soccer Page 26 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Spanish soccer league coach walks onto field, stops opposing team’s counter attack in 89th minute
Raise your hand if you’ve ever been agonizingly close to capturing that digital championship on a season of Madden or FIFA only to have the computer pull some lucky bullshit and ruin hours worth of investment....

So what will MLS do about its TV ratings?
When setting up for the current MLS season, which started the last weekend of February, one of the major themes was the league locking in its new TV deal sometime in March. MLS’s TV deal has been paltry when compared to the other sports leagues ($90m a year), and there was a feeling that while the n...

To the death, then
The only result between Manchester City and Liverpool this morning that would have made it a “title decider” (which is how it was built by every outlet broadcasting it) was a City win. A four-point gap at this point in the season, requiring City to fuck up two games in the run-in while Liverpool to ...

Lost in Liverpool’s pursuit of a quad is Man City’s potential treble
With Tiger Woods falling out of contention and Sunday at Augusta turning into a sleepy 3-year-old crashing off of sugar, wake yourself up by flipping on probably the biggest game of the English Premier League season. Man City sits atop the table but only barely. Liverpool, still chasing a potential ...

The Rock’s XFL rebrand is a retread of Sue Bird and Alex Morgan’s Togethxr media company
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s XFL revival, scheduled to begin in 2023 after the former wrestler bought the league from a bankrupt Vince McMahon for $15 million following an inaugural season cut short by COVID, introduced a new visual brand identity earlier this week....

Man United reportedly set to hire Erik Ten Hag, which raises more questions than answers
Perhaps the ink isn’t dry, but it sure feels like current Ajax manager Erik Ten Hag is going to be leaving for Old Trafford after this season. Which is funny as all the reports of his hiring started spilling out just hours after SI made it pretty clear that the Man United board wasn’t exactly blown ...

U.S. gets England in World Cup Group Stage
As the United States men’s national team backed into the FIFA World Cup on Wednesday night, Friday’s draw couldn’t have realistically worked out any better for them....

Who are we taking to Qatar?
The USMNT punched their ticket with a true let’s-not-fuck-this-up-royally performance in Costa Rica. So now the attention turns to who are the 23 souls that Gregg Berhalter will be putting on the plane for the tournament. Our intrepid soccer goofuses Sam Fels and Eric Blum have some ideas....

They qualified, so shut up
As mentioned previously this week, the USMNT fan’s natural inclination these days is to turn cold and scornful. It’s understandable, as we all spent so much time watching a team and program that was an utter mess and just twirling around before falling like a child you made do the spin-around-the-ba...

Man gets jail time for racist tweets at Marcus Rashford, humanity rejoices
On the list of things in England that I love, add jailing a racist internet troll for abusing Marcus Rashford next to the Great British Bakeoff, an accent that makes everything sound classy, using holiday as a verb, and Tom Holland. News that Justin Lee Price, 19, of Worcester, will be spending the ...

Coed sports can be a thing
For all the energy devoted to the Lia Thomas story, you’d think there was an army of transitioning athletes looking to snatch Division I titles from the women who rightfully won them. Laws have been written, passed, vetoed and passed again to prevent people assigned one sex at birth from competing w...

Duke-North Carolina at the Final Four is already one for the ages
It’s already an instant classic and the ball won’t be tipped for four more days. The greatest rivalry in college basketball, one of the fiercest in all of sports, heads to the Final Four. Duke squaring off with North Carolina is a momentous, must-watch occasion when it takes place under routine circ...

Is the USMNT midfield better off without Weston McKennie?
On the surface, it’s a patently ridiculous question. Of course the US can’t go without a player who regularly plays for one of the biggest clubs in the world, where his manager loves him, and comes up with goals for a national team that still struggles to find them. And to ask this question after ju...

Tis but a glimpse
It’s not official yet. The USMNT still has to dot the i’s and cross the t’s and all that. Which means they have to manage to not lose to Costa Rica by six goals or more on Wednesday. Quite frankly, the more impressive feat than qualifying for the World Cup would be losing by six in Costa Rica, and e...

Gregg Berhalter and USMNT are good enough
In the end, Gregg Berhalter did everything we asked, what most USMNT fans asked. He didn’t treat the trip to the Azteca as something to just get through. It wasn’t just a lottery spin. It wasn’t about keeping the powder dry for Sunday. Berhalter looked at the Mexico squad, looked at his, and thought...

I want my win in the Azteca, Gregg Berhalter
Right off the bat, I know all the logic the US might keep something in reserve tonight at the Azteca vs. Mexico. The USMNT has not been able to thread the three-matches-in-seven days windows all that well. The Panama game is the real crunch one of the three this time, as a win there basically guaran...

West London is not going to welcome The Ricketts Family
It’s pretty clear that the Ricketts family, who own the Cubs, look upon Fenway Sports Group as something of an idol. They took their GM from Boston and made him the president of the Cubs. You know him as Theo Epstein. They have remade Wrigley Field and the neighborhood around it in the same fashion ...

I MF’d Barcelona
There’s no hiding, not after yesterday. Not after Barcelona, just months ago the biggest figure of fun in world soccer, waltzed into the Bernabeu, and kicked eight different kinds of shit out Madrid to the tune of 4-0. It could have been 8-0 or 10-0. It probably should have been 5-0 or 6-0. This was...

Gregg Berhalter drops the ball on USMNT roster
Expected, disappointing. Two words that best describe my reaction to seeing the United States Men’s National Team’s roster for the final trio of octagonal World Cup Qualifying matches, beginning next week. Outside of the core, can’t-miss players and super-subs, which any soccer fan with a brain coul...

That was some fiendish Atlético Madrid treachery
You’re not supposed to miss a blister. You’re not supposed to get nostalgic about a paper cut on that webby part between your thumb and forefinger. You shouldn’t smile at stubbing your toe against the bed or couch that causes you to limp for an hour....