The main event of this weekend’s Demolidor Fight event in Brazil ended with one of the scariest things you will ever see in combat sports. In the third round of Melquizael Costa’s and Rafael Barbosa’s featherweight title fight, Barbosa locked in a standing choke and grappled Costa to the ground. He quickly put Costa…
On the one hand, this was just a friendly that the Stars and Stripes were supposed to win. But on the other hand, it’s time to get frickin’ hyped about the USWNT! With a 4-1 win over Brazil on Thursday night, America took home the Tournament of Nations trophy. But more important than that hardware is the sheer…
JosĂ© MaurĂcio dos Anjos might be the world’s biggest fan of Brazilian soccer club Flamengo. He pumped a liter of ink into his body for them. When was the last time you cared that much about something?
My god, what did we just watch. The game of the tournament, certainly, and probably one of the best matches in recent World Cup history. All I know for sure is that Belgium beat Brazil today, 2-1, in a quarterfinal that had all the intensity, insanity, momentum-swings, and amazing plays that make following this entire…
If you tuned in to the earlier, less exciting World Cup game today, you might think you saw Brazil ride a fierce second half performance to a well-deserved 2-0 defeat of Mexico. But if you listen to Juan Carlos Osorio, the currently very upset manager of El Tri, what you witnessed was “an embarrassment for soccer.”
Coming into the World Cup, the big advantage Brazil had over supposed heavy favorites Germany (ha!) and Spain was the presence of a real-deal superstar. In an international tournament, where collective attacking intricacy is in short supply, an individual’s ability to take the ball from one side of the pitch all the…
Friends, sports are good.
It turns out Philippe Coutinho’s monster goal in the first half of Brazil-Switzerland was not a harbinger of things to come. Brazil had about a 20 minute stretch of transcendent, dominant play, oriented more or less around Coutinho’s golazo, but spent most of the rest of the match squandering possession and looking…
Mexico’s goal against Germany was satisfying, with the tidal motion of action suddenly surging the opposite way, and clean and purposeful passing, and a slick little first touch move followed by a sharp little strike. Lovely. But give me this here goal, from Philippe Coutinho in the 20th minute of this afternoon’s…
If you made a list of everything you’d want from a favorite to win the World Cup, Brazil would tick every box.
Why stop fighting when you can instead keep fighting?
Forty male gymnasts in Brazil have come forward and said that gymnastics coach Fernando de Carvalho Lopes sexually abused them during their careers, according to a report that aired on aired on Brazilian television Sunday night.
Not every rivalry match is as internationally renown as Spain’s El Clásico or England’s North London Derby. Nevertheless, even the smallest of local derbies often include frankly ridiculous levels of feistiness and aggression. Which explains this video of a grown man pummeling a ball boy after taking offense to the…
One year after losing 19 of its players in a plane crash that killed 71 people, Brazilian club Chapecoense clinched qualification to the Copa Libertadores—the South American Champions League—with a last-second stoppage time winner scored by Túlio de Melo.
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 their fans ever…
Sport Clube Gaucho are a Brazilian third-division side who haven’t been relevant since they briefly made the first division in the 1980s. That changed, though, when four players had their contracts rescinded after a video showing one of them jerking off two of his teammates in the club showers leaked. The three…
Brazil’s Rodrigo hammered home this lovely golazo in the first period of his side’s match against Italy at the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup. Think soccer is OK, but wish it had more scoring and impossible athleticism? Try fútbol playa.
Brazilian goalkeeper Bruno de Souza—who signed for second tier club Boa Esporte last month—will return to prison to serve his 22-year sentence for organizing the torture and murder of his ex-girlfriend, Globo reports. The Brazilian Superior Federal Tribunal (the Brazilian equivalent of the Supreme Court) voted 3-1 to…
