US Men take on Colombia Sat 8 pm & Wed 7 pm vs Brazil on TNT
The US men continue their Copa America prep with huge match-ups today in Maryland vs Colombia at 8 pm on TNT, before playing Brazil on Wed at 7 pm on TNT. The US will of course be hosting and should be looking at a Semi-Final birth at least if we want to continue progressing on our way to hosting the World Cup in 2026.
Indy 11 Win Again play Birmingham Sun 7 pm on ESPN+.
The Boys in Blue close out a two-match road trip Sunday night against Birmingham Legion FC looking to extend its 6 match USL unbeaten streak. Indy is coming off a 2-1 win over Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC and sits at 7-4-2 in third place in the Eastern Conference. Birmingham defeated El Paso Locomotive FC, 3-1, last time out, and is 5-4-3 in the Eastern Conference. The 11 return home to host San Antonio FC on June 15. Single-game tickets are available for all matches via Ticketmaster. Great Story about Carmel Dad’s Club’s own Cam Lindley and his journey back to Indy 11.
US Ladies Olympic Warm Up Successful with 2 wins – now who goes to Olympics?
New coach Emma Hayes won her first 2 games in style over Korea last week – now comes the decision time on who is cut moving forward into the Olympics this July. I was hoping Alex Morgan would have a good showing – but honestly the trio of Swanson, Smith in Rodman are deadly fast up front and simply take this team to the next level. I do think there is room still for Rosie Lavelle (who earned her 100th cap Wed) if she is healthy but the 16 year old Lily Yohannes, who was spectacular and scored this goal, may deserve the spot instead? The future looks bright for the US – the question is can Hayes put her stamp on this team with just 1 more 2 week camp to go before the Olympics start. Gonna be interesting.
Champions League Real Madrid Wins Again, Columbus falls to Pachuca 2-0.
The Madridistas did it again winning their 15th Champions League title over a game Dortmund in London last Saturday as the largest streaming audience on Paramount plus ever. CBS had decent #s as well with the largest viewership for a game with no EPL team involved of over 4 million people. The Yellow Wall of Dortmund was there and they had their chances in the first half with 4 open looks and 3 post balls in the first half. Honestly GK Courtoius kept Madrid in the game early before they finally scored in the 2nd half putting them away.
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Weston McKennie and Christian Pulisic say USMNT aiming to win Copa America
Weston McKennie and Christian Pulisic insist that USMNT are contenders to win this summer’s Copa America. Gregg Berhalter’s side hold home advantage for this year’s tournament — the U.S. reached the semi-final stage when they most recently hosted the tournament, in 2016.Defending champions Argentina and Brazil are the favourites to win this year’s Copa America, with Uruguay, Colombia and Mexico among the nations with hopes of advancing deep into the tournament.Despite having never lifted the trophy, Juventus midfielder McKennie, 25, and Milan winger Pulisic believe that the American team has the potential to win the final at Miami Gardens on July 14.“Our goal in any tournament is always to win,” McKennie said on Friday.“We want to come out with the trophy. We have players in big clubs and as a team, we are not far off the best in the tournament. We have a great opportunity to grow and develop as a group ahead of the World Cup.”
McKennie believes the U.S. are contenders for the Copa America title (John Dorton/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)U.S. captain Pulisic — who has scored 28 goals in 66 international caps — also believes the team are challengers for the title.“We want to win the tournament, that is why we are playing in it,” 25-year-old Pulisic said.“We want to go as far as we can, get out of the group, then go game by game from there and at the end of the day we want to win the tournament.“With the tournament being in the U.S., this is perfect for us to showcase our abilities in a big tournament. We want the big crowds against the big teams in the big stadiums. That is what you live for as a soccer player.”McKennie added that the U.S. enjoying home advantage was “important” and believes it can provide the momentum ahead of World Cup 2026, which the nation will co-host alongside Mexico and Canada.
“One of our goals from five years ago was to change how the world views American soccer, and now it is to change how soccer is viewed within America and how we can change it forever,” McKennie said.“Playing against these teams in our home stadiums is a good starting point to bring new fans and new types of people to the games, to experience these matches and become attached to the sport.”The U.S. play Colombia in a pre-tournament friendly on June 8 before playing Brazil five days later to conclude their preparation for the Copa America.They get their campaign underway against Bolivia on June 23, before taking on Panama four days later and finalising their group stage campaign against Uruguay on July 1.(John Dorton/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
Christian Pulisic connection grew at Milan this year – Yunus Musah
Lizzy Becherano ESPN – Jun 3, 2024, 05:21 PM
United States and AC Milan attacker Yunus Musah revealed the connection he established with teammate Christian Pulisic on and off the field throughout the Serie A season will serve them well as the team heads into a busy summer highlighted by the Copa América.”I’ve gotten to connect with Christian a lot over the past year, spending a lot of time with him this season on and off the field,” Musah said at the U.S. team’s availability on Monday. “It’s been great to connect, because I didn’t get the chance to do it much today at camp, so it’s been nice to do that the whole year.”Both Pulisic and Musah joined AC Milan last summer ahead of the 2023-24 campaign, playing integral parts in the team’s success at different points in a season that saw them finish a distant second in Serie A behind runaway champions Inter Milan.
The midfielder initially kicked off strong, before suffering an injury in December that forced him to be sidelined before gradually returning to the squad.”My season went really well in the beginning until December when I got a little injury,” Musah said. “I played a lot of games in the league and Champions League so that was really great, so that’s when you expect things will go like that for the whole season. But things happen and you have to adjust.”Towards the end of the season I started being involved in some important games again, Europa League and the derby. It’s been a good season, I was always there pushing and staying around the team. It’s been a good first season.”Meanwhile, Pulisic had a stellar first season with the Italian side, scoring 12 goals to shatter Kaka’s 18-year-old record of most goals scored by a midfielder — not including penalties.”On the field, he’s grown so much playing on the right-wing,” Musah added. “Being so effective this season in scoring goals and assists, he’s been the best attacker on our team. The manager has given him confidence and had faith in him, it was a mutual thing, and the confidence the manager gave him was reflected on the field.”The two will now come together as the U.S. prepares to face Colombia and Brazil in friendlies ahead of the 2024 Copa América. The American side is in Group C alongside Bolívia, Uruguay and Panama.”Colombia is a complicated rival. Every game they play with a lot of intensity,” Musah said. “They are very physical, especially their defense. I think they have a lot of talent in the attack also, like Luis Díaz, so this game will help us a lot in the preparations. We are facing a really good opponent and they will get the best version of us.”Testing ourselves against the best is something that is really important for us because we are only going to get better when playing against the best. Before Copa América it’s great to test ourselves and see what we need to work on. And also try to win these games and get momentum.”The international tournament kicks off on June 23 for the American team, starting with the match against Bolivia at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
USWNT auditions are over; now Emma Hayes must pick her Olympic squad
Jeff Kassouf ESPN sun 5, 2024, 01:02 AM ET
ST. PAUL, Minnesota — United States women’s national soccer team coach Emma Hayes is still learning some of the American sports lingo in her first weeks on the job.On Tuesday, under a steady rain at Allianz Field that reminded the British coach of home, Hayes implored her team to finish off a South Korea team that rarely threatened the Americans but trailed by only one goal at that point.”‘I want you to put your pedal to the metal,'” Hayes recalled telling the team. “And [assistant coach Denise Reddy] said to me, ‘Don’t you ever say that again!'”As awkward as it might have been, it worked. The USWNT scored two more times — including a debut goal for 16-year-old midfielder Lily Yohannes in her first cap — to win 3-0.Now comes crunch time for Hayes, to borrow another uniquely American sports phrase. After two games in charge and just over a week of training, she must select her 18-player Olympic roster in the coming weeks. Some players’ performances on Tuesday made the job that much harder.Yohannes shot up that list after making an immediate impact in her much-anticipated debut. Her late goal punctuated a solid 20 minutes of distribution in midfield, including a pass to Trinity Rodman moments earlier that led to Rodman ripping a shot off the crossbar.
The midfield, though, already was crowded even before Yohannes saw the field. The team’s starting trio of Korbin Albert, Rose Lavelle and captain Lindsey Horan helped control the game against a South Korea side that once again sat in a low block of five defenders. Hayes has praised Horan throughout this camp as a team leader. And Lavelle is a known entity who earned her 100th cap on Tuesday; she is arguably the team’s most creative player.Albert is much newer to the mix, but the Paris Saint-Germain midfielder has quickly proved she can compete at this level.On Tuesday, Albert and Horan combined to dictate the pace of the game, patiently waiting for the right moments to pull South Korea out of its defensive shape. It wasn’t always perfect, but it was effective in the right moments. Above all, it was patient.”I think a big thing for us is just being more patient on both ends of the ball, not just going forward every single time,” Lavelle said. “I think it’s just [being] patient with our movement, patient with our shifting side to side with the ball, and finding different ways to beat their forwards, beat their midfield and break them down.”Hayes made nine changes from the lineup that defeated South Korea 4-0 three days earlier in Colorado. The goal, Hayes said on Monday, would be to give new players an opportunity to process the information “overload” that the staff had thrown at them all week and show that they can apply it in a game setting.Among those ostensibly on the bubble to make Hayes’ Olympic roster, Albert did that as well as anyone on Tuesday.There is context, however, to her on-field success. Albert’s prior social media activity — which surfaced in March — appeared to support anti-LGBTQIA+ content and make light of an injury to former U.S. winger Megan Rapinoe. Albert apologized, and the team held internal discussions in an April camp that were not shared publicly. Albert remained on that roster and was called up again for this camp.
Hayes made pointed comments on Saturday that she expects a tolerant environment in the locker room, and her words about players needing to feel supported when they take the field came in the aftermath of Albert being booed by the home crowd in Colorado on Saturday.
“I want everybody to be patient,” Hayes said Saturday. “There are a lot of younger players. On the pitch, they are learning, but they want to give everything for their shirt, and they want to give everything for their country. Off the pitch, some make mistakes. Some have to learn. My job as a coach is to help teach them and guide them.”In pure soccer terms — an oversimplification, no doubt — Hayes and her staff appear to rate the versatile Albert, and the midfielder’s performance on Tuesday will have reaffirmed that. How Albert, Yohannes and others potentially fit into the Olympic roster is the mental gymnastics that will occupy Hayes in the coming weeks. Horan and Lavelle are veterans with World Cup titles. Defensive midfielder Sam Coffey has become a regular, including alongside Albert in the team’s Concacaf W Gold Cup triumph earlier this year, and is the best pure defensive midfielder in the pool.Then there are the questions of where to play versatile attackers Catarina Macario and Jaedyn Shaw. Macario started as the USWNT’s No. 10 on Saturday, while Shaw started in a hybrid winger role on Tuesday. Shaw struggled to find the game in the first half before coming alive in the second half, including when she moved into the No. 10 role. That reiterated a trend: Shaw is clearly best suited to the No. 10 role, but the same can be said for several equally talented players.Defensively, Hayes got further affirmation on Tuesday that Jenna Nighswonger is the real deal as a left-footed, left full-back who can press high up onto the forward line. Nighswonger assisted on the opening goal — scored by Crystal Dunn, who started at forward for the team for the first time in nearly seven years. Nighswonger was magnetic on the ball and one of only two players, alongside Horan, to start both games against South Korea.Left-sided center-back Sam Staab earned her first international start. Staab’s steady play in the National Women’s Soccer League seemed to long warrant a call-up, but that did not come until the most recent camp. She stepped into the role seamlessly on Tuesday, nearly scoring on a set piece in the first half.”I think it was worth it, and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Staab said of the long wait for her first cap.Hayes is not short of talent to choose from. She has spoken frequently about the need for balance between this rising group of young stars and the veterans who got the team to where it is now.That includes forward Alex Morgan, who started in the No. 9 role on Tuesday and earned Hayes’ praise for working hard despite limited touches against South Korea’s low block. Morgan’s spin-turn sparked the transition play that led to Dunn’s early goal.A wave of USWNT substitutions at the hour mark opened up the game. The connection between Rodman, Sophia Smith and Mallory Swanson was easy to see, though they all came on with fresh legs against a tired South Korea An exhausted Hayes appeared to be losing her voice after Tuesday’s match. She has been going for 10 months straight, she said, referring to how she spent the entire European season with Chelsea before joining the USWNT a few days after that job ended in May. She said she will meet with her staff on Wednesday morning and that she then needs the rest of the week to rest before heading to U.S. Soccer’s headquarters in Chicago to plan the road to the Olympics.”[The group’s] not afraid of letting go of things we have to let go of,” Hayes said Tuesday, among a chorus of praises for players. “Bold enough, brave enough to want whatever it takes to improve. I’ve been so impressed with them as people.”Hayes must now choose which of those people she’ll invite along for the ride to the 2024 Olympics and press down on the gas pedal. The Paris Games begin next month.
Emma Hayes’ USWNT surgery has started well – but bigger tests await with an Olympic roster looming
By the time new U.S. women’s national team head coach Emma Hayes slid into her seat at Tuesday night’s press conference, following the 3-0 win over Korea Republic at Allianz Field in St. Paul, Minnesota, a whirlwind first week with her players looked to have caught up with her.Hayes looked ready to be done for the day, but there was no sense of relief at her first camp, even after two victories. There is still far too much work to do for that.Twenty-four hours earlier, she sat in the same seat and said that she felt like “a heart surgeon in the middle of emergency surgery,” a simile that she had used already during the training environment. Hayes hastened to clarify that nothing was “drastically wrong,” but that she found it difficult to teach and do emergency surgery at the same time as her first major assignment, the Olympics, draws ever closer.
Hayes did not share any shocking discoveries about the state of the team this week — something which felt almost depressingly reassuring. The USWNT has been in a holding pattern since last summer’s early World Cup exit. Two key players, Megan Rapinoe and Julie Ertz, retired, and there were some consistent performances through the spring while awaiting Hayes’s arrival from Chelsea (with the one notable exception, the CONCACAF W Gold Cup loss to Mexico). But the wait for a paradigm shift under their new head coach has been a lengthy one.Hayes said before this camp that she wanted to assess the gap between the USWNT as it is now, and their potential. While she never shared that assessment with the media, there were glimpses of how that gap has clarified for Hayes, who is setting about her work of reframing expectations.
Emma Hayes knows the hard work has only just begun for the USWNT. (Photo by Brad Smith, Getty Images)“It’s a group that’s had a lot of learning since the last World Cup,” she said Monday. “I always like to look externally, these really fatal moments, from my perspective, I don’t believe they could grow without that. You need those setbacks sometimes — on the biggest stages it’s not ideal, but the team wasn’t ready. The expectation in this country is (to) win every game, every week, every tournament, every trophy. It just isn’t gonna work like that I’m afraid.”Maybe that point is more of a gut surgery for this team, one that has been driven by external pressure to win and win big, on and off the field. Hayes said she feels like the group is ready to move on. Can the USWNT keep its hunger to win following the brutal World Cup round of 16 exit last summer, while still evolving into something greater? Players have been saying they can for months, but now Hayes has joined the chorus on an official basis.
Based on everything Hayes said about the caring nature of the USWNT environment that she saw first hand over the past week, led especially by the team’s veterans, she doesn’t have too much to worry about in terms of its motivation. This is a group driven by legacy.
“You won’t believe how much these women value the history of the program and how important the shirt in that history means to them. It is so palpable in the environment here,” Hayes said. “I almost get a little bit teary sometimes listening to them when they talk about those things.”
The care and emotions were on full display on Tuesday night following 16-year-old Lily Yohannes’s first cap and goal for the USWNT, where her teammates swarmed her first on the field (with the bench running to get in on the celebrations) and then again at the final whistle, with center back Naomi Girma leading the charge for another round of massive hugs.
Teammates surround Lily Yohannes after her goal against Korea Republic (Brad Smith/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images)
If heart is not a concern for this squad, then neither are their heads. Hayes had promised her players would have tired brains back in Colorado after trying to get across a massive amount of information on the field, in video sessions and meetings. But they have absorbed her messages quickly.“Exceptionally bright,” she called the players on Tuesday night. “They can articulate concepts and ideas in a way that really challenges me so I’m enjoying that. Real cerebral group, thoughtful, but really considerate of everyone. Not afraid of letting go of things we have to let go of; bold enough, brave enough to want whatever it takes to improve.”To be fair, the players were never the patient on the table in Hayes’s extended simile of herself as chief of cardio at a teaching hospital who is stuck in an ER room. (It’s impossible to not think of the players as a new crop of interns on a season of “Grey’s Anatomy”.) The final product on the field is that patient — and it’s hard not to be encouraged about the prognosis after the first two games.
Bigger, and far more meaningful, tests await in only a few weeks. For now, though, Hayes had achieved her priorities of introductions and methodology, the day one stuff she can’t afford to fast forward through even though she might like to. The core of her work over the past week, she said, was to teach as much as possible. Now the team simply has to go to the next level.“Between now and the next camp,” she said, “it’s about bringing everybody up to that level where everybody can do the surgery.”(Top photo: Brad Smith/Getty Images)
Champions League Finals Sat 3 pm CBS & CCL Finals Sat 9 pm FS1
A little Hype Video – Don’t miss the Greatest Anthem in Sports when the teams walk out to this. Hopefully we’ll see a version of Dortmund’s famous Yellow Wall in London Sat. Excited to see if Dortmund can continue their amazing run in London in the finals of the Champion League Sat at 3 pm on CBS vs Real Madrid. Of course The Madridistas are the favorites but Dortmund has been giant killer all season as they continue to find a way. I sure would be excited if American Gio Reyna was actually playing. Either way I think Madrid just has too much firepower and will win this one 2-1. Coverage starts at 1 pm on Paramount plus before moving to CBS at 2 pm. The Concacaf Finals featuring the MLS Champion Columbus Crew traveling to Mexican Powerhouse Pachuca starts at 9:15 pm on FS1. Lots of stories below on both games.
Indy 11 Win Again
Jack Blake scored a pair of goals to lead Indy Eleven over reigning USL Champions Phoenix Rising FC, 2-1, on Saturday night at Carroll Stadium. Indy is riding a nine-match unbeaten streak including a record 7 straight wins across all competitions, including five straight in USL Championship action, and finishes the month of May 4-0-0 in league action. Indy improves to 6-4-2 on the season – good for 3rd in the East. The Boys in Blue hit the road for at two-match road swing at Pittsburgh (June 1) and Birmingham (June 9) before returning home to host San Antonio FC on June 15. Single-game tickets are available for all matches via Ticketmaster.
US Ladies Olympic Warm Up Games – Sat 5 pm TBS, Tues 8 pm TNT
New coach Emma Hayes takes over and will coach her first games on the sidelines for the US ladies as they take on Korea in an Olympics warm up series starting Sat night. She has named a handful of youngsters and I really have no idea who will start where in this Saturday’s game. Will certainly be worth the watch. American Lindsay Horan and Olympic Lyonnaise fell just short in the UEFA Champions League final loss to Barcelona (highlights) as the largest TV audience ever looked on.
US 23 Pre-Olympic Roster is Released
Interesting that Walker Zimmerman in the only overaged player in the Olympic Pre-Camp – only 18 players can go – so this 27 man roster will have to reduce by 9 players – still surprised we aren’t bringing an over-aged forward or Pepi maybe, even Reyna is the right age – why not play both for he and Pepi? I will be very interested to see what the final roster is.
Midfielders: Cole Bassett (Colorado), Gianluca Busio (Venezia, Italy), Benjamin Cremaschi (Miami), Jack McGlynn (Philadelphia), Aidan Morris (Columbus), Rokas Pukstas (Hajduk Split, Croatia), Tanner Tessmann (Venezia, Italy).
Forwards: Paxten Aaronson (Eintracht Frankfurt, Germany), Esmir Bajraktarevic (New England), Taylor Booth (Utrecht, Netherlands), Cade Cowell (Guadalajara, Mexico), Damion Downs (Cologne, Germany), Johan Gomez (Eintracht Braunschweig, Germany), Duncan McGuire (Orlando), Kevin Paredes (Wolfsburg, Germany), Griffin Yow (Westerlo, Belgium).
Good luck to all the teams playing in State/President’s & Challenge Cup finals this weekend especially our CARMEL FC Teams below at Grand Park! I will be out there reffing a few games Sat/Sun.
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2024/2025 Tryout and Evaluation Information Carmel FC will be hosting tryouts for new and existing players on the following dates:
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Shane with Susie and Brett Y at Grand Park Friday night – moved inside for Weather thank goodness
CYO Final under the lights at Guerin Catholic with Mike Xanders (left) and Joe Fistrovich.
Midfield questions abound as Hayes kicks off USWNT camp – US plays Sat 5 pm TBS
The USWNT officially entered training camp ahead of their June friendlies this week, with Emma Hayes making her first in-person appearance as head coach. The camp consists of a total of 27 players (23 fully rostered plus four training players), with the training players set to depart prior to the team’s first match on June 1st. Big picture: With the addition of the training players, the midfield is becoming a particularly crowded positional area for the team. Three of the four players invited into camp to train alongside the full roster are midfielders: Portland’s Olivia Moultrie, Washington rookie Croix Bethune, and Spirit defensive midfielder Andi Sullivan. Sullivan started for the USWNT at the 2023 World Cup, but was a late inclusion to Hayes’s training camp roster after player travel from European club play was taken into consideration. In her introductionto American media,Hayes spoke to ESPN about her initial approach to managing a congested USWNT midfield.”I’ve asked to see players that weren’t in the World Cup last year,” she said. “I’ve watched Korbin [Albert] play for PSG. I was hugely impressed by Sam Coffey when Chelsea played against the Thorns in a tournament in Portland.”The US has recently favored a system featuring two defensive midfielders, which likely means a combination of Coffey, Hal Hershfelt, and Emily Sonnett in June.”I haven’t made a decision about the Olympic roster yet, so there is time,” Hayes told ESPN.
Champions League Final 2024 predicted lineups: Borussia Dortmund vs Real Madrid starting XI, analysis
NBC Sports Thu, May 30, 2024, 11:36 AM EDT·3 min read
The UEFA Champions League final between Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid is set to be an intriguing tactical encounter at Wembley on Saturday.
Real are the heavy favorites but Dortmund have shown they can frustrate the big boys and in a head-to-head scrap there are so many individual battles to look forward to.
Below are the Borussia Dortmund vs Real Madrid predicted lineups for the final, with analysis on how Edin Terzic and Carlo Ancelotti could cause a few surprises with their team selections.
The back four is very settled for Dortmund and the experience of Hummels has been key to holding firm in this unexpected run to the final, while goalkeeper Kobel has also been exceptional amid several defensive masterclasses. Maatsen’s pace and trickery at left back could be a huge factor in shutting down Real Madrid as he will be tasked with keeping Rodrygo quiet. In midfield the experience duo of Emre Can and Marcel Sabitzer have proved their doubters wrong and keep the ball extremely well. And that is key to getting Sancho, Brandt and Adeyemi involved as much as possible as they cut inside and interchange. Having the likes of Reus, Moukoko and Malen to come off the bench also gives Dortmund plenty of options in the attacking third, with Fullkrug a brilliant focal point to their attack and his hold-up play will allow them to ease some of the considerable pressure they will be under on Saturday. Dortmund will look to sit back and not allow Real space in-behind and then spring attacks of their own quickly by hitting Fullkrug early and getting Sancho and Adeyemi high and wide up the pitch.
Ancelotti has yet to make a decision in terms of his starting goalkeeper with Lunin standing in superbly to help get them to the final but now Thibaut Courtois is back fit and given his experience and penchant for delivering in the big finals, you’d expect the Belgian to get the nod. The back four picks itself with Nacho rolling back the years and he and Rudiger will relish the challenge of trying to keep Fullkrug quiet in a similar way to how they tamed Erling Haaland. Midfield is the big issue for Real Madrid. Aurelien Tchouameni is out injured so Federico Valverde, Toni Kroos and Eduardo Camavinga are likely to start to give Real a solid defensive shield in front of their back four. But will Luka Modric start given all of his big-game experience? Jude Bellingham will start in attacking midfield, maybe drifting slightly to the left, and his driving runs forward will open up space for the duo of Rodrygo and Vinicius to peel off and cause havoc. Especially on the counter. That is how Real have been hurting teams all season long and they should have significant joy against Dortmund if they can engineer plenty of counter-attacking situations.
Paris 2024 Olympics: Messi? Pulisic? Mbappe? Could any major stars be playing at Games?
This summer will not be a quiet one. Not only is the men’s European Championship taking place in Germany but the Copa America is also happening in the United States at the same time.Both finals will be played on July 15. But the summer tournaments do not end there as, nine days later, the Olympic men’s football tournament will get underway in France. That does not leave a lot of time between tournaments and for those hoping to perform at two major competitions in a single summer.There are 16 nations who will do battle for Olympic gold, silver and bronze. Among them are France, Argentina and Egypt. But will we be seeing superstars Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi and Mohamed Salah at the Olympic Games?Each team can name three players over the age of 23 to their 22-player squads — the rest have to be 23 or younger. So which household names will be going for gold?
Let’s start with host nation France. They begin their golden quest on home soil in Marseille against the United States. This will be the opening game of the tournament.The biggest question surrounding Kylian Mbappe is not about the club he will play for next season — which is surprising, given he has confirmed he is leaving Paris Saint-Germain but not his destination. However, Mbappe has long been tipped to join Real Madrid once his Paris Saint-Germain contract expires at the end of June. The more pertinent question is whether Mbappe will become an Olympian in the year his home city hosts the event.Speaking in 2021, Mbappe said every athlete wants to compete at the Olympics and referred to the tournament as the “Holy Grail”.
Giroud and Griezmann could be among the overage selections for France (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
Madrid, though, will not release their players to feature in the tournament. FIFA’s rulebook states clubs must release players for the European Championship but not the Olympics. Should Mbappe join Madrid before then, it will be interesting to see whether France’s poster boy is allowed to play.Talk earlier in the year was that Antoine Griezmann and Olivier Giroud could be the two overage players in the squad alongside Mbappe. Griezmann in March said he will do everything to be there. Meanwhile, Giroud has told L’Equipe this summer’s Euros will be his last tournament with France in order to make way for the next generation — although it is unclear whether that included playing for manager Thierry Henry at the Olympics.
From one World Cup-winning legend to another.Lionel Messi taking part in the Olympics in Paris, where he lived for two years while at PSG, would be box office. But can he do it?Messi, who turns 37 in June, will captain Argentina earlier in the summer as they pursue what would be a record 16th Copa America title. Should they go the distance, the turnaround time would be nine days until the start of the Olympics, when Argentina take on Morocco. And let’s face it — the magical, mystical Messi is not getting younger.The Inter Miami captain has already achieved Olympic glory at the 2008 games in Beijing alongside current under-23s head coach Javier Mascherano, who also won gold as a player in 2004. Mascherano will surely be keen on linking up with his former team-mate but Inter Miami will have a decision to make if a Messi request comes their way. Both the Copa and the Olympics are happening right in the middle of the Major League Soccer season.Mascherano recently said the door is open for Messi to play in the Olympics. And while we know it would be a huge deal for him to be there, no decision has yet been made on whether he will take up any potential invitation.Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez was 23 at the start of the season, so can be selected by Mascherano as part of the under-23s side. Whether or not he has the green light to play from his club is not yet known. He is a key player for Chelsea. Will they really want him to hardly have a rest this summer?
The big debate in Spain is whether Barcelona’s teen sensations Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsi could play at the Euros and Olympics or just one. Barcelona’s sporting director Deco has stated he does not approve of players being at both tournaments. This could therefore limit the opportunity not only for Yamal and Cubarsi but Gavi and Pedri too.Gavi will not return to full fitness from the anterior cruciate ligament injury he suffered last year in time to play in Germany but should he be fit in time for the Olympics a month later. This will raise the question as to whether he may or may not be called up.
