Soccer Page 160 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Mesut Ozil and the death of the #10
If it feels like the Mesut Ozil and Arsenal soap opera has lasted longer than most actual soap operas, you’re not alone. It’s been over three seasons, spanned two managers (and an interim one), a couple different Arsenal regimes, and certainly countless social media posts and anonymous whispers from...

Liverpool, Manchester United draw to leave door open for Manchester City
Perhaps no match felt weirder without fans than the biggest rivalry in English football. Usually the atmosphere for a Liverpool-Man United match can be described as overly passionate, vitriolic, psychotic, poisonous, and/or blood-thirsty. Without the 55,000 baying until their lungs shriveled and fil...

American Matthew Hoppe scores Bundesliga hat trick
America’s future is brighter than ever!...

Royal Antwerp striker goes full Costanza, dons rival's kit in (failed) bid for transfer to Greece
Didier Lamkel Ze has had enough of Belgium and wants to go to Greece....

Is time up for Frank Lampard at Chelsea?
It felt like it was lining up for Chelsea today. After some disappointing results around Christmas, they were getting Manchester City at home after the latter’s training facility had been closed for days, had its last game postponed, and certainly hadn’t had the best preparation for such a big game....

PSG sacks Thomas Tuchel, could save us from Mauricio Pochettino doing actual work
If you lay out Thomas Tuchel’s accomplishments with PSG, but remove the team name, even the most casual soccer fan would think he was some sort of Belichickian legend. Two league titles in two seasons, last year’s domestic treble (league and both cup competitions), as well as a Champions League fina...

Budweiser celebrates Messi by shipping bad beer to every goalie he’s beaten
Lionel Messi has driven many a goalkeeper to drink over the course of his legendary career. Now, all the more so....

Atalanta’s Luis Muriel breaks Roma’s Antonio Mirante’s soul in six
It was a game between two of Italy’s, and Europe’s, most exciting attacking teams this season, Roma and Atalanta. And it was a pretty epic collapse for Roma, who led 1-0 through a first half goal. But then some Python-esque defending saw them concede three goals in13 minutes and four goals overall i...

This week shows exactly why Tottenham can and can’t win the title
By definition, Jose Mourinho is art, because you can see whatever you want in him. He can be a tactical genius; a stubborn ox afraid of the light; a master motivator; a petulant, selfish irritant; an expert at creating unity within his team while also an expert at blowing it up from within. And all ...

Arsenal had better hope this is bottom
For the past few years in the Premier League, there’s been a “Big 6” and the rest. The hope has been that some team from outside that aristocratic cabal could crash the party and stay, like Everton or or Leicester or West Ham, all teams that have at least the resources to compete at that level. Anyt...

If nothing else, the MLS Cup final is full circle for Crew fans
It’s dishonest to say that any sporting event can have a feel-good event right now. While sports can be a healthy distraction or unifying force for a community, these days they basically act as a perfect sketch of just about everything wrong with the country’s handling and response to the pandemic, ...
![Basaksehir and PSG players walk off field after official accused of racial slur [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/j7p9xwuhyqk1kpcie2lq.jpg)
Basaksehir and PSG players walk off field after official accused of racial slur [Update]
In a stunning scene on soccer’s biggest stage, players from PSG and Basaksehir walked off the field at Parc de Princes in the first half after an assistant coach for Basaksehir, former player Pierre Webo, accused the fourth official of calling him the n-word....

Is this disrespectful goal soccer’s equivalent of the bat flip?
The celebration debate rarely comes to soccer, mostly because it’s so damn hard to score that you can hardly begrudge anyone for how they choose to commemorate such a feat. Rarely do you get to stretch out the ceremony. Depending on how you view it, serendipity shined on Stuttgart’s Silas Wamangituk...

Racist dirtbag costs Utah fans their NWSL team
Usually when a fanbase is stripped of their team because of their owner, it’s because the owner is simply unconscionably greedy, Modell-like stupid, or both. They can’t leverage their city into a publicly-funded larceny for a new stadium (or at least not as big of a theft as their black heart desire...

Will the latest Champions League revamp stave off a Super League?
It is one of the eternal fights in the world of soccer, pitting UEFA and the biggest clubs in Europe against each other every few years. The former attempts to thread the needle of appeasing the latter while also preventing them from running roughshod over the entire continent (or moreso than they a...

Edinson Cavani doesn’t learn from history
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Uruguayan striker bursts onto the Premier League for a team in red that plays in the northwest of the country, gets in hot water for using the term “negrito,” claims it is a term of endearment where he’s from, and then might get suspended anyway while his clu...

See Messi’s tribute to Diego Maradona
Today FC Barcelona beat perennial La Liga lightweight CA Osasuna 4-nil. But that’s not the important part. Lionel Messi, in the 73rd minute, danced and pranced through a forest of defenders before easily depositing the ball in the upper corner of the net, sort of like another Argentinian superstar u...

WWII bombs found at Roma training ground, Dick Cheney slaps forehead
We’ve seen sports and teams have their normal operations upended and canceled far more the past year than we ever have before. Even the hint of positive COVID tests can sideline not just a whole roster, but an entire organization’s running as headquarters are cleared out. ...

USWNT takes knee, dons Black Lives Matter jackets in solidarity 'to affirm human decency'
Meanwhile, the United States got back into action with its four world championship jersey stars, and every starter except Julie Ertz and Kelley O’Hara took a knee for the anthem, while the whole team wore Black Lives Matter warm-up jackets....
