world Page 69 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Euro 2021: For the last time, is this Belgium’s time?
For European teams, the lack of opportunities to actually win a trophy can muddy the results they do get. There’s only a trophy on offer every two years (when there isn’t a pandemic), and perhaps Spain at the beginning of the last decade altered our perception of what’s success and what isn’t....

How do you solve a problem like Weston McKennie?
There are about 400 lessons that fans could have learned about the U.S. Men’s National team last night. And they spread over the entire spectrum of endless hope of things we’ve never imagined to complete and total disaster we’re sadly all too familiar with. Projecting this team into the future, beca...

U.S. beats Mexico in some combination of soccer, whirlyball, and Fury Road
The CONCACAF Nations League isn’t really supposed to be anything. It’s something of a cheap mockery of Europe’s Nations League, which was really only conjured to get rid of meaningless friendlies in years between major competitions. So, even that’s not really a thing. The CONCACAF version is basical...

Euro 2021: Can Italy score enough to make some serious noise?
While the teeth-gnashing on these shores during the last World Cup were enough to drown out the laments of everyone else in the world, you may have forgotten that a true giant of the international game wasn’t in Russia either. That would be Italy, the first time they didn’t partake in the tournament...

It’s okay to have fun when your team is losing!
For the past few years, Oklahoma State catcher Raquel Dominguez has stepped out of the dugout to dance behind her coach, Kenny Gajewski, during mid-game interviews. She did so again last night during what would become the deciding game of a series against Florida State. Call me crazy, but this is mo...

How many Tampa Bay Lightning players do you think Tom Brady can name?
It’s no big deal if Tom Brady isn’t familiar with anyone on the team, and he was just glad to agree to serve as the Bolts’ “fan captain” for Saturday’s Game 4 against the Carolina Hurricanes. It’s also hilarious to see the big-time Cameo video energy that Brady brought to the table to fire up the Ta...

Eat it, Javy Baez! Here’s a Cinderella-saving squeeze-play, a ‘caught stealing/unassisted/by catcher,’ a dinger hitting a moving freight train & a buzzer beater
No unseeded team had ever won its first two games at the Women’s College World Series, so James Madison’s second straight triumph in Oklahoma City was historic in its own right on Friday night....

Meet MLB’s All-'Never-been an All-Star' Team
Nowadays, it seems like every baseball player under the sun has been an All-Star at some point in their careers. In 2019, there were four AL second basemen selected for the Midsummer Classic. FOUR! In total, there were 75 players awarded All-Star recognition in 2019. In 2018, 73 players were named A...

USMNT knocks off Honduras, but doesn’t look so hot
We USMNT fans have been dreaming for a while about what the team could be with the influx of young stars plying their trade in Europe over the past two years. Problem was, it had been more than 500 days since the national team played a game with anything riding on it, thanks to the pandemic. Can’t k...

The Cleveland Avengers, really?
When a team changes its name, there’s so much potential for creativity. Obviously, there are some aspects that need to be avoided. You don’t want to pick a name that will marginalize or stereotype any groups. You also want to choose something that represents the city, state, or area you’re playing f...

Will we actually see an NBA Finals without LeBron?
We might be in store for something very rare in the NBA — a Finals that doesn’t include LeBron James. With the Lakers down 3-2 to the Phoenix Suns, the possibility is becoming more and more likely that the defending champs won’t make it out of the first round. Not seeing Lebron making a deep playoff...

How is Brazil the better choice for Copa America?
You may be getting your large-sporting-events-that-shouldn’t-be-taking-place confused, and it would be understandable. There’s the Olympics, which just lost 10,000 volunteers, is in a state of emergency, and yet welcoming thousands of athletes from 200 countries — doesn’t seem all that sharp. There’...

Bob Brenly has always been a turd
This story can be done pretty much every season, and it’s so fucking tired, but yet you can’t help but be surprised at its regularity. Bob Brenly complains about modern baseball in a not-all-that-vaguely racist way. Last night’s target was Marcus Stroman:...

I enjoy whatever sport it is Damian Lillard plays
Back when I was in school in Boston in the pre-2004 days (yeah, I’m that fucking old and I don’t need you to remind me), I used to joke with the Red Sox fans in my circle that somehow the fact that the Sox lost the 1975 World Series had been erased from the record books thanks to Carlton Fisk’s home...

MLB’s first entry into NFT craze – Lou Gehrig's speech – doesn’t pass the smell test
Add “non-fungible” to the list of words that define 2021....

Hey, Knicks fans: At least you’re not the Maple Leafs
How bad was the Toronto Maple Leafs’ collapse? It’s better to be a Knicks fan right now....

Christian Pulisic just made American men’s soccer history — in Europe’s Champions League final
American men’s soccer remains, even with all the growth of Major League Soccer and the rise in popularity of the sport, very much a sleeping giant on the world stage....

Deadspin's AEW 'Double Or Nothing' preview
Sadly, for the second straight year, AEW will not run Double Or Nothing in Las Vegas but in Jacksonville, Fla. I say that because I had tickets in 2020, and a Vegas weekend with the great wrestling unwashed sure would hit the spot right about now. Oh well! They say this one will have a full house at...

Great job, Japan… FIFA… IOC… y’all really just nailed everyone’s mood
The latest wave of COVID-19 appears to be ebbing in Japan, but on Friday the country still extended the state of emergency for many areas, and “pre-emergency measures” for other prefectures, including Chiba, just outside of Tokyo....

This is the Jimmy Butler I remember
The Bucks-Heat series was supposed to be one of the most intriguing of the first round. Last year’s Eastern Conference champ, going up against a Bucks team that, if they were to spit it early for the second straight year, could be facing some kind of organizational overhaul. There was the added spic...