Yamal could be in the Spain squad (Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images)
Barcelona, though, are surely unlikely to make the same mistake as previous summers. In 2021 they allowed Pedri to play at the Olympics after he had featured six times for Spain as they reached the semi-finals of the Euros. Pedri then played every game as Spain reached the final in Tokyo, which they lost to Brazil. Shortly after, Pedri picked up a hamstring injury which kept him out of the majority of the 2021-22 season.
A fun name in the frame is Sergio Ramos. Could he captain Spain again and be the experienced figurehead in France? Now aged 38, Ramos was left out of both tournaments in 2021, and it is looking like history will repeat itself.
United States
It is looking unlikely Christian Pulisic and Tyler Adams will represent the U.S. at the Olympics this summer. A home Copa America is the sole focus.Under-23s boss Marko Mitrovic named a provisional squad of 22 players for warm-up games in March. He named a young team and any overage players who do get the Olympic call are more likely to be among those senior players who missed the Copa cut.
Mohamed Salah missed the Olympics three years ago. It has been non-stop over the last few years for the Liverpool winger. Salah has barely had a proper rest. Will his workload be upped in July by Olympic games selection or will he be on pre-season with Liverpool?It is currently unclear whether Salah will be among the Egyptian team travelling to Nantes for an opening game against the Dominican Republic.Head coach Rogerio Micale wants Salah to play at the Games. Egypt fans will surely want Salah there too. Liverpool’s pre-season tour of the U.S. will commence around the same time, though, and the club could block Salah’s participation — just as they did in 2021.This will be one of Arne Slot’s key decisions when he officially takes over from Jurgen Klopp in June. (Top photos: Getty Images)
Olympic analysis American Soccer Now
Analysis: Mitrovic names 25 to final pre-Olympic camp
ASN’s Brian Sciaretta breaks down the U.S. Olympic team’s final camp before departing for Paris in July. ASN will be in France this summer for the Olympics and has been covering the team in detail all cycle. Here is our report.
BY BRIAN SCIARETTAPOSTED MAY 29, 202412:00 PM
ON WEDNESDAY, United States Olympic team manager Marko Mitrovic announced his roster for the June camp that will conclude with a friendly against Japan on June 11 in Kansas City. This is the team’s fourth and final camp before the start of Olympic preparations and is the last chance for Mitrovic to look at players before he names his final roster in July.
For this camp, Mitrovic named a big roster of 25 players. It also included the first overage call-up with Walker Zimmerman making the list, which is a huge indication he will make the final team.
But assuming two more overage players get named and the age-eligible players all come from this camp, that means up to nine players in this roster will be cut to make the final 18-player Olympic team. With a final roster that small, there are a lot of tough decisions and this camp will be very important in deciding who makes the final team.
Here is the roster along with some key thoughts.
The Roster
GOALKEEPERS (2): Patrick Schulte (Columbus Crew; St. Charles, Mo.), Gaga Slonina (Chelsea/ENG; Addison, Ill.)
DEFENDERS (7): Nathan Harriel (Philadelphia Union; Oldsmar, Fla.), Jalen Neal (LA Galaxy; Lakewood, Calif.), Bryan Reynolds (KVC Westerlo/BEL; Fort Worth, Texas), John Tolkin (New York Red Bulls; Chatham, N.J.), Jonathan Tomkinson (Norwich City/ENG; Plano, Texas), Caleb Wiley (Atlanta United FC; Atlanta, Ga.), Walker Zimmerman (Nashville SC; Lawrenceville, Ga.)
FORWARDS (9): Paxten Aaronson (Eintracht Frankfurt/GER; Medford, N.J.), Esmir Bajraktarevic (New England Revolution; Appleton, Wisc.), Taylor Booth (Utrecht/NED; Eden, Utah), Cade Cowell (Guadalajara/MEX; Ceres, Calif.), Damion Downs (Köln/GER; Schwebenried, Germany), Johan Gomez (Eintracht Braunschweig/GER; Keller, Texas), Duncan McGuire (Orlando City SC; Omaha, Neb.), Kevin Paredes (Wolfsburg/GER; South Riding, Va.), Griffin Yow (KVC Westerlo/BEL; Clifton, Va.)
OVERAGE FOCUS
Walker Zimmerman is the first overage player to be involved with the team and his selection is obvious now that he has returned from injury. It was always obvious that Mitrovic was going to have to bolster the team’s central defense with overage picks. The age-eligible U-23 pool is very thin in central defense in MLS or first and second divisions in Europe.
When you exclude the five players who are currently in camp with the full USMNT, the options become even more limited. As most people know now, club releases for the Olympics are voluntary. Zimmerman is a player who has a lot of USMNT experience, is familiar with just about every player at this camp, and is in a situation where Nashville will let him go.
But why is Zimmerman the only overage player selected?
It wouldn’t be surprising if the remaining two options are currently with the USMNT. In Gregg Berhalter’s recent interview with the Washington Post, it was mentioned Miles Robinson and Auston Trusty as options. Zimmerman is almost certainly going after being named to this team. Robinson is probably a stronger candidate than Trusty right now given that he has chemistry with Zimmerman, and his release is more likely. If Trusty was a very strong Olympic candidate, his absence from this camp doesn’t make sense.
In terms of what is needed, look for another overage central defender and perhaps a versatile attacker.
4 OLYMPIC DEBUTS
Four age-eligible players were called up to their first camp with the Olympic team. The fact that these players are earning looks this late in the cycle probably reflects well on their part. It’s a tough barrier to break into any team this late and this is a legit opportunity for all four. If they play well at this camp, they could be Paris bound.
Here’s a look at how they got here.
Damion Downs: The FC Koln forward battled a concussion this season which saw him miss several months. But he also scored two game-winning goals during an intense Bundesliga relegation battle. In the end, Koln were relegated but Downs emerged as the team’s top forward off the bench. The 2.Bundesliga could give him a stage to contribute more, but will Koln trust him in a promotion race? He’s talented but raw. His strength is being big and physical, but his weakness is that he can drift out of games and struggles at times to get touches. Downs is a German-American and has been called up to one USYNT in the past.
For Downs, his main competition is Duncan McGuire who is well established in this team and who is looking for a summer transfer from Orlando City. Paperwork errors saw his January move to Blackburn fall through. But Downs also faces competition from Johan Gomez who plays for Eintracht Braunschweig of the 2.Bundesliga and has been involved in every camp. There is also a high likelihood of an overage forward is also named. Downs has a lot of competition, but still has an opportunity.
Jalen Neal: Neal has long been viewed as the best of an albeit weak generation of centerbacks. Last summer, the LA Galaxy refused to release him to the U-20 World Cup. Then in late July 2023, he was sidelined due to a sports hernia and suffered setbacks in his recovery. He is now back for the Galaxy and while he has shown some rust, he is on the path to getting back to his pre-injury level. While the chances are high Mitrovic takes two overage central defenders, he will need to take at least one age-eligible centerback. With Maximillian Dietz out with an injury, Neal compares very favorably to other options like Jonathan Tomkinson or George Campbell.
Rokas Pukstas: The Hajduk Split attacking midfielder finishes his second season as a regular starter for the Croatian club. This season he had seven goals and one assist. He’s well-liked by U.S. Soccer, enough to the point where they kept a roster spot open for him at the 2023 U-20 World Cup and allowed him to arrive after the group stages of the tournament.
He’s effective but still raw as a player and doesn’t get a lot of touches. He also scores a lot of goals from headers and is a good finisher, not necessarily a great creator aside from set pieces. He deserves a look but faces tough competition from players like Paxten Aaronson, Gianluca Busio, and maybe Diego Luna (who is not at this camp). He is also very young, at 19 years old.
Gaga Slonina: This is actually his first camp but he was called up to the March camp only to withdraw because of an injury. At this point, it seems very likely that Slonina and Patrick Schulte are the top two keepers for the Olympic team. Slonina had a tough season on loan from Chelsea to Eupen. The team’s relegation wasn’t his fault, but he was part of it. Watching his confidence at this camp will be key.
LUNA AMONG TOUGH OMISSIONS
With this team having only four camps and this being the team’s final camp, this is not a camp players want to miss if they have any hope of making the Olympic team. The player pool right now is mostly healthy. Greuther Furth defender Maximillian Dietz is injured, but Neal’s return and the use of overage players made him a bubble player.
Here is a look at some notable players who are out – not including U-23 players in camp with the senior USMNT.
Diego Luna: The Real Salt Lake attacking mid/winger is by far the most notable omission. While he started off the season slowly, he has been playing very well as of late as RSL has climbed the standings of the Western Conference. He is versatile, scrappy, and a creator, and his current form make his absence surprising.
Chris Brady: The Chicago Fire goalkeeper is frankly just behind Patrick Schulte and Gaga Slonina right now.
Brian Gutierrez: The Chicago Fire attacking mid/winger just hasn’t been in the mix for Mitrovic after the first camp. Mitrovic knows Gutierrez well from his days as a Fire assistant and Gutierrez just hasn’t been part of the team’s plans.
Quinn Sullivan: The versatile Philadelphia Union attacker/midfielder has had a good start to the 2024 season and he’s made some important strides in his game. But he hasn’t been with the team at all this cycle and it just seems like Mitrovic has him behind many others.
Obed Vargas: One of the players who is attempting to play up a cycle, Vargas has been playing well for Seattle lately but looks more like an option with the U.S. U-20 team, for now.
Bernard Kamungo: The FC Dallas winger ended 2023 in great form and had a very good start to the U.S. U-23 cycle. But his form has been off to start 2024 and the winger pool is competitive.
Dan Edelman: The 2023 U.S. U-20 World Cup captain made his U.S. U-23 debut in March but is not part of this camp. He’s competing with Aidan Morris and Tanner Tessmann, which is not easy.
Josh Atencio: Another defensive midfielder, but the Seattle Sounder has a lot of competition for a spot.
CREMASCHI & BAJRAKTAREVIC PLAYING UP
Two players are on this team who are attempting to play up a cycle. This means they are also eligible for the 2025 U-20 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. It’s a tough hurdle to make a U-23 team up a cycle, but Benja Cremaschi and Esmir Bajraktarevic have been there for most of this cycle. Unsurprisingly, Mitrovic knows both players very well from his previous job as the U.S. U-19 head coach.
Here is a look at both players:
Esmir Bajraktarevic: The crafty winger is one of the top American teenagers in MLS but is stuck on a Revolution team that is off to a disastrous start amid with reports of player unhappiness. It’s been hard for him to stand out with the Revs. To make the Olympic team, he will have to beat out most of a long list that includes Cremaschi, Pardes, Yow, Aaronson, Booth, and Luna.
Benja Cremaschi: The Inter Miami attacking midfielder missed time with his club and the Olympic team due to a sports hernia operation. But he was part of the Olympic team for the first two camps. Playing alongside Messi, Suarez, and Busquets will help any player but Cremaschi is coming off a solid performance in an away win over Vancouver where Miami didn’t have its older stars. He is going to have to beat out tough players to make the team, but it looks like Mitrovic rates Cremaschi as well.
BASSETT AND BOOTH RETURN
Two players who return from the team after a period away are Cole Bassett and Taylor Booth. Both players are in position to fight for a roster spot on the Olympic team.
Taylor Booth was part of the team’s first two camps but was not part of the team in March due to a knee injury he suffered in February. He has returned to Utrecht the past month. His form hasn’t been as strong as it was preinjury (where he had five goals in two games before the injury) but this camp will give him an opportunity to compete. He’s not a lock, but he is a strong candidate.
Meanwhile, Cole Bassett is a player who was part of the November camp but then left off the USMNT January camp and March Olympic camps. But his form for Colorado has been outstanding to start the season (5 goals, 3 assists, 1347 minutes). You can’t ignore a player who enters camp red hot. We’ve seen this with Griffin Yow on this Olympic team as he is now a favorite to go to Paris.
The rosters for major youth tournaments are often about who is in the best form in the months leading into a major tournament. Bassett might have a chance if he can translate his form with Colorado into this camp.
LOTS OF COMPETITION, FEW LOCKS
In terms of this roster, there is a lot of competition. There just aren’t many locks. Some players seem very likely to go.
Tanner Tessmann, Gianluca Busio, Patrick Schulte, Aidan Morris, Gaga Slonina, Kevin Paredes, and Paxten Aaronson are as close to locks as you might expect. Even then, there are strange things that can happen. For example, if Gio Reyna is allowed to play at the Olympics, then that could change things for Aaronson or Busio.
Bryan Reynolds has a very good chance of going given his consistent involvement and Nathan Harriel has been apart of every single camp – showing a useful versatility off the bench. Unless the roster gets expanded (and in 2021, the Olympic roster was increased from 18 to 22 just three weeks before the start of the tournament), then 18 players brings an entirely different dynamic. Coaches have their starting XI but then the backups must be versatile because there is not enough roster space to have a one-for-one backup at every position. There are 25 players on this roster. There are two more overage players who will join and there are a few other age eligible players on the USMNT who might be allowed to play in the Olympics. There seems to be a lot up for grabs right now. This camp is going to decide a lot.
USWNT head coach Emma Hayes brings unique personality back to the country that ‘made’ her
Emma Hayes won her fifth consecutive Women’s Super League title with Chelsea on Saturday. On Wednesday, she arrived in Newark off her flight from Heathrow, and by Thursday morning she was awaiting a whirlwind media tour introducing her to an American audience that she, in some form, already knew.But before the car picked her up from her hotel to begin that tour, she took a walk in the morning through Central Park, early as it was.New York City is a place where anonymity and fame can happen simultaneously, where the incoming head coach of the U.S. women’s national team can take a long, meandering walk through an often-bustling park and have that moment to herself before the pressure fully sets in.In a few months, after she takes charge of the U.S. women’s national team at the Paris Olympics, Hayes might not have the leisure of taking a walk anywhere without being recognized.At her first stop on Thursday at 30 Rock to appear on the Today Show, Hayes delivered the perfect line for those watching at home, unfamiliar with her journey as a coach — a winding two decades that ended with her in the highest profile coaching role in women’s soccer.“I’m lucky to be born in England, but made in America.”For Emma Hayes, who spent many years in her early career as a coach in New York, the paths of Central Park — and the city itself — already felt like home.
Hayes previously spent time coaching in New York. (Photo by USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
Hours after her first national TV hit, and after an early summer thunderstorm blew through Manhattan, Hayes settled in at the head of a table in a conference room at the NWSL offices near Bryant Park. Behind her, a massive window showed the streets below, the sidewalks filled, sunlight filtering in between the skyscrapers.“Walking around New York, you can just imagine me getting off at Newark yesterday and thinking, ‘I remember those days,” Hayes told the small roundtable of reporters assembled for her first day on the job. Hayes lived in New York for seven years, and she remembered them well both for all of the challenges they presented a young coach, but also for the fulfillment they provide, and the lifetime friendships.She had first come to New York from England having coached a bit in some youth programs in Liverpool and London, with her playing career ended years before thanks to a skiing accident as a teenager.“(I was) fighting to stay in the country on different visas,” she recalled. “Wondering where I’m going to get enough to pay the rent in the next upcoming block. What am I going to do next?”
She coached teams in Syosset and Port Washington (both in suburban Long Island) and said she spent “many a time underneath the Throgs Neck” – referring to the Throgs Neck bridge that links the boroughs of Queens and the Bronx, which overlooks a soccer field at Little Bay Park.For a while, Hayes said, she had an apartment in Washington Heights, near the northern tip of Manhattan. She used to look out at the George Washington Bridge, take her walks then in Fort Tryon Park. It’s easy to imagine a 20-something Hayes wandering through that bucolic park’s numerous features: the heather garden, blooming with colors overlooking the Hudson River; the Cloisters, the Met’s medieval art collection housed in a castle; maybe through the Billings Arcade down below, a stone arch essentially created as a Gilded Age driveway.Hayes, in many ways, has contributed to the mythologizing of those early days.“I’ve got so many fond memories of turning up in Long Island with a backpack and a thousand dollars and working for clubs across the whole of Long Island and Westchester and New York City,” she said in her introductory Q&A with U.S. Soccer, published in November. “I’ve experienced everything from intramural soccer, recreational Sunday soccer, to the collegiate game, to USL, to the pro game, to state ODP, regionals.”On Thursday, she brought up many of those same organizations again, mentioning friends like Lisa Cole, a longtime coach and current technical advisor to the Zambia national team. Cole was visiting Hayes in London when she learned she got the USWNT job.“My journey has been bottom-up, so I have such an appreciation, not just of the landscape, but my journey,” Hayes said last week. “I’ve worked hard to get to this point. You can dream for something — we all have dreams — but it’s not often your dreams become reality.”It wasn’t a long leap from her own story to that of the American dream, but Hayes tied both to her future with the USWNT.“I always grew up with that notion of this whole American dream concept that you can come to the country, work in a certain way — and as a woman coming from England, trust me, I never felt more supported than I did when I worked in the U.S.,” she said. “To work my way up through the system, to now be the head coach for the USWNT, as far as I’m concerned, I will give it absolutely everything I’ve got to make sure I uphold the traditions of this team.”
Hayes won five consecutive WSL titles with Chelsea. (Photo by Clive Brunskill, Getty Images)
Hayes’s nostalgia-heavy trip to New York City only lasted about 48 hours before she was off to Denver for her first camp with the USWNT, but it provided a reminder of what’s changed in the time since.“As a parent, I know where the toy shops are now,” Hayes said, noting with a smile she had passed a few already on Thursday. The presence of her son, Harry, had played a role in her departure from Chelsea, as the long hours and grind of the club season proved incompatible with solo parenthood.“Everybody’s under pressure, everybody’s got to get headlines. Everybody’s got to grab content,” she said at the time earlier this year, after deleting her social media accounts following a loss to Liverpool that had put Chelsea’s title run into question. “For football managers, we’re in an impossible position. Because every day we’re in a place where, no matter what we say, it will be turned into something that gets you guys (the media) paid and at the same time puts us in a position where we’re just pieces of meat.”By Thursday, her accounts had been restored and she was posting a few behind-the-scenes looks of her arrival in the States, a photo with Chris Pratt while at the “Today Show” and a video the NWSL cooked up about watching games on their streaming platform.In an hour-long meeting with reporters that could have felt transactional, Hayes never shied away from being personal. She embraced it, just as she said she embraced the pressure of the role, despite going on record a few times about how she’d actually much prefer “a quiet life” out of the spotlight. She mentioned that she didn’t mind the long list of media appearances and interviews on Thursday, just as long as they didn’t happen every three days.The spotlight will shine much brighter with the USWNT, but Hayes seems ready for it. She danced around the question of what color medal the USWNT will bring back from Paris on the “Today Show,” instead providing an answer that focused on the process. She did the same later in the day when asked about how she wanted to approach external messaging on the goals of the team.
“I want to focus on the process and the performance,” she said. “For me, it’s absolutely essential.”
For a team that’s been at the sharp end of many bad-faith attacks following its early World Cup exit, “essential” feels too light a word. A focus on the process could mean that results won’t be tied to self-worth and that everyone can still claim their humanness at the end of the day.In one of the last questions she received, Hayes was asked what she’d bring to the USWNT as head coach that no one ever has before. She answered, fast as a New York minute, with a smile.“Oh, you’re never gonna get anybody with a personality like me!”(Top photo: Brad Smith/Getty Images for USSF)
Indy 11 Advance in US Open Cup, Host Phoenix Sat @ Home
Indy Eleven is on to the Quarterfinals of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup for the first time in club history after a 3-0 defeat of USL Championship rival Detroit City FC on Wednesday night at Carroll Stadium they will travel to face Atlanta United July 9 or 10. The 11 return home this Sat at 7 pm @ the Mike vs Phoenix for Racing Indy Night. *Eleventh Anniversary Ticket Special Available While Supplies Last – Tickets Start At $5.25(Offer valid online only.) or watch on CBS Sports Galazo Network.
Roster Set for US Men’s Friendlies
U.S. Soccer announced the 27-man roster for the United States Men’s National Team ahead of two friendlies to prepare for Copa América. The team will report to Washington, DC on May 28th. The roster will come together for friendlies against Colombia on June 8th in the DC area and on June 12th against Brazil in Orlando. For the most part, it will be the pool that USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter selects the final roster for Copa América, which is due June 15th. The final Copa América roster must be a minimum of 23 players but can have up to 26 players.
GOALKEEPERS (3): Ethan Horvath (Cardiff City), Sean Johnson (Toronto FC), Matt Turner (Nottingham Forest)
DEFENDERS (9): Cameron Carter-Vickers (Celtic FC), Kristoffer Lund (Palermo), Mark McKenzie (Genk), Shaq Moore (Nashville SC), Tim Ream (Fulham FC), Chris Richards (Crystal Palace), Antonee Robinson (Fulham FC), Miles Robinson (FC Cincinnati), Joe Scally (Borussia Mönchengladbach)
MIDFIELDERS (8): Tyler Adams (Bournemouth), Johnny Cardoso (Real Betis), Luca de la Torre (Celta Vigo), Weston McKennie (Juventus), Yunus Musah (AC Milan), Gio Reyna (Nottingham Forest), Malik Tillman (PSV Eindhoven), Timmy Tillman (LAFC)
FORWARDS (7): Brenden Aaronson (Union Berlin), Folarin Balogun (Monaco), Ricardo Pepi (PSV Eindhoven), Christian Pulisic (AC Milan), Josh Sargent (Norwich City), Tim Weah (Juventus), Haji Wright (Coventry City)
Roster for US Women’s Friendlies
The United States Women’s National Team has a roster for Emma Hayes’ first matches in charge. Today, U.S. Soccer announced the 23-player roster for two friendlies against South Korea on June 1st in Colorado and June 4th in Minnesota.
GOALKEEPERS (3): Jane Campbell (Houston Dash), Aubrey Kingsbury (Washington Spirit), Casey Murphy (North Carolina Courage)
DEFENDERS (7): Tierna Davidson (NJ/NY Gotham FC), Emily Fox (Arsenal FC, ENG), Naomi Girma (San Diego Wave FC), Casey Krueger (Washington Spirit), Jenna Nighswonger (NJ/NY Gotham FC), Emily Sonnett (NJ/NY Gotham FC), Sam Staab (Chicago Red Stars)
MIDFIELDERS (6): Korbin Albert (Paris Saint-Germain), Sam Coffey (Portland Thorns FC), Hal Hershfelt (Washington Spirit), Lindsey Horan (Olympique Lyon), Rose Lavelle (NJ/NY Gotham FC), Lily Yohannes (Ajax)
FORWARDS (7): Crystal Dunn (NJ/NY Gotham FC), Catarina Macario (Chelsea FC), Alex Morgan (San Diego Wave FC), Trinity Rodman (Washington Spirit), Jaedyn Shaw (San Diego Wave FC), Sophia Smith (Portland Thorns FC), Mallory Swanson (Chicago Red Stars)
TRAINING ROSTER (3): Croix Bethune (Washington Spirit), Olivia Moultrie (Portland Thorns), Kate Wiesner (Washington Spirit)
Congrats to Bill Spencer’s Carmel FC U12 Gold Girls on their way to Challenge Cup Finals Weekend Congrats to the 2009 Girls Blue Team headed to Challenge Cup Finals See More https://carmelfc.teamapp.com/articles?_list=v1
2024/2025 Tryout and Evaluation Information Carmel FC will be hosting tryouts for new and existing players on the following dates:
Heading over to the Badger Field for Training or Games? Try out the Best BarBQ in Town right across the street (131st) from Northview Church on the corner of Hazelldell & 131st. RackZ BBQ
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Good Luck to Matt Antisdel as he moves on to Arizona – we’ll miss you Matt !
Boys in Blue move on to U.S. Open Cup Quarterfinals against Atlanta United
INDIANAPOLIS (Wednesday, May 22, 2024) – Indy Eleven is on to the Quarterfinals of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup for the first time in club history after a 3-0 defeat of USL Championship rival Detroit City FC on Wednesday night at Carroll Stadium.Indy Eleven opened the scoring by way of a Detroit City own goal off a Benjamin Ofeimu cross from the right side. The Boys in Blue have scored their first goal in the 14th minute or earlier in each of their three U.S. Open Cup matches this season (CHI 4’, SA 2’). The home team would tack on two more in the first half with Douglas Martinez finding Augi Williams (33’) for the tally and Aedan Stanley connecting on a corner to Ofeimu (36’). Williams now has a pair of Open Cup goals for Indy this season, while Stanley has a team-best two assists. Indy Eleven continues the streak and is unbeaten in its last eight matches, dating back to the Third Round win over Chicago Fire FC II on April 17. The Boys in Blue also become the second Indiana club in the history of the tournament to reach the Quarterfinals (Indianapolis Inferno 1992). The Boys in Blue will play out of the East Division in the Quarterfinals on the road against Atlanta United (MLS) July 9 or 10.
2024 Third Round | April 17, 2024 | Chicago Fire FC II (MLS NEXT Pro) 0:1 Indy Eleven (USLC) Round of 32 | May 8, 2024 | Indy Eleven 2:0 San Antonio FC (USLC) Round of 16 | May 22, 2024 | Indy Eleven (USLC) 3:0 Detroit City FC (USLC)
Remaining U.S. Open Cup Schedule Quarterfinal | Tuesday, July 9 – Wednesday, July 10 Semifinal | Tuesday, Aug. 27 – Wednesday, Aug. 28 Final | Wednesday, Sept. 25
Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup | Round of 32 Indy Eleven 3:0 Detroit City FC Wednesday, May 22, 2024 – 7 p.m. ET Carroll Stadium | Indianapolis
Scoring Summary IND – Own Goal 14’ IND – Augi Williams (Douglas Martinez) 33’ IND – Ben Ofeimu (Aedan Stanley) 36’
Discipline Summary IND – Ben Ofeimu (caution) 7’ DET – Devon Amoo-Mensah (caution) 61’ IND – Jack Blake (caution) 65’ IND – Max Schneider (caution) 90+1’
Ian Darke’s Premier League team-by-team season grades
Ian Darke, ESPN.com writerMay 21, 2024, 01:00 PM ET
Manchester City and manager Pep Guardiola are insatiable. Six out of the last seven Premier League titles, including an unprecedented four in succession, and you know that by August, they will be hungry for more. How does Pep do it? Not even he can explain it.But City did not have things all their own way in what was a thrilling season featuring a record number of goals. So how did your team rate? Here are my end-of-season grades.
Erling Haaland won the Golden Boot again despite missing two months with injury, Phil Foden was Footballer of the Year, and Rodri has gone 50 league matches unbeaten. But the clincher in City’s faultless final stretch was the return to fitness of pass-master Kevin De Bruyne.
A magnificent effort to total 89 points — their best since Arsene Wenger’s “Invincibles” 20 years ago. Declan Rice‘s signing from West Ham United was inspired, and Kai Havertz silenced his doubters. However, not even a run of six straight wins at the end of the season was quite enough. GRADE: A-
The bombshell news on Jan. 26 that Jurgen Klopp would be leaving at the end of the season came with Liverpool five points clear at the top of the table. But while winning the League Cup and always looking dangerous in attack, the Reds’ defending was often less convincing. Despite an initial boost in form following Klopp’s announcement, Liverpool seemed to run out of stream in costly defeats by Crystal Palace and Everton. GRADE: B+
How Slot can use Ten Hag’s struggles to adapt to the Premier League
Mario Melchiot shares his advice for Arne Slot ahead of his first season in the Premier League as Liverpool manager.
Aston Villa will be deliriously happy at a top-four finish and a place in next season’s UEFA Champions League. Unai Emery’s team was lethal at times at Villa Park, with Ollie Watkins developing into an elite striker with 19 goals and 13 assists. The Villans were less convincing on the road, however, and the 6-2 aggregate loss to Olympiacos in the Europa Conference League semifinals was a reality check. GRADE: A-
Fifth place in a first year without Harry Kane, the team’s talisman who left for Bayern Munich, was no calamity, but disappointing in the context of their early-season charge to the top with 26 points from the first 10 games. Manager Ange Postecoglou’s adventurous and attractive style of play made him an instant hit with supporters, but the apparent absence of a Plan B means the honeymoon is probably over. GRADE: B-
Assessing Man United’s worst-ever Premier League finish
The ESPN FC Live team grade a Premier League season to forget for Manchester United, who finish way outside a Champions League spot in eighth.
