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World Cup Day 21: This tournament will be remembered for how far the women’s game has come
We have our final four. When you get this deep into a tournament, anyone who’s not seen as chalk has done something grand, like Morocco’s men’s team last year and Colombia’s women’s team would’ve been this year. The South Americans entered as the lone surprise to make the quarterfinals. They benefit...
World Cup Day 19: Colombia is now the lone hope for the Cinderellas
The bottom-right side of the World Cup knockout-round bracket was always a double-edged sword. More upsets happened in Groups F and H than any other, with powerhouses Brazil and Germany watching the final 16 play instead of competing among them. The quarterfinals are now composed of seven heavy hitt...
World Cup Day 9: England wins and loses at the same time
Doing the bare minimum to win seems to be England’s way in this World Cup. The Three Lionesses have a pair of 1-0 wins in the tournament, including the win over Denmark early Friday morning. Already without Leah Williamson, Beth Mead, and Fran Kirby for the global showcase, Keira Walsh was taken off...
World Cup Day 6: Linda Caicedo is ready to be soccer’s next big female star
Group H was always going to be a battle between the teams not named Germany for who would advance alongside the European powerhouses. There were thoughts that Morocco could go from unknowns to the knockout rounds, then it lost 6-0 to Germany. The last two teams to play their first group stage game w...
World Cup Day 5: We cannot run from who we are
Day 5 of the World Cup was probably the most rewarding, and a great example of how football is football no matter who is playing it, no matter where they come from. We do our best to not compare or relate the women’s game to the men’s, as they’re two different sports. But Sunday night’s fare was per...
World Cup Group H Preview: Why can’t there be more like Morocco?
The women’s World Cup should be, and still is in a lot of ways, a celebration of how far the game has come from where it was even just four years ago. The attention is more, the players, and teams are better, the quality of play keeps rising, the anticipation grows, as does the appreciation when it ...
Deadspin predicts the Women’s World Cup
How was the USWNT’s Megan Rapinoe being thrust into the forefront of sport and society while helping the United States women’s national team lift a second straight World Cup title four years ago? No matter how long ago it feels, the next edition of the global showcase is here, with 32 teams competin...
Everyone wants to love women’s soccer without taking any responsibility for it
It wasn’t quite the theater of the idiotic that his pre-Qatar speech was, but FIFA president Gianni Infantino had to get in front of a mic before the kickoff of the women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand and certainly wasn’t in any more of a mood to take any responsibility for problems with ...
Women’s World Cup Group G preview: Italy and Argentina, you're in the middle of the ride
There’s a clear top and bottom in Group G. Sweden is No. 3 in the world and has every bit of skill needed to win the whole tournament. It’ll be a minor miracle if South Africa picks up a point before a return flight to Johannesburg. The most important game of Group G will be contested by the two tea...
Becky Sauerbrunn’s absence at the World Cup hurts more in the heart than on the field
The women’s World Cup continues to be a battle of attrition, even if it doesn’t start for another month. All the major powers are heading to Australia and New Zealand next month, seemingly with one hand tied behind their back, either through injury or strife within their programs (Canada and Spain)....
The United States men’s national team’s Gold Cup squad lacks stars, serves better long-term purpose
It’s clear by interim United States men’s national team head coach B.J. Callaghan’s 23-man roster for this summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup that winning the tournament isn’t the only priority. How else do you explain giving players like Christian Pulisic a pass? It’s not a break as he barely played at Che...
Israel's U-20 World Cup Team is a bright spot in a world where antisemitism is on the rise
The phrase “David and Goliath” gets thrown around too much in sports. There is typically a reason for those mismatches to take place, like in the case of No. 16 seeds in the NCAA Tournament needing to defeat a No. 1 to reach the round of 32. According to several Jewish texts, David was the King of I...
Zlatan Ibrahimović retired from soccer, and the world is a bit duller today
To say we’ll be Zlatan-less is probably wide of the mark. Whatever Zlatan Ibrahimović goes on to do, you can be sure it’ll be loud and full of bravado. But he won’t be on the field, which is a loss for the sport, if only because there simply can’t be anyone like him again. First off, no one’s going...
A month before the start of the Women’s World Cup, TV rights are still a mess
In the moments after England won the Women’s European Championships last summer, BBC presenter Gabby Logan issued an inspiring call for the accomplishment to be a mere stepping stone in the growth of the women’s game. Would have been nice if her employers were listening ahead of the 2023 Women’s Wor...
USWNT's striker depth will be put to the test at World Cup
The U.S. Women’s National Team’s spoils at forward have always been in excess. Most countries’ talent pools over 50 years don’t go as deep at striker as America’s would for one World Cup cycle. That depth is being put to the test this summer as a second potent goal-scorer won’t be traveling with the...
FIFA wants to promote women’s soccer — as long as there’s money in it
“FIFA is a non-profit organization” is one of the biggest oxymorons in the world. You don’t get a good portion of the organization indicted for corruption if the body is mainly focused on merely the health of the sport and building it from the bottom up. Gianni Infantino’s latest episode of throwing...
It’s been another banner week for FIFA
The election of a FIFA president is probably as close as we can get to a world president, as being the governor of the world’s most popular sport certainly allows one to wield an insane amount of power and influence. What exactly Gianni Infantino has done to earn a second term is anyone’s guess, oth...
The 2026 World Cup is swole as fuck
Despite being shoved into the middle of the season and in a country that was in no way up to the standards of hosting such a thing, the last World Cup ended up being a hit for what went on on the field. Exciting conclusion to the group stages, classic games in the knockout stages, and a memorable wi...
Does the US have anyone who would stand up like Gary Lineker?
The farcical idea that sports and politics don’t mix has once again been shaken to its cardboard foundation with what’s been going on in the UK with Gary Lineker and the BBC (every time I hear or see “BBC” I can’t help but shout it like Austin Powers during the end credits of the first film, but tha...