soccer Page 42 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
What Do Germany Have To Do To Get Anyone At Home To Pay Attention?
BERLIN — “We play for a nation that doesn’t even know our name.” So begins a video released last month by the German national women’s soccer team, right in time for the start of the Women’s World Cup. Die Nationalelf, two-time World Cup winners and one of the favorites in the tournament, was packing...
Megan Rapinoe Refuses To Apologize For The USWNT's Crime Of Being Happy After Doing Cool Things
The United States beat Thailand by a 13-0 scoreline on Tuesday, setting a new World Cup record for the largest margin of victory. In the process of making history, the USWNT players were pretty happy. Clearly, as certain moral pillars on Canadian and even American TV pointed out, this was a very bad...
Rob Stone Suggests The USWNT Should've Eased Up, Gets Soundly Rejected
The USWNT had just put the finishing touches on the most lopsided beatdown in the history of the World Cup when Fox Sports analyst Rob Stone put his foot into his mouth in the name of sportsmanship....
Every USWNT Goal Against Thailand, Ranked
If you haven’t heard, the United States puréed Thailand by a score of 13-0 in their 2019 Women’s World Cup opening match today. You don’t score 13 goals without at least some of them being nice, so here’s an objectively correct ranking of every goal:...
Here Are All 13 Goals In The USWNT's Obliteration Of Thailand
The USWNT opened its 2019 Women’s World Cup with a match against Thailand. That match has just ended. The final score was 13-0, the most lopsided World Cup scoreline of all time. Here is what scoring 13 goals in a single game looks like:...
Can American Soccer's Salvation Be Found In The Streets?
Every Wednesday after the snow disappears, the message goes out: Who can play soccer this week? “Want” appears nowhere in the question; it’s assumed that everyone is desperate to get out and play. A poll in a private Facebook group gauges how many people can show up. Only 16 can play at a time, as 8...
Thailand's World Cup Hopes Could Hinge On Not Getting Stomped By The USWNT
In a few hours’ time, barring a sequence of events so improbable as to not even merit serious concern, the USWNT will have easily beaten Thailand in the two countries’ opening 2019 Women’s World Cup match. The extent of that essentially guaranteed result—as in, whether the U.S.’s impending victory l...
The USWNT Is Better Than Ever, But So Is Everyone Else
The United States enter the World Cup as the best in the world, the team with the most top-to-bottom talent, and the reigning champions. They also enter the tournament facing the toughest field in the competition’s history, and though they have improved over the last four years in key places, they a...
Sweden Will Live Or Die By Their Conservative Philosophy
The most famous United States result since the win in the 2015 World Cup final happened in Brazil in the summer of 2016. It was the Summer Olympics, and Sweden turtled up to frustrate the Americans in the quarterfinals, grinding out a 35 percent-possession 1-1 draw before winning on penalties. It’s ...
The Netherlands Had To Score A Supremely Stupid Goal To Beat New Zealand
This is why you do not commit to defending for 70 percent of a match. Late in an exciting 0-0 deadlock, New Zealand was managing to hold off the vaunted Netherlands attack through a combination of parking the bus, some nifty goalkeeping from Erin Nayler, and solid individual showcases from center ba...
The Netherlands Are The Most Fierce And Wild-Eyed Of All The World Cup Dark Horses
There’s a tier below the highest level of Women’s World Cup contenders, and that second tier is the most interesting in the tournament. The top teams are known quantities. It’s pretty easy to figure out how and how well the United States, France, Germany, maybe even England will play. Once you get b...
New Zealand Have Gone Through Hell, And Now They're Back To Being Mediocre
New Zealand are the cockroaches of women’s international soccer—they’re always around. By virtue of playing in limp-ass Oceania and therefore having the luxury to qualify for the biggest tournaments simply by beating up on the even tinier nations around them, New Zealand essentially get free admissi...
Hope Solo Says USWNT Coach Jill Ellis Is A Bad Leader Who Can't Handle Pressure
Days before the United States women’s national team begins their World Cup defense, Hope Solo has stirred up some drama. The former USWNT goalkeeper joined the BBC’s Football Daily podcast over the weekend to discuss her former team’s chances, and when asked about coach Jill Ellis’s lineups, she sai...
Cameroon, The Cinderellas Of The Last World Cup, Are Back For Another Dance
A side effect of women’s soccer being so discouraged and underfunded in most every part of the world is that only rarely do we see many true upsets or surprises. The traditional powers usually have such enormous structural advantages, and have had them for so long, that they almost always win, and w...
Canada Will Try (And Probably Fail) To Win It All For Christine Sinclair
Christine Sinclair is still doing it. By the time Canada play their second game at the 2019 World Cup, their captain will be 36 years old, and she will still be the team’s most important player. Sitting just three career goals away from tying Abby Wambach’s international record of 184, the legendary...
Commissioner For A Day: Let’s Have More Indirect Free Kicks In The Box
One quirk of soccer is that the rules of the game change when the ball is in the box. Not massively, but in one small and crucial way: Because a foul in the box is punished with a penalty, things that would be fouls anywhere else on the field are occasionally just not called in the box....
Scotland Can Become Stars In Their First Performance On The Big Stage
Most countries making their debut in a tournament like the World Cup are just happy to be there. Implied in a country making it to its first major tournament is that the country in the very recent past was not very good, and its soccer infrastructure is at an incredibly early stage of its developmen...
Argentina Are Just Happy To Be Here
Argentina are not very good. It’s important to get that out of the way early. Due to a host of factors not entirely in the team’s control—particularly the fact that they have only been playing together for about a year due to federation turmoil—the Albicelestes head into France with more questions t...
Japan Arrive At The World Cup With A New Look And Something To Prove
The USA’s top nemesis in the Women’s World Cup comes into 2019 with plenty of questions to answer, despite winning it all in 2011 and placing second in 2015. A disastrous failure to qualify for the 2016 Olympics ended the eight-year tenure of Japanese manager Norio Sasaki, and as Japan enter their f...
After Coming Agonizingly Close To World Cup Glory Last Time, England Are Back And Better Than Ever
There’s probably no team with more regret over the 2015 World Cup than England. The Lionesses were knocked out in Canada four years ago by Japan via a cruel 92nd minute own goal by defender Laura Bassett, who sliced a clearance into her own net. That was the painful end to a World Cup where England ...