worldcup Page 30 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Slightly Defective Museum Cat Clearly The Animal To Beat In Predicting The World Cup
We are just 12 weeks away from some soccer games, but more importantly we are just 12 weeks away from a bunch of animals picking the winners of those soccer games. Following in the footsteps of Paul the octopus and Clam the psychic clam, a veritable menagerie of clairvoyant creatures are preparing t...

FIFA Agrees To Infect This Summer's World Cup With Video Replay
We’ve made the case time and again for why VAR, soccer’s video replay system, sucks ass. Apparently our cries for sanity have fallen on deaf ears, because reports say the chuckleheads at FIFA have just agreed to inflict VAR upon the upcoming World Cup in Russia....

U.S. Soccer May Host The World Crap Next Summer
The U.S. men’s national team lost to Trinidad and Tobago in its final qualifying game last month, and won’t play in the World Cup for the first time since 1986. But the U.S. won’t be the only big country missing out on Russia 2018. ...

Christian Pulisic And The USMNT Are Destroying Panama
The USMNT needed to whoop on Panama tonight, and they got off to a thrilling start, unzipping the Panamanian defense twice in the first 20 minutes and adding a penalty right before halftime. The entire first half was a thrilling affair despite the soggy Orlando pitch, and there could have been at le...

U.S./Mexico/Canada World Cup Bid Cuts Host City List To 32
On the same day that Brazilian federal police made early-morning corruption arrests of three Olympic committee executives, including the head of the Rio 2016 Committee—a good reminder that people do financially benefit from hosting major international sporting events, just never the people that are ...

Look At This Big Dumb World Cup Stadium
Soccer fans who travel to see some hot World Cup action next summer in Yekaterinburg, the easternmost of Russia’s 11 host cities, will not only get to watch soccer from inside a stadium, they’ll also simultaneously get to watch soccer from outside the very same stadium, thanks to some creative const...

The USMNT Can't Afford To Lose
The United States Men’s National Team has two games left in CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying, two games against teams that, by all accounts, the USMNT should not have any problems dispatching. Trinidad & Tobago have gotten owned more or less nonstop throughout the Hex, and Panama were lousy enough to l...

South American World Cup Qualifying Is Dope As Hell
For most of the world’s elite national teams, qualifying for the World Cup is a charade. Sure, Spain and Germany and the other powerhouses have to earn their places into the world’s biggest sporting event, but because those countries are so reliably great, they can generally nab their spot without t...

How Qatar Used Its Youth Soccer Academy To Influence The World Cup Bidding Process
The Aspire Academy’s listed mission statement is to “develop well educated sports champions” and “foster Qatar society realizing a healthy, active lifestyle.” The Qatari government founded Aspire in 2003, building a state-of-the-art sports complex in Doha with the aim of identifying and training ath...

FIFA: Computer-Destroying Russian Bid Committee Did Nothing Corrupt
Today brought the release of the 430-page report on World Cup corruption that FIFA fought to keep secret for nearly three years. One section of that report details the FIFA Ethics Committee’s investigation into potential corruption by the Russian bid committee that secured the 2018 World Cup. The re...

The U.S. Looks Like A Lock To Qualify For The 2018 World Cup
The United States Men’s National Soccer Team started out the last round of World Cup qualifiers in the most embarrassing way possible, losing to Mexico at home then getting ripped apart down in Costa Rica. The results were bad, although CONCACAF qualification is generous to say the least, though wha...

Kellyn Acosta, The USMNT's Tenacious Young Midfielder, Is Ready For This
Who will stand beside Michael Bradley in Russia?...

FIFA Makes Completely Meaningless Ethical Stand
The U.S.-led North American bid for the 2026 World Cup earned 93 percent of the 209 votes in FIFA Congress today. In March, the North American soccer federations requested an exclusive window to begin submitting technical specifications, which would give them a head start in the planning process. Bu...

FIFA Continues Its Plot To Ruin The World Cup
Here are some descriptors that come to mind when thinking about the current format of the World Cup, the greatest sporting event on the planet: perfect, simple, just-the-right-size, well-designed, riveting. Here are some words that will soon come to be associated with the World Cup after greedy-ass ...

Messi Says He Didn't Direct Insult At The Referee, But "At The Air"
The best player in the world and slight potty mouth Lionel Messi is appealing the four-match ban that was handed down by FIFA yesterday after he yelled at a referee in Argentina’s 1-0 World Cup qualifier win over Chile last week. Messi says he didn’t direct his insult, “la concha de tu madre,” a com...

Alexis Sanchez Looks Like An Adorable Little Baby In His License Photo
Over the weekend, two days after Chile’s 1-0 World Cup qualifier loss to Argentina and three days before their must-win qualifier against Venezuela, star striker Alexis Sanchez was fined for driving 96 mph (155 kph) near Santiago, Chile, according to Chilean website EMOL. His court date has reported...

Christian Pulisic Is Not The Next Landon Donovan
In the leadup to the U.S. men’s national team’s critical World Cup qualifier tonight against Honduras, the usual and deserved attention has been predictably focused on Christian Pulisic, who, if you somehow still need an introduction, is the young American phenom lighting it up for Borussia Dortmund...

The World Cup Is Probably Expanding To 48 Teams, But That Might Be Okay
The docket at the FIFA governing council’s meeting tomorrow morning in Zurich includes the following items: “Approval of the Media and Marketing Regulations for the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Bahamas 2017”; “Monitoring Committee Israel-Palestine”; as well as “Format of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.”...

Mexico Hands USMNT First Home World Cup Qualifying Loss In 15 Years
The United States Men’s National Team lost to Mexico 2-1 in Columbus, Ohio, tonight, its first loss in World Cup qualifying on home soil since 2001. It was the fifth straight World Cup qualifying cycle the U.S. has opted to take on Mexico in Columbus, and the first time they didn’t win 2-0. Dos a ce...

FIFA Shutters Anti-Racism Task Force, Because There's No More Racism In Soccer
FIFA has chosen to dissolve its anti-racism task force. According to the Associated Press, the organization believes that the committee has “completely fulfilled its temporary mission.”...