soccer Page 28 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
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....
Man U mercifully ends the Ole Gunnar Solskjær era
Ole Gunnar Solskjær has finally been taken off hospice, and Manchester United fans’ burden of caring for their ailing family member through their final days has ended. After a valiant battle with the cancerous disease of poor managing, it was Watford that landed the decisive blow....
NWSL comes to the conclusion of its landmark season
In a lot of ways, having the Washington Spirit in the NWSL final is perfect for the league. No matter where the league goes from here, what it becomes, the 2021 season will be viewed as a turning point. While the stories themselves were horrifying, heartbreaking, and infuriating, sunlight is always ...
It’s fine, this is fine. No really, it’s fine
In the euphoria of the US’s latest “Dos a Cero” triumph over Mexico, most US fans probably joked with their friends that they would follow this up with a turgid and flat performance in Jamaica. Joke to mask the pain, because we all suspected it, just at differing levels. Maybe some thought they woul...
You never forget your first time
This Canada thing is real. I mean in soccer. I know that Canada is a real country. I’ve even been there once. Unless that was an elaborate hoax that involved constructing the entire city of Montreal for a weekend just to pull the wool over my eyes. In which case, that’s just impressive....
Maybe it’s Mexico that needs to look in the mirror
The big story out of the US’s demolition (at least in the 2nd half) of Mexico was the US stuffing Memo Ochoa’s words back from whence they came. Ochoa had claimed before the match that Mexico “was the mirror that the US wants to see themselves,” which led to Pulisic writing “Man In The Mirror” on hi...
After the latest Dos Á Cero, it’s time to be excited about the USMNT again
Not getting too crazy about the U.S. men’s soccer team, not getting too crazy about the U.S. men’s soccer team, not getting too crazy about the U.S. men’s soccer team, not going too crazy about the U.S. men’s soccer team…...
Let’s fix the MLS Playoffs, shall we?
I know, I know. There’s nothing MLS fans hate more than someone who doesn’t watch as regularly as they do telling them what’s wrong with their league. Even with my expanded efforts to watch, understand, and develop an attachment to our domestic league, I’m still a long way off from being a tried and...
A wild end to the MLS regular season
MLS had its “Decision Day” yesterday, the last day of the regular season when all of its playoff spots get shaken out. The permutation for the top, middle, and bottom of the playoff picture were David Lynch-level convoluted, so sometimes it’s best to express the happenings in one highlight:...
Antonio Conte is Tottenham’s last gasp, but he’s the best last gasp
If you’re getting sucked under the current, you might as well reach for the strongest line possible. Tottenham, after looking completely adrift as a team and club on Sunday against Manchester United, have pretty much done that by hiring Antonio Conte. It’s not a signal of long-term planning. It’s pr...
NBA’s habitual foul seekers having a hard time finding fouls
If the world ended today (because that’s the only way the NBA season would end today, and I hate cliches, but this one is useful in this case), the NBA would finish with the fewest free throw attempts per game in the history of the league. Even though we’re only five games into the season and player...
SEE IT: The most MLS moment ever
As I’ve repeatedly stated, this was the season I really tried to follow MLS closely. It’s been mostly hit, some miss, but it’s hard to not see the charm. It is perhaps the last bastion of the true No. 10, where the space in midfield allows them to work their magic and drive teams to success. It’s wh...
For one moment, Carli Lloyd had it all
It’s strange. For all the absolute world-class players the USWNT has had, and still does, we still think of them as a “team.” Maybe that’s a testament to their absurd depth, and their dedication to being the best as a unit, that we rarely single one out. Megan Rapinoe may have won Player of the Tour...
I was at the record-setting 9-OT game… and it was even worse in person
Saturday was my first game at Beaver Stadium since graduating from Penn State. I drove an hour and a half to my friend’s house in York, Pa., on Friday and then woke up at 5 a.m. the next morning to drive two hours to State College with his family and set up a tailgate in the cold and rain....
The New England Revs are going to set the league points record, and they’re not going to play any defense to do it
While MLS still has its fair share of issues, the one thing you have to give it credit for is that during the regular season, the league rewards teams that just say, “Fuck it, it’s free cake.” They don’t generally live on in history, because wonky defensive teams get found out by the extremely callo...
Can the Bundesliga ever be competitive again?
I start a lot of these with the phrase, “I knew better.” Whether it’s tuning into Monday Night Raw, or believing in the Carolina Hurricanes, or something else, you say that phrase enough and it becomes clear that, no, I don’t actually know better. I’m just a gullible giblet. ...