This Stanford women's soccer team is not to be trifled with this season.
The No. 1 Cardinal put together the most dominating performance in the history of the NCAA women’s soccer tournament, thrashing Prairie View A&M 15-0 on Friday night in Stanford, California.
FINAL | Not a typo.
: 15
: 0#GoStanford pic.twitter.com/1MLTvjCUh4
It was a must-win match against a neighboring rival, one that had just thwomped the Americans a month earlier. And it kicked off with a half-empty stadium — and that’s being generous. The USMNT vs Canada attendance was shockingly sparse on Friday night in Orlando, Florida.
Landon Donovan has secured his first head coaching job at the tender age of 37. And he’s hiring plenty of smart women to help him out.
A day after Zlatan Ibrahimovic, another aging former LA Galaxy forward, announced he’s leaving MLS to play in Europe, Donovan was announced as the head coach for the expansion USL club San Diego Loyal SC.
It's no secret that David Beckham has been going after Edinson Cavani's signature for Major League Soccer expansion side Inter Miami CF, but it's now being reported that the LA Galaxy are trying to make a last-minute move for the Uruguayan striker.
When former USMNT manager Jürgen Klinsmann labelled the newfangled CONCACAF Nations League a “waste of time” back in October (rich enough coming from a coach that inspired his team to defeats against Mexico, Costa Rica and Guatemala by a combined scoreline of 8-1 during 2018 World Cup qualifying), it was easy to grasp the German’s point: If you limit the amount of big matches you have against quality opponents, you limit your growth.
I’ll be honest. I follow MLS pretty closely, and months will go by where I forget the Montreal Impact even exist as a club. That will change with the appointment of Thierry Henry as the club’s new head coach.
There are 334 NCAA Division I women’s soccer programs in the United States and they are all eligible to qualify for the annual NCAA Women’s Soccer Tournament (College Cup), meaning that about 8,300 women’s soccer student-athletes across the nation are fighting to help their team be declared the best program in the nation.
The tournament selection process allows for 64 teams in the field, comprised of 28 conference tournament winners, three regular season conference champions and 33 at-large bids.
Zlatan Ibrahimović has announced his departure from the LA Galaxy following the expiration of his contract in MLS. Ibrahimović took to Twitter to inform America that he came, he saw, he conquered — and then he instructed us all to go back to watching baseball.
Reporter Lindsay Gibbs has a great newsletter called Power Plays and I highly recommend you subscribe. A self-proclaimed “no-bullshit newsletter about sexism in sports,” Gibbs supplies a great look at inequality in sports, often focusing on soccer, sent directly to your inbox.
It’s happening with increasing swiftness: Spain’s golden generation is tiki-takaing out of existence. The latest to announce his retirement from the game is 37-year-old striker David Villa, who’ll call it quits in either December or January (depending on if Vissel Kobe can reach the final of the Emperor’s Cup).
Villa was a monster for Valencia, Barcelona, Sporting Gijón, Zaragoza and New York City FC, as well as the Spanish national team — although injury conspired against him for some of his generation’s finest moments.