Opinion

The U.S. men's national team defeated Mexico in a highly contested match on Sunday to win the CONCACAF Nations League, marking the country’s first competitive victory over its rivals since September 10th, 2013.

The fruitless streak continued so long that I personally graduated middle school, high school and was just one year away from graduating college before the U.S. was victorious again. Christian Pulisic, the American captain who scored the go-ahead goal, was just 14 years old when the U.S. last claimed victory. 

Hartford Athletic put the beatdown on New York Red Bulls II in USL Championship play on Saturday night, winning 7-0 despite only holding a 1-0 advantage up until first half stoppage time.

The pick of the bunch was scored by 22-year-old American midfielder Conor McGlynn, who lobbed Anthony Marcucci from deep inside his own half to put Hartford up 5-0 in the 59th minute.

It’s rare that goals from the half-way line actually occur inside the goalscorer’s own half, and it’s even more wild that it was a first-time effort from McGlynn after Hartford had secured possession.

Imagine you get to ask the first American male to win the UEFA Champions League one singular question. What would you ask? Christian Pulisic is sitting there on the other end of the Zoom call staring into your soul awaiting your question. The pressure is on.

This was the situation I found myself in on Wednesday. Concacaf was kind enough to give me — an aspiring 22-year-old sports media graduate who just finished college last month — media accreditation to attend Nations League press conferences and the semifinal matches.

San Marino gets plenty of attention and scrutiny for being the worst national team in the world according to the FIFA men’s world rankings. I even wrote about San Marino the other day after the team scored its first goal in over a year.

History is written by the victors. When you reminisce about the biggest finals of recent times, you’re likely thinking of players like Megan Rapinoe at the 2019 World Cup, Kylian Mbappé in 2018, Carli Lloyd in 2015 or Mario Götze in 2014.   

But there are those rare instances when an individual’s performance on the losing team — for better (Zinedine Zidane in 2006) or worse (Loris Karius in 2018) — lives just as vividly in the memory. 

PORTO, Portugal — It was billed as the night when Pep Guardiola would lead Manchester City to their first Champions League title but it ended with questions again being asked about the Spaniard's decision-making in the biggest games in Europe.

City were expected to beat Chelsea in this year's final but instead they lost 1-0 on Saturday courtesy of a first-half goal by Kai Havertz after Spaniard Guardiola was outfoxed by his German counterpart Thomas Tuchel.

It was a foggy Saturday morning soccer match and I was defending the goal spectating the action going on the field. I had stopped a few shots earlier in the match and my confidence was quickly rising. Thoughts raced through my head, realizing that I was about to officially record my first clean sheet of the season. Then as clear as day the ball was passed to me, and as I went to stop it with my foot it slowly but surely skipped right below my outstretched foot and into the awaiting net behind me.