Soccer Page 142 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Women’s World Cup preview: Can the Japanese bookend the American’s dominance from Group C?
This should be pretty straightforward. It’s a matter of whether Spain or Japan advances from Group C as the winners, and who heads to the knockout stage as runners-up. That leaves Costa Rica and Zambia leaving Oceania early, but does anything exactly go to plan on the world stage? Group C has as cle...
World Cup Group B Preview: It’s time for Sam Kerr to take this itty bitty world by storm
We spilled some ink in these parts about Mallory Swanson by herself making the USWNT a threat to win the World Cup, before her unfortunate injury. But the US isn’t the only team with a player who is capable of grabbing a short tournament by the haunches, and the co-hosts Australia may have the bigge...
The USMNT looked terrible against Canada, and it doesn’t matter
It took until the 88th minute for the United States men’s national team’s C-squad to score a goal on home soil in a major-tournament quarterfinal and 15 seconds after play resumed for the offense to take place that gave Canada a golden opportunity to take it away. An uninspired first half, saved by ...
Women’s World Cup 2023 preview: Can anyone stop the Nords in Group A?
It’s Norway and then everyone else. That’s how Group A will shake out, even with hosts New Zealand trying to defend home territory from two European foes and a debutant from Asia. The runaway favorites to win the group are the Nordic, who will be one of the countries making the journey from the nort...
Christian Pulisic’s move to AC Milan is the USMNT’s biggest news of the summer
The most substantial story for the United States men’s national team this summer has nothing to do with the Gold Cup. Nor any of the drama surrounding Gregg Berhalter’s return to the Yanks’ helm. It was always where the best American male soccer player on the planet, Christian Pulisic, landed in the...
USMNT striker Jesús Ferreira is best against crappy teams
The surest bet for the United States men’s national team to score a goal is Jesús Ferreira against a shitty team. The FC Dallas striker has padded stats that look much more impressive than they are. In 20 appearances for the Yanks, Ferreira has 11 goals. He became the 29th American to score 10 or mo...
Arsenal are loading up
Little ammunition joke for ya there. Anyway, if the accusation, and thought was that Stan Kroenke regularly cheaped out when it came to strengthening Arsenal, this week might change all that. While Kroenke has had no problem finding success in the salary-capped worlds of the NFL, NBA, and NHL, with ...
Sandro Tonali’s transfer from AC Milan to Newcastle demonstrates the heartlessness of it all
The real goals of “sportswashing” may not be things that apply to the plebes like you and me. If Middle Eastern regimes wish to burnish their image simply by buying European soccer clubs (and maybe soon American sports clubs, too) and turning them into world powers, it seemingly has only heightened ...
The USWNT better not have any centerbacks get hurt
We wondered out the USWNT would heading into the World Cup without Becky Sauerbrunn. The starting lineup should be ok, but how would Vlakto Andonovski answer the question of the eroded depth without the captain around? It would appear he’s decided to not answer it at all. ...
Becky Sauerbrunn’s absence at the World Cup hurts more in the heart than on the field
The women’s World Cup continues to be a battle of attrition, even if it doesn’t start for another month. All the major powers are heading to Australia and New Zealand next month, seemingly with one hand tied behind their back, either through injury or strife within their programs (Canada and Spain)....
Gregg Berhalter is pretty sure he’s getting the USMNT job back
There is something so very U.S. Soccer about taking nine months in their search for a new USMNT manager, going through two interim managers because the first one didn’t want to wait around and took a full-time job in the Middle East, and then ending up back where they started by re-hiring the guy th...
Here we go with this Kylian Mbappe nonsense again
Some transfer/trade/free agency stories go on for years, which is what it appears Kylian Mbappe is intent on creating. We all knew about LeBron James’s first free agency three years beforehand as ESPN turned it into its own Odyssey. And his second one a couple years before. Kevin Durant’s next desti...
The United States men’s national team’s Gold Cup squad lacks stars, serves better long-term purpose
It’s clear by interim United States men’s national team head coach B.J. Callaghan’s 23-man roster for this summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup that winning the tournament isn’t the only priority. How else do you explain giving players like Christian Pulisic a pass? It’s not a break as he barely played at Che...
Manchester City are so good they can survive a Pep Guardiola brain freeze
The joke had become the only hold for any non-Manchester City fan out there. The joke was that Pep Guardiola would always out-Pep himself in the Champions League, and find a new, and creative way to blow it for a team that probably should have won the trophy a while ago. The joke was certainly based...
Lionel Messi is the only person who can move tickets like Taylor Swift
This article is a veritable dream for those enslaved (or in love) with SEO-driven content. Taylor Swift and Lionel Messi in the same headline? If I could fold in the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Yankees, and Dallas Cowboys, I’d be up for a $10 Starbucks gift card. While I’m not ruling that out — I n...
What Lionel Messi coming to MLS means — and what it doesn’t
MLS, arguably, have already gotten what they wanted from the signing of Lionel Messi. They were in the headlines the past couple days, a place the league has struggled to stay in. It is something, for the league, that ESPN.com has a Messi headline right next to a headline about Liverpool signing Ale...
Lionel Messi retirement tour is coming to the US, not Saudi Arabia
Labeling MLS as a “retirement league” has been unnecessarily callous for a few seasons now. It is much more than that, and has become more of a selling league, i.e. a league that is mostly interested in developing young players to sell off for big profits to Europe to then be reinvested and start th...
Israel's U-20 World Cup Team is a bright spot in a world where antisemitism is on the rise
The phrase “David and Goliath” gets thrown around too much in sports. There is typically a reason for those mismatches to take place, like in the case of No. 16 seeds in the NCAA Tournament needing to defeat a No. 1 to reach the round of 32. According to several Jewish texts, David was the King of I...
A month before the start of the Women’s World Cup, TV rights are still a mess
In the moments after England won the Women’s European Championships last summer, BBC presenter Gabby Logan issued an inspiring call for the accomplishment to be a mere stepping stone in the growth of the women’s game. Would have been nice if her employers were listening ahead of the 2023 Women’s Wor...