On Tuesday, U.S. Soccer announced the five finalists for the 2017 U.S. Soccer Male Player of the Year award. The nominees include last year’s winner, Jozy Altidore, three-time winner Clint Dempsey, 2015 winner Michael Bradley, 23-year-old Jordan Morris and 19-year-old Christian Pulisic.
Counting down from five to one, here’s who we believe to be the most deserving of the award.
LaVar Ball is a knucklehead. He doesn’t know when to shut up, doesn’t know when to stop talking and also doesn’t know when he should keep his lips sealed. On Monday, he pulled his middle child out of college because he assumes he can prepare LiAngelo for the NBA better than a season with one of the nation’s best basketball programs. But it kind of makes you wonder, what if LaVar Ball was Christian Pulisic’s dad?
U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati announced Monday he will not seek re-election in February. Gulati made the announcement in an interview with ESPN's Sam Borden.
Stanford had lost a two-goal lead and Julie Foudy suggested the momentum was all with UCLA. Jaye Boissiere had other things in mind. Boissiere curled in a beautiful shot from 20 yards out in the 67th minute to propel the Cardinal to a 3-2 victory in the Women’s College Cup final in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday.
Stanford (24-1-0) won its second national title by finishing the season on a 22-match win streak. The Cardinal’s only loss came in August against Florida in Gainesville, not far from where the Women’s College Cup took place at Orlando City Stadium.
Last night, the Seattle Sounders laid waste to the Houston Dynamo in the MLS Cup Western Conference final, running out 3-0 winners on the night for a 5-0 aggregate victory. It was shades of Brazil’s 4-1 triumph over Italy in the 1970 FIFA World Cup Final. What I mean by that is the final goal was a thing of supreme beauty.
The Vancouver Whitecaps pulled off what might be one of the biggest moves of the MLS offseason on Thursday, signing Venezuela international Anthony Blondell. The striker led the Primera Division in Venezuela with 23 goals in 2017, leading Monagas SC to the Torneo Apertura title.
Anthony Blondell (pronounced blun-dell) could be a coup for the Whitecaps. At 23 years old, he’s an emerging star, having made his international debut earlier this month. His 2017 haul of 23 goals came in 33 starts and 37 appearances and many of them were impressive strikes.
Sepp Blatter, the disgraced former FIFA president who once suggested female players wear tighter shorts to promote “a more female aesthetic” in the women’s game, has dismissed Hope Solo’s claims of sexual assault at the 2013 Ballon d’Or award ceremony in Zurich, Switzerland.
On December 6 in New York City, four Major League Soccer expansion hopefuls will stand in front of the league’s expansion committee and commissioner Don Garber and make their case to be one of two new sides slated to begin play in 2020. They’ll talk about things like business metrics (“F*ck that,” says Columbus), stadium plans and making bank.
Maybe you haven’t heard, but the U.S. will not be participating in the 2018 World Cup in Russia. But that hasn’t stopped Americans from purchasing more tickets for next summer’s tournament than any other country outside the host nation. And the U.S. isn’t the only country that won’t be competing in Russia to rank in the Top 10 in World Cup ticket sales.