soccer Page 27 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

It’s fine if Sergiño Dest and Weston McKennie move in January
There was a feeling of triumph when USMNT fans first heard that American players had landed at some of the biggest clubs in the world in 2020. It was something of an arrival, not just for the players themselves but the US program as a whole. When you can place players at Barcelona and Juventus, you’...

The IIHF thinks women are more contagious than men
In theory, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) isn’t a for-profit agency. Much like FIFA. This is a laughable farce, of course. But there is relief that the facade of shepherding the game and promoting its growth crashed to the sidewalk long ago. They’re barely trying to hide it anymore....

IDIOT OF THE YEAR: 40 of the dullest tools from 2021's shed
Happy holidays, you filthy animals, and welcome to Deadspin’s annual IDIOT OF THE YEAR extravaganza. Within these hallowed slides are 50 of the year’s least bearable dorks, whose transgressions range from “just kinda silly,” to “dangerously stupid,” to “Trevor Bauer.”...

2021 was an incredibly fun year for the USMNT, let’s never do it again
As stated many times before, what the USMNT attempted, and really accomplished, in 2021 is unheard of in international soccer. Turning the entire roster over to children at once just isn’t done. Usually, teams are trying to blend generations, mixing in the aging vets (around 30) with those in their ...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR 2021: Party rolls on with Gerrit Cole, John Stockton, and Mark Davis
Happy holidays, you filthy animals, and welcome to Deadspin’s annual IDIOT OF THE YEAR extravaganza. Within these hallowed slides are 50 of the year’s least bearable dorks, whose transgressions range from “just kinda silly,” to “dangerously stupid,” to “Trevor Bauer.”...

The Premier League’s holiday schedule is wonderful, and also needs to be ended
It wasn’t a huge shock that the BIG MEETING today with the Premier League clubs, managers, and assorted captains resulted in no change whatsoever. The Premier League, and those below it, will attempt to plow through the country’s latest COVID spike, as it decimates rosters, to try and preserve as mu...

U.S. national team still appealing for equal pay, as UK pitch invader meanwhile won’t be fined thanks to archaic law
Legal technicalities are robbing women’s soccer players of their dues on both sides of the pond this week. The pitch invader who ran onto the field last week in the middle of a Champions League match (and quickly went viral for getting decked by Chelsea’s Sam Kerr) will not receive a fine for his mi...

Soccer, much like football, didn’t come home either
I wanted to resist the urge to give into the Timbers Army’s desire to claim Portland as “Soccer City USA.” It’s quite a label to bestow on yourself, and having grown up in direct opposition to Detroit’s “Hockeytown” self-flagellation, my alarms don’t need much prodding to go off. ...

Don’t worry, Seattle, you’re not losing Megan Rapinoe
It makes for a neat and interesting storyline that Megan Rapinoe is unprotected for Thursday’s NWSL expansion draft, right up until you think about it....

This will be good for Barcelona
I’m sure Barcelona, both their fans and the club itself, are tired of signs and symbols of how far they’ve fallen. Must get repetitive. Blockin’ out the scenery breakin’ their mind by this point. But their last Champions League game of the season was one of the harshest yet....

Sam Kerr decks pitch invader during Chelsea Women’s Champions League match
The worst yellow card in the history of soccer was issued on Wednesday to Sam Kerr late in the second half of the Chelsea Women’s match against Juventus in the UEFA Champions League. If anything, Kerr deserves a raise for also doing security’s job....

Does the NHL vet its owners?
I wish I could write stuff like this as fiction. But unless you wrote it as Mel Brooks-ian farce, I don’t know how you’d make it believable. And I have to say that I really want to see the city of Glendale actually chain up the doors to Gila River Arena when Coyotes players attempt to show up for a ...

Major League Soccer has a better ‘Rooney Rule’ than the NFL
Eighteen years ago, the most prejudiced sports league in American professional sports (Major League Baseball is a close second) created their version of “affirmative action” when they came up with the Rooney Rule — named after the legendary Steelers owner Dan Rooney — in hopes of helping diverse can...

Divock Origi, the club legend who never plays
Every fandom has their cult heroes who seemingly drop in out of the sky and provide a lifelong memory. Phillies fans have Matt Stairs. Bulls fans have Steve Kerr, to an extent (Kerr was a fine player but he does seem an odd choice from the gods to hit a title-clinching shot, no? Then again, he did i...

The Philadelphia Union got screwed, but there was probably little MLS could do
We don’t think any of the current seasons taking place now as “COVID seasons” like we did of the previous ones played in empty stadiums/arenas or in weird, neutral venues altogether. But it still very much is, which the Philadelphia Union learned the all-too hard way yesterday....

Wait, I thought the NBA was lowering the age for draft eligibility?
The G League celebrated its 20th season of competition this season but is only on its second of genuine interest to NBA fans. Instead of the occasional player who makes the leap from AAA to a rotation player or a raw draft pick trying to hone their skills, there wasn’t too much to get amped about un...

Why is it still so hard to find coverage of women’s sports?
Sedona Prince started it this year with an uncomfortable truth. The Oregon basketball player, famous for a TikTok video earlier this year that pointed out the discrepancy between the workout palace provided at the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and the meager triangle of dumbbells for the women, h...

Orange ball!
I can’t tell you why I and other soccer fans (which might just be my one friend) love it when the orange ball makes an appearance. Probably because it’s just so rare. Or maybe because it kind of looks like a tiny alien vessel has landed on the field and the players just decided to use it. It feels p...

Just because the season is over doesn’t mean the cleanse stops for the NWSL
I had a feeling, obviously due to recency bias, as soon as I saw the news about Chicago Red Stars coach Rory Dames resigning yesterday morning. It was two days after he had guided the Red Stars to the championship game, even though they were without at least half of their first-choice 11. Sure, he’d...

It’s about to be Trinity Rodman’s world
Rarely do finals turn out to be great games. When it all comes down to one game, teams tend to prioritize no mistakes over getting truly brave, and wait for their chance. Obviously, nerves play their own part, too, as the stakes become impossible to ignore....