For Argentina, a nightmarish World Cup qualifying campaign somehow managed to grow worse outside of an international break. In early September, Bolivia had managed to gain an unlikely 0-0 draw with Chile and a 3-0 victory over Peru in CONMEBOL qualifying. However, FIFA have ruled that Bolivia fielded an ineligible player in both matches, defender Nelson Cabrera, resulting in automatic 3-0 wins for both Chile and Peru.
Mexico has previously stated its desire to host the 2026 World Cup, a tournament that will almost certainly be given to the CONCACAF region, but now it's getting serious.
Following CAF in 2010 (South Africa), CONMEBOL in 2014 (Brazil), UEFA in 2018 (Russia) and AFC in 2022 (Qatar), FIFA has all but promised the tournament to North America.
Mortada Mansour is the chairman of Egyptian club Zamalek, and he doesn't like the way his boys were beaten in the African Champions League final by Mamelodi Sundowns. Frankly, he smells a rat.
Monsour, per the Guardian, said this after the match:
“Is it natural to waste 18 chances in front of goal? Things were obviously not normal and there was magic and sorcery involved.”
Two years ago, the Netherlands were coming off a summer that saw them reach the World Cup semifinals but lose to Argentina in penalty kicks. The main cog in their success was 30-year-old Arjen Robben, who was arguably the player of the tournament — that’s an important admission coming from an Argentine like myself.
Robben was untouchable all tournament with defenders grasping at air as he waltzed by them constantly. He racked up three goals and an assist and nearly got the Dutch to their second straight World Cup final on his back.
Is there a diversity problem in women’s soccer? As other sports have made strides to include players of all ethnicities, most youth, college and professional women’s soccer teams in the USA are still mainly comprised of white players.
This lack of diversity has led organizations to try and overcome the problem, and over the past few years, strides have been made to make the sport more inclusive, but it just doesn’t seem to have come far enough.
Barriers To Diversity
Dubbed the "Teenage Terminator", 19-year-old Renato Sanches is a savage. The youngest player to ever win the European Championships and the Euro 2016 Young Player of the Tournament, Sanches’ 2015-16 began with the Benfica B squad but ended with a transfer to Bayern Munich that could end up costing the Bavarian side as much as €80 million.
Sanches added another accolade to his growing trophy cabinet on Monday, winning the 2016 Golden Boy award ahead of Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford and Munich teammate Kingsley Coman.
USWNT debutants are scoring so fast we can't even keep up.
Remember on Wednesday when Lynn Williams scored 49 seconds into her debut broke the USWNT record for fastest debut goal? How long ago that seems.
Sunday, playing Switzerland for the second time in a week, the USWNT handed a debut to 24-year-old Kealia Ohai, who promptly broke Williams' record, scoring 48 seconds into her USWNT career.
The USWNT beat Switzerland, who will be happy to be rid of the Yanks for a while, 5-1.
In a completely unsubstantiated but hilarious occurrence, we’ve caught wind of a recent development regarding South African international striker Tokelo Rantie.
In recent times, the rule changes FIFA have implemented have been with regards to self-examination; changing their own internal processes in the face of ongoing investigations and claims of corruption. On the footballing end of the spectrum, president Gianni Infantino has been trotting out his plan to kill the World Cup with a 48-team edition. Beyond the influence of Infantino, it appears as though Australian rock band AC/DC are the biggest catalyst for change in the international governing body.
What is there to say about the England National Football Team and their governing body that hasn’t already been said? England is, well, a joke. With an underwhelming nil-nil draw marking the start of the Gareth Southgate era, are we simply looking at the next Steve McClaren in charge of the Three Lions?
