Human Interest

LAHORE, Pakistan — Players from Afghanistan's female youth soccer teams have arrived in Pakistan and will seek political asylum in third countries amid concern over the status of female athletes under the new Taliban government in Kabul.

Some 81 people, including female players of several youth teams, their coaches and family members reached Pakistan through the Torkham border crossing, Umar Zia, a senior Pakistan Football Federation official, said on Wednesday. A further 34 will arrive on Thursday, he said.

The Seville skies opened up to a torrent of rain just before halftime, sending players to the locker room to regroup after an historic first half. The Sevilla-RB Salzburg match set a record for most penalties in a Champions League match — in the first half alone.

Sevilla and RB Salzburg played to a bizarre 1-1 draw on Tuesday in Seville to open Champions League play. The final score will take a back seat to the flood of penalty kicks awarded in the first half, when the referee pointed to the spot four times in the opening 42 minutes.

If there’s one thing you should take away from Season 2 of Ted Lasso, it’s that mental health is of utmost importance. Christen Press probably already knew this, and on Thursday the USWNT forward announced she would be stepping away from the beautiful game to focus on herself.

Heading into Saturday’s football 5-a-side gold medal match at the Summer Paralympics, Brazil took the status of favorite as the gold medal winner at each of the last four tournaments.  

South American rival Argentina, however, had claimed silver once and bronze twice over that period, and boasted Tokyo 2020’s leading scorer in Maximiliano Espinillo, who’d already recorded seven goals in four games.

I can’t tell if José Mourinho is trolling Arsenal’s Granit Xhaka, trying to encourage him to do the right thing or both, but the Mourinho Xhaka comment on Instagram has brought something to my attention I did not expect.

Xhaka tested positive for Covid-19 ahead of the international break, keeping the midfielder out of his Switzerland’s friendly with Greece on Wednesday and putting his availability for World Cup qualifiers against Italy and Northern Ireland into doubt. 

Nike is one of the largest corporations in the world, especially in the sports niche, and recently it has taken a stand to put its employees first. Covid-19 and quarantine greatly impacted many families' and individuals' lives, and the world is still trying to recover from the loss and challenges everyone experienced. Being trapped inside for over a year, the news covering a fluctuation in positive cases and the uncertainty of when the world will go back to normal are all reasons people are struggling in the workplace and even on the pitch. 

Alex Morgan, Becky Sauerbrunn and five other prominent NWSL stars signed on to a letter sent to the U.S. State Department asking the American government expedite the evacuation of Afghan women’s national team players from the country where the Taliban recently took power.