Roberto Carlos might be the greatest free-kick-taker of all time in the hostory of soccerdom. This is neither an unpopular opinion nor an uncommon one.
But Roberto is gone, plying his trade in football exile in India, his skills eroded by the winds and sands of time. And so, as these things go, we must search for an heir.
Stranger things have happened, but it's not looking good for Mexican midfielder Andres Guardado's chances of playing in the Confederations Cup playoff Oct. 10 against the United States.
Thursday night in Chicago, with storms and lightning swirling over the city — reflecting the tenor of the match — the Loyola Ramblers defended their home pitch against number 21/20 in the country, DePaul. The match was intense from the first to last whistle – feeling every bit the cross-town rivalry.
After a disappointing Gold Cup, the USMNT still has a chance to get to the Confeserations Cup, via a playoff with Mexico on Oct. 10. Today USMNT manager Jurgen Klinsmann announced his 35-man preliminary roster, and it was about what you'd expect.
One notable absence was Sporting Kansas City midfielder Benny Feilhaber, who hasn't been able to get a USMNT chance under Klinsmann, and nobody can really figure out why.
Goalkeepers:
Why a 21-year-old from France just might be the most American player on the planet.
A rose ceremony is a thing in certain Americcan reality TV shows in which a hunky rich guy gives flowers to hot girls, save one, in order to narrow them down to one special hot girl whom he will eventually divorce and everyone will totally see it coming.
Steven Gerrard would like for you to stay in school, because you probably won't make it as a professional footballer.
Entire lifetimes have been spent hashing out what qualities give people worth. Those qualities change as often as they are discovered; they can vary as widely as the names of the people they belong to.
In the world of sports, however, society teaches us what to value in a very specific kind of human, an athlete. It teaches us to value only one thing: whether or not an athlete wins. It seems like the ultimate meritocracy: if an athlete deserves to win then they will win, and we will applaud them for doing so. Sometimes it works just like that, but not always.
Ladies and Gentlemen, here we are: The 2015 NWSL playoffs. This Sunday, the best four teams from the regular season (The Seattle Reign, Chicago Red Stars, FC Kansas City, and Washington Spirit), will battle it out for a place in the final, and you will be able to catch it all on Fox Sports 1.
You’re probably asking yourself, “but I don’t know anything about the NWSL? Why should I care when the Chicago Red Stars host FC Kansas City on Sunday, the 13th at 1:30 PM EST?”
No doubt soccer is a growing game in the United States. Major League Soccer has invested all sorts of resources in building its league into something that can compete with other major professional sports and, more importantly, be respected in comparison to the other top soccer leagues in the world.