Zambia’s women’s soccer team was supposed to be the feel-good story of the tournament. The team shocked Cameroon to get to Tokyo, came to the tournament with nothing to lose and have a striker who was a sprinter in the 2008 Olympics. The fun ended rather quickly when the World Cup runner-up Netherlands torched the Copper Queens 10-3 on Wednesday.
Hany Mukhtar recorded the fastest hat trick in MLS history and Nashville SC extended their home unbeaten streak to 11 games with a 5-1 victory over the visiting Chicago Fire on Saturday night.
Mukhtar tallied all three goals in the first 16 minutes.
Mukhtar, who entered with a team-leading four goals, took advantage of breakdowns on Chicago's back end to open the scoring in the 10th minute, and he came through again three minutes later.
As the world heals from the pandemic, pick-up matches are on their way back as well. Pick-up matches exemplify all the best parts of soccer: intense rivalries, healthy competition and the opportunity to sharpen your skills.
FC Barcelona Femení continued its monstrous season with a casual 8-0 victory against Athletic Club on Wednesday. This was the sixth time this season that Barcelona scored seven or more goals in a single game.
This Barcelona team is putting up statistics unheard of in the soccer sphere. After 27 league games, the Catalan side has won all 27, scored 136 goals and conceded five. Those are like video game numbers put up by an expert gamer who put the difficulty setting on amateur.
MUNICH - Bayern Munich celebrated their record-extending ninth consecutive Bundesliga title on Saturday with a 6-0 demolition of Borussia Mönchengladbach and a hat-trick from Robert Lewandowski, who edged closer to a 49-year-old scoring record.
The champions had sealed the title before kickoff following RB Leipzig's 3-2 defeat at Borussia Dortmund earlier on Saturday.
Chicharito anda dulce. A los dos goles que convirtió en la primera semana de la MLS, ante el Inter Miami, ahora sumó un hat-trick para la victoria 3-2 de LA Galaxy sobre New York Red Bulls. Yep, cinco conquistas en dos partidos. Una cifra colosal, que esconde bajo la alfombra su horrendo 2020 y que comienza a tapar las bocas de aquellos que no daban un peso por el goleador mexicano. Incluido quien escribe.
Javier "Chicharito" Hernández scored three goals in the opening 60 minutes as the Los Angeles Galaxy earned a 3-2 victory Sunday over the visiting New York Red Bulls to become the only two-win team in MLS two weeks into the season.
It was the second consecutive multi-goal game for Chicharito, who scored just two goals the entire 2020 season for the Galaxy.
Andrew Gutman and Cristian Cásseres Jr. scored goals for the Red Bulls, who are the only Eastern Conference team to lose each of their first two games.
ISTANBUL - Veteran captain Burak Yılmaz netted a hat-trick as Turkey saw off a late rally from the Netherlands to secure a 4-2 home victory on Wednesday at the start of their World Cup qualifying campaign.
Yılmaz opened the scoring in the 14th minute of the Group G match with a deflected shot followed by a penalty 20 minutes later at Istanbul's Atatürk Olympic Stadium to put the Turks 2-0 up at halftime.
When listening to people discuss the merits of the U.S. U-23 side on a player-by-player basis, it’s interesting to take note of this particular ilk of big-brained soccer ‘splainer as nothing more than a snake oil salesman well-versed in misleading radar plots.
What I can tell you for sure is that they don’t know the strengths and weaknesses of 19-year-old João "Johnny" Lucas de Souza Cardoso, they don’t spend much time watching Internacional in the Brasileiro and their sage words of advice for Jason Kreis are worth even less than their 8K Twitter followers.