soccer Page 210 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Cristiano Ronaldo Has A Sad
Oh noes! Ronaldo is "sad," and no one knows why. Not his teammates, not his bosses, and surely not the media, who have speculated that it could be anything from dissatisfaction with his contract to missing out on Player of the Year award to rifts in the locker room to the anniversary of his father's...

Lionel Messi Scores Breathtaking Goal On Impossible Free Kick
Real Madrid clinched the Spanish Supercopa with today's victory over Barcelona, but Lionel Messi still did something remarkably Messi-like on this free kick at the end of the first half. Be sure to watch the replay that begins at the 45-second mark to see the way Messi managed to get the ball outs...

Nobody Came To The Death Of A Dream
The UEFA Champions League is the most prestigious annual sports competition in the world. Its championship match is the most-watched annual sports broadcast, with viewership that makes the Super Bowl look like a How I Met Your Mother rerun on WGN....

Soccer Player Gets One-On-One With Keeper, Stubs Toe On Turf, Falls Face-First Onto Ball
There's a reason this Udinese-Braga match is a Champions League qualifier, and not the Champions League. Udinese defender Pablo Armero, after scoring earlier, found himself all alone with a chance to clinch things. He would not, as you see, and Braga would score the equalizer and win on PKs thanks...

Luis Suárez Seized A Short-Lived Liverpool Lead With This Picture-Perfect Free Kick Goal
Minutes after allowing a Yaya Touré goal to equalize, Luis Suárez brought the Anfield crowd to its feet with a strike that bent around Manchester City defenders and bounced just past keeper Joe Hart into the bottom corner....

The <em>Houston Chronicle</em> Won't Cover Tonight's Dynamo Match, So We're Liveblogging It
Houston Dynamo are riding a 20-game home unbeaten streak and host Toronto FC tonight looking for a win that could put them tied with New York Red Bulls for second place in the MLS East....
![Wayne Rooney Knocked Out Of Match With Gruesome Leg Gash [UPDATE]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/17x2iskt17zwfjpg.jpg)
Wayne Rooney Knocked Out Of Match With Gruesome Leg Gash [UPDATE]
Fulham's Hugo Rodallega landed upon Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney's leg in stoppage time of Man U's 3-2 win today and sliced open Rooney's leg, forcing him to be carted off in another blow to the Red Devils' corps....

Swedish Soccer Fans Wake Up Opponents With 4 A.M. Fireworks Show
CSKA Moscow is in Stockholm to play AIK tonight, in the first leg of a Europa League qualifier, and the Russians were just trying to get a good night's rest. Enter AIK fans, who showed up outside CSKA's hotel in the middle of the night with flares, fireworks, whistles and car horns....

The Soccer Fans Who Ought Least To Go Shirtless Always Do
The UEFA Champions League playoff is like a very long series of NCAA Play-In Games Opening Round Games; scrappy champions of small leagues and barely-qualified major league losers clash heads for the right to face the real "Champions" in the group stage....

Man City Accidentally Put In Bid For Lionel Messi Literally Because Of The Telephone Game
According to former Manchester City chief executive, Gary Cook, the offer was made in 2008 while the club was in the process of being purchased by Sheikh Mansour. Cook copped to the mistake in the directly-named book "The Manchester City Years."...

Newcastle's First Goal On The Season Was This Curling Strike From Demba Ba
Demba Ba was slow to start his 2011-2012 campaign and then disappeared entirely from Newcastle United's scoresheet after the month of February. It deprived us glorious goals like this one he scored against Manchester United in February....

Who Is The World's Most Recognizable Athlete?
Saw this photo over at TBJ, of Kobe Bryant making an appearance on his annual Nike tour of China, and it's no surprise. China loves Kobe. Loves him. That's a billion people who go nuts at the very sight of Bryant, a global superstar for 15 years now. It got me thinking: who's the most recognizable a...

After 75 Years And 25 Matches, The U.S. Men's Soccer Team Finally Wins In Mexico
No one really expected much from the USMNT tonight in a friendly at Estadio Azteca against Olympic gold medal-winning Mexico (and its super-creepy mascot), but an 80th-minute goal from Michael Orozco Fiscal—and some incredible goaltending goalkeeping from Tim Howard—gave the US a historic 1-0 win ...

Mexico's Official Soccer Mascot Will Haunt Your Dreams
This is Kin, the official mascot of the Mexican national soccer team, which faces the USA tonight at Estadio Azteca. Mexico is 23-0-1 all-time against the USMNT on its home soil, though I'm thinking it's the hideous sight of this monstrosity and not the extreme altitude or exuberant fanbase that's t...

French Soccer Stars Will Face Charges For Sexing 16-Year-Old Prostitute
Bayern's Franck Ribery and Real Madrid's Karim Benzema got into a spot of trouble in 2010, when a Paris prostitution ring was busted and their names popped up in a little black book. Even worse, it turned out they had paid for sex with then-16-year-old Zahia Dehar, who, in the players' defense, didn...

How New York's New MLS Stadium Heralds The Return Of The Cosmos
Top-level soccer hasn't been played within New York's city limits since 1976, when the Cosmos packed up for Giants Stadium and took the country's brief love affair with domestic pro soccer with them. The drought might be close to over, as MLS and local politicians seem intent on returning a team to ...

New York City Is About To Get A New MLS Team That Might Be Owned By A Rich Dude From Dubai
The New York Post reports today that the city is on the verge of approving a deal for a $300 million stadium that would be little more than a corner kick from CitiField and Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadows Corona Park....

Watch Some Poor Sap Miss A Wide Open Goal Twice
We can argue for days about what miss is "the worst miss ever." This one is on the list. It is so terribly unthinkable, in fact, that the play-by-play man believed the sure thing goal was waived off for some reason, perhaps offsides....

Soccer Player Hits Referee, Match Abandoned After Referee Flops To The Ground
Benfica defender Luisão (wearing number four in black) punched or shoved or hit referee Christian Fischer during a match between Fortuna Dusseldorf and Benfica which resulted in the match being abandoned. Sure, the officials should never be physically battered, or assaulted for that matter, but th...

Mexico Leads Brazil 1-0 At The Half Thanks To This Goal 29 Seconds Into The Match
Oribe Peralta put Mexico up 1-0 on Brazil in today's men's soccer gold medal match, and the score's remained that way ever since. The big news is that Brazil subbed on MOTHERFUCKIN' HULK (we're a big fan of his, remember) despite him being about the least-popular athlete in Brazil at the moment. Di...