The Bundesliga is ready to go this weekend with TV schedules and a plan. Meanwhile, the Premier League has been given tentative clearance from the UK government to possibly resume on June 1 behind closed doors.
That awkward feeling of meeting people on the first day of a new job or in a new classroom still exists in professional soccer. When Christian Pulisic made the move from Borussia Dortmund to Chelsea last summer, the transition wasn’t the easiest.
The USMNT star experienced some speedbumps with his new club, but he's since made tremendous progress from his first day at Chelsea.
On June 24, Lionel Messi celebrates his 33rd birthday. From a purely sporting perspective, one of the great injustices of the pandemic is depriving us of precious Messi time — after all, conventional wisdom tells us that the Argentine’s peak is now well behind him. Of course, actually watching him tells you something completely different.
While many professional athletes have used this recent downtime from sports to relax, hang out with family and stay out of the limelight, one soccer star is doing just the opposite. More than perhaps any athlete over the last two months, Megan Rapinoe has been raising her profile in nearly every way possible.
At this rate, she might just become the next Oprah.
Despite the fact that no soccer is being played right now, our annual pre-game playlist is now ready for when the sport returns. The Fall 2019 playlist served us well, but 2020 has already produced some quality songs.
At the turn of the century, Sporting Lisbon was home to three of the most exciting teenage prospects Europe had ever seen.
The 2001-02 campaign saw Sporting capture its 18th Primeira Liga title (a number they haven’t added to since) and the Taça de Portugal. Two of the three aforementioned prodigies played massive roles in that campaign: the 17-year-old duo of Ricardo Quaresma and Hugo Viana.
Let’s end the week with some good great news: Introducing, the two newest members of the USWNT: twin Hope Solo babies.
Hope Solo gave birth to twins on March 4. This week, Solo introduced her babies to the world for the first time, via LeBron James’ platform Uninterrupted. Arguably the greatest goalkeeper in the history of the game, Solo thanked all of the nurses and doctors who helped her and her new infants — they were in the NICU — and have battled COVID-19.
The NWSL would’ve started its eighth season last weekend, but like everything else in the sports world, the preeminent women’s soccer league has been forced into hiatus amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Messi was coming.
For the first and only time — barring a grizzled move to Inter Miami — the greatest footballer ever was going to play competitive matches on American soil. The fact that it was the Copa América — a grand old competition summoning the specters of Zizinho, Javier Zanetti and Carlos Valderrama — made it all the more fantastic. By all rights and definitions, the tournament didn’t even belong here.
These are weird times in which we live. Soccer as we know it has come to a screeching halt, people are dying by the thousands to a highly contagious disease and we’ve all been forced to shutter up inside and stay away from our friends and family in order to protect those most vulnerable.
But life goes on, even in this oddly troubled world. USWNT superstar Alex Morgan, for one, is fulfilling a lifelong dream, one that will shift into a different dream any day now.