1 Page 140 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The USWNT-France Clash Is The Real World Cup Final
Months of pre-tournament preparation, weeks of controversy and VAR and stress, days of hand-wringing—they’ve all led us here. Since the Women’s World Cup draw back in December, the United States and France, the two best teams in the world, have been on a collision course that unfortunately all but g...
Kevin Durant Will Be A Free Agent
Kevin Durant has declined the one-year player option on his contract with the Golden State Warriors, which would have paid him $31.5 million next season. He’ll be an unrestricted free agent next week. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski first reported the news on Twitter....
An Unlucky Handball Sends Japan Out Of The World Cup
An exhilarating World Cup round of 16 rematch between the Netherlands and Japan got decided in favor of the Dutch in the 90th minute, thanks to a penalty kick converted by forward Lieke Martens. The PK gave the Dutch a 2-1 win over the same team that kicked them out of the 2015 World Cup, and it put...
The Women's World Cup Has A Refereeing Problem
Despite what our lovely commentariat might believe, we here at Deadspin do not have a quota of anti-VAR posts to hit. If it feels that way during the Women’s World Cup, it’s only because FIFA, through the kind of casually negligent behavior that typifies its treatment of the women’s game, has put it...
Almost Every Penalty Kick Save Ever Is Illegal Now And It's A Mess
The idea, which is not an unreasonable one on its face, is to “get it right.” The less inspiring extension of that is “to avoid something horribly embarrassing.” There are examples that spring to mind when it comes to justifying VAR’s existence—the people in charge are probably thinking of moments ...
Canada Must Wait Four More Years To Discover What It Might Be Like To Win Big In The World Cup
When former Canadian national team player and current TSN pundit Kaylyn Kyle criticized the USWNT for their goal celebrations during the historic 13-0 win over Thailand by saying, “I think, as a Canadian, we would just never ever think about doing something like that,” it raised the question of whet...
NCAA President Threatens California Schools Over State Bill Allowing College Athletes To Make Money
Earlier this year, two California state senators introduced SB 206, much to the chagrin of NCAA bureaucrats. The bill, which is also known as the Fair Pay To Play Act, would allow college athletes to make money off of their own names, images, and likenesses starting in January 2023. The state Senate...
What Was Jill Ellis Doing?
Yes, the United States beat Spain 2-1, thanks to two soft-ass penalties converted by Megan Rapinoe, to advance to the Women’s World Cup quarterfinals. And yes, we will get the clash of the titans between the USWNT and France on Friday in Paris. But it should not have been this difficult. The United ...
A Pair Of Megan Rapinoe Penalties Sent A Shaky USWNT To The Quarterfinals
It wasn’t the type of breezy victory that defined the USWNT’s run through the group stage, but in their first knockout game of the 2019 World Cup, the U.S. gutted out a tough, unpretty 2-1 victory against Spain in which two Megan Rapinoe penalties outweighed one disastrous defensive mistake....
Brazil's Golden Generation Won Nothing But Changed Everything
Heading into this tournament, one of the few things that felt certain was that this was to be the last hurrah at a World Cup for Brazil’s feared foursome of Marta, the G.O.A.T. of women’s soccer; Cristiane, her long-serving battering ram of a strike partner; Formiga, the 41-year-old marvel in midfie...
VAR Has One Job, And It's Failing Miserably At It
The most common complaint against VAR—or any form of video review in sports—in one of aesthetics. If referees insist on stopping the game for several minutes to double check every key play, the thinking goes, all the drama and intensity and emotion of the biggest moments will be lost, and the celebr...
France Outlasts Brazil's Tired Old Legs To Advance To The Quarterfinals With A 2-1 Victory
France are moving on to the quarterfinals of the Women’s World Cup after defeating Brazil, 2-1, in extra time. Despite scoring a surprise goal against the run of play late in regulation, Brazil’s tired legs eventually caught up to them and it became only a matter of time before France would strike f...
England Crawl Out Of Dumpster Fire Relatively Unscathed With 3-0 Win Over Cameroon
England lived up to their FIFA ranking as the third-best women’s team in the world for maybe 30 minutes in their match against Cameroon on Sunday. Had it not been for Cameroonian players allowing the poor implementation of VAR that has become a staple of this tournament to get to them, Cameroon woul...
Hell Yeah, England Scored From An Indirect Free Kick
One of the most infrequently-experienced joys in soccer is the short burst of chaos that comes from an indirect free kick, where a team’s free kick opportunity is placed inside their opponent’s penalty box. Thanks to the knockout stage of the Women’s World Cup, we can now reset the “days without” co...
Norway's Perfect Penalty Shootout Deflated Australia Into Submission
A horrendous miss from Australia’s Sam Kerr set the tone for the Matildas’ penalty shootout against Norway, sending the Scandinavian nation into the quarterfinals of the Women’s World Cup with a 4-1 win on penalties....
Lisa Byington And Cat Whitehill Bust Out Lazy Tropes About African Teams For Their Germany-Nigeria Commentary
Commentating on live sports for a national television audience can be a herculean task, but it’s a lot easier if you decide to rely on tired racial stereotypes to fill the dead air—as Fox’s Lisa Byington and Cat Whitehill discovered on Saturday....
The Real Legacy Of The Legendary Kurt Angle Vs. Shane McMahon Match Is WWE Doing Whatever It Wants
On Sunday, fans found that WWE Network’s streaming service had chosen to devote the sixth entry in the WWE Untold series to a match that’s legendary for none of the right reasons. It’s hard to know why the promotion chose to make a documentary about the infamously and gratuitously brutal and violent...
The Suns Were Up To Some Suns-Type Foolishness On Draft Night
With the caveat that no one knows anything about how this will turn out in the long term, it’s fair to say that the Phoenix Suns had a strange 2019 NBA Draft. They dropped in the rejiggered draft lottery to land with the sixth pick, then dropped another five spots Thursday night via a genuinely head...
A Hectic Round Of 16 Will Separate The Women's World Cup Contenders From The Pretenders
After 36 group stage matches, and seemingly triple that number of VAR headaches, the Women’s World Cup is getting into the good shit. Gone are the eight teams unworthy of continuing on, while the 16 best remaining sides prepare for a four-round elimination chaos pit. The survivor of that churn will ...
The USWNT Got Sweet Revenge, But Now The Real Work Starts
One could mount an argument that the United States’ long-term interests at this here World Cup would have been better served had they thrown their group-stage finale against Sweden yesterday and given themselves an easier path to the final. Let your opponents win Group F and let them deal with the F...