Mauricio Pochettino’s departure by “mutual consent” comes as a big surprise after the club’s excellent finish to the season. It looked like he had found a winning blend after months of erratic form, but his exit — apparently amicable — suggests either he and owner Todd Boehly see the future rather differently. Or Pochettino has other plans. GRADE: B-
Eddie Howe’s side finished strongly to claim seventh place, but they need Man City to win the FA Cup on Saturday in order to clinch a European place. A long injury list and a less-than-watertight defence away from home meant the Magpies could never hit last season’s heights despite 21 goals from Alexander Isak, third-top scorer in the league. GRADE: C+
It was Manchester United’s worst finish of the Premier League era, and as a result, the Red Devils will need to beat Man City in the FA Cup Final to salvage a berth in continental competition next season. Injuries in defence certainly played a role in the team’s lackluster performances, but United lacked shape or identity with opponents storming through a vacant midfield. Head coach Erik ten Hag will do well to survive the winds of change sent blowing through Old Trafford by new minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe. GRADE: F
Pickford: Everton kept fighting as a team after the points deductions
Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford explains how his team kept a positive attitude even after getting hit with a points deduction from the Premier League.
Eye-catching wins as at Arsenal and Spurs coupled with fearful beatings in four other London derbies meant this was a topsy-turvy season for West Ham. Manager David Moyes leaves memories of some great European nights and lofty finishes in the league. But despite the menace of Mohammed Kudus, Jarrod Bowen and Lucas Paqueta, the Hammers’ form was patchy, with no clean sheets since Jan. 2. GRADE: C+
New boss Oliver Glasner inspired an electric finish to the season, guiding Palace to six wins in their final seven games to sneak into the top half of the table. The Eagles were a different side after gifted duo Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise finally got fit and firing, while Jean-Philippe Mateta was a revelation with 16 goals. Can they keep these stars together at Selhurst Park for another go next season? Given the interest from bigger clubs, it will be a challenge. GRADE: B+
Roberto De Zerbi’s reign ended with one win in his final 10 games. Injuries did not help, but there is no hiding from the fact that a talented team regressed this season — having finished sixth in 2022-23 — and the restless De Zerbi tinkered too much with his starting XI, which ultimately cost them. GRADE: C-
A triumph for Spanish tactician Andoni Iraola in his debut season, especially after a poor start that had observers wondering if the Cherries had made a mistake bringing him in to replace Gary O’Neil. Pleasing football, 48 points, a comfortable midtable finish and 19 goals for Dominic Solanke. GRADE: B+
You feared for them after losing top scorer Aleksandar Mitrovic to the Saudi Pro League but, despite fading into 13th place, Marco Silva’s team was never in trouble. The emergence of Rodrigo Muniz to fill the boots of Mitrovic was important. Some top displays included a 2-1 win at Arsenal.
Overall, there will be no complaints at Craven Cottage. GRADE: B
One of the few teams to beat Manchester City, Wolves might have finished higher in the table if the speedy Pedro Neto played more often alongside Hwang Hee-Chan and Matheus Cunha. Manager Gary O’Neil kept them well clear of the relegation zone, but one win from the last nine games rather spoiled the upbeat mood. GRADE: C+
Three home wins in a week — including a terrific display in the Merseyside derby — clinched the Toffees’ survival in the Premier League. That was quite an achievement for Everton boss Sean Dyche in the face of a points deduction after an independent commission found the club had breached Profit and Sustainability Rules, a dearth of goals, and ongoing doubts about Everton’s alleged takeover. The blue half of Liverpool desperately needs some calmer times. GRADE: B-
You know Brentford and their supporters are happy the club stayed up after a difficult season blighted by a long injury list and the suspension that ruled out top striker Ivan Toney until January. He will likely move to another club during the summer transfer window, giving likeable manager Thomas Frank a chance to refresh his squad. GRADE: C
One stat above all others sums up Forest’s struggles: They kept only one clean sheet in the last six months of the season. But they kept their heads just above the relegation zone thanks to a trifecta of attacking talent, Chris Wood, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Morgan Gibbs-White. They were just enough to compensate for a bloated squad, VAR rows, and a change of manager from Steve Cooper to Nuno Espirito Santo. GRADE: C-
A fairytale with an unhappy ending as the Hatters return to the English Championship. Head coach Rob Edwards and his team won lots of friends, but not enough points, and ran out of road with only one win after January. GRADE: C
Teams like to copy Pep Guardiola’s tactic of playing out of the defense, but it isn’t easy — unless you have City’s caliber of players — which is exactly what Burnley discovered this season. Indeed, it all looked a little naive from manager Vincent Kompany and his players. After winning the Championship at a canter in 2022-23, the Clarets were expected to do better but went straight back down. GRADE: D
A shadow of the team who were promoted, Sheffield United conceded a whopping 104 goals this season. One of the weakest teams in Premier League history, the Blades need a major reset. GRADE: F
USMNT roster questions: How to replace Dest and who will make Copa America cut?
Yesterday, we took your questions right after the USMNT squad was announced for the training camp and friendlies that will precede the 2024 Copa America. The squad contains 27 players and the final group of 26 that will play in the Copa America will likely come from this list.Nturally, you all had questions. We tried our best to answer them based on what we’ve reported about this team over the years. Here are some of the bits from that session.
Quintin R. asked: What is the reasoning for calling 27 into camp? Expecting injury or someone not to be fully fit come June 23? Seems odd to leave one guy at home.
Paul Tenorio: My guess is that it’s about getting a closer look at Tillman considering the central midfield depth chart is stacked for the Olympics, too. Plus it provides some insurance as the U.S. evaluates the health and availability of Tyler Adams and Josh Sargent.
“Timmy made a good impression on us in January,” Berhalter told us earlier today. “When we’re looking at this roster versus the Olympic roster, there are some other guys that were in contention as well, but we felt like the balance of it would be better to keep them with the Olympic group and move Timmy to the senior team,”
Adam F. asked: Why is Shaq Moore on this roster?
Paul Tenorio:Bryan Reynolds is going to be on the Olympic squad and Berhalter said that of the right back options, he valued Moore’s ability to defend in one-on-one situations.
“We know he’s getting back to his form right now,” Berhalter said. “He has been out for a while, but he’s been able to get on the field now and get some more minutes and he’s a guy when we were looking at our matchups this summer, a lot of these wingers are very good one-v-one and we think that’s a strength of his, so there’s something we took into consideration.”
Berhalter also said they are looking at Weah, McKennie, Musah and center backs as potential right back depth options.
Henry K asked: Could we potentially see Pulisic slide over to the right wing position and have Weah stand in as a right back to replace Dest?
Tom Bogert: It definitely feels like a possibility, right? It’ll probably depend on the matchup, but it seems like an option.
It’s worth noting that Christian Pulisic played the majority of his minutes on the right for AC Milan this year and was excellent. Obviously, he has different responsibilities with the national team (and he’ll be playing in a different system,) but he’d be plenty comfortable on that side.
The most ultra-attacking lineup from this roster has Weah at right back, Pulisic right wing, Gio Reyna at the No 10 and Wright at left wing.
Pulisic has played well at right wing for AC Milan this season (Getty Images)
Paul Tenorio: Berhalter said one of the main tasks of the training camp ahead of the Copa America is figuring out what they want to do at right back.
“Obviously with Sergiño going down, we have to figure out the right back situation and there’s a couple of different options we can look at,” Berhalter said. “We have like-for-like with Joe Scally and Shaq Moore. We have a winger that can play there with Timothy Weah, who’s played that for his club. We have center midfielders who can play there with Weston and Yunus, and then we have center backs that we’re looking at, can they play there? So, we just wanted the ability in this training camp to have options, to have flexibility. Some of it may revolve around a back three. But the first objective is to see how we’re going to fill that right back position because we know we’re going to be missing Sergiño.”
Austen B. asks: Out of attacking, midfield, and defense, where is the USMNT most likely to challenge the contenders and mostly likely to struggle? I know the USMNT has not had great success scoring against top competition (at least in the World Cup), yet to me their midfield and attacking was still a “strength” in that they have been able to keep possession and put pressure on opponents, whereas the defense seems to lack lock down defenders and at times show lapses against dangerous attacks.
Paul Tenorio: I think yours is a fair assessment. The area where the U.S. has been best against top opponents is in midfield. MMA was the clear winner at the World Cup in its ability to match up against England, especially. The U.S. was quite dangerous at times in transition, they got into the right spaces, but the final pass (and sometimes the pass before the pass) was lacking. I’m thinking of against Wales specifically and I wrote about it then.
Can the U.S. be more dangerous in the Copa America? Can they be more deadly with chances in the final third? We’ll see. And I definitely have concerns with defending on the right side of this lineup.
Seth R. asks: Does this roster give you any hints as to what overage players will be selected for the Olympics squad?
Paul Tenorio: I think it gives hints not just at overage players, but also some of the younger players who could play a role.
Berhalter mentioned Kevin Paredes, Aidan Morris and Bryan Reynolds as players who they see as getting more minutes at the Olympics than they would here. I think all three would have probably made this team if there was no Olympic tournament.
Overage players I think are under consideration: Zimmerman, Auston Trusty and Brandon Vazquez, among others.
Zendejas has played well for Club America but misses out on the USMNT roster (Alfredo Moya/Jam Media/Getty Images)
Collin J. asks: With Alejandro Zendejas playing well for Club America, why is he off the roster while a struggling Brenden Aaronson is on it?
Tom Bogert: It’s definitely a tough omission for Zendejas and probably disheartening on a personal level — what more could he have done? Zendejas has 14 goals and eight assists in 3,176 minutes this season for Club America and will play in the Clausura final.
Unfortunately for him, the winger position is loaded and now has a new, versatile entrant in Haji Wright (who had spent his time with USMNT at the No 9 before excelling at left wing with Coventry this year).
It’s tough for Zendejas that, if he had stuck to his original international allegiance with Mexico, he might have been a starter at the Copa America for them rather than fighting to make the U.S. roster.
Jody R. asks: If both Adams and Sargent are unable to go, who do you think the next man up would be? Pefok?
Paul Tenorio: If Sargent can’t go, I doubt there’d be a like-for-like sub there. You’d probably just roll with Pepi-Balogun-Wright as your No 9 options and carry an extra midfielder or add a winger.
I think if Adams goes down, there is probably just a plan to keep Tillman on the squad as a midfielder who can provide depth at several spots.
Adam T. asked: Why is Gregg Berhalter obsessed with MLS players?
Paul Tenorio: There are four MLS players on the 27-man roster, one of which I would expect not to make the Copa roster (Tillman), the other of which is an injury replacement for the injured Sergiño Dest (Shaq Moore) and probably would not have been on the squad if not for the Olympics taking a Euro-based right back (Bryan Reynolds), the third of which is the third goalkeeper.
Miles Robinson is basically the top MLS player on this squad and judging him off the league he plays in probably is more of a you problem than a Berhalter problem.
Harry P asks: Any insight into (reigning MLS MVP) Luciano Acosta potentially switching allegiances and joining the USMNT?
Tom Bogert: Acosta remains in the process of becoming a United States citizen (and thus eligible to represent the USMNT), but it’s taking a bit longer than they hoped because when Lucho left the D.C. United to sign with Atlas, he left the country and would not have qualified as a resident at that time. Acosta has argued he couldn’t come back because of COVID-19 (Lucho signed with Atlas in December 2019), but the government didn’t see it that way. TBD on timing, but this is definitely still in the works.
One key reason Acosta is getting citizenship is the hope to play for the USMNT.
“Obviously (I would accept a USMNT call-up), if it came,” Acosta told us last year when we revealed he was in the citizenship process. “It’s one reason I started the process.”
(Top photo: Stephen Nadler/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
USWNT head coach Emma Hayes talks Olympic roster preparations and the role of NWSL
On Wednesday, U.S. women’s national team head coach Emma Hayes arrived at Newark airport just outside New York City following a fifth-consecutive successful title run with Chelsea in the Women’s Super League. She was only in New York — a place she considers home, previously spending seven years in the U.S. developing as a young coach — for a short time.“I’m lucky to be born in England, but made in America,” Hayes said on Thursday to the Today Show.On Tuesday, she named the roster for her first USWNT camp, causing some excitement by listing Crystal Dunn as a forward. She’ll have two chances to stand on the U.S. sideline next month with a set of friendlies against South Korea in Denver and Saint Paul.“I want to focus on the performance. I want to get to know the players. I want to make sure that, in the limited time we have together, we make the most of it,” she said from a tall stool inside Studio A at Rockefeller Center. “And for me, pressure is a huge privilege.”By Thursday morning, Hayes was making the rounds with American media, confident as she sat for half a dozen television interviews before settling in front of a round table of USWNT coverage regulars.Hayes spoke for nearly an hour with three things becoming clear: the transition process has been slowly happening since November, she sees NWSL and USL Super League as crucial parts of the USWNT’s development, and nothing is set in stone — especially not the Olympic roster.
Easing into the role
“Everything, to be honest,” Hayes said when detailing what U.S. interim head coach Twila Kilgore shared with her during the transition process. She rattled off a list of lessons from the 2023 World Cup, team personnel, and the collective bargaining agreement with the USWNT Players Association. “Culture, traditions, I want to maintain and uphold the right things.”Hayes’ conversation with Kilgore also touched on the games the USWNT has played so far this year and the finer details like the timeline of a roster selection process.“We’ve been on many long calls late at night,” she said, referencing the time difference between the U.S. and England. “Certainly been to bed quite late in the last few months, but she’s been a humongous help.“I feel like I’ve been able to quietly get to know the job without being in the job, and I think that’s really helped every little detail, whether it’s processes on game day to how they operate in the hotel to which kit they wear. When I go into camp, I know all of these things.”Her brief trip to the U.S. last November helped too, and most of the time between now and the Olympics has already been planned thanks to Kilgore’s information and what Hayes saw firsthand.“All the May camp preparation is done, all the sessions are planned,” she said. “All of the June schedule is planned out in terms of our meetings, our meeting points. July is planned. Everybody is clear on what’s going on — now it’s about getting the players.”
The American women’s soccer ecosystem
Before taking the USWNT gig, Hayes had provided an outside assessment of the team’s 2023 World Cup performance in a column, focusing primarily on player development and the fact that the team was “massively short of creative talent.” Asked if she would continue to be critical of the program, Hayes expressed that she, like any coach, wants more for the team and federation.
“That’s clear for everyone to see,” she said, gesturing widely. “I don’t always view that as a negative thing. Sometimes you need something like that in life to serve as a reminder if you don’t grow. I always say all the time, what got you here won’t get you there. It’s an opportunity now to evolve.”Hayes said the focus needs to be on improving day in and day out, which isn’t limited to U.S. Soccer.“We need our league, the NWSL, to be hugely competitive. We need the USL (Super League) for lots of reasons, a development pathway for players that don’t necessarily make the NWSL to come in and to be given a place to play,” she said. “That in itself will create competition. Competition is healthy.”That synergy was apparent Thursday as Hayes’ media availability took place at NWSL’s offices. (The league made sure she had access to NWSL+, the league’s streaming platform.) While she watches and will continue to games across the league, it’s a feat she admitted she can’t do on her own.“Across the breadth and depth of this country, that cannot be covered solely by me,” she said. “There will be a coaching and analytics team that will be scattered across the country.”Hayes added that she has seen a noticeable tactical improvement across the league this season.“We have to compete with what’s going on in Europe, and I see lots of good developments in the (NWSL). I’ve seen good international players come into the league. All of these things have to happen in order for the U.S. team to compete at the top level,” Hayes said. “My job is to make sure that I work together with all of those stakeholders so that together, we have got the experience of what’s been done in Europe to be able to say look, we have to drive to the next space.”
Assessing all options, including forward Crystal Dunn
Hayes spoke about the roster for her first camp but did not touch on too many individual players that did or did not make the cut. Crystal Dunn’s name came up a couple of times, however, thanks to the fact that Dunn is joining the forward pool in Colorado and Minnesota.
“I don’t publish the order,” Hayes said, smiling. “I had nothing to do that with.” She paused, holding the joke as long as she could before finishing, “I’m being cheeky.”
Hayes coached Dunn at Chelsea during the 2017-2018 season, but she said she’s seen the conversations about Dunn’s position over the years as well. Hayes knows how important it is for Dunn to “find a home” on the field.“For me, it’s less about, ‘Is she going to play in that position?’” Hayes said. “I would like to see her a little bit further forward this time around knowing I already know what she can do at left back.”
Dunn isn’t the only player Hayes is evaluating. She said the 18-player roster for the Olympics is not decided, and what she sees in camp will take her a step closer to knowing that final list. It’s part of why she didn’t want to comment on any individual player.
“I have to analyze players and analyze which players are closest to making that roster,” Hayes said. “I need to see it, feel it, be around it to get a sense of the tactical understanding of everyone — see where everybody is at.”
Hayes will focus on the process and the performance. She’s learned to focus on that over her years of coaching. She’s less worried about where a team is today; it’s where a team is at the end that counts.
“Are the USA at their best possible position today?” She rhetorically asked the group of reporters. “No, but it’s about where we finish when we need to that matters to me. So I want to focus on that instead of where we are in the world rankings, where we are in comparison to Spain”
Even though she’s been watching the team from a distance since she got the job in November, the time with players in June will show her how much of a gap between the team today and the team at the Olympics can be closed. She wants to be realistic about it.“I’ve come from a club level and what I have learned is the best development is done at club level,” she said addressing prospective USWNT players via the reporters in the room. “So go back to your clubs, play, compete, get healthy, and put yourself in the best possible place.(Photo: USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
It was, after about half an hour, feeling like an office party at a karaoke bar. Chelsea’s travelling support were rolling through all the hits and by the end, Emma Hayes was taking requests. “We want five!” they said. Duly it arrived. “We want Fran!” came the calls, and on went Fran Kirby for her final game in a Chelsea shirt. When she scored Chelsea’s last goal, on 85 minutes, it felt like Chelsea were bending the world to their will. “What’s the score?” the fans asked Hayes repeatedly, and gladly she held up her fingers in immediate reply. It took her a little longer for goal six, probably from the extra effort of taking both hands from her pockets.
Emma Hayes’ side won 6-0 at Old Trafford on the final day of the season (Alex Livesey – The FA via Getty Images)
The only omission from their setlist was a chorus of oles. Had it been against a bigger rival, they might have whipped those out after the second goal arrived inside nine minutes but, as it was, Chelsea were too focused to break off for that kind of interlude.It helps when Manchester United barely showed up, let alone with the energy to gatecrash. Hayes’ leaving party was exactly that, and the force of it all was such that United’s decision to parade their FA Cup trophy at full time to fans unable to travel to last week’s Wembley final felt like witnessing a proposal at somebody else’s wedding. It had all the hallmarks of one: the Hayes kids flinging confetti at each other, Sam Kerr and Erin Cuthbert striking comedy poses in front of the trophy as if in a photo booth.Even Hayes seemed a touch delirious, at one point turning to her bench and mouthing: “Who scored?” and shrugging towards her players during one particularly rampant patch. Certainly, she was taken aback by the ludicrous nature of it all, the ease with which, on its final day, it all fell into place. To emerge from this season with a fifth successive league title is, to put it one way, a bit of a leap in plot terms, given where we were a month ago, and rich with irony given it was her nemesis, Arsenal manager Jonas Eidevall, who opened the door for her to write her ending with a 2-1 win over runners-up Manchester City this month, a match that tilted the title race in Chelsea’s favour.
Still, a sunny stroll was a nice change for Hayes given the pace of the past few months, and how quickly it looked like her final season at Chelsea would fall apart. Hayes had been hoping for a quadruple until losing the Continental Cup to Arsenal in March — the game that ended with her shoving Eidevall at full time in response to the “male aggression” she said he had exhibited on the touchline — and her decision to recite a poem in lieu of an apology at her subsequent press conference seemed to precipitate a wider unravelling and betray a more muddled line of thinking.Within a fortnight, the quadruple had halved to a double after a defeat to Manchester United in the FA Cup. To attend Hayes’ post-match press conference was to see a more guarded, circumspect figure, one visibly wary about saying the wrong thing. In the end, she did: her remarks that “nobody died” and that the goal for the end of the season was for everybody to get out alive did not play well with a fanbase anxious given recent events.These were rare missteps for Hayes, a manager who, if anything, has given the impression over the years of being frustrated by too much good press rather than the reverse (the title of her audiobook, To Kill the Unicorn, is about curing the delusion of the manager as a mythical being who has all the answers). So came the backlash. This season has been the most bruising of Hayes’ career from a PR perspective and the stakes have been so much higher given the number of eyeballs on her since it was announced in November she would take over as manager of the U.S. women’s national team this summer.“Sometimes I wish I was in the old, old days where maybe it was a small press pack,” Hayes said in her final press conference before playing United. “I actually did that early on. You could sit and have little off-the-record conversations, but also share good things. Now, it’s just an exercise of not tripping up. You say too much and get whacked for it. You don’t say enough then it’s just something dull, a repetitive function that we have to serve.”She continued the theme after the match. “If I wasn’t a football manager or had to do a press conference every three days, I’m that person in the social group who sits in the corner. I’m not front and centre in my life. I don’t live like that. So I find some of this job really, really hard because I just want a quiet life. That’s what I’m most looking forward to — being out of the British media, having a different life and being in a situation where I only have to do this and games every six weeks.”Hayes will know it has been a slog for the women’s game to reach this point in the public consciousness. The sport has exploded over the past two years in particular and with the publicity has come scrutiny that Hayes probably felt underprepared for.As the face of the WSL and the sport’s loudest advocate, she has felt it more than most managers. Opposition fans grow weary at the focus on Hayes and Chelsea and the woman at the centre finds being used as a rent-a-quote burdensome, for all she understands the need to keep pushing for more. There is, though, no obvious heir to her role as a mouthpiece for the sport as a whole. Aston Villa’s Carla Ward is taking a career break for similar reasons to Hayes’ desire for a break. City’s Gareth Taylor feels too guarded, United’s Marc Skinner too emotional and Eidevall too explosive on the field. Someone shaping a club to the extent Hayes has feels less likely in the era where women’s teams continue to move in-house. Maybe they won’t make them like her anymore.Not that Hayes could be persuaded to stay. “I categorically cannot carry on,” Hayes said on Saturday. “I don’t have another drop to give, whatever it is. When you deal with people, I have such high standards for myself that maintaining that has become impossible. I can’t keep up with the demands from players on a daily basis in terms of their emotional needs, in terms of everything. I found that to be gruelling this year.”
The moment Chelsea were confirmed as WSL champions (Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images)
She detailed discussions with Chelsea’s sporting directors over improving player care and performance psychology. For those who want to find something deeper in Hayes’ departure, maybe there is a lesson here: after Chelsea’s 8-0 win over Bristol City on May 5, she had warned that female coaches would continue to leave the game if football did not appreciate their wellbeing. “If you’re a parent, forget about it,” she said. She would love to see a duo of two mothers or co-head coaches. “You have to give up a lot in this job,” she went on. “I don’t wish it on anyone.”In time, maybe the game will reflect that it failed one of its greatest managers; maybe this is just the reality of management, at this point in the WSL’s life. Maybe it just has to be that consuming. Maybe it’s different for women. In any case, the next generation will benefit from Hayes’ wisdom, even if Hayes has been burned out by it all.“Staying on top of emotion is something I’m really good at,” she said at her final press conference. “Sometimes, I really hate that. You have to do that a lot as a manager, which is probably one of the reasons I’m leaving this job. I miss Emma, and feeling like I don’t have to watch every word I say or worry about what my body language looks like in every situation because the camera’s on me.”Her final few weeks at Chelsea engendered a kind of ‘grieving’ among her family members who had taken the club to heart. Often, Hayes declined to talk about it with any finality “because I don’t want to cry because I have to do my job”. She had learned to “kick the emotions in the back of my head” but imagined “sobbing my heart out” at some point on Sunday, once it was all over and after she had hosted a barbeque for her son Harry’s birthday.
That has been the odd dichotomy of Hayes’ tenure: a winning machine but always with the disclaimers — maybe even anchors — that she is human, too. After exiting the Champions League at the hands of Barcelona in April, Hayes’ eyes brimmed with tears; her press officer mouthed: “You OK?” before they plunged into a short press conference where Hayes took only six questions. At the Football Writers’ Association dinner to honour Hayes, she teared up while thanking her late father, Sid, the one who had told her to go out and make the English game into what had been built in the United States. An underappreciated facet of this season is that Hayes has trundled through it all while grieving for her father. The menopause, Hayes has said on more than one occasion, has also presented unique challenges.
“Don’t think I’m not, like, feeling it,” she said after her final game at Kingsmeadow. “Today was really, really hard for me to coach. Really, really hard. There was a lot going on.”
Still, Chelsea did the job that night: fans ordered goals and Chelsea served them like they were waiting tables. Even when Guro Reiten managed a hat-trick on 77 minutes, Hayes was urging Chelsea back to the centre circle to rack up the goals that would put them in control on the final day. As the PA system reminded the crowd when the teams came back from the break that this would be the final 45 minutes at Kingsmeadow for Hayes, Kirby and Maren Mjelde, the evening bubbled with a sense of purpose, the mood music changed entirely after City’s 2-1 defeat by Arsenal in the earlier game.
The win put Chelsea in control of their own destiny, albeit not always convincingly, and half the time it was tricky to work out what Hayes was thinking. She conceded the title live on Sky, flanked by upcoming striker Aggie Beever-Jones, after a 4-3 defeat by Liverpool.
She insisted later that the interview — which Sky pundit Karen Carney called “weird” — was not an attempt at a mind game. You half-believe Hayes, given the sincerity with which she later insisted she expected City to win, but initially, she conceded it was “the right tactic” for her to “take the pressure off” her own players before City played.
Over the past year, Hayes has pulled so many tricks that looking for the real meaning sometimes felt like untangling a cat’s cradle. At the least, she is adept at spinning situations to Chelsea’s advantage, and maybe all the strangeness served to take the spotlight from the players. She insisted it was her squad who spearheaded the title charge after City’s slip-up, but it’s hard to believe Hayes was truly willing to abandon all hope: “It all came from them. They never gave up that belief… I learned so much from them today. I really did. I learned a lot about the importance of belief.”
Hayes allowed herself some time to rest on Sunday, then will move to her new in-tray. She is exhausted, but the thought of going to an Olympics, she says, is “not tiring” and will re-energise her. She has USWNT player and staff calls on Monday, a call with U.S. leadership teams on Wednesday, a flight to New York and press obligations on Thursday in Denver, a meeting with staff on Friday, and a first meeting with the team on the following Monday.
It is a full-circle moment given the call from Sid that started it all: when out in Atlanta and bowled over by the 1996 and 1999 U.S. teams, he told Hayes to get out there. When she finally does, it will be with the hope of a simpler life, and maybe a team already used to celebrity and fighting culture wars, with players who will be masters of the things that have most jaded Hayes in her final few years in England. Still, Hayes will likely prove unignorable: it is difficult to imagine how she will ever be less box office as long as she is herself.
It’s been equally difficult, over the past few weeks, to try to understand Hayes’ legacy. When she announced her departure, it was easy: an immeasurable impact on a sport and a club. May onwards made for a strange time to quantify it all given the events post-Continental Cup final, and the view among opposition fans that what happened there irreparably damaged her reputation. Hayes is no longer a universally-liked figure. Furthermore, she has never won the Champions League as a head coach, let alone built a European dynasty a la Lyon or Barcelona. To what extent those will exist as asterisks on her roll of honour might only become clear if an English team wins the Champions League in the coming years. Deeming a return to club management “unlikely”, Hayes seemed to pass up on ever doing so.
