Soccer Page 167 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
It’s most certainly Hammer time
While Manchester United have done their best to make sure the Premier League doesn’t become completely stratified into just a “top four and everyone else,” and Arsenal and Tottenham have made the idea of a “Big Six” laughable, that only works if there are other teams willing to crash through the doo...
A wild end to the MLS regular season
MLS had its “Decision Day” yesterday, the last day of the regular season when all of its playoff spots get shaken out. The permutation for the top, middle, and bottom of the playoff picture were David Lynch-level convoluted, so sometimes it’s best to express the happenings in one highlight:...
Antonio Conte is Tottenham’s last gasp, but he’s the best last gasp
If you’re getting sucked under the current, you might as well reach for the strongest line possible. Tottenham, after looking completely adrift as a team and club on Sunday against Manchester United, have pretty much done that by hiring Antonio Conte. It’s not a signal of long-term planning. It’s pr...
Harry Kane and Spurs are learning what happens when you stay together for the kids
If there was ever going to a point where Tottenham could have turned their season around, a moment to use as a springboard, it was yesterday. They were at home, facing one team that might be in a bigger crisis than they are, Manchester United. For at least a little while, their fans sensed the same,...
Beating the elite teams may not be a requirement for Chelsea’s EPL title hopes
The regular season mattering is fun. It lets you celebrate wins over everyone because every game means something. Chelsea have been able to celebrate two more times than any other team in the Premier League. They’re only three and five points clear of Liverpool and Man City, but in a race that value...
SEE IT: The most MLS moment ever
As I’ve repeatedly stated, this was the season I really tried to follow MLS closely. It’s been mostly hit, some miss, but it’s hard to not see the charm. It is perhaps the last bastion of the true No. 10, where the space in midfield allows them to work their magic and drive teams to success. It’s wh...
Perhaps it’s time for Barcelona to recognize what they are
It couldn’t end any other way, especially when you bone it and get zipped by Rayo Vallecano to fall to ninth in the La Liga table....
For one moment, Carli Lloyd had it all
It’s strange. For all the absolute world-class players the USWNT has had, and still does, we still think of them as a “team.” Maybe that’s a testament to their absurd depth, and their dedication to being the best as a unit, that we rarely single one out. Megan Rapinoe may have won Player of the Tour...
And now an unbiased and clear-headed review of Man United vs. Liverpool
PHHHHHHWWWWOOOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!...
Well, at least Americans are in position to blow El Clásico?
It’s always a touch reductive and harsh to boil down a game to a single chance or moment. There are 90 minutes, after all, and you’d like to believe that each team will create more chances and those are allowed to go in as well. But soccer being what it is, there’s only one or two or three goals per...
An existential question for Man U fans ahead of their clash with Liverpool
Consider yourself lucky if you’ve never had that feeling about a coach when he’s not awful and he’s not great, but you’d rather not sack him because you don’t trust ownership to hire someone. I imagine it’s a lot like purgatory when you know you’re damned. You’re just kind of floating there, knowing...
The New England Revs are going to set the league points record, and they’re not going to play any defense to do it
While MLS still has its fair share of issues, the one thing you have to give it credit for is that during the regular season, the league rewards teams that just say, “Fuck it, it’s free cake.” They don’t generally live on in history, because wonky defensive teams get found out by the extremely callo...
Can the Bundesliga ever be competitive again?
I start a lot of these with the phrase, “I knew better.” Whether it’s tuning into Monday Night Raw, or believing in the Carolina Hurricanes, or something else, you say that phrase enough and it becomes clear that, no, I don’t actually know better. I’m just a gullible giblet. ...
Steve Bruce is still thinking about cabbage
Steve Bruce was managing at Aston Villa in the Championship, one level below the English Premier League, when a cabbage was thrown at him from the stands before a 3-3 draw against last-place Preston North End....
Mohamed Salah is on one
I suppose being as analytic-minded as I can get that I’m going to be hypocritical here. It doesn’t help (or hurt, depending on your point of view) that I love Mohamed Salah in every sense of the word, to an extent that my vulnerability is teetering on “highly damaging.” So take that as you will....
This is what it can be
It is hard to remember in the moment, especially when that is the first moment of a qualifier like last night against Costa Rica and the USMNT is giving up yet another stupid goal before coming back for a 2-1 win and you haven’t even cracked that beer that you’re firing against the wall, that this w...
The USMNT can’t live without Tyler Adams
When this World Cup qualifying cycle began, we had hoped that the U.S. would surprise us and break new ground on what they could do. And they’ve done that, we just didn’t know it would be showing us how bad they can play at times. ...
Women's soccer players protested sexual harassment and were cheered — great… but that rarely happens when athletes protest racism
Protesting is American as capitalism. However, the support your protest will — or won’t — receive in this country is always determined by the race and gender of the protesters....
Liverpool and Manchester City hurl everything at each other in game of the season
It’s rare that games between the top-table inhabitants of soccer can live up to the billing. They usually cancel each other out, the fear of losing greatly outweighing the benefit of winning, and you might get the odd goal here or there in contests that are high on tension and intrigue but low on an...
NWSL shows how to deliver actual accountability
First, The Athletic reported on Thursday about allegations of sexual coercion and misconduct by North Carolina Courage head coach Paul Riley....