Central & South America

Barcelona star forward Lionel Messi said that both life and soccer have forever been changed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

COVID-19 is responsible for the deaths of 370,000 people worldwide as of Sunday afternoon. It has also wreaked havoc with the sports landscape for much of 2020.

LaLiga, Spain's top-flight soccer league, is set to resume on June 11, albeit without fans in the stands. The first match on the slate will feature the Seville derby between Real Betis and Sevilla.

SAN JOSE — Costa Rica became the first country in the Americas to restart their professional soccer league on Tuesday, with an afternoon game played behind closed doors and substitutes sitting in the stands to ensure their distance from others.

The Costa Rican league was suspended on March 15 but Guadalupe’s 1-0 victory over Limon was the first of six games due to be held across the Central American nation this week.

"It is difficult to get up to speed again," said Arturo Campos, scorer of Guadalupe’s winning goal. "We feel heavy, but we are happy to return."

We all know the true worth of a footballer is measured by how they perform against the best of the best, when everything is on the line. In men’s soccer, there is no stronger barometer of greatness than how one fares against the U.S. men’s national team. So to resolve the Ronaldo vs Messi debate once and for all, here’s a look at how the two GOATs have performed against Michael Bradley and Co.

After leaving prison in Paraguay earlier this month, former Brazil international Ronaldinho has finally broken his silence and said he was shocked to discover the Paraguayan passports delivered to his home were false and illegal. 

FIFA has proposed that teams should be allowed to make up to five substitutions per match, instead of the usual three, as a temporary measure to help cope with potential fixture congestion in the aftermath of the novel coronavirus outbreak. 

Football has been at a standstill since mid-March but many leagues and federations are still hoping to complete the season but to do so they would have to cram fixtures into a shorter period than usual once play re-starts.

During a time of crisis, as this most certainly is, humans often show their best side.

Salons and barbershops are closed across the country. We’ve reached a month-long impasse: Do we opt for the quarantine cut, or do we grow it out?

I hope that you’re doing the righteous thing and adding more volume to that vinaigrette. Don't go this route:

gave my man a quarantine fade pic.twitter.com/bHi6O7msOD

— badgirlkiki (@badgirIkiki) April 8, 2020

Paris St Germain's Neymar and Liverpool's Alisson are among the Brazilian players and coaches who have joined forces with the country's football federation (CBF) to donate almost a million dollars to families facing economic hardship due the new COVID-19 pandemic.

The group of 57 players and staff, also including former Barcelona right back Daniel Alves, donated 2.5 million reais ($463,787) while the CBF met their contribution, according to the organisation.

Following Burundi’s announcement on Monday that its league is now suspended, one of the final bastions of actual football in the world fell by the wayside. So what do we do now? If you’re jonesing for some familiar faces and the sight of that sphere rolling around a green carpet, FIFA 20 has got you covered this week with the beginning of two massive tournaments featuring some world-renowned players.

The format and dates for CONCACAF's qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar are up in the air due to the sports shutdown amid the coronavirus pandemic, confederation president Victor Montagliani said Monday. 

Speaking to reporters on a conference call, Montagliani admitted that CONCACAF could wind up changing how it determines which three teams will earn direct berths in the World Cup and which one will head to an inter-continental playoff.