You can’t believe it bothers her much. Knowing that she has nothing more to give is in itself closure. Hayes is simply too exhausted to summon regrets and what-ifs. Is she the greatest domestic manager the women’s game has known? Certainly in the WSL era; more broadly, her only rival is Vic Akers, Arsenal’s European Cup-winning manager for whom Hayes was assistant coach, and who pushed the game forward in a similarly visionary way. Hayes endured more scrutiny and greater competition at a more transformative time for the women’s game. It will take a while for anyone to catch up to seven league titles, five FA Cups and two League Cups.
Memory is a slippery thing. In five years, will anyone still read the footnotes at the bottom of title five? That they did it without Sam Kerr, that Arsenal and Stina Blackstenius half won the title for them, that the off-field sideshow threatened to consume it all?
More on Emma Hayes, the incoming USWNT head coach…
This has been a gruelling season for a club beset by injuries and it feels like they’ve made it over the line by constant reinvention and sheer force of will since losing Kerr and her replacement, Mia Fishel, to anterior cruciate ligament injuries at the start of the year. Had Chelsea won the FA Cup this year, it would have been their fourth in a row. That underlines the breadth of their dominance.
The Manchester United manager, Skinner, mused afterwards that the days of clubs winning five titles in a row are “gone”. He said: “I’ve seen the growth from no teams, not professional, all the way to teams that have had the advantage because they professionalised quicker. In the era when it has been professional, Chelsea still managed to deliver that situation. It leaves a space and hopefully, we can fill that space going forward.”
His point was probably that Hayes’ departure and the relentlessness of her dominance leave the door open for others as Chelsea transition but it seemed muddied by his concession that even in the professional era Chelsea stayed ahead of the pack and found a new edge. That constant reinvention gave the illusion that Hayes and Chelsea could go on forever. Hayes has pulled back the curtain on it all to show a coach and players barely limping over the line, and one not always given to enjoyment.
Still, a video of Hayes and son Harry, in a hotel room, singing about winning five titles in a row did the rounds on Saturday night. As with Hayes, there is always a point, a message. That one: I will enjoy this, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks.
(Top photo: Naomi Baker – The FA via Getty Images)
The clear winner in MLS Soccer this week was Raccoon Messi at the Red Bulls vs Philly game see. Pulisic scores a Brace on Mom’s Day weekend and celebrates with his mom as he wear’s her maiden name on his back. Disappointing week as Tottenham blew their chances to knock off Man City at home when Son was smothered on this play by City’s backup goalie Ortega (love Pep’s response) – leaving the EPL race all but over to the Blues. Arsenal will fall just short again unless West Ham can upset Man City at City – fat chance. The only thing up for grabs is 6th place and a Europa league place. The complete and utter lack of drama in the EPL final weekend proves once again why American sports are superior to Europe.
Man City has only beaten 2 of the top 10 teams this season – but have the best overall record by beating the crap teams. The US has playoffs. No offense but when a team wins the Super Bowl –they have to beat the best teams – same in the NBA, same in Hockey and at the end of the season when it counts – not some early or midseason – no one cares game. Championship games to win it all. While the European leagues have no one cares blasé games down the stretch except perhaps relegation – – imagine what even a top 4 playoff would look like in the EPL – the interest and excitement darn near challenging Champions League in popularity. But alas the Europeans know best. Enjoy this weekend’s games where the only real drama is will Germany’s Bayern Leverkusen extend Europe’s longest unbeaten streak EVER to 51 games by becoming the first German team to finish undefeated in a season?
Indy 11 host Hartford Sat & Detroit City Wed in US Open Cup
Indy Eleven won 3-1 at Miami FC Saturday night and is now unbeaten in six straight across all competitions, including four in USL Championship action. The four matches are the most since a stretch of six from August 9-Sept 2 last year. The win improves Indy to 4-4-2 in league action, and moves them up to 4th in the East. The Boys in Blue return to action Saturday when they host Hartford Athletic for Hometown Heroes Night. Action begins at 7 p.m. ET and will air locally on WNDY & ESPN+. Tickets are available via Ticketmaster. The 11 will host Detroit City Wed in US Open Cup Sweet 16 action at the Mike.
Games on TV
Sat, May 18 – Final Day Germany
9:30 am ESPN+ Dortmund vs Darmstadt
9:30 am EPSN+ Union Berlin (Aaronson, Pefok) vs Freiburg
9:30 pm ESPN+ Bayer Leverkusen vs Ausburg
9:30 am ESPN+ Stuttgart vs Mgladbach (Scalley)
12 noon CBSSN Lecce vs Atalanta ITALY
1:45 pm Fox Nashville SC vs Atlanta United
2:45 pm Para+ Torino vs AC Milan (Pulisic, Musah)
7 pm ESPN+, TV8 Indy 11 vs Hartford @ the Mike
7:30 pm CBS Galazo Tampa Bay Rowdies (Jordan Farr GK) vs FC Tulsa
7:30 pm Ion Washington Spirit (Rodman, Hatch, Sullivan) vs Angel City FC NWSL
9:30 pm Ion TV KC Current vs Racing Louisville (Demelo) NWSL
9:30 pm Univision America vs Guardlajara
Sun, May 19 Final Day EPL
11 am USA Arsenal vs Everton
11 am NBC Man City vs West Ham
11 am CNBC Brighton vs Man United
11 am Golf Channel Chelsea vs Bournemouth
11 am Peacock Shefield United (Trusty) vs Nottingham Forest (Reyna)
11 am Peacock Fulham (Jedi, Ream) vs Luton Town
11 am Peacock Crystal Palace (Richards) vs Aston Villa
12 noon Para+ Inter Milan vs Lazio
1 pm ESPN+ Barcelona vs Rayo Vallecano
5 pm Para+ NY Gothem (Williams, Ohara, Mewis) vs Chicago
6 pm Para+ Orlando Pride vs Seattle Reign (Lavelle, Huerta, Cook) NWSL
Wed, May 22 Europa League Finals
3 pm Para+ Bayer Leverkusen vs Atalanta
Sat, May 25
3 pm ESPN+ FA Cup Final Man City vs Man United
Sat, June 1
3 pm CBS Champ League Final Real Madrid vs Dortmund
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The last matchday of the 2023-24 season in the Bundesliga means things get started with a fury on Saturday morning with all 18 clubs kicking off simultaneously at 9:30a. Then on Sunday morning the Eredivise completes there season with kickoffs at 8:30a, the EPL kicks off at 11a, and in France they will be kicking off at 3p. La Liga and Serie A still have one more weekend left so will have games scattered across this weekend before wrapping up their season next week Sunday. There’s quite a bit of action including some significant situations still to be settled so let’s get to it.
Saturday
Union Berlin v Freiburg – 8:30a on ESPN+
Brenden Aaronson started last weekend and Union Berlin were leading 2-1 against 17th place Koln but two late goals would see Berlin drop three points and fall into the relegation playoff spot. Now Berlin, who started the season in the Champions League need a win on Saturday against 8th place Freiburg (who are still within striking distance of Europa Conference League) and a loss by Mainz to Wolfsburg or they will finish no better than the relegation playoff spot. If Berlin were to lose and Koln can win again, this time against Wolfsburg, while making up a three goal differential it would be a straight and stunning drop for Berlin to the 2 Bundesliga. Berlin have lost five of their last six and have just one win since mid-February. Rumors this week suggest that Aaronson will not be back in Berlin next season regardless of the outcome on Saturday but also that Leeds do not plan to keep him for next season so it seems as though he will be on the move this summer.
Wolfsburg v Mainz – 9:30a on ESPN+
Kevin Paredes has started two straight for Wolfsburg and will finish the season just under 1,500 minutes across all competitions for his club who head into the final weekend in 12th place. It’s been a solid, if not spectacular, season for Paredes as he builds on the 500 minutes he saw in the 2022-23 campaign. Wolfsburg are comfortably middle of the table in 12th place but can play spoiler to Mainz who are holding on to hopes of safety.
Hoffenheim v Bayern Munich – 9:30a on ESPN+
John Brooks has not appeared in three straight matches and has not started a game since he picked up a red card in early March and served a two match suspension. Hoffenheim are in seventh place, one point ahead of Freiburg for Europa Conference League qualifying and three points (and a three goal differential) behind Eintracht Frankfurt for sixth place and Europa League qualification. Hoffenheim’s opponent this weekend are Bayern Munich who’s fate has been settled in an unusual way as they are currently in second place, fifteen points behind first place Bayer Leverkusen (who will look to complete their unbeaten run through the Bundesliga when they face Augsburg).
Stuttgart v Borussia Monchengladbach – 9:30a on ESPN+
Joe Scally, Jordan Pefok and Borussia Monchengladbach go into the final weekend clear of relegation thanks to a draw against Frankfurt last weekend with Scally picking up the assist on Gladbach’s only goal. Scally has started all but a handful of matches for Gladbach this season and has racked up more Bundesliga minutes this season than any other American, still just 21 years old. Pefok did not appear last weekend and has not started a match since March, he has also been in a goal drought with his last goal coming in late February. Gladbach’s opponent this weekend is third place Stuttgart who technically don’t have much to play for this weekend but could pass Bayern in the standings with a win and a Bayern loss.
Heidenheim v Koln – 9:30a on ESPN+
The second leading minutes man for American’s in Germany is Lennard Maloney who returned from injury last weekend to see 24’ minutes off the bench in Heidenheim’s 1-1 draw with Freiburg. Maloney has missed five matches due to injury and came off the bench in two other matches immediately after his return from said injuries but has otherwise started every match for a Heidenheim side who came into the season as an odds on favorite to return to 2 Bundesliga but have had a solid season and are currently in 9th place, tied with Augsburg and Werder Bremen. Heidenheims opponent this weekend are Koln who need a win, a loss by Union Berlin, and to make up a three goal differential in order to crawl into the relegation playoff spot for one final chance to maintain their Bundesliga standing for next season.
Torino v AC Milan – 2:45p on Paramount+
Christian Pulisic had a pair of goals last weekend in AC Milan’s 5-1 romp over Cagliari to bring his season total to 12 goals and 7 assists in league plan and 15 goals and 9 assists across all competitions. It has been a fantastic individual year for Pulisic though without any team awards to show for his accomplishments as Inter Milan have won the league title going away. Yunus Musah also started and went the full 90’ last weekend in the win, returning from his one game yellow card suspension. It’s been a quieter year for Musah but he’s started the last four games he’s been eligible for and with two more strong appearances to close the season could finish with over 1,500 league minutes and 2,300 minutes across all competitions. Milan face tenth place Torino in their penultimate match with Milan having already sealed second place and Torino out of the European competition running.
Sunday
PSV Eindhoven v RKC Waalwijk – 8:30a on ESPN+
Malik Tillman and Ricardo Pepi close out their season with league champion PSV Eindhoven Sunday morning with a match against RKC Waalwijk who are tied with Excelsior for the relegation playoff spot. Tillman started and went the full 90’ last weekend in PSV’s draw with Fortuna Sittard while Pepi came on for the final 20’ but neither player made the scoresheet as the match finished 1-1.
Burnley v Nottingham Forest – 11a on Peacock
Gio Reyna was strikingly absent from the matchday squad for Forest last weekend as they fell to Chelsea 3-2 to remain three points ahead of Luton Town for the final relegation spot heading into the final matchday. It’s been a bust of a transfer for Reyna who will return to Champions League finalists Borussia Dortmund this summer with an uncertain future ahead of him. It looks as though Matt Turner may also need a move this summer as he hasn’t appeared for Forest since late January, shortly after the team brought in Matz Sels, though frankly Sels has not preformed any better than Turner in his spell.
Chelsea v Bournemouth – 11a on Peacock
In a bit of more positive news Tyler Adams returned to the field for Bournemouth last weekend getting ten minutes off the bench in their 2-1 loss to Brentford. It was just Adams third appearance in what has been a lost season but it is good to see him back on the field heading into the Summer and the USMNT’s upcoming involvement in the Copa America. Bournemouth are solidly middle of the EPL table in eleventh place. They are facing a hot Chelsea side that have won four straight and are making a late push currently three points ahead of Newcastle United and Manchester United for Conference League play and looking to overtake Tottenham for Europa League qualification.
Crystal Palace v Aston Villa – 11a on Peacock
Chris Richards looks to have secured a spot with Crystal Palace moving forward. Richards made the starting lineup in December and hasn’t looked back, starting and going the full 90’ in all but three matches in which he was left out due to injury in early April. Richards will finish the season with over 2,000 minutes in EPL play and 2,500 minutes over all competitions. Palace enter the final week in twelfth place and are facing fourth place Aston Villa who can’t move up or down on the final weekend.
Luton Town v Fulham – 11a on Peacock
Tim Ream faces a more uncertain future though he recently signed an extension with Fulham. Ream signed a one year extension that would take him through the 2024-25 season but he hasn’t seen the field for Fulham since mid February. Antonee Robinson on the other hand has played nearly every minute for Fulham this year, missing one match due to muscular problems back in September and just an additional 58 minutes across the remainder of the season, he’ll finish with over 3,200 minutes in league play. Fulham are in fourteenth place, easily safe from relegation and face a Luton Town side that are all but mathematically eliminated. Luton would need a win, a Forest loss and to make up the 12 goal difference in order to avoid the drop.
Sheffield United v Tottenham Hotspur – 11a on Peacock
Sheffield’s disastrous EPL campaign comes to a merciful close this weekend with the only outstanding question being just how many goals will they allow in their record setting season. Sheffield have allowed 101 goals and will face a Tottenham side that need a result this weekend to ensure they hold off Chelsea for fifth place and Europa League qualification. Auston Trusty has started the past eight for Sheffield and looks set for a return to the Championship as he is signed with the club through the end of the 2026-27 season.
Real Betis v Real Sociedad – 1p on ESPN+
Real Betis pulled ahead of Real Sociedad last weekend with a win over Almeria but fell back to seventh place midweek when they settled for a draw with Las Palmas while Sociedad was beating Valencia. Sociedad now holds a one point lead for sixth place and Europa Conference League qualifying heading into their head-to-head matchup. Betis need at least a draw to keep their hopes alive as a win would seal sixth place for Sociedad. Johnny started again last week and has over 1,100 minutes since joining Betis in January.
Granada v Celta Vigo – 1p on ESPN+
Luca de la Torre was an unused substitute last weekend and hasn’t started a match since he was injured in early March. Celta Vigo have four wins over that time and with a five point lead over Cadiz a result of any kind this weekend against relegated Granada would guarantee they are safe heading into the final weekend.
Monaco v Nantes – 3p on beIN Sports
Folarin Balogun came off the bench late in the first half last weekend to replace the injured Breel Embolo and picked up an assist on the opening goal as Monaco would go on to win 2-0. With the result his side are guaranteed to finish in second place heading into the final weekend as they take on a Nantes side that are just guaranteed safety. The assist was Balogun’s second in three weeks and his seventh of the season giving him fifteen goal contributions across all competitions.
Monday
Bologna v Juventus – 2:45p on Paramount+
Weston McKennie and Timothy Weah lifted the Copa Italia trophy on Wednesday but saw their manager dismissed on Friday in what has been a turbulent week. McKennie started the match while Weah came on in the final minutes to put in a defensive effort and see out the 1-0 victory. Juventus have had a disappointing league season including a draw to last place Salernitana last weekend, though the point was enough to ensure that they will qualify for Champions League play next season. They face third place Bologna on Monday who are tied with Juventus on points and lead them in goal differential by +3.
USMNT’s core is moving away from MLS and that’s fine for now
In one respect, however, the match was unlike any other in history. For the first time since Major League Soccer’s launch in 1996, the red, white, and blue game-day roster did not feature a single player from the U.S. first division. Atlanta United‘s Miles Robinson, the only MLS player to even make the training camp roster for those games, was left off the 23-man matchday squad because of injury and looking at where American players play, it’s unlikely this will be the last time such an occurrence happens.In a sense, the impact of current MLS players on the U.S. national team is waning. At the 1998 World Cup, 16 of the 22 players came from MLS. In 2002 and 2006, that number was 11 out of 23. In Qatar? Just nine of 26 players came from the first division, with only Nashville SC‘s Walker Zimmerman playing more than 45 minutes.Now, this isn’t to say that MLS (and USL Championship) aren’t having an effect on the senior national team. They clearly are, especially as the majority of those called up started their careers in MLS or the development academies. U.S. head coach Gregg Berhalter pointed to the growth of the league as a key element in the development of the player pool.
“MLS is a critical step in everything that we’re doing in U.S. Soccer,” Berhalter said in a November interview with Telemundo. “When you see the amount of investment that the owners have made in Major League Soccer, and actually soccer in America, it’s a great thing. The reason why we are where we are is because of the investment from MLS,””We don’t get hung up on where the players are coming from. We’re looking at how we grow this team, grow the player pool, and give experience to a broad selection of players.”Consider this: 17 of the 26 players on the 2022 World Cup roster played for an MLS NEXT academy, while 20 of the 21 men on the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup roster were, or had been, in an MLS academy. Additionally, 14 players with USL or League One experience made that U-20 roster including Joshua Wynder, who has since moved to Portuguese side Benfica in the USL’s first seven-figure transfer.It’s a strange spot for MLS and, to a lesser extent, USL. The league needs to move its best young players along to other clubs and reinvest the money in player development, a virtuous cycle that also means talented young Americans will end up playing overseas. While 2023 saw homegrown players set a record, with 174 playing 168,163 minutes across 2,829 games, three aging defenders — Matt Miazga, Tim Parker, and Zimmerman — were the only Americans on the Best XI team. The top three MVP candidates — FC Cincinnati playmaker Luciano Acosta, LAFC winger Dénis Bouanga and Atlanta United midfielder Thiago Almada — came from abroad, with no American winning the league’s MVP since Mike Magee in 2013.
An emerging league is, almost by definition, a place where the most talented young players leave and that is, for now at least, a feature not a bug.”All of the work that we do day to day is focused on giving opportunities for our players to reach their full potential, whether it’s in the academy or the first team, so that eventually some of them become high-level players in MLS,” Charles Altchek, president of MLS NEXT Pro, said in an interview with ESPN. “Whether they stay in MLS or end up moving around the world depends on where they are in their lifecycle as a player, what they want to achieve and where they want to be.”USL is adopting this same philosophy: they want to be a place where Americans start a career, not finish it.”I feel very strongly that the most valuable currency in soccer for player development is firstly in playing minutes, especially meaningful and competitive games in front of thousands of fans,” USL head of global football development and sporting director Oliver Wyss said during a phone call with ESPN.”Our clubs are ideally positioned to provide this environment and the full pathway that already has and will have an even bigger direct impact on developing the next generation of U.S. national team players and also allow the USL to become a bigger player in the global transfer market.””I encourage all of our teams to look at our top players as assets, and not as expenses. Ultimately, if these assets can be transferred to Europe, and you get a six- or seven-figure transfer amount plus a future sell-on percentage, the return of investment on these players is going to be significant for a club.”The growth of domestic leagues means there’s more opportunity than ever before for Americans to see the field, but there’s also more competition. The trend for MLS clubs seeking quality is to target players in their mid-20s. In other words, men in their prime who are also depreciating assets in a sport that prioritizes youth and potential.While this is good for the level of play, it’s not great for younger Americans trying to break through who can see opportunities to get on the field blocked by these expensive acquisitions. As a result, the percentage of minutes played by Americans in MLS has decreased even though available minutes have increased because of league expansion. One worthwhile comparison is Japan, a footballing country in a similar place to the U.S. in this regard.
Tom Byer, a man who has had a significant impact on the development of soccer in the Asian nation, offered an observation during an interview. “With Japan, the majority of the national team players play in Europe, but the gap between those best players in Europe and the players in the J.League is tiny,” he said. “Almost no Japanese player makes it over to Europe to play until they’ve played about 150 professional games in the J.League.”Closing the gap should, and is, a goal of MLS, and one that it’s slowly achieving. But the truth is, at the end of the day, it’s neither MLS nor the USL’s job to make the U.S. men’s national team better. They are three separate and distinct entities with their own goals and metrics for success. Still, there’s the reality that what’s good for one is good for the other — a strong tide raises all boats, or something like that — and there’s a World Cup not too far away across all of North America.”When the national team is successful, it’s good for soccer fans in this country and for MLS,” Altchek said. “That’s why we’ve worked really closely with the Federation for decades now on providing those opportunities for players and working with them on call-ups and releasing players for different competitions.””We want the U.S. to win the 2026 World Cup or at least go farther than they’ve ever gone before. Having the men’s national team there with a bunch of players who played or are playing in MLS will be icing on the cake.”
Europe’s top soccer leagues: Title fights, UCL, relegation
Dale Johnson, General Editor, ESPN FC May 14, 2024, 04:56 PM ET
Manchester City will seal the title with a victory at home to West Ham on Sunday. For Arsenal to win the title, they must win at home to Everton and Man City lose or draw. If Arsenal win and Man City draw, the Gunners would win the title on goal difference.
As it stands, only fifth gets a Europa League place with the other slot, by right, going to the FA Cup winners.
Man United take on Man City in the FA Cup final on May 25 (stream live on ESPN+, U.S. only). If Erik ten Hag’s team lift the trophy then they will be in the Europa League (UEL). If Man City win the cup, then the UEL position transfers to the sixth place in the Premier League
Despite poor results, Spurs are in a strong position to finish fifth with a six-point lead over Newcastle and Chelsea. Spurs still need a point away to Sheffield United on Sunday to be absolutely sure.
Spurs could also be confirmed in the Europa League on Wednesday if both Chelsea (go to Brighton) and Newcastle (visit Man United) drop points.
Man United can now finish no higher than sixth but, because of their vastly inferior goal difference, that will become seventh at best if they don’t beat Newcastle.
Europa Conference League (1)
Pending the FA Cup final, sixth will go into the Europa Conference League. Newcastle hold it, with Chelsea and Man United close behind. The UECL place will drop to seventh if Man City win the FA Cup or if Man United win the FA Cup and finish fifth or sixth. It would still be one of Man United, Newcastle and Chelsea — one of them will miss out on Europe completely. If Man United win the FA Cup and finish seventh or eighth, the UECL place goes to sixth.
Luton are effectively relegated due to their vastly inferior goal difference to fourth-bottom Forest. On the final day, Luton would need to beat Fulham and Forest lose to Burnley with a goal difference swing of 12.
Leicester City and Ipswich Town have been automatically promoted to the Premier League. Leeds United, Southampton, West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City compete in the playoffs for one more place.
LaLiga – three rounds to go final weekend May 25-26
Atletico are almost certain to take the fourth place, holding an eight-point lead over Athletic Club
It will be sealed on Wednesday if Atleti get a victory at Getafe, or if Athletic fail to win at Celta Vigo.
Real Madrid winning the Champions League cannot benefit another team in LaLiga. The team with the highest UEFA coefficient in UCL qualifying will be promoted direct to the group stage.
Europa League (2)
Athletic won the Copa del Rey and are almost certain to finish in the top six, so we can safely say the place for the cup moves over to the league — fifth and sixth will enter the UEL.
Either Atlético or Athletic will take one of the places, with Betis and Real Sociedad battling it out for the other.
Valencia and Villarreal have slim hope. Villarreal go to Genoa on Tuesday. Then on Thursday, Real Sociedad host Valencia (who really must win) and Betis are at Las Palmas.
Europa Conference League (1)
This will go to seventh in the league, probably between Real Sociedad and Real Betis, while Valencia and Villarreal require a mini-miracle from here.
One relegation spot is to be decided, with Cádiz giving themselves hope by beating Getafe on Sunday. They still have a lot to do to catch Celta Vigo, Rayo Vallecano or Mallorca. On Wednesday, Cádiz are at Sevilla, Celta Vigo are at home to Athletic Club and Rayo Vallecano host Granada
Bundesliga – one round to go final day May 18
Title
Bayer Leverkusenare still unbeaten and have already secured the first championship in their history.
Dortmund are in the UCL final, and if they win it a UCL place will be given to sixth in the Bundesliga. The European Performance Slot is a league benefit, so it will be an additional place to Dortmund’s as titleholders. Eintracht Frankfurt, who are guaranteed a place in the UECL at worst, are in sixth but could be overtaken by Hoffenheim on the final day. One of those two teams will be fully backing Dortmund against Real Madrid on June 1. Frankfurt need a point at home to RB Leipzig to secure sixth. If they lose, then Hoffenheim can climb above them with a victory at home to Bayern. A small goal difference swing of three is also required.
Europa League (2)
There are a few complicating factors to the UEL places, which right now go to sixth in the league (Frankfurt) and the winners of the DFB Pokal. The final of the DFB Pokal on May 25 (stream live on ESPN+, U.S. only) sees Leverkusen take on Kaiserslautern who, incredibly, could win the cup despite almost being relegated to the third division, as they sit four points above the 2. Bundesliga relegation zone with one game to be played. If Kaiserslautern pull off an almighty shock and do what no other team has done all season (beat Leverkusen), the league slots will be unaltered: sixth into the UEL and seventh into the UECL. If Leverkusen win the final, sixth and seventh will get a place in the UEL.
If Dortmund win the UCL, Germany would surrender the place in the UEL earned by Dortmund in the league. So, Dortmund would qualify as UCL titleholders in fifth, with sixth getting the European Performance position. The only way seventh can get a UEL place is if Leverkusen win the cup.
Europa Conference League (1)
If Kaiserslautern win the cup, then it will be Frankfurt, Hoffenheim or Freiburg who enter the UECL in seventh. If Leverkusen win the cup then eighth gets the UECL place, and it opens up.
Hoffenheim will definitely finish in the top eight so, like with Frankfurt, it might just be a question of which competition they play in — UCL, UEL or UECL.Freiburg sit in eighth with a three-point gap to Heidenheim, Augsburg and Werder Bremen. On the last day, Freiburg travel to relegation-threatened Union Berlin knowing victory, if Hoffenheim draw or lose, could see them finish seventh; a draw would guarantee they finish eighth. But if they lose, they can be overtaken as they have worse goal difference than the three teams below them. Heidenheim are at home to Cologne, who have to win to have any chance of staying in the top flight, Augsburg travel to Leverkusen, who haven’t lost to anyone all season, and Bremen host Bochum, who could still be relegated.
Relegation (2+1)
Two teams are relegated, while third-bottom takes on third place in the 2. Bundesliga (Fortuna Düsseldorf) in a playoff for the right to play in the top flight.
The best Cologne can hope for is 16th and the relegation playoff spot … by overtaking Union Berlin. To go up to the playoff place, Cologne must win at Heidenheim on Saturday, hope Union lose at home to Freiburg, and there be a goal difference swing of four. To avoid the playoff Union must win and, due to goal difference, hope Mainz lose at Wolfsburg or VfL Bochum are beaten at Bremen. St. Pauliand Holstein Kiel have been automatically promoted into the Bundesliga.
Serie A – two rounds to go, final day May 26
Title
Internazionalehave wrapped up the Scudetto as runaway champions.
There’s one place up for grabs, which is held by Atalanta in fifth and they have a game in hand and a three-point advantage so are in a very strong position. That extra match is against Fiorentina and both teams are in European finals; the only possible date to play the game is Sunday, June 2 — a week after the final round of Serie A games is played. Atalanta and Fiorentina will therefore go into the “extra” game in full knowledge of the final position a result will earn.
AS Roma and Lazio are still in contention, but it’s a big ask with two games remaining.
Atalanta, who can finish no lower than seventh so are guaranteed at least UEL football, can seal their place in the UCL if they better Roma’s result at the weekend and at least match Lazio’s. Atalanta go to Lecce on Saturday, and on Sunday it’s Roma vs. Genoa and Lazio are at Inter.
If Atalanta win the UEL (they face Leverkusen in the final on May 22) then Italy will have six clubs in the UCL — the top four, Atalanta as UEL titleholders and the European Performance Spot. If Atalanta finish fifth and win the UEL, sixth will play in the UCL too — meaning Roma and Lazio will be cheering on Atalanta when they face Leverkusen.
Europa League (2)
Atalanta face Juventus in the final of the Coppa Italia on Wednesday, so it’s certain that sixth and seventh will qualify for the UEL.
Atalanta, Roma and Lazio are the main contenders, but there’s a small amount of hope for eighth-placed Fiorentina with that game in hand.
