The United States men's U-20 team hammered Nicaragua 5-0 on Saturday to advance to the quarterfinals of the Concacaf U-20 Championship in Honduras. Victory over Costa Rica on Tuesday would guarantee passage to the 2023 U-20 World Cup in Indonesia, but the ultimate goal is a win in the semifinals on July 1 to book a place at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Normally at this time, we’d be inundated with soccer 24/7. The men’s World Cup has been held in the summer every four years since 1930, with only two missed dates in the 1940s for World War II. This year, however, we’ve got to wait until November for the World Cup to begin. After a June men’s international window and ahead of a women’s international window, we’re at a bit of a dearth in soccer action around the world.
After naming a 59-player provisional roster just five days ago, USWNT manager Vlatko Andonovski has gone ahead and confirmed his final 23-woman squad for the upcoming Concacaf W Championship in Mexico, which serves as qualifying for the 2023 World Cup and 2024 Olympic Games.
With Women’s World Cup qualifying three weeks away, USWNT players are peaking at the right time. Alex Morgan is unstoppable, Sophia Smith and Mal Pugh are lighting up the scoreboards and Rose Lavelle is literally flying.
United States women's national team midfielder Catarina Macario announced Sunday that she sustained an ACL injury in Lyon's final match of the season.
The injury will keep Macario off the pitch for the USWNT's 2023 World Cup qualifying and Olympic qualifying matches in July.
We're under two months away from the all-important Concacaf U-20 Championship in Honduras, which serves as qualifying for both the 2023 U-20 World Cup in Indonesia and the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
It's going to be a wild tournament with 20 teams competing — the U.S. is in Group E alongside Canada, Cuba and Saint Kitts and Nevis — but only the semifinalists qualify for the World Cup while the Olympic spots are reserved for the two finalists.
Today everybody in Mexico is on the figure skater Donovan Carrillo's bandwagon. But, let's be honest, Mexicans and Latinos, in general, don't give an F about the Winter Olympics.
One relevant piece of data to support this opinion? As of Feb. 11 of 2022, no Latino has ever won a medal in the event. EVER. No gold, no silver, no bronze. That's a massive region in the world with ZERO accomplishments on ice or snow.
There was but one major global international soccer tournament in 2021. For some reason, the coach who inspired an underdog victory in that competition wasn’t deemed worthy by FIFA to even be a finalist for the organization’s FIFA Best Coach of 2021 award. Not that we’re the least bit surprised; we’ve long learned to expect the worst from FIFA.
Perhaps more so than any other type of soccer, international football lends itself to the hero forward who saves the day with a miraculous goal. Whether it’s Pelé dominating the men’s World Cup, Michelle Akers scoring at will at the Women’s World Cup, Landon Donovan’s unforgettable finish against Algeria or Carli Lloyd’s midfield bomb in 2015, there’s something about the international game that loves a star goal scorer.
After a 2020 that was, in many ways, a lost year for international soccer, the U.S. women’s national team went into 2021 with high hopes. The year ended with feelings of missed opportunities and the need for a rethink moving forward less than 20 months away from the next Women’s World Cup.