Amazing

Finding a good soccer children's book can be difficult for true fans of the beautiful game. You want something easily accessible for a youngster, but you don’t want something condescending or trifling.

Fortunately, there’s “G is for Golazo: The Ultimate Soccer Alphabet,” a kid’s picture book released Tuesday by Triumph Books. 

“G is for Golazo” is a follow-up to “B is for Baller,” a similar idea for basketball. In this soccer children's book, author James Littlejohn pulls into more than 100 years of soccer references to go through the English alphabet.

Cristian Roldan is not known for his scoring. And when he does score, it's typically nothing special; he's just in the right place at the right time.

That's what makes the past two weeks that much more amazing.

The Seattle Sounders and USMNT midfielder hit not one, but two world-class volleys over that period — the first coming against Minnesota United last week and the second against the Houston Dynamo last night.

Here's a look at Roldan's equalizer against the Loons on May 4.

In 2015, EA Sports bragged to anyone and everyone who would listen about how FIFA 16 would be the first video game of its kind to feature women’s soccer players. 

Given the popularity of women’s soccer — especially in the U.S., where the women are actually successful compared to the men — it seemed an odd omission for the FIFA franchise to not have included women for so long. It took the 2015 Women’s World Cup (being played in Canada, where the FIFA series is developed), to spur EA into actually including women in its best-selling sports franchise. 

The growth of soccer in the United States has been incredible over the past decade. Not only have we seen growth domestically within Major League Soccer, but just walking down the street you can pick out multiple different soccer jerseys being casually worn. It has become one of the most popular sports in the country.

Last night in Amsterdam, Tottenham’s Lucas Moura scored the latest-ever match-winner in the history of Champions League regular time (90+6’) to transform the scene inside Johan Cruijff ArenA from that of full-fledged euphoria to utter devastation.

Everything and everyone contrived against Vincent Kompany scoring the winner with a 30-yard bomb against Leicester City on Monday night. First off, the man’s own muscles, which have contrived to deprive him of less than 20 league starts in each of the last four campaigns. Monday marked his 12th appearance in an EPL starting 11 this term.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Wayne Rooney may grab the headlines, but Major League Soccer is seeing noticeable growth from the other side of the career timeline. Efrain Alvarez, Paxton Pomykal and Gianluca Busio have already had tremendous starts to their 2019 campaigns and should continue to be regular contributors for the Galaxy, FC Dallas, and Sporting Kansas City, respectively.

There are moments in a match that can go unremembered by the final whistle. Sometimes these are simple misfired shots or dubious fouls, forgotten over the course of a long match. Other times, as it was on a sweltering day in Southern California in 1999, they are significant in the moment but largely overshadowed by events later in the game. 

In the competition for the cutest thing you’ll see today, Argentinian newspaper La Capital has published a photo of a 10-year-old Lionel Messi alongside wife-to-be Antonela Rocuzzo, age nine, at the holiday resort of Punta Mogotes in Argentina.

According to the article, Messi was there for a youth tournament in a nearby city and Antonela was there to watch her cousin, Lucas Scaglia, who was Messi’s teammate. Scaglia now plays for the Las Vegas Lights in the USL Championship.