If Atalanta win the UEL to qualify for the UCL and finish fifth, sixth or seventh, Italy will surrender one place in the UEL for the league which Atalanta would have earned.
Eighth place will enter the UECL, which is currently held by Fiorentina but the place could yet be filled Roma, Lazio, or more likely Napoli or Torino .
On Friday, Napoli are away to Fiorentina and must win that to give themselves a real chance of being in Europe next season. Torino face a tough game at home to AC Milan.
If Fiorentina win the UECL to qualify for the UEL and finish eighth, Italy will surrender its place in the UECL.
It’s exceptionally tight, with Empoli level on points with Frosinone and within touching distance of Cagliari, Udinese and Hellas Verona.
Sassuolo are three points from safety and on Sunday host Cagliari in a big relegation showdown. They could pull Cagliari right into it, or be doomed.Also on Sunday, Udinese are at home to Empoli in another huge six-pointer, and Frosinone go to Monza. Then on Monday, Hellas Verona are at Salernitana.Parma and Cesc Fàbregas’ Como have been promoted to Serie A. Venezia. Cremonese, Catanzaro, Palermo, Sampdoria and Bresica take part in the playoffs.
MLS Power Rankings: Messi’s Miami stay top, Timbers struggle
Ryan Rosenblatt May 13, 2024, 12:28 PM
It’s Monday and another week of MLS action is in the books, which means it’s time for ESPN’s Power Rankings. Our Power Rankings are derived from a combination of key season statistics (points per game, goal differential, expected goal differential), recent performance, the Opta computer ratings and the observations of our writers.Who’s climbing the table? Who’s in free fall? We’ve ranked all 29 clubs in the league after Matchday 12. Let’s dive in.
Inter fell behind 2-0 before roaring back to win in Montréal. It wasn’t Lionel Messi leading the way either. Matías Rojas was the man with the magical left foot, scoring a sublime free kick and feeding Benjamin Cremaschi for the winner as the Paraguayan made sure Miami left Canada with three points.
In FCC’s biggest game of the young season, they had the best player and that made all the difference. Lucho Acosta was sensational against Columbus, setting up the first goal and scoring the second to paint Ohio blue and orange.
RSL will be disappointed to have conceded a stoppage time equalizer to the Galaxy, but it’s not like they have much to complain about. They were the inferior team in L.A. and still walked away with a point, even with Zac MacMath having a rough one in goal. Take it and get back to Utah.
Cristian Olivera scored twice as LAFC trounced the Whitecaps 3-0. The Uruguayan has scored five goals in his past three matches across all competitions, and the Black and Gold are doing a better job turning their possessions into chances. This is the growth LAFC needed to show as this season has gone on, which is why they are moving closer to the league’s top teams.
Nobody is going to question this Crew team that has rolled into the Concacaf Champions Cup final, but losing to Cincy at home is going to sting anyway. The Crew have been treading water while they focus on continental competition all season, but treading water is about to get a lot more difficult as they embark on a five-match road trip.
Miguel Berry scoring a stoppage time equalizer? The Galaxy’s 2-2 draw with RSL might seem a little flukey because of the tying goal, but they were the better team for long stretches of this one. A point was the least they deserved.
The unthinkable happened when Dan Gazdag missed a penalty for the first time in his MLS career. And to make matters worse, it would have been an equalizer on a night in which the Union celebrated him becoming their all-time leading goal scorer. Instead, Philly lost to Orlando 3-2.
The Pigeons beat Toronto 3-2 for their first away win of 2024, then they got into a postgame skirmish with the Reds. It was a bizarre scene and one that might cost Sean Johnson a game or two.
The Five Stripes have not won a game since March and, for some of that stretch, they have been able to say, “We were the better team tonight, the ball just didn’t bounce our way.” That wasn’t the case against D.C., as they were soundly beaten at home, turning up the heat on manager Gonzalo Pineda’s seat to scorching.
The Crown have spent a lot of time trying to find a striker since they entered the league and they might have their answer in 23-year-old former first round pick Patrick Agyemang. He has been really good and added the lone goal in Charlotte’s 1-0 win over Nashville to his resume. If he keeps it up, he’s going to be the man in Charlotte for a long time.
With the way Seattle’s season has gone, it wouldn’t have been shocking to see the team fold once it gave up an early goal to Portland. Brian Schmetzer teams don’t make a habit of folding, though, and Seattle stormed back for a win. Don’t look now, but the Sounders are starting to rack up points.
Just when you want to believe in the Rapids, they blow a 2-0 lead and lose. At home. To the Earthquakes. Yikes.
NWSL Power Rankings: KC Current undefeated, Bay FC drop
Megan Swanick ESPNFC May 13, 2024, 03:20 PM
It’s Monday, and another week of NWSL action is in the books, which means it’s time for ESPN’s Power Rankings.Our rankings are derived from a combination of key season statistics (points per game, goal differential, expected goal differential), recent performance, the Opta computer ratings and the observations of our writers.Who’s climbing the table? Who’s in free fall? Our writers and statistical models have ranked all 14 clubs in the league after matchday nine. Let’s dive in.
Next match: Saturday vs. Racing Louisville, 9:30 p.m. ET
The still-undefeated Kansas City Current took a nil-nil draw from Seattle Reign in the midweek (hammering out 19 shots in a game they controlled, though Lauren Ivory’s six saves stymied them), before overcoming North Carolina 1-0 at home Sunday night. With a wicked attack that should scare all opposition this year, Brazil‘s Debinha made her first start since returning from injury and clocked the difference-making goal to become the 12th goalscorer for the Current this season.
Portland’s remarkable season turnaround continues to catch fire as the Thorns beat regional rivals Seattle Reign 4-0 at home Saturday night. Portland’s form is a club-wide accomplishment, but Sophia Smith has been immense in their five-match winning run. After notching one goal and three assists against Seattle, Smith leads both the NWSL goals and assists tallies with eight goals and six assists this season. And across Portland’s five-game unbeaten streak, Smith has accrued a record-setting 11 goal contributions, the most goal contributions in a five game span in NWSL history, per Opta.
Alongside Kansas City, the Pride are one of just two teams still undefeated in 2024. Now sitting second in the standings, Kansas City reclaimed the top spot solely on goal differential this weekend. With a midweek 1-0 victory over Racing Louisville, the Pride handed Louisville their first loss of the year before taking another 1-0 victory from Bay FC Saturday evening. They came into the season humble but with a third of the year wrapped up and newly accrued Barbra Banda clocking her fourth goal in five games (the highest goals per 90 in NWSL) in the midweek, I think it’s safe to say the Pride are the real deal this season.
Next match: Saturday vs. Angel City FC, 7:30 p.m. ET
The Spirit recovered from a loss to ascendant Portland by handing Racing Louisville their second loss of the season. Friday’s 2-1 victory on the road started strong thanks to rookie sensation Croix Bethune‘s fourth goal of the year, which she sent to the back of the net with a cool strike in the fifth minute to capitalize on a corner, bringing her contribution tally to four goals and four assists in nine games for her debut season.
North Carolina picked up a worrying third loss in a row against league-leaders Kansas City Current this Sunday. The streak is concerning, though falling 1-0 to Kansas City isn’t the end of the world, especially considering they held among the league’s most formidable attacks to just one goal (though they have Casey Murphy‘s seven saves to thank for this). Still, they’ve struggled to produce sufficient quality chances in their recent form, scoring only one goal in their past three games and unfurling just seven shots and two on target against the Current.
Next match: Sunday vs. Chicago Red Stars, 5 p.m. ET
Gotham picked up a 1-0 win over Houston Dash in the midweek as Lynn Williams equalled Sam Kerr‘s most goals all time record in NWSL in her sixth match of the year. Still recovering from early season injuries, Gotham then took a respectable 1-1 draw on the road against San Diego Wave Sunday evening. As we head into matchday 10, the reigning champs have picked up respectable wins on slim margins while significantly underperforming their xG, still looking like they have a lot left to give this season.
Sitting mid-table with a game in hand, San Diego are nursing a sizable number of knocks from their starting lineup. Sunday’s 1-1 draw with Gotham saw Alex Morgan, Naomi Girma, Abby Dahlkemper, Sofia Jakobsson, and Melanie Barcenas all sidelined with injury. Concerningly, 19-year-old phenom Jaedyn Shaw left the draw with a stoppage time injury as well. They look like a team still looking for their form, but first priority will be getting everybody healthy.
When it rains it pours. Soon to be US manager Emma Hayes may be looking across the sea with mounting concern, as the USWNT’s starting keeper Alyssa Naeher also left the pitch injured in Chicago’s 3-1 victory over bottom of the table Utah Royals. On the bright side for Chicago, the Red Stars continued their efficient goal scoring operation, as they accrued three goals with just 38% of possession, finishing the weekend as the fifth-highest scoring team in the league.
Next match: Saturday at Kansas City Current, 9:30 p.m. ET
Savannah DeMelo‘s freekick golazo to bring Louisville level wasn’t enough to overcome their visitors, Washington Spirit, as Racing picked up their second straight loss after starting the season unbeaten.
After holding the league-leaders (Kansas City) to a respectable 0-0 draw in the midweek, Seattle took a beating in Portland as they fell 4-0 to their Cascadian rivals Saturday night. Holding Sophia Smith and company at bay is a tall order these days, but Seattle will head home to a tough match with unbeaten Orlando Pride next weekend while nursing their egos from this rivalry rout.
Next match: Saturday at Washington Spirit, 7:30 p.m. ET
Despite Claire Emslie‘s five goals and serious talent in their attacking ranks, Angel City underwhelmed offensively again this weekend, as they produced just three shots on target with 58% of the ball in a 1-0 loss to Houston Dash.
Houston picked up just their second win of the year with a 1-0 victory over Angel City FC on Sunday thanks to Paige Nielsen‘s goal in the eight minute of stoppage time. With that, the Dash have picked up five points from their past four games (one win, one loss, two draws), though they face a formidable five-match unbeaten Portland Thorns in Houston this Friday.
Next match: Friday vs. San Diego Wave FC, 10:30 p.m. ET
Nobody has allowed more goals than Bay FC this season, with 20 goals put past them at the close of week nine. Their 1-0 loss to unbeaten Orlando Pride on Friday required nine saves from Bay FC’s keeper Kateyln Rowland to keep the margin of loss to one goal. It’s hard to find optimism for Bay FC’s dynamic attack until they get their defensive lapses in line.
Next match: Friday at North Carolina Courage, 8 p.m. ET
Expansion side woes continue for Utah Royals, who’ve struggled in their first season back in NWSL. Still, moments of individual brilliance have broken through, including this weekend’s 81st minute strike from 24-year-old Utah-native Cameron Tucker to mark her first-ever NWSL goal. The lone goal came in Utah’s 3-1 loss to Chicago, their seventh of the season (tied with Bay FC for most in the league).
VAR explained: What is it? Why is it controversial? How might the Premier League ditch it?
Here The Athletic looks back at the history of its introduction in England, examines what it was supposed to achieve, why it has fallen so flat, and what would need to happen for it to be dropped.
The Video Assistant Referee (VAR) is an official, or team of officials, who help the referee during a game by using video footage and technology to review key incidents and provide advice on the correct decisions.
After watching replays, the VAR gives their opinion to the referee at the stadium via an earpiece worn by the on-field official. The referee will then signal as usual to confirm the original decision or make a rectangle shape with their hands either to indicate an on-field review or that the original decision has been changed.
Usually, the outcome is then shown on screens around the ground to inform supporters.
The VAR decision is shown to supporters at Stamford Bridge (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
IFAB (International Football Association Board), the independent body responsible for the laws of the game, states that VARs can only assist a match official in the event of a “clear and obvious error” or “serious missed incident”.
They can step in on decisions over goals, no goals, penalties, direct red cards or cases of mistaken identity.
The process was first proposed by the Dutch Football Association (KNVB) in 2010, along with goal-line technology. The latter was adopted into the professional game two years later, but VAR took longer to be implemented.
The first live trial was conducted in a friendly match between Dutch clubs PSV and FC Eindhoven in July 2016. Australia’s A-League was the first top-flight league to adopt a VAR system in 2017 and was soon followed by Major League Soccer (MLS) in the United States.
England’s Premier League was one of the last high-profile competitions to use the technology, adopting it for the 2019-20 campaign, after it had also been used in the Champions League from 2017-18, the 2018 World Cup in Russia and 2019’s Women’s World Cup in France.
The feeling at the Premier League was that spending two years monitoring VAR elsewhere would help it be more effective when it was embraced.
How was it first introduced into the Premier League?
After being given updates on various top-flight trials and reviews of its formal use in Carabao and FA Cup matches, a meeting of Premier League shareholders in November 2018 voted unanimously to introduce VAR for the 2019-20 campaign.
The clubs had voted to delay its implementation seven months previously following a debate over its use in some of those cup games, but smoother VAR performance during the 2018 World Cup allayed fears from some supporters and decision-makers.
English football was duly introduced to the VAR hub in Stockley Park, west London, and the concept of each Premier League game having a set of officials based in an office on an industrial estate just outside the capital as well as on the pitch.
The VAR hub at Stockley Park in the summer of 2019 (Chris Radburn/PA Images via Getty Images)
On the first weekend of VAR being introduced, the Premier League said around 70 incidents were VAR checked. Manchester City’s 5-0 win at West Ham saw seven checks and two decisions overturned. A Gabriel Jesus goal was ruled out, with provider Raheem Sterling’s shoulder deemed offside, and a Sergio Aguero penalty was retaken (and scored the second time around) after Declan Rice encroached into the area.
The former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher called it a “great start” and said the overturned decisions “could not have been clear with the naked eye”.
Gallagher added: “It will get better, they will get faster and it will become more commonplace. People will grow into it.”
So why has it proved so controversial?
There was a steady flow of contentious decisions from the outset.
Each of the past four seasons has featured VAR controversies. In February 2021, the VAR invited the referee Mike Dean to consult the pitch-side monitor after West Ham’s Tomas Soucek accidentally made slight contact with the Fulham striker Aleksandar Mitrovic with his elbow. Dean watched the footage on the pitchside monitor and then showed the Czech midfielder a red card — which was subsequently rescinded by a Football Association Independent Regulatory Commission.
A year later, in a game against Manchester City, Everton’s appeals for a penalty for a Rodri handball were dismissed. Despite TV replays showing that the City midfielder misjudged the bounce of the ball and used his upper arm to control it, VAR official Chris Kavanagh did not question Paul Tierney’s decision not to award a penalty.
Then Everton manager Frank Lampard called VAR official Kavanagh a “professional who cannot do his job right”, and the head of referees at the time, Mike Riley, later apologised to the Merseyside club.
Just looking at this season alone, VAR has been at the centre of multiple high-profile flashpoints.
Liverpool’s Luis Diaz saw a goal wrongly disallowed for offside against Tottenham Hotspur in September, while Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was angered by the decision to allow Anthony Gordon’s winning goal to stand — when it was unclear whether the ball went out of play before the goal — for Newcastle United against his team in November.
Both the Merseyside and London clubs went on to make public statements criticising the decisions. Nottingham Forest have written letters of complaint to the PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited) and even considered suing.
Supporters have grown fed up, too. The long delays and lack of communication with fans in the stadium have chipped away at the spontaneity and joy of watching a game. Players, too, have admitted the emotion of celebrating a goal has been diminished in case it gets disallowed by VAR.
It was Wolverhampton Wanderers, one of the Premier League teams most heavily impacted by bad calls, who acted first and publicly called for VAR to be scrapped this summer. That triggered a vote which will take place when representatives of the 20 clubs assemble for their annual gathering in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, on June 6.
A Wolves statement said that “after five seasons of VAR in the Premier League, it is time for a constructive and critical debate on its future. Our position is that the price we are paying for a small increase in accuracy is at odds with the spirit of our game, and as a result we should remove it from the 2024-25 season onwards”.
They also listed a host of the repercussions, including:
Frustration and confusion inside stadiums due to lengthy VAR checks and poor communication
A more hostile atmosphere with protests, booing of the Premier League anthem and chants against VAR
Overreach of VAR’s original purpose to correct clear and obvious mistakes as it now overanalyses subjective decisions and compromises the game’s fluidity and integrity
Diminished accountability of on-field officials due to the safety net provided by VAR, leading to an erosion of authority on the pitch
Continued errors despite VAR, with fans unable to accept human error after multiple views and replays, damaging confidence in officiating standards
That is difficult to know with any certainty, at least until the vote next month, but there is a sense that opinion is split.
Some, with Wolves obviously among them, have had enough while others feel there is a risk that ending VAR would undermine the Premier League’s reputation.
At the same time, there is a sentiment at some clubs that one of the main issues remains one of perception: that the initial idea of a perfect system that eradicated any inaccurate decisions was never realistic.
Dean shows Soucek the red card in February 2021 after an on-field VAR check (Adam Davy/PA Images via Getty Images)
What has to happen for it to be abolished?
For a motion to be passed, 14 Premier League clubs need to vote in favour of it.
So is there a chance that will happen?
Behind the scenes, there is scepticism among top-flight executives over whether that number will be reached, with a majority seeking improvements rather than simply washing their hands of VAR.
For their part, the top-flight’s board of directors believes removing VAR is not the correct path forward, suggesting that doing so would increase wrong calls and adversely impact the Premier League’s reputation among Europe’s leading divisions.
It also thinks the void left, having removed VAR, would potentially place even greater criticism on on-field decisions made by match officials and, as a result, increase frustration for supporters.
The league points to innovations such as semi-automated offside technology (SAOT) — which was voted through unanimously in April — and in-stadium VAR announcements as evidence of the efforts being made to improve the system.
The PGMOL remain an advocate of VAR and believes it is a tool that has helped reduce errors.
In December, referees chief Howard Webb said it would “be foolish to take away a tool that can remove clear errors from the game”. They are committed to making it better but will not bow to pressure to speed up decisions at the expense of accuracy. They believe delays are an inevitable part of the process, although they are keen to make improvements to its efficiency.
As well as automated offsides due to be adopted in the next 12 months, the PGMOL want to improve communication of in-stadium decisions when IFAB laws allow for it.
Webb, the chief refereeing officer for PGMOL, attends the women’s League Cup final in March (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
The PGMOL are working at establishing more dedicated VAR officials (rather than using referees who regularly officiate matches) and there is already an unofficial group who are regularly selected as VARs because of their consistency. Of those, Stuart Attwell and David Coote have been selected as VARs for this summer’s European Championships.
They believe the inevitable capacity for human error means VAR will never be perfect, but an independent panel’s assessment that 96 per cent of decisions over the last five years have been correct suggests that, overall, it works.
Webb, who regularly attends shareholders meetings to hear views of clubs, is expected to be at June’s meeting.
What would getting rid of VAR mean for other refereeing technology in the Premier League?
Goal-line technology would likely remain but, when it comes to VAR, the understanding is that the top flight could not cherry-pick some elements and dispense with others. It either continues with all of it or without any of Stockley Park’s reviews.
Have any other countries scrapped the VAR system?
Last month, Sweden became the first country to reject implementing VAR after a fan backlash.
Supporters from clubs — where there must be a minimum of 51 per cent fan ownership — prompted the climbdown after the president of the Swedish Football Federation, Fredrik Reinfeldt, had previously backed the idea. Reinfeldt had approved trials later this year, but those will not now go ahead.
“Sweden is currently the only country among Europe’s 30 highest-ranked leagues that has not decided to introduce VAR,” said Johan Lindvall, general secretary of the Swedish Professional Football Leagues. “The fact that we have not done so is largely due to our democratic model.”
Reinfeldt, president of the Swedish Football Federation (Michael Campanella/Getty Images)
Is video technology equally controversial in other sports?
The replay review process in NFL games involves the ultimate team-oriented system. NFL officials conduct reviews — which, in 2022, lasted on average two minutes and 19 seconds — but not without the support of replay officials stationed in New York at the NFL’s Art McNally GameDay Central (AMGC).
Head coaches can use two game challenges during games (if successful on both challenges, they receive a third). But, in the final two minutes of each half, all challenges or play reviews are initiated only by the replay official.
The process itself has become pretty smooth. Once a challenge or play review is initiated, replay technicians at AMGC use technology to pinpoint the best camera angles for the game referee to review in consultation with replay officials.
An ‘instant replay field operator’ then brings a Microsoft Surface tablet to the referee so he can review the play while consulting with the replay official stationed in New York. The final decision on the review (whether it should be overturned, or whether the on-field call should be upheld) is then made and the referee announces it.
Cricket’s Decision Review System (DRS) assesses a review for a leg before wicket (LBW) appeal (Visionhaus/Getty Images)
Like football, rugby union features split-second decisions and high levels of physical force, and no two challenges look the same.
For a video referee, the potential for inconsistency is high. Yet they have always been more accepted in rugby — even when introducing controversial new high-tackle laws or when making high-pressure calls in the sport’s biggest games.
Cricket’s version of VARs — the Decision Review System (DRS) — largely operates on a review basis. If a team disagrees with a decision, they can refer it to an off-field umpire to watch the incident back and use various forms of technology to determine whether the on-field umpire’s decision was correct.
If the team’s review is correct, they keep their review to possibly use later in the game; if wrong, they lose it.
What about the women’s game in England?
VAR was first rolled out at the Women’s World Cup in 2019. It was subsequently used at the European Championship in 2022 and a 19-strong video refereeing team — which included six women — were sent to Australia and New Zealand in the summer to cover the 2023 World Cup.
But even as VAR was being castigated in the opening months of this Premier League season, a different debate was taking place in the Women’s Super League (WSL).
In October, during Chelsea’s home match against Tottenham, officials failed to spot the ball had crossed the line when Guro Reiten looked to have put Chelsea 2-0 up. With no goal-line technology or VAR in the WSL, the goal was not given.
Chelsea manager Emma Hayes was incandescent, saying it is “ludicrous” and “embarrassing” that there is no VAR in women’s football.
Reiten celebrates, believing she has scored for Chelsea against Spurs (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
The previous month, Chelsea had run a VAR test at Kingsmeadow for their friendly against Roma — it was the first of its kind at a WSL ground. Baroness Sue Campbell, the director of women’s football for the FA, subsequently admitted that VAR “has to come in”.
It may not be long before VAR arrives in the English women’s game. NewCo, poised to take charge over the running of the WSL from the FA next season, intend to prioritise the improvement of officiating.
“The better the refereeing, the better the product itself — it’s one of the priorities, for sure,” Nikki Doucet, the CEO of NewCo told reporters in January. “From a VAR perspective, it’s something we need to figure out. Is that the right thing for our game, based on what’s been done in the men’s game? Is there a new alternative?
“A lot of the stadiums themselves just aren’t ready for that (technology) and so it will require an amount of investment. As we go on this journey, it’s prioritising what has to be done first based on the resources and the investment that we have. It’s definitely something that’s a priority.”
Additional reporting: Phil Buckingham
(Top photo: Bradley Collyer/PA Images via Getty Images)
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Greg O’Keeffe is a senior writer for The Athletic covering US soccer players in the UK & Europe. Previously he spent a decade at the Liverpool Echo covering news and features before an eight-year stint as the paper’s Everton correspondent; giving readers the inside track on Goodison Park, a remit he later reprised at The Athletic. He has also worked as a news and sport journalist for the BBC and hosts a podcast in his spare time.
Wow what an exciting finish as we now have the finals for EUFA Champions League set as Dortmund eliminated Mbappe & PSG on the road, while Real Madrid pulled a miracle and scored 2 goals in the final 5 minutes to beat Bayern Munich & ruin Harry Kane’s homecoming to London June 1, where the Champions League finals will be played – again with No EPL team present. I can honestly say from the knockout stages on This Sweet 16 has been the most exciting Champions League play I have ever seen. So many games coming down to the wire – drama dripping from the TV with many of the games on network TV CBS and others on CBS Sports Network and of course Para+. CBS has done a fine job of coverage – though I was shocked when Tues game Dortmund vs PSG was not on CBS here in Indy. Anyway can’t wait till the finals Sat June 1 and 3 pm on CBS.
Leverkusen just keeps on not losing
Amazing watching German upstart Bayer Leverkusen as they continue to come from behind to tie games to stay unbeaten. This time in the Europa League semi’s – losing to Roma as home 2-0 with 20 minutes to play they scored twice including an extra time goal to seal the tie – after securing advancement with a 4-2 aggregate lead to the Europa Finals. That makes a European now record 49 game unbeaten string as they have not lost in any competition since the 23-24 season started in August. Xabi Alonso’s Leverkusen side have avoided defeat in 32 Bundesliga games, five German Cup matches and 12 Europa League games. They have won 40 of these matches.
Indy 11 Win US Open Cup Game – host again May 22, Play Miami tonight 7 pm on ESPN+
Indy Eleven continued its trend of scoring early in Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup matches this season, as a second-minute goal proved to be the match winner as Indy defeated USL Championship foe San Antonio FC, 2-0, in the Round of 32 Wednesday night at Butler University’s Bud and Jackie Sellick Bowl. The Boys in Blue next travel to Miami FC Sunday for USL Championship action. Kick is slated for 7 p.m. ET on ESPN+.
Good looking Group of Refs & Assignor Nate at Grand Park for the Ladies National League GLC weekend.
Games on TV
Sun, May 12
7:30 am ESPN+ Norwich (Stewart) vs Leeds United Promotion Semi’s
11:30 am Tele/Peacock Man United vs Arsenal
12 Para+, Galazo Juventus (Mckinney, Weah) vs Salenritana
1:30 pm ESPN+ Bochum vs Bayer Leverkusen
1 pm CBS Houston Dash (Campbell) vs KC Current NWSL
2:45 pm Para+ Atalanta vs Roma
4:45 pm Fox Portland Timber vs Seattle Sounders
5:30 pm CBS Galazo Chicago Red Stars vs Utah Royals NWSL
7 pm ESPN Miami FC vs Indy Eleven
7:30 pm Ion San Diego Wave (Morgan, Girma) vs NY Gothem (Williams, Mewis)
10 pm Ion Portland Thorns (Smith)s vs Seattle Reign (Lavelle, Huerta, Cook) NWSL
Mon, May 13
USA 3 pm Aston Villa vs Liverpool
3 pm ESPN+ Barcelona vs Real Sociedad
Tues, May 14
3 pm USA Tottenham vs Man City
3 pm ESPN+ North Carolina vs Loudon United
Weds, May 15
3 pm USA Man United vs New Castle United
3 pm ESPN+ Atalanta vs Juventus (Mckinney, Weah)
Sat, May 18
9:30 am ESPN+ Dortmund vs Darmstadt
9:30 pm ESPN+ Bayer Leverkusen vs Ausburg
930 am ESPN+ Stuttgart vs Mgladbach (Scalley)
1”45 pm Fox Nashville SC vs Atlanta United
2:45 pm Para+ Torino vs AC Milan
Sun, May 19
10 am Arsenal vs Everton
10 am Shefield United (Trusty) vs Nottingham Forest (Reyna)
Don, Shane & Alex doing National League GLC Ladies Games at Grand Park Sunday.
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Sunday
Norwich City v Leeds United – 7a on ESPN+
Josh Sargent and Norwich City face Leeds United in the first leg of their promotion semi-finals Sunday morning. Leeds won both prior matchups this season though Sargent missed the first matchup due to his ankle injury.
Fortuna Sittard v PSV Eindhoven – 8:30a on ESPN+
Malik Tillman, Ricardo Pepi, and PSV continue their league title celebrations as they take on Fortuna Sittard a week after officially clinching the league title.
Darmstadt v Hoffenheim – 9:30a on ESPN+
John Brooks was on the bench for the second straight match as Hoffenheim drew RB Leipzig last weekend. Hoffenheim are just a point back of Freiburg for Europa Conference League qualifying with two matches to play and they must face Bayern Munich in next weekend’s finale so they will be looking to make up ground as they face last place Darmstadt on Sunday.
Atletico Madrid v Celta Vigo – 10:15a on ESPN Deportes and ESPN+
Luca de la Torre was a halftime substitute as Celta Vigo fell behind early but came back to beat 10 man Villarreal and pull eight points out of the relegation zone with four matches yet to play.
