Human Interest

San Diego officially awarded 30th team in MLS and will begin play in 2025

Major League Soccer (MLS) awarded its 30th team to San Diego on Thursday, with the club set to make their debut in 2025 under the ownership of entrepreneur and investor Mohamed Mansour.

San Diego, which was a well-publicised front-runner to be awarded the expansion franchise, follows several other recent additions to the top-flight North American league, including St Louis City SC, which debuted this year.

Over 100,000 Feyenoord fans pack center of Rotterdam on Monday afternoon to celebrate league title

ROTTERDAM - More than a hundred thousand Feyenoord fans gathered in the city center of Rotterdam on Monday to celebrate their team's Dutch league title, the 16th in their history but only the fourth of the past 30 years.

Thousands of singing and dancing fans crowded the streets in front of the town hall early on Monday, hours before the team would appear on the balcony around noon local time (1000GMT).

Hundreds of flares were lit by the raucous crowd when the players finally appeared, as the squad led the fans through almost an hour of songs and chants.

CF Montreal will close visitor’s section for Toronto game after shocking brawl video from Tuesday

CF Montreal announced Wednesday that the visitors' section at Stade Saputo will be closed for Saturday's match against Toronto FC following a fight between the teams' supporters in Toronto on Tuesday night.

Videos circulating on social media showed a small group of supporters exchanging punches in the nosebleed seats at BMO Field during Montreal's 2-1 win in the Canadian Championship quarterfinals.

Piqué shot down — Shakira's got a new Top Gun (it's Tom Cruise)

The tragic romance of our time took another compelling twist this past weekend as Shakira potentially found her rebound from last year's dramatic split with Gerard Piqué. Throughout Sunday's Miami Grand Prix, Shakira was spotted hanging out with Tom Cruise. Gossip rags are now saying the Last Samurai is going to pursue her like a scene out of Mission: Impossible; he's already sent flowers. 

Wrexham party by the pool, rave with Steve Aoki in Las Vegas

After winning the National League, securing promotion to EFL League Two and celebrating with an open-top bus parade through the city in front of thousands, the players of Wrexham continued their spring-a-palooza this past weekend with a trip to Las Vegas funded by owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.

Man charged after linesman's jaw broken in Australian amateur league

SYDNEY - A 25-year-old man has been charged with assault after an attack on a linesman in a lower league match in southwest Sydney at the weekend left the official with a broken jaw and several missing teeth.

Khodr Yaghi, 45, was taken to hospital after being punched repeatedly in the face and kicked in the head by a spectator after a match between Greenacre Eagles and Padstow Hornets in an amateur league in the Bankstown area of the city on Friday.

Leeds players apologize after video of squad ignoring a child goes viral

Leeds United players apologized to their fans on Monday after their 4-1 loss at Bournemouth and after a video of the squad ignoring a young fan at the hotel went viral.

The defeat left Leeds a point above the relegation zone as the club stretched their winless run to five matches.

"The performance was not good enough. There is no other way to look at it and the only way to respond is on the pitch," the players said in a statement. "Leeds fans travel up and down the country in huge numbers and deserve more than this."

56-year-old Kazuyoshi Miura makes his debut in the Portuguese second division

Former Japan striker Kazuyoshi Miura added yet another achievement to his age-defying career on Saturday, making his debut for Portuguese second-tier club Oliveirense at the age of 56.

Miura, who joined Oliveirense on loan from Yokohama FC earlier this year, came on in the 90th minute of a 4-1 win at Académico de Viseu.

According to a report on the Portuguese league's website, Miura's appearance made him "the oldest footballer ever to play in Portuguese football, with 56 years, one month and 24 days."

Google AI simply instructed to score uses self-learning to devise new techniques, tactics

On Sunday's episode of 60 Minutes, correspondent Scott Pelley visited Google's AI lab in London for a segment looking at how the company was getting robots to play soccer.

The robots weren't programmed by humans — they learned the game themselves after only being instructed to score goals. From there the AI program went about devouring motion capture technology and testing different moves for about two weeks.

Through this system of trial and error, the robots just got better and better with more practice.

Ciro Immobile suffers spinal cord injury and compound rib fracture in car accident

Lazio forward Ciro Immobile is under observation in hospital after he fractured his rib and hurt his back in a car crash in Rome, the Serie A club said on Sunday.

Italian media reported Immobile, who scored in Lazio's 3-0 win at Spezia on Friday, was involved in an accident after the Italy international's car collided with a tram in Rome.

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