Cristiano Ronaldo won’t be forced to play in the Europa League next season. Juventus hammered Bologna 4-1 on the final day of the Serie A campaign on Sunday. Combined with Napoli’s 1-1 draw with Hellas Verona, the Old Lady was catapulted into fourth place to claim the final Champions League berth.
The heat has arrived in the city of Chicago, and so has a much-needed victory. The Chicago Fire defeated Inter Miami at home by a score of 1-0 on Saturday at a lively Soldier Field, which had a crowd of 10,844 in attendance for the game, beating their previous home match numbers against the Philadelphia Union by nearly double.
Needing a win to be absolutely sure of being one of four Premier League Champions League qualifiers, Chelsea was garbage against Aston Villa on Sunday. But thanks to London rival Tottenham, the Blues clinched UCL qualification, backing into the top four to ensure Christian Pulisic will return to Europe’s premier club competition next season.
The 2020-21 season was a banner year for Americans abroad. USMNT players have been winning trophies all over Europe, including regulars at Barcelona, Juventus and Borussia Dortmund; in a week, we’ll see an American win the Champions League for either Chelsea or Manchester City. But Saturday was not a great day for keeping U.S. internationals in Europe’s top flights, with a number of Americans relegated to lower tiers or unable to gain promotion.
EIBAR — An acrobatic late strike from Antoine Griezmann saw Barcelona confirm their third-place finish in LaLiga on Saturday, as they crept past already relegated Eibar 1-0 in their last match of the season.
They end the campaign on 79 points, seven behind champion Atletico Madrid and five off second-placed Real Madrid.
"We didn't do the business in important games this season," matchwinner Griezmann said.
Paul Riley is the most successful head coach in National Women’s Soccer League history. With three championships and three more NWSL Shields, the opinion of the Liverpool native carries a lot of weight in women’s soccer. And his opinion on the differences between his current league and the top flight in England highlight how far the FA Women’s Super League still has to go.
Juventus claimed the 2020-21 Coppa Italia 2-1 with a commanding second-half display against Atalanta at the Mapei Stadium on Wednesday night. Dejan Kulusevski put Juve in front after receiving the ball from Weston McKennie, but Ruslan Malinovskiy answered for La Dea — seeking its first major title since the 1963 Coppa — setting the stage for Federico Chiesa’s excellent second-half winner.
4,300 fans were allowed into the stadium in northern Italy, amounting to the country’s largest attendance since the pandemic began.
The Covid-19 pandemic had many sporting casualties in 2020. While nothing compares to the immense (and ongoing) loss of life, U.S. soccer fans were denied the opportunity to pay NFL-level prices to watch preseason friendlies between indifferent European clubs in the International Champions Cup. Similarly, the less-promoted but far-more-interesting Women’s International Champions Cup was canceled in 2020.
In 2018 the soccer fans of Columbus banded together to achieve an incredible feat and prevented their beloved Crew from being moved to Austin, Texas. The #SaveTheCrew movement demonstrated the power of Major League Soccer fans, especially in Columbus.
Has an American player won the Champions League? Yes. (Come May 29, 2021.)
It hadn’t happened before (although Ali Krieger, Gina Lewandowski and Alex Morgan have won the UWCL), but with Christian Pulisic’s Chelsea playing Zack Steffen’s Manchester City in the 2020-21 Champions League Final, the answer to that question is now a foregone conclusion.
There will obviously be some hotshots among us who’ll question the contributions of the USMNT stars. Steffen is Ederson’s understudy and only started City’s final group match against Marseille, keeping a clean sheet.