Bayern Munich v Wolfsburg – 11:30a on ESPN+
Kevin Paredes started at leftback and played 82’ as Wolfsburg defeated Darmstadt last weekend. With the win Wolfsburg are in twelfth place and officially clear of relegation. They face a Bayern Munich side coming off a brutal Champions League exit after giving up two goals in the final minutes to fall to Real Madrid midweek.
Juventus v Salernitana – Noon on Paramount+
Weston McKennie and Tim Weah both started last weekend as Juventus drew 1-1 with Roma. Juventus have a six point lead for Champions League qualification with three league matches remaining and have a Copa Italia final against Atalanta on Wednesday so we could see heavy rotation for their side on Sunday as they look to best set themselves up to hoist a trophy this season.
Montpellier v Monaco – 3p on beIN Sports
Folarin Balogun came off the bench last weekend as Monaco defeated Clermont 4-1. With two matches remaining Monaco hold a six point lead over Lille for Champions League qualification and need just a point from their final two matches to secure their spot in next seasons competition.
Real Betis v Almeria – 3p on ESPN Deportes and ESPN+
Johnny Cardoso and Real Betis defeated Osasuna 2-0 last weekend to stay within two points of sixth place Real Sociedad. The teams will face off directly in the penultimate match of the season so Real Betis control their qualification hopes in their own hands and face an Almeria side whose relegation fate has already been sealed this weekend.
Portland Timbers v Seattle Sounders – 4:45p on FOX
Cristian Roldan, Jordan Morris, and the Seattle Sounders take on their west coast rivals, the Portland Timbers, in Sunday’s MLS action on FOX.
Bayer Leverkusen set European record with longest unbeaten run, through to Europa League final
Bayer Leverkusen’s 2-2 draw against Roma in the Europa League on Thursday night means the German side have gone 49 games unbeaten and broken the record for the longest streak without losing to a European club since the introduction of UEFA club competitions in 1955.
Leverkusen were leading their tie against Roma by two goals following the opening clash, but looked set to lose their first game of the season after two penalties from Leandro Paredes had put the Italian club ahead.An own goal from Gianluca Mancini in the 82nd minute, however, and a 97th-minute equaliser from Josip Stanisic ensured Leverkusen progressed to the Europa League final following a 4-2 aggregate victory.
Stanisic’s goal, meanwhile, was Leverkusen’s 17th scored in stoppage time this season.
Leverkusen midfielder Granit Xhaka said to TNT Sports: “This is football. It is the nice part of football. For the mentality we showed again today against a big team to come back like this and go through to the final. We are more than happy today.
“You see the desire from the team, we didn’t want to slow down. We wanted to score the next goal to keep going unbeaten, 49 times now. We are proud of it.”
Leverkusen made it through to the Europa League final on Thursday night (Marvin Ibo Guengoer – GES Sportfoto/Getty Images)
The unbeaten run, which is across all competitions and started with an 8-0 victory over FC Teutonia Ottensen in the German Cup on August 12, has surpassed Portuguese club Benfica’s mark of 48 consecutive games without losing from December 1963 to February 1965.
That Benfica team was spearheaded by Eusebio and they won the Portuguese league and cup over the course of their unbeaten run.
Xabi Alonso’s Leverkusen side have avoided defeat in 32 Bundesliga games, five German Cup matches and 12 Europa League games. They have won 40 of these matches.
Unsurprisingly, this has left them on the brink of a treble. They have already won the Bundesliga — ending Bayern Munich’s 11-season dominance as a result — face second-tier Kaiserslautern in the German Cup final on May 25 and Atalanta in the Europa League final on May 22.
If Leverkusen also avoid defeat in their final two league games they will become the first side in Bundesliga history to go a whole season unbeaten.
Here are the five longest unbeaten runs by a European club since 1955:
Longest unbeaten runs
CLUB
COUNTRY
GAMES UNBEATEN
YEARS
Bayer Leverkusen
Germany
49
2023-2024
Benfica
Portugal
48
1963-1965
Dinamo Zagreb
Croatia
45
2014-2015
Rijeka
Croatia
45
2016-2017
Rangers
Scotland
44
1992-1993
Messi finds camera, tells whole world he loathes new MLS rule
MLS has some new rules, and Lionel Messi thinks at least one of them should go.During Inter Miami’s 3-2 win at CF Montréal, Messi quite literally looked into a broadcast camera to announce his take on MLS’s new guidelines for players who need to leave the field for treatment.Under the new regulations, a player who stays down injured for longer than 15 seconds must leave the field for a minimum of two minutes, and is not allowed back until the referee waves them on.Messi got to give the new rule a spin after an ugly 40th minute challenge from Montréal defender George Campbell on Saturday.Messi understandably stayed down for well over a minute after the heavy contact with his shin and foot. Since referee Drew Fischer didn’t book Campbell, Messi was required to trudge off the field with Miami’s training staff.
The icon got to the touchline at Stade Saputo in the 43rd minute, watching on as play resumed for only a few seconds. The next stoppage? Another Montréal foul, this time with Samuel Piette clipping Luis Suárez in prime territory for Messi to fire a direct free kick on goal.
However, Fischer enforced the new regulations, meaning Messi had to stand on and watch. That’s when Messi offered up his take on the rule, which was the product of some experimentation in MLS Next Pro dating back to the 2022 season.
Finding a midfield camera and looking directly into it, Messi shook his head and said in Spanish “With this type of rule, we are doing badly.”
With 10 men on the pitch and Messi essentially rolling his eyes, the Herons got a remedy to their complaints.
Matías Rojas stepped in for Messi on the dead ball, delivering a sensational, curling free kick from nearly 30 yards out.Messi would have to continue standing on the touchline until the 45th minute, when fourth official Michael Venne allowed the No. 10 to make his way back into the match.
If that weren’t enough, Miami ran afoul of another new MLS rule in the game’s final moments. Protecting a narrow lead as stoppage time loomed, Suárez was replaced by Leo Campana. However, the Uruguayan took longer than the maximum of 10 seconds MLS has mandated for players to leave the field.
The league has issued a new rule where, in that situation, the substitute entering play must wait a full minute before coming on. Venne enforced the rule, setting off vociferous protests from Suárez, Campana, and Miami manager Gerardo “Tata” Martino (who at least recovered his composure to drag Suárez away before the situation got worse).
Real Madrid’s Champions League comeback – you can live it, but can’t explain it
Vinicius Junior was down on the Santiago Bernabeu pitch, singing to the stadium’s packed south stand as if he were a fan among them, megaphone in hand.
The match had just ended and Real Madrid had come from behind again at their home stadium on another hugely dramatic night.
At Wembley on June 1, Carlo Ancelotti’s team will be looking to win the club’s 15th European Cup/Champions League title. Their remarkable competition record already places them well ahead of AC Milan’s seven trophies and the six won by Bayern Munich and Liverpool.
After drawing 2-2 in the first leg in Germany, Madrid dominated Bayern in Wednesday’s return match, but a series of misfortunes left them on the brink of elimination. That was until the magic of the Bernabeu appeared again.
Joselu’s dramatic late double turned the tie around as Madrid came back once more, another ‘remontada’. The celebrations were wild-eyed, jubilant, all-encompassing. Everyone was in shock, including the players.
On their way to a 14th title in 2022, Madrid performed three dramatic comebacks in the Champions League knockout stages, beating Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea and Manchester City to reach the final against Liverpool.
It happened again. How?
“It’s something inexplicable,” said manager Carlo Ancelotti.
Champions League nights are always occasions to savour at the Santiago Bernabeu and this was no exception, but the way the evening started, you could tell there would be something special in store.
When Madrid’s players left their Valdebebas training ground to travel to the Bernabeu on Wednesday, they were seen off by over 300 boys and girls from 17 of the club’s youth teams.
They held up a 15-metre-long banner at the end of a guard of honour. “Your heart, our badge,” it read.
The team bus was headed for the stadium, for the ‘Busiana’, a word not included in any official dictionary but already deeply ingrained in the collective mindset of Madrid fans.
Just as they often do in the build-up to important games, Madrid fans gathered along the Avenida de Concha Espina, one of the main thoroughfares leading towards the Bernabeu. At 7:30pm local time, 90 minutes before kick-off, thousands of supporters were there as white and purple flares were set off in the intense sunshine.
Smoke filled the air and made it almost impossible to see anything at all, until you could suddenly spot the horses of the mounted police cutting through the mist, closely followed by Madrid’s white team bus.
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The coaching staff and players, who had encouraged fans to gather, filmed footage on their phones and shouted excitedly from behind the darkened windows of the vehicle.
“Si se puede, si se puede (Yes, we can),” chanted fans in return.
This is the ‘Busiana’ and the same had happened before City’s visit in the quarter-final first leg — when the Premier League side were more feared than Bayern. But this was on a new scale.
Madrid fans let off flares as the team bus approaches the Bernabeu (Diego Radames/Europa Press via Getty Images)
The mood continued inside the ground as kick-off approached. “Real Madrid never give up,” read one sign in the stands. All around the stadium, white and purple banners appeared again and two tifos were displayed, one in the north end with the image of the European Cup, another in the south end with the Madrid crest.
This was the biggest game held at the Bernabeu since its recent renovation — and the newly installed roof was again closed to help keep the atmosphere in. This has been done by Madrid several times this season — a deliberate policy.
More than 76,000 people sang “Hala Madrid y Nada Mas” (the song in tribute to La Decima, the 10th European Cup won in Lisbon in 2014) before kick-off, their voices booming and bouncing back. It seemed to have the desired effect. Ancelotti’s players were at full tilt in the opening stages. They started well on top — in contrast to how it went at Munich.
By the 12th minute, Vinicius Jr had already shot against the post and the Bernabeu was lamenting. In all the excitement and encouragement, there was a lot of tension and nerves did not ease as Madrid continued to miss chances, lowering the spirits of their fans.
The 4,000 or so Munich supporters, who were also very noisy despite being located up in the fourth tier, silenced the Bernabeu at times. Vinicius Jr, who was a constant threat, asked for encouragement from the home support on three occasions in the second half, with the game still goalless and the score level at 2-2 on aggregate.
When the deadlock was broken, after Madrid target Alphonso Davies scored a sensational strike on the counter-attack, Madrid’s fans were silenced. There were still over 20 minutes left to play, but the home side somehow looked short, unlikely to capture the comeback spirit of other famous nights as further chances were missed and Nacho’s foul on Joshua Kimmich meant an equaliser was ruled out.
Harry Kane almost made it 2-0 for Bayern. Thomas Tuchel’s players began to waste time, throwing themselves to the ground at the slightest opportunity. With just minutes remaining, it looked over.
But momentum had been building. Fans had not given up. Scarves were still whirling, voices were still rising. Madrid’s stadium took on its role of rallying the team until the very end. Songs were being sung, but at times it just sounded like a single continuous wave of noise, an indistinct roar as thousands raised the volume in unison.
Whatever the workings, however it was carried, Joselu heard the call. And his two goals in three minutes (88th, 91st) unleashed the purest form of madness you could possibly imagine witnessing in a football ground.
They had done it again.
Joselu celebrates at the Bernabeu on Wednesday night (Helios de la Rubia/Real Madrid via Getty Images)
It turned out that Joselu’s late goals weren’t actually all that late — another quarter of an hour was played as stoppage time was filled with stoppages. It was so long that Bayern rallied themselves, despite having appeared totally broken by the equaliser. They even put the ball in the net — although the whistle had already blown for offside before Matthijs de Ligt’s shot rolled in.
When the final whistle did come, Madrid’s players threw themselves on the floor in utter joy and relief. They could not believe it. Nobody in the stadium could.
There was no time to think about the why or the how, it was just time to linger in the glorious scale of it all. Vinicius Jr ran straight to the south stand, where Madrid’s La Grada fans congress in a distinctive sea of white, and made himself the master of the party.
His team-mates followed him, climbing the billboards to get closer to supporters, balancing so as not to fall. Meanwhile, one of the club’s employees, Alejandro Mori, brought out a basket of shirts on which a London bus was depicted with the slogan: ‘A por la 15’ (Let’s go for the 15th).
Ancelotti, visibly moved, joined the players and fans to sing Madrid’s anthem again.
Antonio Rudiger, Ancelotti and Vinicius Jr singing with fans (Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)
“They are incredible, they are the best in the world by far,” Jude Bellingham told TNT Sports. “Coming here (to the Bernabeu) is the reason we turn so many games around, why, when we are down in the first half of the season, we always manage to come back in the second half.
“They give you an energy that you can’t find anywhere else.”
The crowd remained in their seats. Nobody wanted it to stop, they were ready to celebrate all night and the team did a lap of honour. Antonio Rudiger picked up a plastic chair and handed it over to David Alaba — a symbol of the comeback celebrations that took place here in 2022 when the Austrian defender had done the same.
“The fans made the difference tonight, as they have done many times before. I can’t recall how many times. It seems like a habit now, what we do. We are delighted,” Ancelotti said at his press conference.
While the Italian spoke, members of Madrid’s staff and players were jumping and dancing barefoot in the dressing room. They had finished their celebration by running hand-in-hand from one end of the pitch to another and back. Another image to remember. Later, some of them went up to the Bernabeu boxes to be with family members and others went to a nearby restaurant called De Maria, where the party continued. They had waited to celebrate another La Liga title at the weekend, with the Champions League in mind. And now they were in another final.They had done it again.(Top photo: Burak Akbulut/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Kane subbed, Joselu’s goals and a huge row: 20 mad minutes that decided Real-Bayern epic
There are 84 minutes on the clock at the Bernabeu, but there is plenty of football still to be played. This is Real Madrid in the Champions League – it’s not over until it’s over.And yet it is at this moment that perhaps the most perplexing substitution in this season’s Champions League takes place, setting off a chain of events that sees Bayern Munich snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, 1999-style, in 20 mad minutes.How on earth did this happen?
85mins: There are six minutes of regular time left, with 14 minutes of stoppage time still to be played. A total of 20 minutes and 27 seconds to go.
It is at this point Thomas Tuchel decides to send on Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, aged 35 and scorer of no goals since last November, to replace Harry Kane, scorer of 23 in the same timeframe.
Off, too, is Jamal Musiala, substituted for the experience of Thomas Muller (aged 34). South Korean defender Kim Min-jae, who had a shocker in the first leg, came on 10 minutes earlier.
It’s like in the first Austin Powers film when Robert Wagner is dealt a king when playing blackjack; he twists and says he likes to live dangerously.
Powers — aka Tuchel — has a two and a three… and sticks, saying: “I also like to live dangerously.”
Did Tuchel think it was won? He suggested in the aftermath that Kane was struggling with a back injury. Even so, having come so far and with the game in the balance, it feels peculiar.
Harry Kane is taken off by Bayern Munich at the Bernabeu (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
86mins: Immediately after the changes, Bayern have a chance to kill the tie and secure their place in the final. They break, three-on-one initially, before some slack passes (one goes behind Alphonso Davies) and then Aleksandar Pavlovic struggling to stay onside means they cock it up.
A Musiala or Kane through ball, anyone? Although to be fair, Bayern have been messing up those break opportunities all night.
88mins: Manuel Neuer’s throw to the left flank is intercepted by Modric and Madrid have only one attacking plan in mind – find Vinicius Junior. That’s been their primary mode of attack for the entire second half and with good reason; his marker, Joshua Kimmich, has been ridden and flailed harder than a bucking bronco and could have PTSD by the time the night is done.
Vinicius Jr cuts inside (yep) Kimmich, his shot is poor and bounces into Neuer’s midriff but also off it… and Joselu reacts first to slam the ball home.
The place goes berserk. Joselu, who isn’t even a Real Madrid player (he is on loan from Espanyol), kisses the badge. The game restarts with the whole stadium on its feet. Momentum = accrued.
Joselu equalises for Real (Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images)
90mins: Bayern are rattled. Eric Dier misplaces a pass out of his own box but makes up for it when he kicks away from Vinicius Jr as he is about to shoot and then chucks his body in the way of Diaz’s goalbound effort. It goes behind for a corner…
91mins: Modric’s corner causes carnage, mostly because Bayern have forgotten how to defend. There is ping pong in the box, they can’t clear the ball or form a defensive line, they are just bodies writhing everywhere. The ball goes out to Antonio Rudiger whose excellent cross reaches Joselu and he beats Neuer with a reflex finish. Both players are unmarked.
Drama… the flag is up. Jude Bellingham puts his hands to his head.
92mins: VAR rules the goal was onside. Joselu sinks to his knees — he has scored with two of his first three touches of the ball — the subs race on, Neuer looks completely bereft, Tuchel doesn’t have any words, he just puts his hands against his temple, perhaps trying to erase the memory of the last four minutes, perhaps attempting to turn back time with his mind.
He semaphores with his arms but no one can hear him. The Bernabeu is going nuts.
It’s akin to Kieffer Moore joining Arsenal on loan and winning a Champions League semi-final.
Joselu celebrates his winner (David Ramos/Getty Images)
103mins: There is still time for Bayern. Choupo-Moting wins the ball back, a long ball goes into the box, Noussair Mazraoui goes up for the ball, the flag goes up (as with the Joselu winner, it’s another premature flag for a tight offside even though assistant refs are told not to do this) and the referee whistles (again, even if he sees the flag, he should let play continue), Muller wins the loose ball and Matthijs de Ligt drives it into the net. Offside given, perhaps incorrectly, but the Madrid defenders stopped at the whistle, as did motionless goalkeeper Andriy Lunin.It’s a clear mistake from the officials. How many times do we see strikers played in on goal, clearly offside, the assistant doesn’t flag and we go through the whole rigmarole of seeing the striker score/miss before a flag is finally raised. This was the opposite and no wonder Bayern are annoyed, albeit would play have continued like it did if there was no whistle? No.
105mins: It’s over. Incredible drama, an amazing quickfire comeback double from Joselu, Madrid head to Wembley and Bayern head to the beach, their trophy-less season done.Did the subs cost Tuchel? Not just Kane and Musiala, but sending Kim on and changing the shape?Former Bayern midfielder Owen Hargreaves is spitting in the TNT studio: “To take off a guy that’s scored 44 goals, who’s the most durable player pretty much anywhere, and you bring on another striker in Choupo-Moting… maybe he wanted height for corners, I don’t know. But you cannot take him off.”
Paul Scholes questions Tuchel’s arrogance in thinking it was won.“Kane didn’t look tired,” Scholes says. “He was still an outlet and Bayern were getting chances on the counter-attack and he’s brilliant at that, as we saw with Alphonso Davies’ goal, his pass out to him.“The biggest one for me was Kim. After last week he’s had a lot of stick, I think the last place he wanted to be tonight was on that football pitch. As soon as Kim came on, the first 30 seconds he was all over the place.”At the end, though, there can only be one conclusion: Madrid’s rubbish ex-Stoke striker is better than Bayern’s. This is Champions League heritage.
Indy 11 host US Open Cup Game Wed 7 pm vs San Antonio @ Butler Bowl
The Boys in Blue return to action Saturday at Western Conference opponent Monterey Bay F.C. Sat at 10 pm on CBS Galazo Network. Indy is coming off a 2-1 home win over North Carolina FC to move to 2-4-2 on the season and sit at eighth in the Eastern Conference. The Indy 11 will host San Antonio in a huge midweek US Open Cup Sweet 16 game this Wed, May 8th at 7 pm at the Butler Bowl. Tix are just $10 each and can be ordered here.
Columbus Crew on to Finals of CONCACAF Champions Cup
What a huge 3-1 win at Monterrey in the Semi-Final (5-2 Aggregate) for the Columbus Crew as they will advance on to the Finals where they will play Liga MX powerhouse Pachuca – winner over Club America 2-1. Probably the biggest win in Franchise history for the defending MLS Champs. They will play for the Championship Sat June 1 in Pachuca on FS1.
Champions League Semi’s Wrap up Tues/Wed 3 pm CBS
Lets start with Champions League – man the games since the knockout stages have just been fantastic – so great that CBS has shown games from the Sweet 16 on – this week Real Madrid @ Bayern Munich was fantastic – as Bayern with Harry Kane up front scored 2 goals at home but of course Real has this magical way in Champions League to find a way and they also scored 2 goals (highlights) – the 2nd leg in Madrid promises to be a great one on Wed 3 pm on CBS. As a longtime Dortmund fan – because they are the German squad who had American’s – first Pulisic then Reyna – I couldn’t help but root for the team with the best stands (the big Yellow Wall) and their 1-0 win over PSG and Mbappe was impressive (highlights). PGS hosts the final Tues 3 pm at CBS – pregame starts at 2 pm.
News
Indiana Pacer Pascal Siakam from Cameroon has some mad soccer skills during his hoops pregame warm-ups before a recent home playoff game. Really cool story from ESPN about how Juve’s American midfielder, who some consider the best mid in Italy this season, McKinney below.
Huge news that USWNT long time right back Kelley Ohare has announced she will retire at the end of her NWSL Season. (Story below). Also in Women’s Soccer news – The US & Mexico officially dropped out of the bid to host the 2027 World Cup in favor of the 2031 one instead. (Story below and smart thinking). The biggest story in European Soccer: Bayern Levekusen has taken Germany by storm with an amazing 47 wins without a loss since the season 23-24 season started. Already securing the Bundesliga Championship over Bayern Munich by 7 pts – Javi Alonso’s squad look well on their way to a Europa League Championship as well after scoring 2 in Roma to take a commanding lead back home Thurs at 3 pm on Para+. I have watched them comeback 3 times now down in the 90th minute to win or tie the game- simply amazing the belief they have. The play Sunday 11:30 am @ 6th place Frankfort on ESPN+.
Congrats to the Carmel FC 2013 Girls Blue team for their Championship at the Mid Ohio Soccer Classic. That’s our CFCGKU member Hattie L in the middle!
Good luck to all our Carmel FC teams playing in State, President’s & Challenge Cup games this weekend at Grand Park. A reminder my CFC GK Training for U12 & below will move from Wed to Thurs at Badger 5:15 pm. The older group will be at 5:45 pm Wed at River Road still.
Good looking crew at the Girls Showcase at Grand Park last weekend. Shane Best, T Ray Phillips, Carla Baker and Mike Arrington.
GAMES ON TV
Sat, May 4
7:30 am USA Arsenal vs Bournmouth
10 am USA Shefield United (Trusty) vs Nottingham Forest (Reyna)
10 am Peacock Fulham (Jedi, Ream) vs Brentford
10 am Peacock New Castle vs Burnley (adams)
12:30 pm NBC Manchester City vs Wolbverhampton
3 pm Peacock Aston Villa vs Chelsea
3 pm ESPN+ Atletico Madrid vs Athletic Club Spain
7:30 pm Ion NY Gotham (Williams, Ohara, Mewis) vs NC Courage (Murphy, Fox) NWSL
10 pm CBS Galazo Net Indy 11 @ Monterey Bay Cal
10 pm Ion Portland Thorns (Smith) vs Washington Spirit (Rodman, Hatch, Sullivan) NWSL
Sun, Apr 28
9 am USA Brighton vs Aston Villa
11:30 am ESPN+ Frankfurt vs Bayer Leverkusen
11:30 am Tele/Peacock Liverpool vs Tottenham
12 noon Para+ AC Milan (Pulisic, Musah) vs Genoa
1 pm CBS Houston Dash (Campbell) vs KC Current NWSL
2:45 pm Para+ Roma vsJuventus (Weah, McKinney)
6:45 pm FS1 Seattle Sounders vs LA Galaxy
Tues, May7
3 pm CBS Dortmund 1 vs PSG 0 UCL
7 pm US Open Cup Games
Weds, May 8
3 pm CBS Bayern Munich 2 vs Real Madrid 2 UCL
7 pm USSoccer.com Indy 11 vs San Antonio @ Butler Field
Wettest conditions field wise I have ever Reffed in – this pass week for CYO at Max Bahr Park with Mike Zanders – yes that’s a pond in the middle of the field. LOL – kids loved it though. Shane with Mike Bertram & Matt Antisdel at the Girls Showcase at Grand Park Friday
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USMNT weekend viewing guide: Clinching time
Clinching titles, qualification, and safety.
Saturday
Arsenal v Bournemouth – 7:30a on USA Network
With three matches to play, Bournemouth still have a mathematical shot at a top six finish, though it would require a result with title-contending Arsenal this weekend and a collapse of beautiful proportions from Manchester United and Newcastle. With little to play for the rest of the way, it seems likely the team could shut down Tyler Adams for the remainder of the season and hope he’s able to return in the fall free from injury after what has been a lost 2023-24 season.
Birmingham City v Norwich City – 7:30a on ESPN+
Josh Sargent and Norwich City close out the regular season needing just a point to guarantee a spot in the promotion playoffs and facing a Birmingham City side that need a win to pull out of the relegation zone. Norwich could also advance with a loss if Hull City fail to win and make up a seven goal differential.
Wolfsburg v Darmstadt – 9:30a on ESPN+
Kevin Paredes was a halftime substitute last weekend as Wolfsburg overcame a one goal deficit to come back and defeat Freiburg 2-1. The win pulled Wolfsburg six points clear of the relegation zone, nearly guaranteeing their safety with three matches to play. This weekend, they will face a Darmstadt side who are sitting dead last and will be headed back to the 2. Bundesliga next season.
Werder Bremen v Borussia Mönchengladbach – 9:30a on ESPN+
Joe Scally started on the left side and played 90 minutes last weekend and Jordan Pefok came on in the final minutes as Borussia Mönchengladbach played Brenden Aaronson and Union Berlin to a scoreless draw last weekend. The point left ‘Gladbach four points out of the relegation positions with two additional teams cushioning them as they sit in 13th place. Their opponent this weekend is Werder Bremen, who are two spots and five points ahead of them in the table.
Brentford v Fulham – 10a on Peacock
Antonee Robinson continues to start, but Tim Ream hasn’t seen the field in over two months for Fulham. The team is coming off a 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace and currently sit squarely in the middle of the EPL pack heading into their match with Brentford.
Sheffield United v Nottingham Forest – 10a on USA Network
Nottingham Forest will look to fend off relegation when they take on already-relegated Sheffield United Saturday morning. Gio Reyna saw just 16 minutes off the bench last weekend in Forest’s 2-0 lost to Manchester City after having started their two previous matches. They face Sheffield United and Auston Trusty, who played every minute of last weekends 5-1 loss to Newcastle. Sheffield’s relegation has been guaranteed and they have already given up more goals than any side in a 38 match season. They are just three goals away from the 100 goals conceded record, which was set by Swindon Town in a 42 match season, with three matches to play.
Monaco v Clermont – 11a on beIN Sports
Folarin Balogun picked up an assist in the first minute, but was pulled at the half with Monaco down 2-1 in what would be an eventual 3-2 loss to Lyon. Despite the loss, Monaco remain in second place with three matches to play and a three point advantage over fourth place Lille for Champions League qualification. Monaco’s opponent this weekend is last place Clermont, who are dead last in the Ligue 1 table.
Sunday
PSV v Sparta Rotterdam – 6:15a on ESPN+
Sergiño Dest’s ACL tear has been confirmed and he will be out for the remainder of the year, but Malik Tillman continues to start and was named to the Eredivisie Team of the Month in April. Tillman had a goal and two assists last weekend in the opening 12 minutes of the win over Heerenveen. Ricardo Pepi saw 12 minutes off the bench last weekend, but was not credited with a goal contribution on any of the eight goals that were scored in the match (he came on with the team up 7-0). With a nine point advantage and three matches to play, PSV can officially clinch the Eredivisie title this weekend when they face eighth place Sparta Rotterdam.
Osasuna v Real Betis – 8a on ESPN Deportes and ESPN+
Johnny played 90 minutes last weekend as Real Betis and Sevilla played to a draw. Betis pulled within two points of Real Sociedad, who fell to Real Madrid. If Betis can close the two point gap on Sociedad over the final five matches, they will earn the Europa Conference League qualifying position. Betis face 11th place Osasuna this weekend who are comfortably middle of the pack.
