USA

New York City Football Club will become the first Major League Soccer (MLS) club to feature a small business on their shirts as the team have gifted their sleeve sponsorship to a Bronx craft chocolate company, Reuters has learned on Monday.

NYCFC, through a contest designed to help a local business impacted by COVID-19, surprised Sol Cacao with the prime advertising space to go along with the winning prize of a full partner package.

The Portland Thorns showed that they’re the team to beat ahead of the 2021 National Women’s Soccer League season by lifting the Challenge Cup on Saturday afternoon. It shouldn’t have been so dramatic as the Thorns dominated NJ/NY Gotham FC over the course of 90 minutes, but Christine Sinclair’s early effort was all they had to show for it while Carli Lloyd buried Gotham’s only shot on target.

Chris Wondolowski scored two late goals to rally the San Jose Earthquakes to a 2-1 victory over Real Salt Lake on Friday night at Salt Lake City.

Wondolowski entered the match in the 72rd minute and quickly sparked the San Jose attack. He knotted the score on a rebound in the 83rd minute and headed in the winner in the 87th.

The two goals — Wondolowski's first two of the season — increased his MLS all-time record tally to 168 and gave the Earthquakes (3-1-0, 9 points) their third straight victory. Wondolowski has 12 career goals against Real Salt Lake.

United States men’s soccer has been in a rut lately. In addition to failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, the U-23 squad hasn’t qualified for an Olympics since 2008, agonizingly missing another opportunity earlier this year. Even with the young talent excelling in Europe, it’s been a tough few years internationally, so you’ll excuse us if we celebrate the USMNT actually qualifying for a major international tournament, even if it’s just the 2021 FIFA Futsal World Cup.

An American will win the men’s UEFA Champions League. It’s a bit unbelievable to type, read or say, but it’s true after a Christian Pulisic assist vs Real Madrid means Chelsea will face Zack Steffen’s Manchester City in the UCL final on May 29 in Istanbul. 

No USMNT player has ever taken part in a Champions League final, and either Steffen or Pulisic will lift the big-eared trophy in just over three weeks. 

How cool is that?

Just a couple guys from Pennsylvania vying to become champions of Europe.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino says a new Women's Club World Cup is being planned as part of a plan to "revolutionize" the female game.

In an interview with French sports newspaper L'Equipe, Infantino said he was looking forward to the first edition of the already agreed new 24-team men's Club World Cup but said a women's version was in the pipeline too.

"My dream is also to see the birth of the very first Women's Club World Cup. It’s coming very soon. And it will really revolutionize women's football," he said.

Prior to Tuesday, Ángel Di María had played 741 matches for club and country, receiving all of four straight red cards and 80 yellow cards. No one would ever say Di María is a hothead or has a habit of committing bad fouls — even Lionel Messi has more yellow cards in his career. So it makes the racist comment CBS announcer Jim Beglin said after the Di María red card all the more baffling. 

MANCHESTER, England - It has certainly been a year of sporting contrasts for American businessman Joel Glazer.

In February, he was in celebratory mood, raising the Vince Lombardi trophy as his NFL team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the Super Bowl, led by veteran quarterback Tom Brady.

Three months later, Glazer's Premier League soccer team, Manchester United, had to call off their match against rivals Liverpool following violent protests against the American's ownership of the club.

One way or another, an American will win the DFB Pokal this season. Gio Reyna made sure of that in emphatic fashion, scoring the first two goals as Borussia Dortmund spanked Holstein Kiel 5-0 in the semifinals on Saturday. Reyna, 18, became the second U.S. international to score in a DFB Pokal semifinal after Thomas Dooley did it in 1990 with Kaiserslautern.