Sadio Mane earned straight red Saturday after going studs up against Manchester City keeper Ederson. It was a tough call for the refs to decide whether Mane deserved red, or perhaps a deeper shade of red than usual.
Sadio mane like this is Sparta !pic.twitter.com/tiKIRhfHa5
— Delfim Mendes (@fimfim7) September 9, 2017
It’s been nearly five months since Tobin Heath has been in action for club or country, a fact that's put a dark cloud over the women’s soccer community. The crafty midfielder is a fan favorite and has been an obvious selection for the U.S. and Portland Thorns when available. In recent months, Heath has been sidelined with a back sprain and was placed on the 45-day disabled list. Her injury has seen her miss all of the NWSL season as well as a handful of national team games.
The USMNT's World Cup qualification margin for error just got that much smaller, with the news that center back John Brooks would be out for the remainder of qualification. Brooks sustained a thigh injury during a friendly while playing for Wolfsburg in Germany.
July 8th marks a tragic date that Ajax will not soon forget. It was on this day that 20-year-old Abdelhak “Appie” Nouri collapsed during a friendly against Werder Bremen due to cardiac arrhythmia. Tragically, the young footballer suffered severe and permanent brain damage as a result. As of July 25th, Appie is no longer in an induced coma and is able to breathe on his own again.
On the pitch, Appie was named the 2016-17 Eerste Player of the Year as a member of Jong Ajax (the second team), and he was expected to make an impact this year in the Eredivisie with the first team.
Ankle sprains are one of the most common injuries in soccer, comprising between 16% to 29% of all soccer-specific injuries. In order to prevent a sprain from happening or to bolster sprain-weakened ankles, it's important to have a high quality brace.
For those of us who threw our collegiate and professional aspirations out the window after high school, we have to search for glory in other ways. Whether it's by playing FIFA, arguing with other fans or ranting on Twitter, the game will always be in our blood. When ranting loses its appeal, you turn to dusting off your cleats and trying to remember where your shin guards are hiding.
Bayern Munich fans and coach Carlo Ancelotti might be experiencing some heart palpitations right about now. The German side’s much-anticipated loan signing, James Rodriguez, has been diagnosed with a leg muscle injury that threatens to keep him out for several weeks. The injury occurred in Bayern’s 3-0 Audi Cup loss to Liverpool yesterday.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Roberto Carlos scored the greatest free kick ever. By extension, was he the greatest free kick specialist of all-time? Absolutely not. His ability to absolutely crush the ball into a banana curve defied logic and was rumored capable of killing a cow, but his penchant for violence over accuracy meant that many dead balls reached Row Z of Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu.
Ask any soccer player what injury they dread the most and the likely answer is going to be either an ACL tear or a concussion. A rightfully-invigorated focus on concussions in particular has been brought on in recent years by the issues coming to light in the NFL. The frequency with which they occur, the fear they invoke, and the serious long term damage they may inflict have led a number of medical institutes to undergo extensive research into how to decrease the prevalence of head injuries.