2018-world-cup Page 10 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Ghana Effectively Knocked Out Of World Cup Qualifying By Bullshit Offside Call
Raphael Dwamena’s match-winning goal with 15 seconds remaining in added time against Uganda came off the board as South African referee Daniel Bennett inexplicably ruled Dwamena to be offside, effectively eliminating Ghana from World Cup contention. ...

Christian Pulisic And The USMNT Are Destroying Panama
The USMNT needed to whoop on Panama tonight, and they got off to a thrilling start, unzipping the Panamanian defense twice in the first 20 minutes and adding a penalty right before halftime. The entire first half was a thrilling affair despite the soggy Orlando pitch, and there could have been at le...

Look At This Big Dumb World Cup Stadium
Soccer fans who travel to see some hot World Cup action next summer in Yekaterinburg, the easternmost of Russia’s 11 host cities, will not only get to watch soccer from inside a stadium, they’ll also simultaneously get to watch soccer from outside the very same stadium, thanks to some creative const...

The USMNT Can't Afford To Lose
The United States Men’s National Team has two games left in CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying, two games against teams that, by all accounts, the USMNT should not have any problems dispatching. Trinidad & Tobago have gotten owned more or less nonstop throughout the Hex, and Panama were lousy enough to l...

South American World Cup Qualifying Is Dope As Hell
For most of the world’s elite national teams, qualifying for the World Cup is a charade. Sure, Spain and Germany and the other powerhouses have to earn their places into the world’s biggest sporting event, but because those countries are so reliably great, they can generally nab their spot without t...

FIFA Orders World Cup Qualifier To Be Replayed After Referee Banned For Life
Last November, South Africa beat Senegal 2-1 in a World Cup qualifying match, their only win through four qualifying games. However, a few months after the game, Joseph Lamptey, the referee in charge, was found guilty of “unlawfully influencing match results” and was subsequently banned for life. He...

Russian Official Guarantees There Will Be No Racism At 2018 World Cup
In an interview with CNN, Alexey Smertin, the head of anti-racism for the Russian football union, who just two years ago denied that racism existed in Russia and said giving bananas to black players was “just for fun,” was asked how racist incidents could damage the World Cup in Russia next year. H...

The U.S. Looks Like A Lock To Qualify For The 2018 World Cup
The United States Men’s National Soccer Team started out the last round of World Cup qualifiers in the most embarrassing way possible, losing to Mexico at home then getting ripped apart down in Costa Rica. The results were bad, although CONCACAF qualification is generous to say the least, though wha...

Kellyn Acosta, The USMNT's Tenacious Young Midfielder, Is Ready For This
Who will stand beside Michael Bradley in Russia?...

U.S. Soccer Fires USMNT Head Coach Jurgen Klinsmann
U.S. Soccer has fired United States Men’s National Team head coach Jurgen Klinsmann after a disappointing start to the final round of 2018 World Cup qualifying, the federation announced this afternoon. Klinsmann was also removed from his role as technical director. ...

Iceland Channel The Power Of Odin, Complete Wild Stoppage-Time Comeback
The mighty Iceland national team trailed Finland by a goal as today’s World Cup qualifying match rolled into stoppage time. Clearly imbued with the power of the Norse gods, they turned it all the way around and left with a 3-2 win....

FIFA Shutters Anti-Racism Task Force, Because There's No More Racism In Soccer
FIFA has chosen to dissolve its anti-racism task force. According to the Associated Press, the organization believes that the committee has “completely fulfilled its temporary mission.”...

Christian Pulisic Is Already Here
So much of the talk around Christian Pulisic is in the future tense. How good could he be, how soon will he be ready to play every week for Dortmund, when should he look to move to a first team elsewhere. This is fine, since he’s 17 and has been playing first-team soccer for less than a year. Howeve...

The USMNT Are Who We Thought They Were
The United States Men’s National Team beat the pants off of Guatemala 4-0 tonight, avoiding the disaster scenario and setting themselves up to advance to the final round of CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying. But while the victory was comprehensive, there were plenty of worrying signs for the USMNT’s fut...

The USMNT Better Goddamn Beat Guatemala
The United States Men’s National Team is in danger of failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. If it happened, it would be the first time the USMNT missed the world’s greatest sporting event since Mexico in 1986. If they lose to Guatemala Tuesday night, they’ll need an awful lot of help from Saint...

With No Fear Of Arrest, Sepp Blatter Finally Leaves Home For... Russia
Sepp Blatter is not afraid. Sure, he hasn’t left his native Switzerland since that little international scandal that locked up a number of top FIFA officials—he recently skipped out on the Women’s World Cup in Canada and the U-20 World Cup in New Zealand—but that’s not because he’s had anything to f...

The Sochi Olympics Were Even More Of A Boondoggle Than You thought
The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, were a scam from the very start. Sochi is a resort city with mild weather that had nothing close to the infrastructure necessary to host the Olympics, yet the initial budget was only $12 billion dollars. In comparison, the budget for the 2010 Winter Olympic...

FIFA Investigator Blasts Report Based On His Own Investigation
As expected, the report based on FIFA's probe has largely cleared Russia, Qatar, and all active FIFA officials of claims of corruption in the World Cup bidding process. But here's one no one saw coming: the man who actually conducted the investigation says the report is "incomplete and erroneous,"...

Spoiler Alert: After FIFA Probe, Qatar Gets To Keep Its World Cup
The summary of a year-long investigation into the bidding process for the next two World Cups will not be released until tomorrow, but the gist has already leaked via the English press. Basically: everyone involved was corrupt, but the 2018 and 2022 tournaments will not be taken away from Russia or ...

FIFA's Corruption Report Is Being Kept Secret For Very Dumb Reasons
Former U.S. attorney Michael J. Garcia finished his investigation into allegations of bribery in the bidding process for both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups earlier this year, and he has made it known that he would like the report to be made public. The report is currently being kept secret by Hans-Jo...