Soccer Page 218 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Venezuela Made A Pact With The VAR Devil
For most of my lifetime, Venezuela has been chum for the sharks of South America. La Vinotinto have never qualified for a World Cup, have never even made the final of a Copa America, and generally do not put up much of a fight, particularly against the top teams on the continent, and even more so wh...
Copa América Has Been A Horrible Mess So Far
We’re through the first round of group stage games in the 2019 Copa América, and there’s really only one thing we know for sure: this tournament is total ass. The first six matches have been plagued by blowouts, VAR nonsense, and all the usual CONMEBOL-flavored bullshit. This isn’t a bug, but rather...
The Euro 2020 Mascot Is Just A Creepy Human Man
Creating a mascot for your international sporting event can be fraught with peril. Izzy, originally Whatizit, was the mascot of the 1996 Olympics and is still mocked today. London’s mascots for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics were simply amorphous blobs. The 2006 World Cup, held in Germany, had a ...
Nigeria Got Screwed Over By Some Ticky-Tack VAR Bullshit
Nigeria were not eliminated from the World Cup on Monday afternoon, but their hopes of advancing to the knockout stages took a hit when, after a pair of VAR reviews, Wendie Renard knocked home a PK in the 79th minute to break a scoreless draw and give France a 1-0 win....
A Pissed Off Carli Lloyd Is (Still) The USWNT's Most Destructive Force
Forget the celebrations for a second. Sure, Carli Lloyd’s golf clap was a perfect response to last week’s anti-USWNT backlash, but it’s really the footnote from Sunday’s comprehensive 3-0 drubbing of Chile, particularly as it pertains to the United States’ chances of becoming the second team in Wome...
Chile's Christiane Endler Became A Goal-Stopping Machine And Frustrated The USWNT Into A Goalless Second Half
Given the low expectations for Chile entering this tournament, and the eerily similar halftime score, it seemed like the USWNT was on pace to thrash yet another opponent in the group stages of the women’s World Cup. But, as outlined in Lauren Theisen’s tournament preview, the major difference betwee...
Carli Lloyd Responds To Stupid Celebration Controversy With Polite Golf Clap After Scoring An Absolute Screamer
In the USWNT’s first game since dealing with the stupid controversy over how they celebrated the goals in their 13-0 rout over Thailand, the question on everyone’s mind was how the team would celebrate when they inevitably scored against an outmatched Chilean squad. That question was answered just 1...
Even VAR Couldn't Ruin The Best Game Of The Women's World Cup
You know what I love during a wild, up-and-down Women’s World Cup game between two flawed contenders? Stopping that wild play for roughly 30 minutes to stare at boring instant replay footage! That’s what happened in Australia’s roaring comeback victory over Brazil today, which continued a tournament...
What Do Germany Have To Do To Get Anyone At Home To Pay Attention?
BERLIN — “We play for a nation that doesn’t even know our name.” So begins a video released last month by the German national women’s soccer team, right in time for the start of the Women’s World Cup. Die Nationalelf, two-time World Cup winners and one of the favorites in the tournament, was packing...
Gorgeous Brazil Goal Starts With A Nutmeg And Just Keeps Getting Better
When Brazil full back Tamires stood there on the sideline seemingly with nowhere to go, and then insouciantly toe-poked the ball through Emily Gielnik’s legs and ran right past her, I thought to myself, Oooo that was sick, and if it ends with a goal.... ...
Real Madrid Are Spending Big To Strike Fear Once Again
Three managers in one season; a distant third place in La Liga; an early come-from-ahead Champions League exit; the continued ignominy of paying Gareth Bale’s massive wages. The 2018-19 season was not a good one for Real Madrid, who saw their streak of three straight (and four out of the last five)...
Nigeria's Asisat Oshoala Finally Shows The World Who She Is
The World Cup is a showcase—of the sport, its teams, and its individual talents. It’s also a competition that crowns the best soccer nation in the world, but only a handful of teams realistically can lift the trophy, and only one will. As a month-long tournament that primarily pits teams with no sho...
Megan Rapinoe Refuses To Apologize For The USWNT's Crime Of Being Happy After Doing Cool Things
The United States beat Thailand by a 13-0 scoreline on Tuesday, setting a new World Cup record for the largest margin of victory. In the process of making history, the USWNT players were pretty happy. Clearly, as certain moral pillars on Canadian and even American TV pointed out, this was a very bad...
The USWNT's Blowout Of Thailand Inspires Indignant Pearl-Clutching From Canadian Soccer Pundits
A self-serious, chiding, in all likelihood jealous quartet of talking heads went on Canadian TV yesterday and, in discussing what they characterized as the “disgraceful” way the USWNT went about trouncing Thailand in the Women’s World Cup, proceeded to hump the notion of sportsmanship to within an i...
Rob Stone Suggests The USWNT Should've Eased Up, Gets Soundly Rejected
The USWNT had just put the finishing touches on the most lopsided beatdown in the history of the World Cup when Fox Sports analyst Rob Stone put his foot into his mouth in the name of sportsmanship....
Every USWNT Goal Against Thailand, Ranked
If you haven’t heard, the United States puréed Thailand by a score of 13-0 in their 2019 Women’s World Cup opening match today. You don’t score 13 goals without at least some of them being nice, so here’s an objectively correct ranking of every goal:...
Here Are All 13 Goals In The USWNT's Obliteration Of Thailand
The USWNT opened its 2019 Women’s World Cup with a match against Thailand. That match has just ended. The final score was 13-0, the most lopsided World Cup scoreline of all time. Here is what scoring 13 goals in a single game looks like:...
La Liga Fined €250,000 For Spying On App Users To Crack Down On Illegal Streams
Spain’s La Liga was fined €250,000 today by the Spanish Data Protection Agency, one year after admitting that its mobile app was spying on some users’ phones in an attempt to find out if they were watching games on illegal feeds....
Can American Soccer's Salvation Be Found In The Streets?
Every Wednesday after the snow disappears, the message goes out: Who can play soccer this week? “Want” appears nowhere in the question; it’s assumed that everyone is desperate to get out and play. A poll in a private Facebook group gauges how many people can show up. Only 16 can play at a time, as 8...
Thailand's World Cup Hopes Could Hinge On Not Getting Stomped By The USWNT
In a few hours’ time, barring a sequence of events so improbable as to not even merit serious concern, the USWNT will have easily beaten Thailand in the two countries’ opening 2019 Women’s World Cup match. The extent of that essentially guaranteed result—as in, whether the U.S.’s impending victory l...