USA

Juventus claimed the 2020-21 Coppa Italia 2-1 with a commanding second-half display against Atalanta at the Mapei Stadium on Wednesday night. Dejan Kulusevski put Juve in front after receiving the ball from Weston McKennie, but Ruslan Malinovskiy answered for La Dea — seeking its first major title since the 1963 Coppa — setting the stage for Federico Chiesa’s excellent second-half winner.

4,300 fans were allowed into the stadium in northern Italy, amounting to the country’s largest attendance since the pandemic began. 

The Covid-19 pandemic had many sporting casualties in 2020. While nothing compares to the immense (and ongoing) loss of life, U.S. soccer fans were denied the opportunity to pay NFL-level prices to watch preseason friendlies between indifferent European clubs in the International Champions Cup. Similarly, the less-promoted but far-more-interesting Women’s International Champions Cup was canceled in 2020. 

In 2018 the soccer fans of Columbus banded together to achieve an incredible feat and prevented their beloved Crew from being moved to Austin, Texas. The #SaveTheCrew movement demonstrated the power of Major League Soccer fans, especially in Columbus.

Has an American player won the Champions League? Yes. (Come May 29, 2021.)

It hadn’t happened before (although Ali Krieger, Gina Lewandowski and Alex Morgan have won the UWCL), but with Christian Pulisic’s Chelsea playing Zack Steffen’s Manchester City in the 2020-21 Champions League Final, the answer to that question is now a foregone conclusion.

There will obviously be some hotshots among us who’ll question the contributions of the USMNT stars. Steffen is Ederson’s understudy and only started City’s final group match against Marseille, keeping a clean sheet.

They knocked out No. 1 overall seed Clemson; they knocked out the defending champion Georgetown; they knocked out two-time national champion North Carolina. The only thing left to do was defeat eight-time champion Indiana and Marshall — a program that’d never advanced beyond the NCAA Men’s Soccer Tournament quarterfinals before this year — would claim the College Cup. 

In a tournament that’s been largely decided via penalty shootouts, it was only fitting that the NCAA Women’s College Cup Final was decided on penalties Monday night in Cary, North Carolina. 

The only surprise was that No. 1 Florida State — after triumphing by this method in both the quarterfinals and semis — was ultimately upset by No. 11 Santa Clara after sending its first two attempts off the post.

The year that was 2020 disrupted a lot of the financial models for Major League Soccer and resulted in a new Collective Bargaining Agreement ratified back in February, but the 26th season of MLS is now underway while looking largely similar to previous editions, particularly with regards to the MLS Designated Players list 2021.

With 103 caps accumulated at multiple World Cups, multiple Copa Américas and having achieved both Olympic and Confederations Cup glory, there’s a lot of potential options for Neymar when selecting his personal favorite game with the Canarinho.

So it was somewhat surprising to learn — via GQ Style — that Neymar's favorite memory with the national setup is still his debut, which was a 2010 friendly against the USMNT in New Jersey.

International players Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Tyler Adams lead the 40-man provisional roster submitted Monday for the CONCACAF Nations League, but longtime team standards Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore are not on the list.