soccer Page 20 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Mullett Arena is somehow dumber than you’d imagine something called Mullett Arena could be
I’m one of many hockey observers that Coyotes fans, whoever they may be, claim to have an agenda at all times against the Yotes. And on some level, it’s fair, because it is hypocritical to talk often at length about the place teams have for fans in their lives and the public trust that they really a...
The rumored MLS Playoff changes are almost there
Apparently, taking a good hard look at the fairness of your playoff format is contagious these days. ...
Chris Paul has another NBA rule change to get used to
At the beginning of the 2021-22 NBA season, the rule changes were irksome to players used to getting touch fouls by lunging into unsuspecting defenders to draw contact and a whistle. Trae Young, Damian Lillard, and James Harden were just a few stars to sound off about the changes, but as the season ...
The USWNT winning their World Cup group would go a long way
It shouldn’t matter which team completes Group E of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Anything less than a first-place finish in the quartet for the United States women’s national team will be a tremendous disappointment. It doesn’t matter that fellow global power the Netherlands is also in the group...
El Tráfico knows no laws
You’ve lived long enough to hear the phrase “throw the records out when these two meet.” It’s usually the last ditch of some production team trying to gloss up a rivalry game that’s no longer much of a rivalry. No, I’m not thinking of Bears-Packers, you charlatan! But it’s meant to convey some time ...
Real Madrid are young and dynamic and it’s annoying
Last season, as Real Madrid went on their bloodless procession to both La Liga and Champions League title, those of us who aren’t decked out in white could console ourselves in the fact that sometimes, there are things you just can’t help. Their league triumph was due to the fact that Barcelona had ...
The USWNT better hope their frontline is good enough
Having worrying autumn friendlies is apparently contagious in the US National team program....
Arsenal, Liverpool, and cycles
There’s always an urge, and sometimes a directive from websites and Twitter and whatever else, to attach meaning or statements to any match or result. Sometimes, two teams just play each other and the score is the score and that’s your story. It’s not an overarching comment on systems, managers, or ...
Focused marketing is quickest way to prevent future abuse in women’s sports
Early this week, an independent investigation into player abuse in the National Women’s Soccer League exposed several failures by the NWSL and the United States Soccer Federation....
There’s something magical about bad football
Remember, Amazon pays $1 billion per season for this. That means that Thursday’s Colts-Broncos hobo ho-down cost Jeff Bezos somewhere around $62.5 million. In the words of Axl Rose, “You get what you pay for, and life is real high priced.”...
USWNT-England exhibition set as specter of NWSL abuse scandal looms
There’s no doubt about it. Friday’s far-from-friendly, friendly between the United States women’s national soccer team and the Lionesses from England is the biggest glorified exhibition in American soccer history, regardless of gender. It’s the first women’s soccer match — non-World Cup edition — to...
Sports would be all right if it wasn’t for the organizations that run them
Yesterday was just a banner day for the governing bodies of sports. We know that people in power will do just about anything to protect what little fiefdom they have. In the grand scheme of things, having a seat on the organization running whatever league or game is a pretty small fiefdom. But that ...
Tear gas fired inside Indonesian stadium resulted in one of the worst soccer tragedies in 50 years
Professional soccer is all too familiar with tragedies attributed to overzealous fans. Saturday’s disaster in the city of Malang in East Java, Indonesia following a match between Arema FC and Persebaya Surabaya’s match, was not one of those instances. Instead, incompetence and a blatant disregard fo...
Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney don’t have any answers for hooliganism either
We already went over how Welcome To Wrexham spent the first four episodes of its first season basically extolling how charming, funny, and nice Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney are. The show isn’t meant for footy diehards, which is fine — it’s really meant for anyone who is already in love with thes...
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 ...
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...
Qatar is conscripting its citizens to be security for the World Cup, so this is definitely going to go well
Here’s the thing about Qatar hosting the World Cup in about six weeks: Even if you could ignore the disgusting and egregious human rights abuses that built the infrastructure for it (which you can’t), or if you could ignore the country’s homophobia and sexism as state policy (which you can’t), or th...
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...
Beck, you can’t possibly need the money from this ad that badly
I know that I’m supposed to waive the white flag on the fight of any musician selling their songs and work for commercials. Most of them do it, the industry doesn’t work the way it used to, and it’s probably a necessary evil these days. This is just the way the world is, everything is for sale, no m...
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...