spain Page 5 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

French Media Calls In Body Language Expert To Divine Ronaldo's Secret Intentions
Every couple years, the European media works itself into a bubbly froth about Cristiano Ronaldo’s future. We’re now in the thick of yet another foamy period, and perhaps because his departure might actually be imminent this time, the papers are going to absurd lengths to search for clues....

Ref Chosen For <i>El Clásico</i> Claims He Was Ordered To Favor Real Madrid
A Spanish referee has filed a complaint with local police, claiming that upon notice that he was to be selected as the line judge in next month’s Real Madrid-Barcelona match, his bosses made it clear that he was to make decisions in favor of the Madrid club....

Spain Files Legal Appeal Against Qatar's Winter World Cup
Before Swiss agents rolled up on Zurich’s Baur au Lac hotel, snatched a handful of top FIFA execs, and put in motion the series of events that would culminate in their president’s resignation, soccer’s governing body seemed pretty much omnipotent. That day has changed, thankfully, and people are mak...

Spain's Women's Team Is A Catastrophe, And It Doesn't Need To Be
In the week since the players for the Spanish women’s national team released their open letter requesting the firing of manager Ignacio Quereda, more and more has come to light about just how officious and reprehensible his leadership has been over the entirety of his 27 years in charge....

Spain Players Call Out Poor WWC Preparation, Request Manager's Firing
There’s no better proof of Spain’s lack of respect for women’s soccer than the continued employment of head coach Ignacio Quereda. Despite never qualifying for the Olympics, never qualifying for the World Cup prior to this one, and only even making it to the Euro Championship finals twice in 27 year...

Spain's Goalkeeper Mortified After Giving Up World Cup-Ending Goal
Yeah, that has to suck....

Women's World Cup Group E Preview: Oodles Of Attacking Midfielders
Here’s everything you need to know about Group E....

It's Their First World Cup, But Don't Count Spain Out Just Yet
Among World Cup teams, Spain are an anomaly; a debutant with the potential to advance deep in the tournament, or at least to knock off a heavyweight. If you are surprised that a country with as rich of a soccer heritage as Spain has never before qualified for the World Cup, well, let me introduce yo...

Italian Paper Alleges FIFA Used Corrupt Refs To Fix 2002 World Cup Games
The 2002 World Cup hosted jointly by South Korea and Japan was already infamous for its horrendous refereeing, most notably two knockout stage match-ups involving South Korea. Today, one Italian paper has linked what was widely believed to be match-fixing behavior back then to this current FIFA scan...

What Horrible Things Did We Do To Our Penises Last Year?
Consider this the crotch-clenching companion piece to our annual look at American insertion: a collection of the worst penis-related mishaps to befall our great nation last year....

What Did We Get Stuck In Our Rectums Last Year?
It is time for a Deadspin holiday tradition like no other: our annual trawl of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's database of emergency room visits to discover the strangest, unlikeliest, and most awkwardly shaped objects America inappropriately shoved into its various holes. God bless us...

Meet <em>Marca</em>, The Hilarious Propaganda Arm Of Real Madrid
It's maybe a little difficult for Americans to grasp just how deeply and blatantly in the tank the European press can be for the local XI. And no one is deeper and more blatantly in the tank for the local XI than the media in Spain, where the local XI means either Barcelona and Real Madrid and where...

Chelsea And Spain Are Locked In A Dumb War Neither Can Win
Even by the standards of dick-measuring contests, the one ongoing between Chelsea and the Spanish national team has been awful for months. At some point, though, this sort of thing stops being merely dumb and threatens to become actually harmful to the players each side should be trying to protect—a...

El Clásico Fandom Map: Who Ya Got, Earth?
Just in time for tomorrow's match, Facebook has released its El Clásico fandom map of the world (minus China). The red nations support Barcelona, the white ones Real Madrid. If the two blocs went to war, it'd be a blowout....

Diego Costa's Targeting System Is On The Fritz
Diego Costa's scored nine goals so far this year for Chelsea, but has yet to find the net for his adoptive country of Spain. He had the perfect opportunity to do it against Luxembourg at today's Euro 2016 qualifier, but somehow put the ball, uh, really wide of the target. Blame it on server lag....

No, Of Course Barcelona Aren't Getting Kicked Out Of La Liga
The Associated Press is reporting that Catalan clubs like Barcelona, Espanyol could be barred from playing Spain's La Liga sooner rather than later. Sure, that's true, whatever. On the other hand, c'mon....

Bill Hillmann: I Got Gored By A Fucking Bull
On Wednesday, Bill Hillmann was gored while running with the bulls in Pamplona. A journalist, novelist, and former boxer, Bill and I have known each other since our time at Columbia College Chicago, where even then he was recognized for his frontline reportage, some of which has since appeared aro...

Defending World Cup Champions Are Screwed if They're Old
With Spain out in the group stage this year, there will be no repeat champion in Brazil. Do any of the remaining four teams stand a good chance of repeating? The Economist compared the average ages of defending World Cup champions and found younger teams tend to do better. ...

Alfredo Di Stéfano Could Wallop With The Best Of 'Em
It's unfortunate that it can take a great player's death for us to go back and really appreciate what a talent like Alfredo Di Stéfano brought to the sport. That's especially so in America, where the popular notion of soccer involves Brits inventing the game, Pelé and Brazil mastering it, us continu...

But Spain Were Dead Already
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