Soccer Page 364 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Serie A Owner Storms Out Of Scheduling Meeting In Most Dramatic, Italian Way Ever
Aurelio De Laurentiis, the owner and savior of the soccer club S.S.C. Napoli, is also a successful Italian film producer in his native country. So we can forgive him for his penchant for the theatrical. But mio dio, his reaction to next season's Serie A fixtures was one for the ages. ...

Cristiano Ronaldo Could End Up Being Seized By The European Central Bank
The financial situation in Europe is so screwed up that soccer players are being used as collateral. Bankia, a troubled seven-month-old Spanish banking group, is trying to shore up capital by going public and getting a big loan from the European Central Bank, the EU's equivalent of the Federal Reser...

Unconscionable Neymar Goal Highlights A Very Brazilian Night Of Soccer
We grab your attention with this, Neymar's first of two scores on the night, a one-of-a-kind run through the Flamengo defense. But we really wanted to highlight the entirety of one of the more thrilling games in recent memory. (If you've got 90 minutes to kill, the whole match is on YouTube)....

Watch A Linesman Fall During The MLS All-Star Game
Linesman tries to get out of the way of a soccer ball. Linesman flies to the ground in dramatic fashion. Could've been worse. Linesman could've been an All-Star team that lost 4-0 to a foreign squad playing a preseason game....

The Sucker Karate-Kicking Goalkeeper Could Soon Be Charged With Attempted Murder
Remember that whole U-20 soccer tournament brawl in Brazil that came to an abrupt halt when evil Sport Recife goalkeeper Gustavo karate-kicked Vasco da Gama's Elivelton directly in his neck from behind? Well, you can likely tack an attempted-murder charge onto the lifetime ban that Gustavo's facin...

Your MLS All-Star Game Open Thread
The fan-favorite best roster that Major League Soccer has to offer will try to avenge last year's 5-2 All-Star ass-whooping at the hands of a Chicharito-less, EPL-champion Manchester United side tonight. Good luck with that....

On Future Bicycle Kicks, Do Not Aim For Your Face
Chelsea midfielder Yossi Benayoun is probably a very good football player, and it undoubtedly takes a great deal of athleticism to put oneself in position to kick the ball into one's own face. But still. He kicked the ball into his face! When he coulda kicked it into the goal! What a loser!...

Alex Morgan Can Score Exciting Goals After The World Cup, Too
This comes from something called Women's Professional Soccer, where Morgan and other members of the USWNT toil in obscurity during the four inter-Cup years. She's on the Western New York Flash—just like Marta, the Brazilian striker, our brief public enemy—and here, on Sunday, she scores while faci...

The Sucker Karate Kick Is Much More Evil Than The Sucker Punch
After a third-round game in a U-20 soccer tournament in Minas Gerais, Brasil on Monday, the players brawled. That brawl suddenly ended, however, when Sport Recife goalkeeper Gustavo karate-kicked Vasco da Gama's Elivelton directly in his neck from behind and with no warning....

FIFA Whistleblower Chuck Blazer Is Too Fat To Fit In Town Cars, Has "Trousered" Millions From International Soccer
Remember Chuck Blazer? He's the American FIFA executive who posts pictures of himself wearing boring Halloween costumes and posing with his pet parrot Max, as if cutesy snapshots might convince us that a Santa Claus imposter isn't as scummy as everyone else attached to FIFA....

Mario Balotelli Punished For "Unprofessional"-And-Also-Failed Backheel Goal Attempt
Mario Balotelli, the 20-year-old Italian striker who plays for Manchester City, attempted a backheel goal in a friendly against the L.A. Galaxy on Saturday, and it did not go well. He missed the goal by a few feet and was immediately pulled from the game. Youth soccer coaches across the world are ...

What The NFL Could Learn From A Soccer Match Played At One Of Its Stadiums Last Night
Last night, Real Madrid closed out an undefeated American tour with a 2-1 win over the Philadelphia Union at Lincoln Financial Field, the home of the Philadelphia Eagles. The MLS side ceded those goals early. The scores were impressive, the type you'd expect from a world powerhouse....

Kansas City's MLS Team Compiled Laughable, Stereotype-Filled Video To Introduce Its Canadian Opponent
This introduction video, via KCKRS, is perhaps the greatest semi-official compilation of cheap Canadian stereotypes known to man....

Peru And Venezuela Are About To Play For South American Soccer's Consolation Prize
So what if Irina Grandez and Daisy Araujo didn't quite measure up to Larissa Riquelme in the "world will watch my nation's soccer match to see whether I will have to strip naked for them" sweepstakes? Paraguay Cell Phone Girl's nudity will be decided tomorrow. But, Irina and Daisy's heroes on the ...

How Soccer Fans Thank Their Team In The Middle Of A Match-Fixing Scandal
Turkish champions Fenerbahçe are embroiled in a huge match-fixing scandal that could see their team stripped of their title and relegated. Hours before yesterday's friendly with Ukranian side Shakhtar Donetsk, club chairman Aziz Yıldırım (who currently sits in jail) announced he would resign. So i...

Hope Solo Has Won Even More National Respect By Dunking George Lopez
Yeah, yeah, it's a late-night stunt, and yeah, yeah, Hope Solo doesn't dunk Lopez on the first try. But she sunk the unfunnyman, and that's the point. This feels almost as good as a World Cup....

Venezuela Lost, But Did Not Go Down Without A Brawl, In Last Night's Copa America Semifinals
When Paraguay outlasted Venezuela in the Copa America semifinals last night, it brought cell-phone holder Larissa Riquelme within 90 minutes of having to strip for the world. The PK victory after a 0-0 match also resulted in a brawl. Good times....

Croatian Soccer Team Signs Field-Fornication Fetishist WAG To A Roster Spot
Nives Celsius, the "busty Croat WAG" married to Croatian national-team player Dino Drpic, is expected to appear in NK Slaven Belupo's match against Zagreb FC on Friday. Not even a week after the dramatic climax of the Women's World Cup, this is yet another giant step forward for gender equity in sp...

Radio Broadcaster Who Looks Freakishly Like Tim Howard Bumps Into Tim Howard
According to Greg Matzek, Milwaukee-area radio personality on 620-WTMJ (an appropriate call sign, given most talk radio folks' penchant for gratuitous gab), he's been told hundreds of times that he looks like Tim Howard. He says he was confused for Tim Howard on the red carpet at the 2007 ESPYs—we b...

UAE Soccer Player May Be Punished For "Disrespectful"-But-Also-Awesome Backheel Penalty Kick
On Sunday, Theyab Awana, a 21-year-old winger with the United Arab Emirates national team, scored on a penalty kick in a friendly against Lebanon. Only he did it off of a 180 and using his heel. UAE was up 5-2 at the time, and they ultimately won 7-2, so the stakes weren't very high for either tea...