Union Berlin v Bochum – 9:30a on ESPN+
Brenden Aaronson started and played 74 minutes last weekend as Union Berlin were held to a scoreless draw with Borussia Mönchengladbach to remain just two points out of the relegation playoff position. They are tied with this weekend’s opponent, Bochum, on 30 points and a win by either side would help them to draw clear of the relegation zone with three matches to play.
Celta Vigo v Villarreal – 10:15a on ESPN Deportes and ESPN+
Celta Vigo fell to Deportivo Alaves 3-0 last weekend with Luca de la Torre coming on for the final 36 minutes with his team already down 2-0. Celta are five points out of the relegation positions with five matches to play heading into their match with ninth place Villarreal.
AC Milan v Genoa – Noon on Paramount+
Christian Pulisic started yet again and Yunus Musah also got the starting nod, this time at right back, as AC Milan played Juventus to a scoreless draw last weekend. Milan remain solidly in second place heading into their match against Genoa and with four matches yet to play this season.
Roma v Juventus – 2:45p on Paramount+
Tim Weah started as the right wingback (and put the clamps on Rafael Leao) with Weston McKennie coming on as his replacement with 20 minutes to play last weekend for Juventus. The team will play a Coppa Italia final against Atalanta on Wednesday, so we may see a rotated side again this weekend for Juventus, who are looking like a look to qualify for Champions League play with a eight point advantage and four matches to play.
After Leeds disaster, USMNT’s McKennie is back to his best at Juventus
Bruce Schoenfeld
May 2, 2024, 08:41 AM ET
TURIN, Italy — One recent afternoon, Weston McKennie walked into a pizza parlor.In this part of the world, where he has emerged as one of the top midfielders in Serie A and perhaps Juventus‘ most consistent player, McKennie can rarely go out in public. La Lampara, a restaurant run by the cousin of his personal chef, is a safe haven. He even stores a bottle of Hidden Valley ranch dressing, his favorite condiment, in the refrigerator to swirl on his pizza. But in Leeds, where McKennie was chastised by fans for looking overweight, it all sounds like the start of a bad joke. McKennie spent the second half of last season on loan at Leeds United with the expectation of staying longer. Instead, his introduction to the Premier League was a disaster, marred by accusations by fans that he wasn’t fit and wasn’t making an effort. Suddenly, ranch dressing was no longer just a personality quirk. It was a symptom of the problem that was dragging down the club. “I feel like I let people down,” he says now. At the time, Leeds appeared to be building America’s Team. The investment arm of the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers was set to complete a purchase of the historic club and market it across the Atlantic. Manager Jesse Marsch — of Racine, Wisconsin, and D.C. United — had signed two of McKennie’s U.S. teammates, Tyler Adams and Brenden Aaronson. (They joined Englishman Jack Harrison, who attended high school in Massachusetts and played college soccer at Wake Forest.)
McKennie, who started his career at Schalke 04 and moved to Juventus in 2020, was seen as the missing piece, a tireless box-to-box midfielder who would provide a touch of Champions League quality.
Except … none of it happened. Marsch was fired in February 2023, after McKennie had played one game for him. The sale was postponed, though the 49ers eventually acquired the team at a reduced price. After three seasons in the Premier League, Leeds was relegated. “Because they signed half the U.S. national team, who weren’t very good,” Darragh MacAnthony, the owner of Peterborough, said in a radio interview.
Fairly or not, McKennie bore much of the blame. A player who prides himself on his work rate, he appeared sluggish. In more than 1,400 minutes over 20 games, he managed just one assist. He had broken a foot the previous February. That healed, but his form hadn’t recovered. “He wasn’t playing like himself,” Aaronson says. “He had a lot of expectations coming in, and that just took its toll on the pitch.”
When McKennie was substituted out an hour into the season’s final game, a 4-1 loss to Spurs at Elland Road that sealed the club’s return to the second division Championship, the home fans chanted at him, “You fat bastard!” Leeds’ option to make McKennie’s transfer permanent for a $38 million fee had seemed like a bargain in January 2023. Not surprisingly, the club declined to activate it. “I felt like it was the first time that I had failed,” McKennie says now. “It knocked me down completely. It put me in the situation of having to prove myself all over again.” Then, McKennie returned to Turin in July and discovered that Juventus didn’t seem to want him back. “The situation that he described to me was horrible,” USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter says. “He went from a bad situation at Leeds to going back to Juventus, and all of a sudden you don’t have a parking spot or a locker.” At 25, McKennie’s future as an elite player was far from certain. Now, somehow, he is finishing one of the finest seasons of any American in Europe. A playmaker who can score goals, he’s also a ball-winner who is rarely dispossessed. If he maintains his form, he will greatly enhance the U.S. team’s chances of winning the Copa América this summer in its only meaningful games before the 2026 World Cup. “He’s a difference-maker in the final third, and he can also be a difference-maker in the middle third,” Adams says. “He can do so many things that other players can’t do. I think people are only beginning to see what a difference he can make when he’s playing at his best.” They’re seeing it now in Turin, where he ranks among Juventus’s most popular players. He sits in a private room at La Lampara, waiting for his pizza, both literally and figuratively in a place where not many people thought he’d be. “It was difficult for me, honestly,” he says. “But I did it to myself. And my time at Leeds, as bad as it did go, was very important. It was a big moment in my career as far as my development. I am where I am today because of everything I’ve been through. And I’m happy about it. I wouldn’t change any of it.”
During the mostly turgid “Juventus: All or Nothing” documentary series released in 2021, one of the few entertaining scenes shows McKennie with two of his teammates, club legends Giorgio Chiellini and Gianluigi Buffon, discussing food over lunch at the club’s training ground. “If I don’t eat well, it’s impossible to play,” Chiellini says, in what is probably the most Italian comment ever. McKennie urges Chiellini to consider smothering his pizza in ranch, that uniquely American, buttermilk-based invention. “What are you saying to me?” Chiellini responds in mock horror. He then asks about McKennie’s taste in coffee. McKennie makes a face and reveals, in graphic terms, that espresso sends him directly to the bathroom. Laughter ensues. Hanging out with these guys seems like fun.
McKennie’s appealingly quirky personality makes him a popular teammate everywhere he goes. “Relaxed, bubbly good vibes,” is how Glasgow Rangers’ Rabbi Matondo, who played with him at Schalke 04, describes him. “He’s just in his own world, doing his own thing.” McKennie’s father, a U.S. Air Force officer, moved his family from one base to another. McKennie learned to make friends easily. “I make myself so open and — I don’t know — goofy because I want people to feel comfortable to come talk to me,” he says. At Schalke, he spent hours mastering magic tricks he found on YouTube so he could entertain his teammates. He also tried to initiate Matondo into the Cult of Ranch. “Have you been in America?” he asked Matondo, who grew up in Wales. When Matondo told him he had, McKennie’s eyes lit up. “Did you try ranch?”McKennie also plays Fortnite relentlessly. He has a Harry Potter fascination that has led to a goal celebration in which he appears to wave a magic wand and, lately, a deal to promote the video game. “I dabble in different things,” McKennie says. “I’m just the guy who loves to be free and do what he wants.”
Even in the changing room before games, McKennie seems carefree — so much so that teammates sometimes wonder if he’s properly focused. “Then he crosses the white line [onto the pitch] and he becomes a different animal,” Matondo says. “And you see him running and running and going after the ball everywhere. It’s amazing to me.””He’s like a child,” says Adams. “Both on and off the field. And that’s what makes him great.”But McKennie’s antics mask a vulnerability. “He has so much feeling inside of him,” says Berhalter. “That’s who he is. And being receptive to that is part of getting the best out of him.”At a USMNT training camp in Orlando, Florida, in 2019, Berhalter found McKennie to be distracted. “He could tell that my head wasn’t there,” said McKennie, who was 21 at the time. “That I was a little bit off. Maybe not my happy self.” It turned out that he was having issues with his girlfriend. “I was young, I was in love,” he says. “I just went to Gregg and talked with him — not at all about soccer, but just about life. I legit cried in front of him. I sat there and cried and he hugged me, like a father who’s not a father.”
McKennie has also had to spend stretches of his career striving to gain acceptance as an elite player. “My whole career has kind of been that path where people have doubted me, labeled me as an underdog,” he says. As a teenager, he was chosen for a U17 national team residency in Florida, which set him on the path to becoming a professional. But in 2015, he was cut from the team. That motivated him to not only succeed in American soccer, but to go up against the world’s best players in Europe, where he’d been introduced to the game while his father was stationed in Germany. He turned down a scholarship offer at the University of Virginia, then declined an offer to play in MLS for FC Dallas, his hometown team. Not yet 18, he went to Schalke, where he set out to show the skeptics that an unknown young American could be a Bundesliga standout.”Weston is at his best when people count him out,” says Berhalter. His evolution came in fits and starts. At times, he questioned his decision. “Somewhere deep down, though, I knew I had the potential,” he says.In November, 2017, McKennie scored against Portugal in his USMNT debut. When Berhalter became the U.S. coach a year later, he established a leadership council, consisting of six or seven players who rotate into the traditional positions of captain and vice captain. From the beginning, McKennie was a fixture. Yet he felt uncomfortable as a role model. “I’m too free-spirited,” he says.
Given the armband for the first time at Chicago’s Soldier Field in the Concacaf Gold Cup final against Mexico in 2019, he suffered through one of his worst games as a U.S. international. Then, though the responsibilities of the captain include representing the team with the media, McKennie refused to give an interview. He still spurns official titles, but if you were a fly on the wall, he says now, you’d be surprised to see how far he has come. Invariably, he’s the USMNT member who welcomes new arrivals. If a group of established players are headed out somewhere, Aaronson says, “he’s always the one to text the new guys and make sure they know about it. I’ve seen him do it again and again. I’m really impressed by that.”McKennie also lets his U.S. teammates know that they can come to him with insecurities, competitive issues or other problems. “Maybe you’re going through the same thing that I went through,” he says, “because I’ve had my share of hiccups.” That includes getting sent home from the final round of qualifying for the 2022 World Cup for spending one night outside the club’s COVID-19 bubble at a Nashville hotel and bringing an unauthorized visitor into his hotel room during another, which earned him the disgust of former USMNT standout Landon Donovan.” And I remember the times when maybe I thought I didn’t belong,” McKennie says. “So I try to tell the players, ‘You belong. You’re here. Trust yourself. Believe in yourself.'”And then, last summer, McKennie had to convince himself of the same.
Nobody would have questioned McKennie in August if he had asked to get a fresh start somewhere else, especially when it became clear he wasn’t in Juventus’s plans. “A lot of players would have said, ‘I’m done here. I’m leaving'” Berhalter says. “And he did just the opposite. He said, ‘I’m going to prove them all wrong.'”He was included on Juventus’s preseason tour to California and Florida, both to showcase him and to provide a marquee name for American fans. Still, his determination impressed manager Max Allegri, who saw utility in a player who competed each time he stepped on the field. “Weston has this mentality that he’s able to brush things aside,” Aaronson says. “He went back to Juventus and did what he did because he’s not focused on things like other people are. It’s a source of strength for him.”
Start running now and don’t stop until the end of the season, Allegri told him, and McKennie is still running. He began the season as a substitute at right-back, then stepped in when Tim Weah strained a thigh and couldn’t play. Soon enough, he was back in the midfield, using his skill as a distributor to get the ball forward to Dusan Vlahovic and Federico Chiesa.
McKennie has operated from both the right side and in the middle, depending on Allegri’s needs. He hurt a knee in January, which necessitated a trip to see a specialist in France, then separated a shoulder in a collision with a Frosinone player in late February. Yet he still ranks among Serie A leaders this season in clearances, progressive passes and assists, an unusual trifecta that illustrates his varied skills.In late December, when the well-regarded Italian daily Tuttosport published its compilation of Juventus player ratings for the season’s first half, McKennie led the team. “Right now,” Weah says, “he’s top-tier. He’s one of the best midfielders in the world.”
Against Frosinone in February, he played one of the better games in memory by an American in Europe before hurting his shoulder in the 82nd minute. He created Juventus’ first goal by making a run down the right side without the ball, then receiving a pass he controlled with a single touch and sending the ball into the box for Vlahovic, who poked it home. Half an hour later he fed Vlahovic again, a pinpoint delivery from a step inside the box, for a second goal. Later, he moved from the right wing to a role as an inside midfielder, from which he was controlling play. Until he collided awkwardly with Kaio Jorge and was taken off, he was clearly the best player on the field. The next day, Tuttosport dubbed him the “King of Assists.”Within days, the local newspaper in Leeds, the Yorkshire Evening Post, would run a story about the interest McKennie was suddenly generating among England’s biggest clubs. The headline: “Leeds United Flop Linked with Manchester United and Arsenal.”
Unlike the vast majority of football professionals, McKennie professes to have no interest in a game unless he’s playing in it. He can’t remember the last time he watched one on television, start to finish. In fact, he may never have done it.”I used to ask him, ‘How do you play football the way you do and have no knowledge of anything going on in the sport?” Matondo says.In summer 2018, while in preseason camp with Schalke 04, McKennie went to Christian Pulisic‘s house in Dortmund with a bunch of other players to see the France-Croatia World Cup final. Except, McKennie didn’t actually see it. “Everyone was on the couch watching the game,” he says. “There were a whole bunch of TVs.” One of them was right in front of McKennie, but he had his head down playing Fortnite.
“They all just laughed at me,” he says. “Like, ‘how can you be playing that right now? This game is so good.’ And I would look up every once in a while. But it just doesn’t interest me. I’ll play soccer and give it everything I have. But that mentality when I’m not playing, I need to switch it off.”
McKennie is deeply involved in fashion and music. He has a real estate business with his brother in Dallas. When his career ends, he says, he could imagine doing something in one of those areas, or maybe becoming an agent, or even a broadcaster, though in that case he’d probably have to watch games. “I enjoy playing football. I want to go as far as I can,” he says. “But honestly, if my career ended tomorrow, I would be happy. And I wouldn’t have regrets for anything that I’ve done.”
At 25, McKennie believes he has plenty of football ahead of him. First comes this summer’s Copa América, which he believes the U.S. can win. “Maybe people don’t look at us against Argentina or Brazil and say, ‘Wow, look at the USA,'” he says. “But that’s why Gregg is so important. Because, yeah, a team can have a lot of individual talent, but when you have a team that has quality and potential and will sacrifice everything for each other, that will make a difference.”
He even fantasizes about that happening at the next level. “Do I believe that we can win the World Cup? Very slim chances,” he admits. “But it’s, what, eight games? If you can catch fire for those eight games, it can happen. The grit, the desire, a little bit of luck as well — that’s what it takes in a football game. That’s the beauty about it. Anybody can be beaten on any given day.”
McKennie’s contract with Juventus is up after next season. Negotiations are ongoing, but his constant yearning for the next challenge may lead him to agree to a transfer, especially if it involves the unfinished business of proving himself in the Premier League. At the same time, he’s more than content in Turin. He lives in a house on a hill outside the city that he rents from a wealthy doctor. He eats at La Lampara, where they nod when he covers his pizza with creamy dressing. And inside and outside the club, his stock keeps rising. The food has just arrived when a young woman approaches his table and begs for a picture. Peeking out from behind her is the manager, Fabrizio. He has a guilty look, as if he knows he should be letting McKennie eat in peace. But what can he do? She won’t be denied. Fabrizio shrugs. “Her favorite player,” he says.
USWNT two-time World Cup winner Kelley O’Hara set to retire at the end of 2024 NWSL season
U.S. women’s national team and Gotham FC defender Kelley O’Hara announced she plans to retire from soccer following the conclusion of the 2024 NWSL season. A stalwart for more than a decade, O’Hara played in four World Cups (winning two in 2015 and 2019) and three Olympics with the national team, as well as adding a WPS championship and two NWSL championships in her professional career.She announced the decision in a video created for Just Women’s Sports as part of her series Kelley on the Street.
O’Hara has played limited minutes for Gotham FC so far this season and has struggled with ankle and knee injuries. “To get injured and come back, and get injured and come back, and just keep doing it, it really takes a toll on you,” she told Claire Watkins in an interview for JWS.
O’Hara’s first cap for the USWNT came in March 2010, and, while she was named to the 2011 World Cup roster, broke out for the USWNT during the team’s gold medal run in the 2012 London Olympics, playing every minute as an outside back. She previously won the 2009 MAC Hermann Trophy as a forward at Stanford (scoring 26 goals and adding 13 assists), but it was the conversion to outside back that cemented her place on the national team for years.
(Notably, the 2012 Olympics were also the source of one of the greatest pieces of old-school USWNT content featuring O’Hara — in which she reports she “got sniped” after wiping out in the grass at a Scottish castle pretending to ride brooms).
O’Hara’s final match for the national team was against Sweden during the team’s exit from last summer’s World Cup in the round of 16. Due to injury concerns, there were doubts that O’Hara would be named to the final 23-player roster for the tournament, and when she received the call from former head coach Vlatko Andonovski, the emotions were clear.
She played over 10,000 minutes for the national team, sitting at 160 appearances, three goals and 21 assists. One of her most famous USWNT goals was the one she scored against Germany during the 2015 World Cup semifinal. It was also her first international goal.
O’Hara’s club career was also successful, starting with her rookie season in WPS with FC Gold Pride, winning the 2010 championship. When FC Gold Pride folded, O’Hara was signed by the Boston Breakers. She intended to play for the Atlanta Beat, her hometown WPS team, but the league folded. O’Hara has been with the NWSL since the beginning, starting her NWSL career with Sky Blue FC, before a stint with the first version of Utah Royals FC, then heading to the Washington Spirit — where she finally won her first NWSL championship in 2021. In January 2023, she signed with Gotham, who won last year’s final.
“It has been one of the greatest joys to represent my country and to wear the U.S. Soccer crest,” O’Hara said in the USWNT press release on Thursday. “As I close this chapter of my life, I am filled with gratitude. Looking back on my career I am so thankful for all the things I was able to accomplish but most importantly the people I was able to accomplish them with.”
As of now, neither U.S. Soccer nor Gotham has shared any intended plans to celebrate O’Hara ahead of her retirement before the end of the 2024 season, though U.S. Soccer could choose to take advantage of their July match at Red Bull Arena for a send-off. (Photo: Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
Women’s World Cup: Why U.S./Mexico pivoted from 2027 to ‘record-breaking’ bid for 2031
In February, executives from the United States Soccer Federation and their Mexican counterparts welcomed FIFA delegates to Atlanta as official inspections began before the vote this month to decide who will host the 2027 Women’s World Cup.
The U.S. and Mexico submitted their joint bid in December, rivalling a proposal from Brazil and a combined European bid from Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. The U.S. has hosted the tournament twice before — in 1999 and 2003 — but it would have been a first for Mexico.
“We are a very strong and compelling proposition,” said Juan Carlos Rodriguez, president of the Mexican Football Federation, in late February. “We are gonna make a good run of it.”
Behind the scenes, however, doubts had already surfaced. Was 2027 the right time for the U.S. and Mexico to host a World Cup? Would it suit football’s world governing body FIFA to take the tournament elsewhere?
The bid team had previously discussed pivoting to 2031 and, on Monday evening, a statement landed to formalise the U.S. and Mexico’s decision to do just that — only three weeks before the vote was scheduled to take place in Bangkok, Thailand, at the FIFA Congress.
“The revised bid will allow us to build on the learnings and success of the 2026 World Cup (in the U.S., Mexico and Canada), better support our host cities, expand our partnerships and media deals, and further engage with our fans so we can host a record-breaking tournament in 2031,” a joint statement read.
The U.S./Mexico revised World Cup bid has called for “equal investment” with the men’s tournament, “eliminating investment disparities to fully maximize the commercial potential of the women’s tournament”.
The bid is seeking to bring the organisation, promotion and funding for the Women’s World Cup fully in line with its male counterparts.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino claimed that the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand had broken even, generating more than $570million in revenue, even with the prize pool being 10 times higher than the 2015 edition. The 2022 men’s World Cup in Qatar, however, generated $686million in ticket sales and $243million through hospitality rights alone, with global TV rights from 2019-22 — the bulk of which was for the 2022 tournament — bringing in $3.4billion according to FIFA. The $440million prize pot for the men’s 2022 World Cup was also far more than the $152million shared by women last year.
Aitana Bonmati celebrates winning the 2023 World Cup with Spain (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
Infantino has already provided his answer to those who question the disparity, saying: “I say to all the women, you have the power to change. Pick the right battles. Pick the right fights.”
The U.S./Mexico bid for 2031, though, would like FIFA to set out a timeline towards equal prize money and its vision is set out in the bid book submitted to FIFA for 2027.
The hope is not that FIFA should simply pluck the money out of is reserves but rather that genuine investment into the development, promotion and organisation of the tournament will bring about the revenue which may enable the governing body to eventually level up the prize money.
Now the bid has been pushed back, FIFA has four more years to bridge the gap.
Increase the golden period for international soccer in the U.S.
The 2027 bid book was, in many ways, a copied and pasted version of the men’s edition in 2026. The U.S. submitted the same host cities, while Mexico added a few additional options to Guadalajara, Monterrey and Mexico City.
The 2027 bid wanted to use 2026 as an asset; in essence replicating the relationships between cities, local government, security, transportation infrastructure and stadiums to create a back-to-back bonanza of premium international football that would then roll over into an Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028, cementing the United States as the global hub for major sporting events over three years. In bid talk, this was described as “leveraging the efficiencies” of 2026, and big promises were made.
The U.S./Mexico bid claimed the commercial possibilities in the two countries “will accelerate the growth of women’s football unlike any tournament before”. They pledged to bring 4.5million fans into the stadium, capture the highest TV audience for any sporting event in history and generate more than $3 billion in total revenue. For FIFA, which has established offices in Miami and is also launching a revamped men’s Club World Cup in the U.S. in 2025, the temptation was obvious.
And yet, as conversations developed, it became clear that this idea did not make much sense for anyone.
From a FIFA perspective, the imagined boom for soccer in the U.S. is better served by a six-year run-up, stretching from the Club World Cup in 2025 (there may also be a women’s edition in 2026) through to the men’s World Cup in 2026, football within the Olympic Games in 2028 and then capped off with a Women’s World Cup in 2031. This provides more space for soccer to gain further popularity and, in turn, drive up demand and revenue for the competition.
Infantino announces the venues for the 2026 men’s World Cup (Brennan Asplen – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
And while the idea of back-to-back World Cups is tantalising, there were plenty of sectors that were not overly enamoured with the idea. For some host cities and stadiums, it would have meant three consecutive years satisfying FIFA’s very specific criteria for hosting soccer matches and revenue-sharing. Concerns also developed that the potential to maximise the Women’s World Cup commercially, both among broadcasters and sponsors, would be limited by sandwiching the tournament between a men’s World Cup and the Olympic Games.
FIFA is also seeking to drive sponsorship agreements for its expanded men’s Club World Cup — launching across the east coast of the U.S. in the summer of 2025 — but the tournament is struggling to hit the hugely ambitious targets set out by Infantino when the concept was devised. As such, freeing up commercial space for soccer in a saturated market within the next few years may be useful for everyone involved.
FIFA does not comment on commercially-sensitive matters but would point to a recent lucrative partnership with Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company Aramco as evidence of its ability to strike deals.
There is another reality to bidding processes that is usually not said aloud: sometimes, you only say you are bidding to put yourself in pole position before the next tournament — and that, increasingly, appears to be an element of the strategy here.
Brazil is a case in point, having lost out on the 2023 tournament but now primed for a coronation in Thailand in mid-May. The European bid remains on the table but multiple sources, spoken to by The Athletic this week on condition of anonymity to protect their roles, have presented Brazil’s success as a fait accompli.
For FIFA, there are plenty of reasons to run with Brazil in 2027. The planet’s most famous soccer nation has never hosted a Women’s World Cup and FIFA is obliged grow football internationally.
It has become anachronistic to think about World Cup bidding processes as a traditional vote where nations submit their bids and every member weighs up the pros and the cons before casting their votes. This is how it is supposed to work but the pattern more recently is to see a contest, a reasonable amount of lobbying, and then everyone appears to agree that bid X is most-suited and bid Y may get something else as consolation, or be rewarded down the line.
This is what happened for the 2030 men’s World Cup selection. FIFA found a way to just about please everybody by awarding it to six countries in one go.
FIFA president Infantino confirmed the opening game would be played at Estadio Centenario in Uruguay, while Argentina and Paraguay would each host a game before the tournament and then move to Morocco, Spain and Portugal. This left Saudi Arabia out in the cold — except, not really, because FIFA has something called the “confederation rotation principle” and by grouping three confederations together in 2030 — Africa, Europe and South America — it left the path clear for Asia and Oceania to host the 2034 tournament.
Once Australia’s executives dropped their interest in the 2030 World Cup, Saudi Arabia was the only bidder. They have already been congratulated by Infantino on Instagram, although FIFA insists the Saudis are undergoing a very intensive bid process — albeit one in which they are the only competitors.
What’s this all got to do with 2027? Well, FIFA would say nothing at all and every bid is considered on its merits, but there is a school of thought that CONMEBOL felt a little short-changed by the 2030 palaver. It had also been particularly kind to FIFA when Argentina stepped in to host the Under-20 World Cup in 2023 at short notice. A first Women’s World Cup for CONMEBOL would be a useful reconciliation.
None of this is to say that everyone was pretending all along for 2027. Nor is it inevitable that the US/Mexico bid will win next year.
Yet by 2031, it will have been 16 years since a Women’s World Cup in a CONCACAF country (when Canada hosted the tournament in 2015) and UEFA nation France hosted the tournament more recently in 2019. England, which had already been looking at 2035 and 2039 as options, as well as a possible joint bid with the other Home Nations, may pivot away from 2031.
Should the U.S. and Mexico be awarded the 2031 tournament, ambitious plans will take shape. The bid wants fan festivals of equivalent size to the men’s World Cup, promising beach football tournaments on the shores of Miami and Cancun, and watchalong parties in New York City’s Times Square. Most boldly, within the U.S., the bid wants to solely use multi-purpose NFL stadiums with at least 65,000 seats, rather than be more cautious with smaller soccer-specific stadiums.
Expect this to become part of the conversation, too: should the Women’s World Cup mirror the men’s by expanding to a 48-team edition? The 2023 World Cup features 32 teams instead of 24 and the competitive balance did not suffer in a way some had worried beforehand. A six-year runway between the announcement of a potential 48-team tournament and the competition itself would allow time for more nations to invest resources into their women’s games and enter the fray in 2031.
As for broadcasters, there is quiet relief at FIFA and in the U.S./Mexico bid because we are now only three years out from the 2027 tournament and FIFA would have been behind in maximising its true broadcasting potential. Some breathing space from the men’s World Cup and Olympics, it is hoped, will further free up the necessary dollars for the 2031 tournament to hit record numbers.
The US-Mexican bid may have said ‘goodbye’ to 2027, but it is ‘see you soon’ for 2031.
(Top photo: Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)
Bayern Munich 2 Real Madrid 2: Advantage Ancelotti – and Kroos for Ballon d’Or?
A bout between two of Europe’s genuine heavyweights in a Champions League semi-final was never likely to disappoint – and so it proved.
Bayern Munich and Real Madrid played out an enthralling first leg in Bavaria, with the teams locked at 2-2 thanks to Vincius Junior’s late penalty ahead of next week’s second leg in Spain.
Our experts analyse the talking points.
How do Real Madrid do it?
This was another European knockout tie that appeared to be teetering on the brink of disaster for Real Madrid before they delivered another of their trademark comebacks.
When Bayern’s quickfire brace of second-half goals had swung this game in their favour, Madrid had to take stock. For a while, it seemed that 2-1 was not such a bad result ahead of the second leg at the Bernabeu.
Ancelotti’s tactical switch to 4-3-3 helped provide more cover, especially for stand-in right-back Lucas Vazquez, who was suffering badly against an inspired Jamal Musiala, and also gave his team another chance to take a breath.
