Following their sixth straight Serie A title, it’s difficult to imagine the Italian top flight playing out any differently this upcoming season. Former Italian international and Inter Milan legend Christian Vieri admitted he thought as much when speaking with Corriere dello Sport on Monday.
Football is shocking. It’s so shocking that people have been known to literally lose their minds while doing football. I don’t have to prove that statement to you, it’s just a publicly acknowledged fact. Here are 25 football things that’ll have you looking like Phil Jones defending a lofted through ball by the time you’ve finished reading.
#1. Thomas Muller is only 27 years old. The six-time Bundesliga winner and 85-time German international is really just getting started.
The year 1997 saw many changes in the world. Bill Clinton was sworn in for a second term, the Teletubbies debuted in England and NASA landed its first space probe on Mars.
The year was big in the soccer world too.
Here are 10 amazing things that happened in soccer in 1997.
With preseason underway across the Premier League, you're going to see a lot of photos of players training with their now accustomary black vests on. A few years ago, these garments were an absolute rarity, and, apart from some sophomoric comments about male players wearing sports bras (how dare you), it was generally assumed that they measured heart rate and yada yada yada.
During the World Cup next summer, United States supporters across the nation will attend watch parties in droves, frequent bars adorned in red, white and blue and flood sporting goods stores to buy new jerseys.
There's no denying that World Cup Fever is a nationwide phenomenon every four years, but the players responsible for the frenzy do not necessarily come from all corners of the country.
In order to get a better idea of what areas of the U.S. develop the best soccer talent, we looked at where current and past members of the USMNT spent the majoirty of their childhood.
When it comes to the notoriously ill-advised FIFA World Ranking system, there’s generally a lot to laugh at. Nations are cruelly punished by virtue of not playing (the United States, unbeaten since November of 2016, drops 12 places to 35th) while others largely benefit by playing lesser sides in meaningful competition (Poland is up to sixth after waxing Romania in World Cup qualifying).
In 15 previous editions of the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the outlandishly large trophy has been lifted by either Mexico or the United States on 14 occasions. The only other nation to have triumphed at the event isn’t Central American power Costa Rica, nor is it previous tournament guests Brazil or Colombia. In 2000, the Gold Cup was won by the world's 85th-ranked side — Canada.
The Canadians made a historic run to the final, frequently playing in a Los Angeles Coliseum that was at about 3 percent capacity, beginning with the successful navigation of group play via a coin toss.
Last Saturday, 30 women hailing from six different continents summited Mount Kilimanjaro before descending to play a 90-minute, 11-a-side match at 18,799 feet, setting a world record for highest altitude in a competitive football match. The event was setup by the Equal Playing Field initiative, a movement aiming to raise awareness towards the systematic inequality that women’s sport is challenged with and to empower aspiring athletes to challenge the social norms for girls in sport.
The final of Florence’s Calcio Storico goes down tomorrow between the districts of Santa Maria Novella (the Reds) and Santo Spirito (the Whites), and the road to the championship, as you might’ve guessed, has been paved with blood, guts and fisticuffs. If you haven’t heard of Calcio Storico, here’s a quick introduction to the most hardcore sport outside of Razor Scooters.
The United States has appeared in 10 FIFA World Cups, including the last seven straight. Out of those 10 appearances, they've fallen at the first hurdle on five occasions. The most notable exceptions include the first-ever World Cup in 1930 when the side finished third in the 13-team tournament and their run to the 2002 quarterfinals in Japan and South Korea.