Soccer Page 180 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Hope Solo Says USWNT Coach Jill Ellis Is A Bad Leader Who Can't Handle Pressure
Days before the United States women’s national team begins their World Cup defense, Hope Solo has stirred up some drama. The former USWNT goalkeeper joined the BBC’s Football Daily podcast over the weekend to discuss her former team’s chances, and when asked about coach Jill Ellis’s lineups, she sai...
Cameroon, The Cinderellas Of The Last World Cup, Are Back For Another Dance
A side effect of women’s soccer being so discouraged and underfunded in most every part of the world is that only rarely do we see many true upsets or surprises. The traditional powers usually have such enormous structural advantages, and have had them for so long, that they almost always win, and w...
Canada Will Try (And Probably Fail) To Win It All For Christine Sinclair
Christine Sinclair is still doing it. By the time Canada play their second game at the 2019 World Cup, their captain will be 36 years old, and she will still be the team’s most important player. Sitting just three career goals away from tying Abby Wambach’s international record of 184, the legendary...
Scotland Can Become Stars In Their First Performance On The Big Stage
Most countries making their debut in a tournament like the World Cup are just happy to be there. Implied in a country making it to its first major tournament is that the country in the very recent past was not very good, and its soccer infrastructure is at an incredibly early stage of its developmen...
Italy Stun Australia With Stoppage-Time Winner
The first Women’s World Cup match of the day, between Italy and Australia, was a spicy one. Australia took a 1-0 lead early in the first half thanks to a Sam Kerr penalty kick, but their aggressive, attacking style left them open to counter attacks from Italy all match. Italy could have had multiple...
Argentina Are Just Happy To Be Here
Argentina are not very good. It’s important to get that out of the way early. Due to a host of factors not entirely in the team’s control—particularly the fact that they have only been playing together for about a year due to federation turmoil—the Albicelestes head into France with more questions t...
Japan Arrive At The World Cup With A New Look And Something To Prove
The USA’s top nemesis in the Women’s World Cup comes into 2019 with plenty of questions to answer, despite winning it all in 2011 and placing second in 2015. A disastrous failure to qualify for the 2016 Olympics ended the eight-year tenure of Japanese manager Norio Sasaki, and as Japan enter their f...
Ball Boy's Face Gets A Painful Reminder Of The Risks Of His Profession
This poor Greek kid discovered the dangers of being a ball boy today when Italian midfielder Nicolò Barella accidentally punted the ball straight into the kid’s face in Italy’s match against Greece:...
After Coming Agonizingly Close To World Cup Glory Last Time, England Are Back And Better Than Ever
There’s probably no team with more regret over the 2015 World Cup than England. The Lionesses were knocked out in Canada four years ago by Japan via a cruel 92nd minute own goal by defender Laura Bassett, who sliced a clearance into her own net. That was the painful end to a World Cup where England ...
Welcome To The Jason La Canfora USMNT U-20 Minute
The Jason La Canfora Orioles Minute was an irregularly recurring feature in which we checked in with the NFL reporter’s thoughts on the O’s. Then we stopped, mostly because he did. Now he tweets about soccer, so welcome to the Jason La Canfora USMNT U-20 Minute....
Brazil, Already Held Together With Scotch Tape, Will Now Be Without Marta For At Least A Game
If the Brazilians are going to start off their World Cup on the right foot, they’re going to do it without the six-time player of the year. Brazil manager Vadao has announced that Marta will miss Sunday’s tie with Jamaica as she recovers from a left thigh injury....
Afghanistan Soccer Head Banned For Life For Sexually Abusing Women's National Team Players
FIFA’s ethics committee has found Keramuudin Karim, former President of the Afghanistan Football Federation, guilty of sexually and physically abusing multiple members of the women’s national team. Karim is now banned for life from all international and national soccer activities, and was fined the ...
Italy Are Back In The World Cup After A 20-Year Absence, And They Intend To Stay A While
In the months following the Italian men’s national team’s failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Italy’s women helped redeemed the country by winning seven straight matches in their qualification run to the women’s version of the tournament. That blistering streak of form was enough fo...
The Women's World Cup Has Already Been Marred By Some Corny VAR Bullshit
There is no shortage of arguments to be made against the proliferation of replay review in soccer, and I won’t bog down this blog post with points we’ve already made on the site many times over. Besides, the argument against the VAR decision from today’s Women’s World Cup opening match between Franc...
The Neymar Rape Case Has Turned Into A Huge Mess
Last Saturday, news broke that a Brazilian woman had filed a police report in which she said soccer superstar Neymar raped her in a Paris hotel last month. Today, Neymar testified in court about a different but related criminal charge he faces because of the intimate photos of the alleged victim he ...
Welcome To The Last Ride Of Marta's Brazil
The sun is about to set on Brazil this summer. The land of joga bonito has fielded one of, if not the, best generations of women’s soccer players over the last two decades, but age and an inability to adapt to the rapidly evolving game could see the Seleção’s campaign in France end in yet another di...
It's Been A Long, Tough Journey For Jamaica, And Just Making It To The World Cup Is Enough
Thanks in large part to the support of Bob Marley’s daughter, Cedella Marley, Jamaica’s Reggae Girlz are about to compete at the World Cup for the first time ever. While it’d be far too optimistic to expect them to pull off any kind of shocker in Group C, if you consider Jamaica’s status (or lack th...
Australia Are Pure, Thrilling, Perilous Anarchy
Australia are front-runners for the title of most entertaining team at the Women’s World Cup. The chaotically good Matildas head to France this summer with the stated goal of winning the trophy but the more important (at least for non-Aussies) unstated goal of becoming everyone’s second favorite tea...
Free From Their Sexist, Tyrannical Former Manager, Spain Can Finally Just Play Soccer
They say that when God closes a door, he opens a window, and that wisdom is knowing to stop worrying about the closed door and start taking advantage of the open window. The metaphor applies to the Spain women’s soccer team’s experience at their first World Cup four years ago. The closed door was th...
South Africa's World Cup Debutantes Are Already Legends
No matter what happens in France this summer, the players that make up the South Africa women’s national team are already legends....