association-football Page 8 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
USMNT’s Gregg Berhalter is going to have to get over himself
All right, I’m gonna be Sammy Sunshine about the USMNT. It’s not easy, but there’s a lot of dark clouds after the team went 0-for-180 minutes in scoring goals, or looking like they could get a goal, or even looking like they were interested in scoring a goal, in their last two friendlies before the ...
What if Christian Pulisic isn’t that good anymore?
Also, he might be kind of a prick, but we’ll circle back to that....
Which USMNT players punched their ticket to Qatar?
The United States men’s national team has zero minutes of game time remaining before it lines up against Wales at the FIFA World Cup, the country’s first contest on soccer’s biggest showcase in eight years. Tuesday’s scoreless draw against Saudi Arabia gave us one final look at the Yanks before head...
Don’t worry USMNT fans, England have been even more ass
As we discussed yesterday, the first half of the last batch of friendlies for the USMNT could really not have gone worse or been more discouraging. Against the B-team version of Japan, a squad that’s just about on the same plane as the USMNT, the Yanks laid a foul-smelling egg that also doubled as a...
The USMNT still have a Weston McKennie problem, but it might not matter much
One of the many complications of a winter World Cup, though far down the list, is the death of the pre-tournament friendly. Normally, teams get together for a couple weeks after the domestic season and then get two or three ramp-ups before the tourney starts to establish rapport, try some new format...
At least Matt Turner played well
It’s never a good sign when the biggest pro from the United States men’s national team’s Friday debacle full of cons — a 2-0 loss to Japan that doubles as the Yanks’ penultimate FIFA World Cup tune-up — was goalkeeper Matt Turner. The Arsenal summer signee was called into action frequently and made ...
Juventus is pretty garbage and it’s pretty wonderful
While one traditional power of European soccer might only be in a temporary blip, there’s another that has fallen off its horse and then had that horse piss on them. Bayern Munich will most likely recover. Juventus, on the other hand, might be headed to the muck for a while....
Is there actually hope in the Bundesliga? Well no, but it’s fun to pretend
On the opening day of the Bundesliga season, when Bayern Munich were getting in up to the elbow on Eintracht Frankfurt, just the defending Europa League champions, the joke on Twitter was that the league title was already decided. It was only half in jest. Munich have piled up the last 10 league tit...
der Fußballbundesliga?
The partnership between the NFL and the German Bundesliga, the top tier of the country’s professional soccer scene, is an interesting pair on its own. They both dominate their domestic markets. Dirk Nowitzki and Leon Draisaitl have come from Deutschland to dominate in North America. Steve Cherundolo...
Berhalter’s shortcomings on display with September roster omissions
Mark it down now. John Brooks, one of the two Americans in any severity of contention to claim one of the 26 United States men’s national team spots on the plane to Qatar, will be watching the games on a TV screen. Brandon Vazquez, the 23-year-old FC Cincinnati striker with 16 goals this season, won...
Who the hell let Ray Hudson in the house?
CBS has mostly been a gift to soccer fans. Unlike Turner when it bought the Champions League rights, forgot about it until the day before the tournament started, and then dusted off some closet and called whatever former USMNT members were within an hour’s flight of the studio, CBS has taken its cov...
The thing about Barcelona’s wackiness is it just might work… on the field at least
This is where you’d stick the video of Jesse Pinkman screaming, “He can’t keep getting away with it!” That depends on how you’d define “getting away” and also ignore the fact that Jesse was just a whiny loser. But the feeling is familiar to all, the lamentation that there are just some forces or bei...
Todd Boehly is a Chelsea owner now
If Todd Boehly’s aim was to connect himself to Chelsea tradition, even if those traditions are only 20 years old or so, he certainly took a huge step by canning Thomas Tuchel as manager today. No manager lasts at Chelsea for very long, no matter how much success they bring. José Mourinho, the first ...
These USMNT players vying for World Cup roster will benefit from transfer window
The biggest hammer never dropped during transfer deadline day for the United States men’s national team fans. Christian Pulisic still wears Chelsea blue, which will prove to be a blessing in disguise or what plummets the USA’s chances at a deep run at this year’s World Cup. The Yanks’ captain and be...
France warms up for the World Cup by being their normal furiously weird selves
One of the great orators of our time, Eddie Izzard, once said of the French, “They’re a bit…fuckin’ French.” Perhaps there is no greater example than the French national team, and that covers both the men and the women....
For one day, Yann Sommer channeled the spirit of Ron Tugnutt (wait Ron Tugnutt isn’t dead, right?)
Most soccer analysts, especially those who really get in up to the elbow in the analytics, say that the sport is pretty random. Most games are only decided by a single moment (or rarely more than a handful), and those moments can bounce any which way no matter what the trends of a match or a season ...
So here’s this year’s Champions League group of death
The group-stage draw for the UEFA Champions League is always a strange, exciting, but mostly strange day. The path to European glory becomes more in focus with a straightforward goal: finish in the top half of your group and you make it to the knockout stage that begins next year. If you don’t you’r...
The system doesn’t work with this Virgil van Dijk
This isn’t my beautiful house....
C.B. Bucknor drags everyone down with him
It was yet another banner day for C.B. Bucknor behind the plate, as we watched in real time while he lost sense of the strike zone and perhaps indeed any sense of direction at all. The plane which the ball must pass through to be called a strike is imaginary, of course, and tough to judge from a pos...
Arsenal are looking pretty tasty
Last August, Arsenal lost their first three matches, by a combined score of 9-0, including ultra-humbling ass-whoopings by Chelsea (just about the only time Romelu Lukaku looked menacing with Chelsea) and City. The Gunners would recover, of course, only to break their fans’ hearts in even more agoni...