Women's Soccer

By defeating the Chicago Red Stars 3-2 at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma, Washington, on Sunday afternoon, the OL Reign clinched a spot in the NWSL playoffs with three matches remaining in the regular season.

The Portland Thorns still lead the Shield race with 39 points, but the Reign is just one point back and six points clear of third-place Houston (the top two finishers receive byes to the playoff semifinals).

The Reign reached the postseason in fine style. After Mallory Pugh had given Chicago a 14th-minute lead, the Reign responded through Jess Fishlock in the 31st. 

Women's soccer in the United States "swept a lot of bad things under the rug" to make the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) successful, former midfielder Heather O'Reilly said.

The NWSL fired commissioner Lisa Baird and FIFA launched a preliminary investigation last week following a report detailing allegations of misconduct against former North Carolina Courage head coach Paul Riley.

The 30 nominees for the women and men’s Ballon d’Or were released on Friday with several big surprises. The Chelsea Ballon d’Or representation was at an all-time high with ten players (five women, five men) nominated for the award. 

Few words more quickly evoke decades-old video game franchises quite like “FIFA.” It ranks in the echelons of “Mario” and “Sonic,” “Doom” and “Half-Life,” “WoW” and “Madden.” But EA Sports seems ready, willing even, to change the name of its best-selling series. 

EA Sports Group General Manager Cam Weber released a statement on Thursday talking about the “future of football.” In it, he made a not-so-humble brag about early sales numbers for FIFA 22 before trying to give lip service to fans about improving the game series. 

Then he dropped this little bombshell.

After allegations of repeated sexual abuse, coercion and harassment led to the firing of NC Courage head coach Paul Riley, the resignation of NWSL commissioner Lisa Baird and the cancellation of last weekend’s matches, the league returned to play on Wednesday with the Courage in action against Racing Louisville at WakeMed Soccer Park. 

North Carolina Courage owner Steve Malik said the team only became aware of sexual harassment and coercion allegations against former coach Paul Riley when they were reported last week.

Wednesday’s Chelsea-Wolfsburg matchup in the UEFA Women’s Champions League was one of those games you just didn’t want to end. Thrilling action on either side of the pitch ended in a 3-3 draw featuring stunning golazos, horrifying mistakes and a late, late equalizer.

Chelsea, last season’s runner-up, opened its UWCL campaign on fire, scoring 12 minutes in through a Sam Kerr stunner only to concede the next three goals on howlers. But the reigning FA WSL champs dug deep to earn a draw to share the spoils in Group A. 

U.S. Soccer really knows how to piss off its fanbase. Whether it’s repeatedly denying equal pay requests from USWNT players or failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, it speaks to the beauty of the beautiful game that Americans still support their national teams as fervently as they do. 

But that’s not going to stop U.S. soccer fans from putting the federation on blast for an odd fundraising push. The USMNT posted an article on Twitter asking for donations for the youth national teams on Wednesday. The responses were both hilarious and predictable.