serie-a Page 1 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

An ode to the enigma that was Paul Pogba
With the news that Paul Pogba has been suspended for four years (pending appeal), it almost certainly ends his career. Should he have to serve the full four seasons, he’ll be 35 and not have played in forever. The question of whether he’s a legend or left far too much on the table would depend on wh...

The fall of Paul Pogba continues
France and Juventas midfielder Paul Pogbahas has been banned for four years from football for a doping offense. ...

Turns out, the Super League is only mostly dead
If the image of Real Madrid president Florentino Perez and Barcelona president Joan Laporta taking a fireplace bellows to the Super League this morning makes you giggle, just know to get it in now because it’s going to get a lot more annoying at some point in the future. Yes, the Super League, that ...

The Oilers season is already slipping away
One month into an NHL season isn’t probably the time to panic — unless you’re the Edmonton Oilers and the pressure cooker started a couple years ago. A 3-9-1 start has already left the Oil with something close to a Sisyphian climb. Sure, there’s 69 games left, but we’re just a week from Thanksgivin...

First rule of team social media: Don’t s**tpost your own player
It didn’t take long for SSC Napoli to crash from the dizzying heights of their third-ever Scudetto last spring. First, manager Luciano Spalletti left the club and eventually took the Italian national team manager’s job. And then the team got off to a very wonky start this season in Serie A, collecti...

If Noah Lyles is confused about NBA superiority, he should buy a ticket to the Rondae Hollis-Jefferson show
You would think Team USA gold medalists would stick together. Instead, the newly crowned fastest man in the world, Noah Lyles wasted his coronation at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest by dumping on the NBA. More specifically, he took aim at the National Basketball Association taking the...

Premier League Round 1 Review: Chelsea and Liverpool play a pretty silly match after a very silly week
If it feels like Chelsea and Liverpool haven’t been able to escape each other for about 20 years, that’s probably because they haven’t. It can be traced back all the way to 2004, when Steven Gerrard was thisclose to joining Chelsea from Liverpool, and then months later they met in the League Cup Fin...

Saudi League soccer and Fox Sports: A match made in apathy
There are several analogies that could be used to illustrate the hubris of Fox Sports partnering with the Saudi Pro League, and as easy as it would be to use the retirement tours of big name soccer stars, and the marginal effect they’ve had on MLS here in the states, Lionel Messi is on a barnstormin...

Whoa! The Premier League starts this weekend!
Most of the attention of the soccer world is fixed on the Women’s World Cup. And whatever’s left over is on Lionel Messi’s daily brace. But the world of soccer never stops, and in that fashion, the Premier League returns this weekend (so does La Liga but we can hold off on yet another discussion of ...

Wiz Khalifa continues Pirates tradition of pitching while totally zooted
While the Pirates will never build him a statue, Dock Ellis has made sure that the greatest accomplishment in sports was performed by a Pirate. That was throwing a no-hitter while on LSD. Perhaps as our country continually lessens its aversion to drugs it’ll get the display it deserves at PNC Park, ...

World Cup Group B Preview: It’s time for Sam Kerr to take this itty bitty world by storm
We spilled some ink in these parts about Mallory Swanson by herself making the USWNT a threat to win the World Cup, before her unfortunate injury. But the US isn’t the only team with a player who is capable of grabbing a short tournament by the haunches, and the co-hosts Australia may have the bigge...

The Orioles need to trade for Shohei Ohtani, and Christian Pulisic in Milan
Sure, it’s completely ridiculous. But being a baseball fan is about being ridiculous and, before owners crushed our spirits, discussing trades used to be the most fun part. Are the Angels going to admit that thanks to Mike Trout’s injury on top of all their others that it’s probably over for them? N...

Christian Pulisic’s move to AC Milan is the USMNT’s biggest news of the summer
The most substantial story for the United States men’s national team this summer has nothing to do with the Gold Cup. Nor any of the drama surrounding Gregg Berhalter’s return to the Yanks’ helm. It was always where the best American male soccer player on the planet, Christian Pulisic, landed in the...

Sandro Tonali’s transfer from AC Milan to Newcastle demonstrates the heartlessness of it all
The real goals of “sportswashing” may not be things that apply to the plebes like you and me. If Middle Eastern regimes wish to burnish their image simply by buying European soccer clubs (and maybe soon American sports clubs, too) and turning them into world powers, it seemingly has only heightened ...

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...

Where should the USMNT players move this summer?
There’s going to be a lot of movement for the top end of the USMNT roster, but what would be best for them? We mean other than Ibiza or The Algarve on vacation. Though they should do that too. They’ve earned it. But after the Nations League semis and (hopefully) final, the main cogs of the USMNT wil...

You have never been as excited about anything as Naples was about the Scudetto yesterday
Napoli clinched the Scudetto yesterday afternoon with a 1-1 draw away to Udinese. How might you have been able to discern that if you lived in Naples and weren’t watching the match? Definitely had to look closely:...

Toronto sports, man
On one level, I get it. I bet Toronto is a lot like Chicago. Whenever the first warm stretch hits, you’re looking for any excuse to be outside. And most likely drunk as shit when you are. Usually that streak doesn’t hit until somewhere around Memorial Day, so to get it in April feels like you’re ste...

Life ain’t easy for Bayern Munich… according to Bayern Munich
Wherever he is, George Steinbrenner must’ve smiled and nodded at the news of Bayern Munich firing their manager with three-quarters of the season gone. Not only would that have reminded Big Steinn of his “glory” days (obviously the Yankees didn’t regain their spot atop the baseball world until Stein...

Antonio Conte wants to get fired more than anyone has ever wanted to get fired
It only takes a matter of hours after becoming a soccer fan to hear the term, “Spursy.” It only takes a couple more after that to completely understand that. It refers to Tottenham Hotspur and that no matter the situation, or the seeming unlikeliness, something weird will happen to the club, and in ...