worldcup Page 20 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
COVID could make next FIFA international window a bigger mess than usual
The club vs. country fight is a long and storied one in soccer, with clubs always more than a little peeved about releasing the players they’re paying millions to travel to different training schedules and medical staffs, for games they aren’t compensated for. Players getting hurt on national team d...
Maradona, the best human to ever do it
When you discuss the greatest to play any sport, there’s definitely a mythical edge to it. Jordan, LeBron, Gretzky, Lemieux, Mantle, Mays, Payton, Sanders, whatever your names are, it always feels like you’re talking about some sort of separate being. Something bestowed upon the Earth, unknowable in...
US Men’s Soccer Team Can Screw Up World Cup Qualifying in a Whole New Way This Time
If you can believe it, World Cup Qualifying in CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) was supposed to have started already. However, with FIFA canceling the spring, summer, and September international windows due to COVID-19, the North American region ...
You Can Cut Off Its Head, But The U.S. Soccer Federation - And The Dudes Running It - Are Still A Bunch Of Snakes
It wasn’t quite a Friday night news dump, but coming in the wake of a pandemic and the world’s first mass-sports suspension, it still made for tidy cover for something slimy to slither out the side door without anyone noticing. Last night, after all North American pro sports leagues were suspending ...
Germany Rose And Fell With Bastian Schweinsteiger
Bastian Schweinsteiger was three different players. The German superstar, who announced his retirement from soccer on Tuesday, is leaving behind one of the most peculiar careers in recent soccer memory. From a wide player breaking into Germany’s 2006 World Cup side, to one of the best and most idios...
The USWNT Put On A Show At Today’s Victory Parade
The United States women’s national soccer team cruised through the World Cup, winning every game all while getting slammed for being too arrogant. They’ve now been celebrating for about three days, including today’s ticker-tape parade through the streets of Manhattan....
USWNT Uses Equal Pay Lawsuit As Confetti For Parade; Allie Long Eats A Page
The World Cup-winning USWNT is currently parading its way through New York City and continuing the bender that began immediately after the women dispatched the Netherlands on Sunday. Today’s highlights include the entire team pounding Ace of Spades at 8:40 a.m., backup goalkeeper and unofficial team...
Here Are The Best Photos From The USWNT's Victory Celebration
Plenty of reactions to the USWNT’s spectacular defense of its World Cup focused on the future—this team’s ability to change the world, influence the next generations, and affect national conversations. While correct, those thoughts also miss a crucial component of the U.S.’s unprecedented fourth-eve...
Megan Rapinoe To Critics Of USWNT Celebrations: "Wah Wah Wah"
The United States Women’s National Team—a squad headed to the World Cup Final this weekend—has spent the duration of the tournament kicking ass and having fun. England—a squad not headed to the World Cup Final—have spent the last week of the tournament wringing their hands over the USWNT’s habit of ...
Nation With Zero Women's World Cups Thinks Defending Champs Are Too Arrogant
The United States women’s national team—three World Cups and four Olympic gold medals to their name—will meet England—zero of either—tomorrow afternoon in Lyon to decide who plays in Sunday’s final, and the English seem rather perturbed with the brimming confidence shown by the Americans. ...
Purple-Haired Lesbian Goddess Flattens France Like A Crêpe
Megan Rapinoe has spent this week enduring Swiss-cheese brained criticism from some powerful haters, but today, after the USWNT’s 2-1 victory over France, there can be no slander against her. Rapinoe scored the first two goals of the game—and the only ones for the U.S.—as she piloted her national te...
Lucy Bronze's Stunning Goal Completes England's Demolition Of Norway
England had themselves a chill afternoon in the quarterfinals against Norway, scoring twice in the first half and once a little later on to beat the Norwegians 3-0 and advance to the semifinals, where they’ll face the winners of Friday’s game between the USWNT and France. But before they worry about...
An Unlucky Handball Sends Japan Out Of The World Cup
An exhilarating World Cup round of 16 rematch between the Netherlands and Japan got decided in favor of the Dutch in the 90th minute, thanks to a penalty kick converted by forward Lieke Martens. The PK gave the Dutch a 2-1 win over the same team that kicked them out of the 2015 World Cup, and it put...
Canada Must Wait Four More Years To Discover What It Might Be Like To Win Big In The World Cup
When former Canadian national team player and current TSN pundit Kaylyn Kyle criticized the USWNT for their goal celebrations during the historic 13-0 win over Thailand by saying, “I think, as a Canadian, we would just never ever think about doing something like that,” it raised the question of whet...
A Pair Of Megan Rapinoe Penalties Sent A Shaky USWNT To The Quarterfinals
It wasn’t the type of breezy victory that defined the USWNT’s run through the group stage, but in their first knockout game of the 2019 World Cup, the U.S. gutted out a tough, unpretty 2-1 victory against Spain in which two Megan Rapinoe penalties outweighed one disastrous defensive mistake....
Here's What Every Member Of The USMNT Has To Say About U.S. Soccer's Wage Inequality
When the United States Women’s National Team takes the field for their World Cup knockout-round game against Spain today, they will try to forget everything else: their personal drama, their fears, their ambitions. Oh, and the gender discrimination lawsuit they filed against U.S. Soccer, the sport’s...
VAR Has One Job, And It's Failing Miserably At It
The most common complaint against VAR—or any form of video review in sports—in one of aesthetics. If referees insist on stopping the game for several minutes to double check every key play, the thinking goes, all the drama and intensity and emotion of the biggest moments will be lost, and the celebr...
The USWNT Got Sweet Revenge, But Now The Real Work Starts
One could mount an argument that the United States’ long-term interests at this here World Cup would have been better served had they thrown their group-stage finale against Sweden yesterday and given themselves an easier path to the final. Let your opponents win Group F and let them deal with the F...
Tobin Heath Declares War On Sweden, Wins
It’s truly a crime that we missed out on 90 minutes of Tobin Heath in the U.S.’s last game against Chile, but today against Sweden, the magical American winger came back with a vengeance. In the 50th minute, Heath’s deadly feet took on an overmatched opponent in Sweden defender Jonna Andersson and o...