2 Page 214 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights


The World Cup Is Where Nigeria's Super Eagles Can Really Soar
One of the World Cup’s underrated appeals is watching players who are jammed into limited roles at club level let their hair down and run around without restraint on the international stage. For example a defensive midfielder, normally tasked with little more than standing in front of the center ba...

Nike Will No Longer Supply Iran's World Cup Cleats Because Of Sanctions
Just over a week before Iran plays their first World Cup match against Morocco, Nike has announced that they will no longer provide the Iranian national team’s cleats because of recently reimposed economic sanctions against the country. Nike has provided cleats for several Iranian players for years,...

Simona Halep Won The French Open By Remembering How She Lost It
Simona Halep, by age 26—something like the physical prime in modern tennis—had it all, almost. There was still a void at the center of everything. It wasn’t money: She’s made over $26 million in her career and played this French Open in full swoosh gear, hinting at a recent off-court windfall. It wa...

Costa Rica Will Try Their Best To Relive The Glory Of The Last World Cup
The undisputed second-best team in CONCACAF isn’t flying under the radar anymore, not after a 2014 World Cup appearance that saw Costa Rica win a deadly group that included Uruguay, Italy, and England, then make a quarter-final run that was only stopped by a penalty shootout loss to the Netherlands....

CM Punk's Second UFC Fight Was A Bizarre Joke
Until he stepped into the octagon, CM Punk was having a great week. His three-year legal battle against former WWE physician Dr. Chris Amann had finally ended with a Cook County court ruling in his favor. Punk no longer has a potential $8 million decision hanging over him, and he can focus on his ne...

The World Cup Is Coming To Russia, Which Means Stray Dogs Are Being Slaughtered
This week, Russia will host the 2018 World Cup, one of the biggest international sporting events in the world. The country will play host to millions of tourists across the 11 host cities within the Russian Federation. Those visiting will be able to attend matches in Moscow, the capital city, as wel...

Dominic Thiem Owned By Rafael Nadal In French Open Final, Owned Again During Trophy Presentation
If you missed the men’s French Open final yesterday, you missed three quick sets of Rafael Nadal being Rafael Nadal and winning his 11th French Open trophy. But you also missed the trophy presenter, former Grand Slam winner Ken Rosewall, providing some unusually honest, slightly unfair analysis of N...

Possibly Alexander Ovechkin Might Be Having Too Much Fun, Beer
Last time we checked in on Alexander Ovechkin he was compulsively hoisting the Stanley Cup in various spots around Nationals Park after throwing out a pair of ceremonial first pitches. It was an early afternoon game for the Nats, leaving Ovechkin with a whole evening of freedom. So how’d he spend it...

Alex Ovechkin Lets Go Of Stanley Cup Just Long Enough To Botch Ceremonial First Pitch, Drunkenly Sing "We Are The Champions"
Alex Ovechkin brought the Stanley Cup to Nationals Park today, where he threw out the ceremonial first pitch of Saturday’s Giants-Nationals game. Well, okay, the first two pitches—Ovechkin made a funny mess of the first one:...

We Now Live In A World Where Nick Young Is An NBA Champion
It was otherwise a shitty, forgettable NBA Finals series, but at least it produced this fascinating outcome: Nick Young (!) joins fellow Cinnamon Challenge hero and former Wizards knucklehead JaVale McGee (!!) as an NBA champion. The sheer improbability of Nick Young finding a role on a championship...

Rafael Nadal's French Open Is A Confrontation With His Only Real Threat
Dominic Thiem and Rafael Nadal will play each other in the French Open final on Sunday. Only one outcome has ever resulted from a French Open final involving Rafa. For a reality check, pinch yourself and say aloud, “Rafael Nadal has won 10 French Opens.” There is only the slimmest chance that Thiem ...

LeBron Busted His Hand In A Rage After That Game 1 Meltdown
I am certainly not going to pretend to believe this might’ve significantly changed the trajectory of the series, but it’s also not nothing: LeBron James reportedly played the last three games of the Finals with a busted-up hand after he punched a black board following Cleveland’s world-historic bone...

Thank God That's Over
Man, Game 4 sucked. Just as a basketball exhibition, it sucked, in exactly the way that all blowouts suck, before we even get to the part where it was an elimination game in the NBA Finals. However valiantly the Cavs fought earlier in the series, Game 4 made clear just what a ghastly, hilariously lo...

The Cavs Made The Right Adjustment
It was the third quarter, and the Warriors, already ahead on the scoreboard and up 3-0 in the series, were doing their third-quarter thing. That is to say, they’d decided to apply the 12 minutes of focused full-bore effort it takes to render them effectively invincible. A game they’d led steadily pr...

Warriors Heroically Overcome Jeff Green, George Hill, & Rodney Hood To Claim NBA Title
Despite facing a Cavaliers superteam of NBA legends like José Calderón, Cedi Osman, and George Hill, the Golden State Warriors fought their way past the odds to claim their third league title in the past four years and their sixth overall with a 108-85 win. ...

Argentina Will Need A Superhero To Win The World Cup, But Luckily They Have One<em></em>
People really don’t realize how much of a miracle it would be if Argentina won the World Cup....

If They Can Put It Together, Croatia Are The Perfect Bandwagon Team For You
If you’re a jilted American fan in need of a World Cup team to root for but you’re put off by the prospect of frontrunning and cheering for a titan like Germany or Brazil, I humbly suggest jumping on the Croatia bandwagon....

Spain Could Very Well End Up Winning The World Cup Again
Spain, it appears, are back. The team that won three international titles in a span of four years (the 2008 and 2012 Euros, and the 2010 World Cup), and then followed it up by crashing out of the 2014 World Cup in the group stage and losing to Italy in the round of 16 in the 2016 European Championsh...

They Already Said They Weren't Going To Go, Man
Even though LeBron James and Steph Curry had already said that neither of their teams would visit the White House if they won the NBA Finals, today Donald Trump tried to pretend like he wouldn’t have invited them anyway. Surely the basketball players will regret the opportunity to watch a septuagena...