united-states-soccer-federation Page 1 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
This week in the locker March 09, 2024
We realize the enormity of saying “the most CONCACAF game ever,” as this particular region of the soccer world is literally where people throw ducks at balloons and nothing is the way it seems. Just about anything can happen when the North and Central American Federation is in charge, and boy did it...
What do the A's & Sydney Opera House have in common?; No winners in Russell Wilson's war; USWNT's CONCACAF madness
Leave it to the A’s and John Fisher to be three months late on the renderings for a ballpark that still feels like it has a better chance of being built in Narnia than it does in Vegas, and then to have it leak out a day after they meant it to: - Sam Fels Read More...
USWNT win the most CONCACAF game ever
We realize the enormity of saying “the most CONCACAF game ever,” as this particular region of the soccer world is literally where people throw ducks at balloons and nothing is the way it seems. Just about anything can happen when the North and Central American Federation is in charge, and boy did it...
MLB uniform controversy; Scott Boras finally succeeds; Trouble brewing for USWNT?
While see-through pants have been the talk of spring training so far, that might not matter as much to fans (at least non-evangelical ones, Woe to Cardinals Nation), as fans don’t tend to want to buy the pants the players are wearing. Maybe you’ve got use for baseball pants in your everyday life, an...
Is trouble brewing for the USWNT?
It’s been mostly quiet on the Western front for the USWNT since last summer’s World Cup full-body dry heave. A couple of friendlies to send off legends, a couple more to close out the year with no stakes, and an easy start to the Women’s Gold Cup last week with resounding wins over the Dominican Rep...
John Fisher might not have the money to move the A’s to Vegas
There’s generally little hope for fans when it’s already been announced that their team will move to another city. That hope evaporates more when a league approves it, as MLB has done with the A’s move to Vegas. And yet, there’s always a sliver of light that can’t be extinguished when an owner is so...
It’s fun to watch MLS get smacked down
We get pretty used to sports leagues doing whatever they want, and whatever they want is usually not in any interest of the fans. It’s almost always about control and profit, which runs in direct opposition to fans’ desire to see competition, accessibility and the game we remember that got us all he...
USMNT gets an OK Copa America draw
Every tournament draw show is just about the biggest, “This could have been an email” event on the planet. Yes, the World Cup, Copa America or the Euros only come around every four years so they want to stress their significance by having as much pomp as they can. But anyone watching the Copa Americ...
From Christian Pulisic to Gio Reyna, we rank the US men's soccer team
Chaos is a ladder, said Lord Baelish. Especially when it comes to international soccer, where injuries, manager changes — both with country and club — a bad transfer or run of form can shift a player’s standing with his national team within a week or two. Getting together only every month or longer ...
The USMNT shows mettle, and a lack of depth
The scoresheet will say that the USMNT got a 3-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago. And because it’s the Nations League, and more importantly the qualifying round for next summer’s Copa America, the result lords over all. Manager Gregg Berhalter will probably say something about the patience and fortitud...
Here is what we kind of learned from the USMNT’s week
As we and many others stress, international friendlies are weird. Especially when everyone has to fly over from Europe for two games that don’t count for anything while trying to not get hurt. And for the USMNT, there weren’t really too many players trying to carve out a role, or a bigger role, with...
USWNT captain Lindsey Horan said the quiet part out loud
It started to percolate during the latest Summer Olympics, delayed a year to 2021 because of the pandemic. The United States women’s national team — the former two-time-defending World Cup champions — not only looked vulnerable, but they also appeared average. Not average for the Stars and Stripes —...
Vlatko Andonovski was bad at a very tough job
If one didn’t want to kick dirt on Vlatko Andonovski as he recedes from the USWNT manager job, and kicking dirt is kind of what we do around here, it would be wise to point out the size of the task he was faced with. He took over a team that had won two World Cups on the spin, so there was really no...
The continuing adventures of Angel Hernandez, Leo Messi is doing that thing again, and charter flights in women’s sports rears its ugly head
If you haven’t been following the touring artist exhibition that is Angel Hernandez attempting to call balls and strikes, or simply trying to disprove the utility of rules and conventions in society at all, in various Major League parks this summer, you’re missing one of the truly great examples of ...
The USWNT is extraordinary — don't pretend otherwise
Neither the US Women’s National soccer team’s past glory in Megan Rapinoe, nor its future in young phenom Sophia Smith, could defeat Sweden in the present. Both players skipped penalty kicks high over the goal after a 0-0 tie in regulation, clear misses of the target altogether, in a 1-0 loss that w...
The USWNT exits the World Cup on the cruelest margin
The symbolism of the final moment can’t be shoved off. The USWNT’s Alyssa Naeher can’t do much more to keep the final penalty out. But sometimes…the bear eats you....
Has the rest of the world finally caught up to the U.S. Women's soccer team?
For those used to the United States women’s national team dominating the globe, this edition of the Women’s World Cup has come as a shock. Those who don’t tune in every four years expected turbulence, but the level of bumps and lumps the Americans have taken in Australia and New Zealand has already ...
World Cup Diary Day 13: The Dutch and English show the USWNT what good soccer looks like
Running simultaneously with the United States’ infuriating performance against Portugal was just as disappointing of a game for the Vietnamese. The only difference? The United States are the two-time-defending World Cup champions and little was expected of Vietnam on the global stage. The Netherland...
Former USWNT star Carli Lloyd is never hesitant to remind everyone she was the star
The bane of sports analysis, especially when it comes to soccer in a nation that has become too mature in its fandom of the sport to accept this kind of drivel, is to default to claiming something unquantifiable as the reason a team won and a team lost. “Wanted it more” is a phrase you hear all too ...
Women's World Cup 2023: The USWNT isn't a championship squad
Portugal’s headed home looking happy. The flight back to Lisbon should be filled with post-elimination joy and realizations of long-term progress knowing how they held the former undisputed world champions in check. And that’s all you need to know about how the United States women’s national team pe...