In a little over a year, the United States has witnessed some truly awful results under the leadership of Jurgen Klinsmann, but the back-to-back defeats to Jamaica and Panama to end a poor 2015 Gold Cup, defeat to Mexico at the 2015 CONCACAF Cup and historic 2-0 loss to Guatemala in the fourth round of World Cup qualifying all pale in comparison to Tuesday night’s capitulation in San Jose, Costa Rica.
As international football heaves its bloated corpse over the horizon of our collective attentions, trying to find any kernel of interest becomes increasingly tough. Because of this, we have the British Isles wrestling with the political absurdity of trying to cram as many poppies as possible into one fixture, Lionel Messi hoping that colouring in his tattoos will help Argentina win in Brazil, someone called Radamel Falcao starting to scoring goals again and a certain section of North London declaring war on the sovereign state of Chile due to the possibility of one man’s muscle tear.
Having represented Spain 100 times and having appeared for Barcelona in almost 600 matches, center back Carles Puyol squared off against some of the world’s greatest players in a senior career that ran from 1999 to 2014.
The three-time UEFA Champions League winner and 2010 FIFA World Cup champion was himself on UEFA’s Team of the Year on six different occasions, so there’s probably no better judge of talent than Puyol himself.
Thomas Muller’s incredible return of 32 goals from 49 matches in all competitions for Bayern Munich last season had many prognosticators envisioning a brilliant Euro 2016 campaign for the German attacker. However, Muller’s inability to score and poor form throughout Germany’s six matches made him one of the tournament’s biggest disappointments.
While Muller has scored braces against Norway and the Czech Republic in World Cup qualifying, he hasn’t yet managed a goal in the Bundesliga, a drought that’s now surpassed over 500 minutes of football.
The USA suffered their first home World Cup qualifying defeat since 2001 on Friday night, losing 2-1 to Mexico in Columbus for the opening game of the Hex.
Coach Jurgen Klinsmann made unexpected changes coming into the game. He sent out a 3-5-2 formation instead of the usual 4-4-2, causing some players to play out of their positions. The new formation had three center backs in defense with Matt Besler, John Brooks and Omar Gonzalez.
I don't know anything. This was clearly demonstrated to me today when a friend told me to check out Portugal's mannequin challenge. First off, I had no idea how to spell mannequin, and I thought I was on top of my spelling. This isn't an auspicious beginning.
Second, what the hell is the mannequin challenge? I guess the video will explain that. I hope it's funny.
The FIFA World Rankings have long since been a point of contention among football fans, mainly because they just don't seem to add up. As opposed to sports like rugby or tennis where they seem logical, it honestly feels as if the FIFA pick names out of a hat and decide teams' positions o that basis.
The Unofficial Football World Championships (UFWC) are a beautiful anomaly in the world’s game. While world and continental champions are officially determined by the corresponding, internationally sanctioned tournaments, what if the world champion was instead determined using a knock-out system like the one used in boxing? That’s exactly what the UFWC set out to do in 2003, spearheaded by freelance journalist and author Paul Brown.
Rafa Marquez, in his 13th appearance against the United States, Rafa Marquez, the scorn of American soccer dating back to to his mid-air head butt on Cobi Jones at the 2002 World Cup, Rafa Marquez, the captain on his international swan song, Rafa Marquez. That's all you need to know: Rafa Marquez.