or England-based internet, you may find that this World Cup Final is a Final no one wanted. Australia would have been more exciting given the noise that would have accompanied them. One of the real upstarts like Colombia would have been a real story. USWNT fans don...

Vlatko Andonovski was bad at a very tough job

If one didn’t want to kick dirt on Vlatko Andonovski as he recedes from the USWNT manager job, and kicking dirt is kind of what we do around here, it would be wise to point out the size of the task he was faced with. He took over a team that had won two World Cups on the spin, so there was really no...

A non-USWNT World Cup Final is still good for the game

As tough as it is not to have the U.S. Women’s National Team in the FIFA Women’s World Cup final after winning the last two tournaments, the Spain-England final on Sunday is arguably better for the overall health of the game worldwide....

Women’s World Cup Day 23: It’s (probably) coming home to England

Sam Kerr got her first start of the World Cup. Possibly the best striker on Earth still wasn’t fully fit, but the Chelsea starlet at 80 percent is better than most in prime form. The Australian juggernaut scored one of the best goals of the tournament in the 63rd minute with her club teammate, Milli...

World Cup Day 22: Spain overcome Sweden to reach their first Final

This is truly the business end of the World Cup, as we decide who will get to play for the whole Chimichanga. The first semifinal is in the books, and it was a true styles-makes-fights clash (as opposed to the staring contest England-Australia quite likely will be). Spain’s technical ability vs. Swe...

Premier League Round 1 Review: Chelsea and Liverpool play a pretty silly match after a very silly week

If it feels like Chelsea and Liverpool haven’t been able to escape each other for about 20 years, that’s probably because they haven’t. It can be traced back all the way to 2004, when Steven Gerrard was thisclose to joining Chelsea from Liverpool, and then months later they met in the League Cup Fin...

World Cup Day 21: This tournament will be remembered for how far the women’s game has come

We have our final four. When you get this deep into a tournament, anyone who’s not seen as chalk has done something grand, like Morocco’s men’s team last year and Colombia’s women’s team would’ve been this year. The South Americans entered as the lone surprise to make the quarterfinals. They benefit...

Saudi League soccer and Fox Sports: A match made in apathy

There are several analogies that could be used to illustrate the hubris of Fox Sports partnering with the Saudi Pro League, and as easy as it would be to use the retirement tours of big name soccer stars, and the marginal effect they’ve had on MLS here in the states, Lionel Messi is on a barnstormin...