National Teams

Northern Ireland's World Cup hopes were all but dashed Thursday as the hosts lost 1-0 to Switzerland in the first leg of their World Cup playoff. The goal came via a Ricardo Rodriguez penalty in the 56th minute. Ricardo Rodriguez should not have scored that goal because a penalty should not have been called. Take a look for yourself:

Taylor Twellman is adamant that this is a penalty and you know what, reader? Taylor Twellman is wrong.

Of the four UEFA World Cup qualifying playoffs, few would have expected this sort of entertainment from the Croatia vs. Greece match. Greece, a team that once turned winning while attacking as little as possible into an art form, were away to a resolute Croatia with its star striker on the bench in what is usually a cagey first leg. But the match was refreshingly exciting. 

For almost an entire year, Argentina’s national team refused to speak with the press. The boycott was the result of a terrible run in qualifying which led to extremely harsh criticism from the media, including an unfounded substantiation that Ezequiel Lavezzi had been dropped for smoking pot after training.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has come through on his promise to make the World Cup bidding process more transparent and open to scrutiny after the fallout following the 2010 vote which saw the 2018 and 2022 World Cups handed to Russia and Qatar. 

On June 13, 2018, 211 member federations and the 38-person FIFA council will decide who’ll win the right to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and all of those votes will be open to public viewing. 

U.S. Soccer has announced the squad called in to play a friendly against Portugal in Leiria on November 14, the USMNT’s first match since the disaster in Trinidad & Tobago. The squad is highlighted by five uncapped players — goalkeeper Jesse Gonzalez (22), defender Cameron Carter-Vickers (19), midfielders Tyler Adams (18) and Weston McKennie (19), and forward Josh Sargent (17).

Between November 9 and November 14, the complete European field for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia will be decided over the course of eight gut-wrenching playoff ties. The two-legged affairs will mark the final cuts in a qualifying marathon that began with 54 hopefuls back on September 4, 2016, and will end with 14 European nations vying for glory next summer.

The United States, Mexico and many other countries across the globe will line up to play some relatively meaningless friendlies next week. They could be some of the last international friendlies if a UEFA-led project comes to fruition and forever reshapes the landscape of international football. 

Mexico are certainly not taking it easy with regards to November’s international window. Friendlies against Belgium and Poland in Brussels and Gdansk represent World Cup warmups against the nations currently ranked fifth and sixth in the world, and their UEFA qualifying campaigns certainly give credence to those high-water marks.