The United States and Syria and their national soccer teams. Concepts never before found in the same paragraph, on this blog. Each hoped today for a victory. Each would be crushed by a defeat. Each will settle for draws, late in the making, draws that keep each team on a road to the Russia 2018 […]

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We like to think sports are above and beyond politics. We know that is not true, has never been true and never will be true. Political imperatives often threaten fair and free sports events, and anti-competitive forces tomorrow have one of the greatest opportunities in modern times to take the narrative in a pre-ordained direction. […]

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Well, this is alarming. The United States national soccer team played host to Costa Rica tonight at Red Bull Arena in New Jersey in a 2018 World Cup qualifying match. USMNT fans gathered to see what they expected would be a spirited riposte aimed at the Ticos for a 4-0 thrashing they gave the Yanks […]

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The United Arab Emirates national team came up big. On the same day I said the Emiratis would lose 3-0. And maybe worse. Needing a victory over Saudi Arabia to keep alive its ultra-slim chances of qualifying for the Russia 2018 World Cup, the UAE got goals from two of the greatest forwards the country […]

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What a great name! In full it is Rajiv Ramon van La Parra, but usually it is written without the “Ramon”. He is a Netherlands-born soccer player for Huddersfield Town of the English Premier League. He has been in the first XI of Huddersfield’s two games this league season, both victories, and that has raised […]

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Cristiano Ronaldo is not above the law of soccer. Neither is his club, Real Madrid. Any player who shoves a referee deserves whatever ban he is given — in this case, five matches. The game has a serious problem with players, coaches and fans heaping verbal abuse on officials, especially the referee. And sometimes the […]

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Not exactly a rousing endorsement of Major League Soccer. The data guys at the FiveThirtyEight website have come up with a batch of calculations they believe indicate the “relative strength” of soccer leagues in Europe, North America and South America. (See the rankings, about a third of the way down the page.) In simplest terms, […]

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Being an Arsenal fan is the worst idea in sports. Being an Arsenal fan is the greatest idea in sports. No team in the world can look so elegant, so beautiful. And no team of Arsenal’s pedigree can look as shiftless and feckless. Which is by way of introduction to the first Premier League match […]

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The NBA has fans outside of North America, but not tons of them. So the stunning similarity of what soccer’s Neymar has done and what the NBA’s Kyrie Irving wants to do may have gone largely unnoticed in the vast realm of global sports. In short, it is this: Each is is a star, each […]

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If it sometimes seems as if American sports tend to cycle through the same few dozen coaches … well, it’s pretty much the case. How else to explain Larry Brown, Buck Showalter, Marty Schottenheimer, et al? But international soccer coaches take it to a whole ‘nother level. Some of these guys have coached at 10, […]

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