The element of phoney war ended when Madrid went for a last push, with substitutes Luka Modric and Brahim Diaz adding energy and ideas. Vinicius Jr’s flick to Rodrygo then tempted Kim Min-jae into a foolish penalty concession and Vinicius Jr again showed his big-game mentality to convert from the spot.
Ancelotti’s changes worked and, as so often in recent years, Madrid had rode out the storm and found a way to turn things to their advantage. At 2-2, with the return at a fired-up Bernabeu, Los Blancos will be confident of making yet another Champions League final.
But neither of these teams are perfect and both have mixed real power with dodgy moments through the competition this season. It is all set up tantalisingly for the second leg next Wednesday.
Leroy Sane was a doubt for tonight’s game due to a pubic bone injury and when the German international was named in the starting line-up, the anticipation was that he would be on the right flank — as he has been for the majority of the season.
However, injuries elsewhere meant Thomas Tuchel shuffled the pack slightly, placing Sane on the left and Jamal Musiala on the right, with Thomas Muller playing alongside Harry Kane in a 4-2-2-2.
For long periods of the first half, the plan looked effective. Sane was put through in a one-on-one within the first minute and was regularly looking to stretch the Madrid back line with runs to receive first-time on his natural left foot.
Sane and Musiala would frequently roll inside into the respective half spaces and leave Bayern’s full-backs to keep the width. In the second half, as Bayern switched more to a 4-2-3-1, Sane assumed his typical position on the right flank and restored parity within 10 minutes.
A driving run, drop of the shoulder and a thundered finish at the near post reignited the clash — his first goal since October 28.
Sane fires in Bayern’s equaliser (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
It was a superb performance and a reminder of Sane’s versatility to play on either flank on the biggest European stage.
Mark Carey
Is Kroos a Ballon d’Or contender?
Madrid were struggling a quarter of an hour into the game as Bayern had six shots while no visiting player had come anywhere close to a chance.
Toni Kroos decided something had to be done, first with a super aggressive challenge on his old team-mate Thomas Muller, which was more about showing an example to his team-mates than actually winning the ball back.
Kroos began to get on the ball, move it around, giving his team-mates time and space to regain their composure. Then came his phenomenal assist for the opening goal, splitting the Bayern defence open completely, giving Vinicius Jr the chance to finish first time.
Kroos sees Vinicius Jr starting to make his run…
… and angles a pass between the two Bayern players in front of him…
… leaving Vinicius Jr free to break clear…
(TNT Sport)
… and score with ease.
Replays showed how he conceived the goal in his head in advance, pointing with his finger for Vinicius Jr to run behind Bayern’s out-of-position centre-back Kim Min-jae, then delaying the pass to allow the Brazilian to sprint into the space before perfectly timing and weighting the assist.
From being under the cosh due to Bayern’s fast start, Madrid were suddenly in full control of the tie. Confidence flowed through the visiting players, while belief seemed to ebb from the home side. Few individual performances have had such an effect on such a huge game.
Kroos completed all 36 of the passes he played in the first 30 minutes, making it a pretty special return to his old club, who must so rue letting him leave for Madrid on a cut-price €25m deal back in 2014. A decade later, the 34-year-old is out of contract in June but will surely renew with Madrid.
He has also recently returned to the Germany national squad in time for the Euros in his home country. Many more performances like this – he also saw a curling shot saved in the second half – and he’ll be a leading Ballon D’Or candidate. And a hugely deserving one.
Dermot Corrigan
How was Kane subdued… but still a scorer?
For a minute there, early on, it looked like tonight might be all about Harry Kane.
Just seconds into the match, Bayern ran a simple little pattern down the left-hand side that ended with Kane pulling toward the ball and redirecting it into the channel to put Leroy Sane in on goal. It was a perfect illustration of his gifts as not only Europe’s leading goalscorer but also perhaps its most creative striker.
A few minutes later, Kane did it again, this time from deeper: he received the ball in midfield and played another perfectly weighted through ball that Sane couldn’t quite figure out how to turn into a goal. Kane’s constant movement posed a problem for Real Madrid’s right centre-back, Antonio Rudiger: how far could he track the dropping striker without letting Sane slip behind him?
Yet for most of the rest of the match, Kane went strangely quiet. Lucas Vazquez stayed deep as Madrid’s right-back to help Rudiger in the Kane-Sane dilemma and Kane started drifting into other channels to look for service. When he finally got through on goal himself, in the 66th minute, Rudiger was there to knock him down with a powerful and well-timed shoulder.
Kane slams home his penalty (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
In the end, Kane turned out to be almost a non-factor, managing just two shots on target from open play and not much creativity after those opening minutes. Chalk up another victory for Rudiger, who had shut down Erling Haaland in the previous round.
But when Jamal Musiala went down for a penalty in the second half, it was Kane who stepped up to the spot, broadcast his chosen side with a deliberate glance that made Andre Lunin second-guess himself, and rolled a simple shot home for Bayern’s first goal of the tie. Even when Kane stumbles — as he did on his way to celebrate the penalty — he’s still the surest thing in Europe.
John Muller
Should Ancelotti send for Courtois?
Andriy Lunin has made some unexpected leaps forward since Madrid’s No 1 goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois sustained anterior cruciate ligament damage in training in August.
He first overcame the challenge of Kepa Arrizabalaga to become first choice and was then a hero of the penalty shootout win over Manchester City in the quarter-final.
However, Lunin has not always looked like a top-class goalkeeper. He was caught out by Bernardo Silva’s long-range free kick in the first leg against City and suffered when targeted with inswinging corners by Barcelona in the recent Clasico.
It might be harsh to blame the Ukrainian for Sane’s goal given both Ferland Mendy and Rodrygo should have got closer, the shot was unexpected, and it was hit with superb power and precision, but there is a rule that goalkeepers should not be beaten at their near post and it was a huge moment in the tie.
Courtois was a welcome presence on the Real bench (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
Courtois had a setback in mid-March but has been back training with the team for a few weeks. Ancelotti has already said he will start Saturday’s La Liga game at home to Cadiz at the Bernabeu, a 90-minute test to see how his knee has recovered.
All being well, there will be a heavy temptation to bring Courtois back in for next Wednesday’s second leg against Bayern given how important the Belgian has been for Madrid in the Champions League in the past.
Dermot Corrigan
What happened to Kim Min-jae?
How did Bayern’s defence leave Vinicius Jr that open for Real Madrid’s first-half goal?
The most obvious culprit was Kim Min-Jae, who bit too hard on a double move and left an ocean of space behind him. When Vinicius Jr abruptly switched gears and sprinted for goal, Kim just didn’t have the wheels to catch up.
Speaking of a lack of speed, it didn’t help Kim’s cause that his centre-back partner was Eric Dier, who had wandered too far from goal to keep an eye on Jude Bellingham and made only a half-hearted, plodding recovery run to try to cover for Kim when he saw he was beaten.
Nor was Manuel Neuer particularly quick off his line to block the shot, but these sorts of things happen when you’re 38 years old and still starting Champions League semi-finals.
The real mystery is how, with so many players lacking pace at the back, Bayern allowed Kroos enough time in possession to not only pick his pass behind their back line but to point out to Vinicius where to go and then wait for the run to materialise. What happened to a team that used to have one of Europe’s most fierce high presses?
Bayern were oddly passive here, allowing Real Madrid to complete 90 per cent of their passes in the first half at the Allianz, and when you give Kroos and Vinicius Jr an inch, they’ll take a mile.
Sadly for Kim, his suffering did not end there. He was caught out by another swift Real Madrid passing exchange in the second half, only for Neuer to save well from Vinicius Jr’s shot, but had no safety net when he hauled down Rodrygo for a penalty in the 83rd minute. A night to forget.
John Muller
UK readers can view Real Madrid’s first goal here:
The Bayern Munich vs Real Madrid match dashboard, showing the threat timeline, territory, match stats, shot maps and pass networks
What was said afterwards?
Harry Kane was frustrated at Bayern’s inability to hold on to their 2-1 lead after coming back strongly in the second half.
“Once we got 2-1 ahead, we had two or three good chances,” he told TNT Sport. “This is the Champions League semi-final. We expected a tough game. Real are one of the best teams in Europe who can punish you.
“We started on the front foot and their goal came against the run of play. Second half we played with a higher intensity. We deserved our two goals and it’s a shame we couldn’t get a third.”
Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti – who said he had taken off Jude Bellingham as the midfielder was suffering with cramp – was satisfied with his side’s fightback but acknowledged there was scope for improvement.
“We could play better,” he said. “We had problems in the first half with a low block, too deep. We started to put pressure and it was much better. We tried to change something in the second half. We started really well and conceded two goals when our moment was good.”
This was meant to be Kylian Mbappe’s stage. Instead it was journeyman striker Niclas Fullkrug who proved the difference to give Borussia Dortmund a slender advantage in their semi-final with Paris Saint-Germain.
The 31-year-old is in the form of his life after spending the majority of it in the second tier in Germany and is now a regular scorer for the national team.
After Bayern Munich’s thrilling 2-2 draw with Real Madrid on Tuesday night, this was a much tighter first leg, particularly in the first period. That was until Dortmund went direct to Fullkrug, who produced a brilliant first touch before firing low beyond Gianluigi Donnarumma in the 36th minute.
PSG improved after the break, with Kylian Mbappe and Achraf Hakimi hitting the post within the space of 10 seconds and Ousmane Dembele blazing over in the final 10 minutes. Fullkrug should have added a second too but it is Dortmund who will head to Paris with a vital goal.
The Athletic’s Peter Rutzler, Seb Stafford-Bloor, Thom Harris and Elias Burke analyse the action.
Just under two years ago, Niclas Fullkrug poked home his 19th goal of the season to spark wild celebrations in Bremen. It sealed a crucial final-day win, and moved the 29-year-old up to fourth place in the goalscoring standings — in the German second tier.
He has always been a proficient striker through the divisions, a functional target man and battering ram at the top of five different teams. But since Fullkrug has turned 30, he has won a Bundesliga Golden Boot, made his international debut, scored 11 international goals — including two at the World Cup — and put his new side in the driving seat for a Champions League semi-final.
Fullkrug hammers home the opening goal (Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images)
Fullkrug is unfashionable, but undoubtedly effective. He can sometimes struggle to get into games — he touched the ball just nine times in a cagey opening half an hour here — but his emphatic ability to smash the ball on either foot can blow games apart. It was a crisp left-footed strike to open the scoring, but as his shot map below illustrates, he is a striker who can make the most of any penalty-box situation.
He should have added a second after the break but it was heartening to see a distinctly normal footballer take centre stage.
Across both legs of PSG’s quarter-final victory over Barcelona, they struggled with the long ball. PSG are one of the most aggressive pressers in this year’s Champions League — no team has regained the ball quicker (judged by the opposition passes per defensive action) — but that can leave space in behind if their first press, from those forward line, is not sharp or precise.
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Xavi recognised this and used Robert Lewandowski as his out ball. Marc-Andre ter Stegen, the Barcelona goalkeeper, played the majority of his passes up the field to the Poland striker, and he in turn was able to bring his wide players into play. PSG defender Lucas Beraldo had a particularly difficult game, losing five duels.
Dortmund clearly learned from those matches. Edin Terzic, the Dortmund coach, was able to use Fullkrug in a similar manner. There were early warning signs; Marcel Sabitzer made a curved run from the right to reach a long pass from Ian Maatsen, but the pass was misplaced.
Dortmund were not as precise as Barcelona in the opening stages, often wayward in their attempts to pick out Fullkrug, who in turn could not contest the aerial duel against the PSG defence. But then, Dortmund got one right. Nico Schlotterbeck sold Mbappe a dummy, and used that extra second of space to arrow a ball over the top of the PSG back line.
It was an incredibly simple goal to concede but one that proves PSG are vulnerable. They struggled with their first pressure, allowing Dortmund to play out through Julian Ryerson or allowing the time to arrow a direct pass accurately, which is exactly what happened with the opening goal.
The back line switched off and were caught flat-footed; they were not set to deal with a run in behind, expecting a pass to instead be played onto Fullkrug’s head — normally his main strength. PSG may be better pressers, but simple mistakes are still undermining that.
Peter Rutzler
Is Sancho back to his best?
Sancho’s performance was a reminder of how important environment is for footballers. He has not blazed through the Bundesliga since returning but he has seemed far less inhibited in Germany. Far away from the stifling commentary surrounding his Manchester United career, the expression has returned to his game and the timing and smart decisions that once accented his talent have returned.
They were prominent again. At his best, there is a waspishness to Sancho’s attacking play, which sees him flutter in and out of the attack and influence the game with little touches and tricks across the width of the pitch.
In the first half, he touched the ball more than any other Dortmund player, which described his appetite for the occasion and how difficult PSG found it to keep hold of him.
Sancho’s dribbling came to the fore in the first period (Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images)
He completed seven dribbles in the first 45 minutes, too. More than any player in any Champions League game this season. More than he managed in any Manchester United game he took part in.
But on a night when Dortmund needed their crowd, the Westfalenstadion responded to his confidence and his little moments of flare. This was Sancho at his very best. It was him as a spectacle again and after what seems like a very long time, it’s nice to be able to write that again.
Seb Stafford-Bloor
How costly will PSG’s misses prove?
When Mbappe faced up his full-back a few minutes into the second half, it looked as though he would put PSG back on level terms from an acute angle.
As it transpired, his right-footed curling effort towards Gregor Kobel’s left-hand post did not curl enough and hit the post. Minutes later, Marquinhos curled a cross that dropped perfectly between Kobel and the Dortmund defensive line, with Marco Fabian ghosting in. Six yards from goal, it seemed certain he would head in from close range and put PSG on level terms. Somehow, he missed. And missed chances proved to be the story of PSG’s second half.
Mbappe was involved again in the 70th minute, receiving the ball in the same top right-hand corner of the Dortmund box that he almost scored from 20 minutes earlier. This time, he slipped in Dembele, whose tame effort was saved by Kobel. Ten minutes later, he would have the chance to redeem himself after Achraf Hakimi spotted his deep run into the box and played a pass across the box, but his right-footed shot ballooned over the crossbar.
Dembele after his miss (Oliver Hardt – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
“How the French haven’t scored, I can’t believe, frankly,” said Ally McCoist, the co-commentator for TNT Sports, the UK broadcaster of the Champions League.
Fortunately for Luis Enrique, Dortmund could not make the most of several excellent second-half goalscoring opportunities. Shooting practice will surely be on the agenda ahead of next week’s second leg.
Elias Burke
Did hard-working Adeyemi silence critics?
Of all the factors expected to influence this game, Karim Adeyemi’s work without the ball was not among them. Adeyemi has suffered a bad month. From the high of his goal against Bayern Munich in March, his form has plateaued. A silly red card against Borussia Monchengladbach rightly provoked criticism and drew mutterings about his attitude. His stock has not been high.
But what a response this was. Adeyemi’s speed is typically an asset in attack. This evening it was virtue in defence, as he worked as hard as he probably ever has in Dortmund yellow to protect Ian Maatsen, his full-back, from the menacing Dembele-Hakimi threat down the PSG right.
Adeyemi was effective in defence as well as attack (ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images)
The 70 yards he ran in the first half to chase down Hakimi and end a counter-attack was particularly stirring. He did exactly the same thing in the second half and that was typical of Adeyemi’s night. It was also emblematic of an astute and tactically aware performance in which he gave absolutely everything to prevent Dortmund’s cracks from showing.
Praise is due for Terzic, too. Adeyemi was part of a gameplan in that part of the pitch that worked really well.
Sebastian Stafford-Bloor
What did Terzic say?
“It was a well-deserved win, a good team performance,” he told DAZN. “We could have scored more goals, but so could they. That’s why the result is OK from my point of view.
“We ran a lot, but that’s necessary in a game like this. You have to earn your way to Wembley. All we need now is a draw in the second leg, but we also want to win next week. We have a small lead and a good opportunity. We don’t have fear. We know the quality of Paris.
“Sancho was extraordinary but we have seen it often training. He translates it onto the pitch. He has quality, we know his quality. It wasn’t just him, and it was important for a good match.”
What did Luis Enrique say?
“Everybody knew that this wasn’t going to be easy. This is the semi-final of the Champions League. The dressing room is a bit down, especially after hitting the post twice. But we had our supporters pushing us on throughout the match. We must recognise that this is an exceptional stadium, with fans who know how to support their team.
“We lacked incision in the final third. We didn’t create a lot more than the opponent, we looked for transitions and counter attacks. The mindset was better in the second half. It’s an opponent at a very good level and we created good chances.
“Both teams created a lot of opportunities. But they scored, and we didn’t. The result reflects how close the game was. It’s a new situation for both teams. In the last two rounds, they had the home game as their second game, whereas it was the other way round for us. We’ll now have the crowd on our side in the second leg. We’ll have to be more effective there.”
A year ago, decision-makers at Real Madrid explored the possibility of Andriy Lunin’s departure as they searched for a reinforcement in goal.The club considered signing David Soria from Getafe in June, although they preferred not to make a permanent investment in that position. When Thibaut Courtois picked up an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in August, they did not hesitate in bringing in Kepa Arrizabalagaon loan without an option to buy from Chelsea.
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But Arrizabalaga failed to impress after returning from an injury he suffered in November, while Lunin has emerged one of the heroes of the season. The 25-year-old produced a fine performance in the second leg of Madrid’s Champions League quarter-final against Manchester City, keeping Pep Guardiola’s side at bay in normal time before saving two penalties in the subsequent shootout.
Nobody would have expected that when Lunin started the campaign behind Arrizabalaga, knowing he could find himself as third choice when Courtois returned. He went out on three separate loans after joining Madrid in 2018 but is now close to agreeing a new deal until 2028, as reported by The Athletic on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian barely smiled in his post-match interviews after that performance against City, which gave an indication of his steely personality.So, who is Lunin? And what does the future hold for him, after stepping in so brilliantly for Courtois?
Born to a father in banking and a mother who worked as a civil servant, Lunin grew up in Krasnohrad, a town of around 20,000 inhabitants in eastern Ukraine.He started out playing futsal and excelled as a striker. His first shirt was that of Real Madrid icon Cristiano Ronaldo and it was only aged eight that he began to play as a seven-a-side goalkeeper in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city in the country’s northeast. Iker Casillas was his new idol.Lunin had trials with three different teams — Ukrainian sides Shakhtar Donetsk and Metalist Kharkiv, along with a football school in Kharkiv. He chose Metalist as his destination, living and studying at their academy from under-12 to under-18 level.
Lunin was Madrid’s hero against City (Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)
From there, Lunin moved to Dnipro in 2016 and Zorya Luhansk a year later. Then, in 2018, he learned that Madrid wanted to sign him one day after training. Those close to him — who, like all those cited in this article, asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships — say he felt a mixture of happiness and vertigo. He knew the scale of the challenge ahead.
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He received interest from other teams but told his club he only wanted to join Madrid. The deal was done quickly, for around €8.5million ($9.1m; £7.3m at current exchange rates) plus about €4m in variables, with Lunin signing a contract until 2024.
Lunin’s arrival, like those of many other youngsters at Madrid, bore the stamp of their chief scout Juni Calafat and his staff. Calafat, who is a Brazilian-Spanish national, has helped Madrid sign South American talents including Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo and Federico Valverde in recent years. He has been one of Lunin’s key backers, too. He has always had confidence in the Ukrainian’s potential and believed he deserved a chance as No 1 after Courtois’ injury in August.
Lunin got the chance to meet Madrid president Florentino Perez on his first visit to the Spanish capital in 2018. Those close to the goalkeeper say he was impressed by Perez, who made him feel like a son.
Those sources describe Lunin as a quiet individual who rarely smiles. But, at Madrid’s Valdebebas headquarters, they have always said he is humble, polite, hard-working and methodical — sometimes even too much so.
An early example of that was when he decided to speak in Spanish at his Madrid presentation in July 2018, despite not knowing the language. He spent hours rehearsing a speech from memory, in which he thanked Madrid for “giving me the opportunity to fulfil a dream” and said he was signing for “the best club in the world”.
But his path to the starting XI was unclear. When Lunin joined, Keylor Navas was Zinedine Zidane’s first-choice goalkeeper after helping Real Madrid win three Champions League titles in a row. Courtois had also arrived from Chelsea that summer, having been named the best goalkeeper of the 2018 World Cup with Belgium.
Madrid sent Lunin on loan to Leganes, a club on the outskirts of the city who were then in La Liga. He was second-choice there and returned to the Bernabeu in the summer of 2019, expecting Navas to leave. But the Costa Rican stayed put until September, when he joined Paris Saint-Germain and Alphonse Areola went the other way on loan as a backup for Courtois. By then, Lunin had already joined another La Liga side, Real Valladolid.
That spell did not go to plan either: he was a backup to Jordi Masip and the loan was cut short in January after just two appearances in the Copa del Rey. A spell at second-division Real Oviedo in the second half of that season proved more fruitful, as he helped the team stay up in 15th place with six clean sheets.
Anastasia has often made the headlines in Spain. On several occasions, she has posted on social media or conducted interviews to warn that Lunin would look for another destination if he continued on Madrid’s bench. In February, she told a YouTube show that it would be “difficult for Courtois to return from injury and take the top spot” if her husband continued to play.
Lunin has always stayed patient and insisted on staying at Madrid even when he wasn’t trusted in goal. His contract was extended for a further season that summer until 2025 — but this was not announced publicly and only came to light in 2024. Meanwhile, he also became part of Jorge Mendes’ Gestifute agency. His father had been his agent.
Lunin believes those three loans away improved him and made him mentally stronger, which was key to his return to Madrid. He also had the support of Ukraine coach and legendary forward Andriy Shevchenko during this time, who called him up for 29 games from 2017-2020, giving him six appearances.
In July 2020, Madrid told Lunin he would be part of the squad for the following season as a reserve option, as they did not want to bring in Areola on loan again or sign another ‘keeper. But he fell out of favour with Ukraine, with Shevchenko’s successor, Oleksandr Petrakov, not selecting him from 2021-2022.
Lunin has been active in public and private in showing his support for his home country since the Russian invasion in February 2022. He has kept himself informed of the situation, donated money to the war effort and participated in initiatives to collect and send food and supplies there.
Madrid have also helped him during the conflict, giving him moral and logistical support to assist his relatives still in Ukraine. On the first day of the war, Perez went to see him in person at the club’s Valdebebas training ground to speak with him.
Lunin helped Ukraine qualify for this summer’s Euros (Mateusz Slodkowski/Getty Images)
Lunin helped Ukraine qualify for this summer’s European Championship and he started in their play-off semi-final and final against Bosnia & Herzegovina and Iceland in March — his 10th and 11th caps for the national team.
“The only difficulty is the war in my country,” he said after Madrid’s penalty win against City. “It’s not easy to go to training every day when the worst news is coming out. There is my family, my friends, all my people, my city, my school. I try to help.”
He has barely put a foot wrong this season, playing 29 times — more than the sum of his three full campaigns at Madrid before this term. But at first, he was left frustrated with Carlo Ancelotti’s rotation between him and Arrizabalaga. He felt there was a lack of communication from the coaching staff and he and the Spaniard often found out who Ancelotti had selected through what he told the press.
Errors from Arrizabalaga in the games he started allowed Lunin to take advantage and become Madrid’s undisputed first choice from mid-January. He has conceded 27 goals in 29 games and kept 12 clean sheets. The club opened talks with his agent in March over his renewal.
Ancelotti still believes Lunin has plenty of room for improvement, especially in terms of his aerial presence and footwork. But both he and his staff value the goalkeeper’s professionalism, resilience and growth, which they put down to being released from the pressure of living in Courtois’ shadow. In the dressing room, he is closest to young players such as Brahim Diaz, Valverde and summer signing Fran Gracia.
Despite his improvement, everyone at Valdebebas expects Courtois to return as Madrid’s first-choice ‘keeper once he is fully recovered. The Belgian was on the bench for the Champions League semi-final first leg against Bayern Munich on Tuesday after a separate meniscus injury suffered during his ACL recovery. He could play in Madrid’s potentially decisive La Liga game against Cadiz on Saturday, although a final choice will be made today or tomorrow.
But, for now, Lunin is the man of the moment — to the surprise of almost everyone.
(Top photo: Maria de Gracias Jimenez/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)
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(Photo: Brad Smith/Getty Images for USSF)
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Indy Mayor Pitches MLS and appears to cut out Indy 11 in the process. Interesting press conference by the Mayor. https://www.indystar.com/story/news/local/2024/04/25/indianapolis-plans-to-bid-for-mls-expansion-team/73458916007/ No idea what this means for Indy 11 Park and the downtown stadium? Is there a mystery potential new owner for an Indy MLS team – Confusion sets in ? I have long said the Indy 11 owner does not have MLS money and I am not sure we have the corporate support to field an MLS team along with NFL and NBA teams.
FA Cup Semi-Final leaves American offsides
Got a chance to watch the FA Cup Semi’s this weekend while in Cincy for a tourney – and man did Coventry City get robbed in their PK loss to Man United. American winger Haji Wright was dangerous all day and was (Not offsides) on the would be winning goal in ET – at Wembley Sunday. Man U won in PKs though US #9 Wright did score his PK. It will be Man U vs Man City in the FA Cup Finals again in May. Meanwhile Liverpool and Arsenal both lost last weekend leaving the door open for Man City to win the EPL again – games continue this weekend as just 1 pt separates Arsenal & Man City.
MLS – Big Win for Columbus + Big News for LAFC
The Columbus Crew took a huge home 2-1 win over Liga MX power Monterrey for the first leg in the Champions Cup. The return round is Tues night on FS1 10:15 pm on FS1. Big news for LAFC as they announced that French & AC Milan forward Olivier Giroud will be coming to LAFC after the Serie A season ends. Giroud, 37, has scored 13 goals and 8 assist this season while often starting for AC Milan.
Big Games on TV
Of course Champions League is back next week with no English teams left as Germany’s Bayern Munich will host Real Madrid Tuesday on CBS at 3 pm, while Dortmund will host PSG and Mbappe on Wed 3 pm on CBS. Sat gives us some battles of American’s with Fulham and Jedi Robinson hosting Crystal Palace and Centerback Chris Richards at 10 am on Peacock, followed by Juventus (Weah, McKinney) hosting AC Milan (Pulisic, Musah) at 12 noon on Para+. (Man this game on CBS would be cool). Sunday at 12:30 Bayern Leverkusen (German Champ) continues its quest for an unbeaten season as they host top 5 foe Stuttgart on ESPN+. (I watched their amazing comeback in stoppage time at Dortmund last Sunday). Tues night on FS 1 at 10 pm the Columbus Crew carry a 2-1 lead to Monterrey as they look to advance to the finals of the CONCACAF Championship.
Carmel FC 2010 Boys Gold Wins Kolping Cup Championship last weekend in Cincy, Ohio with a 3-0-1 mark. Head Coach Mark Stumpf (left) and Asst Shane Best (right).
Reffing done Right – always a pleasure to ref for ref assignor Nate Sinders & Dave – especially on a Bar BQ Weekend – like the Boys Showcase last weekend and Girls Showcase this weekend. Nate makes some of the best Beef Brisket in the state of Indiana. Good Eatin — thanks Nate !!
GAMES ON TV
Fri, 4/26
3 pm ESPN+ Real Sociadad vs Real Madrid
3 pm ESPN+ QPR vs Leeds United Championship
10 pm Amazon Prime Angel City vs KC Current NWSL
Sat, Apr 27
7:30 am USA West Ham vs Liverpool
9:30 am EPSN+ Bayern Munich vs Frankfurt
10 am USA Wolverhampton vs Luton Town
10 am Peacock Fulham (Jedi, Ream) vs Crystal Palace (Richards)
10 am Peacock Man United vs Burnley (adams)
10 am ESPN+ Blackburn vs Coventry City (HAji Wright) Championship
12 noon Para+ Juventus (Weah, McKinney) vs AC Milan (Pulisic, Musah)
12:30 pm NBC Everton vs Brentford
12:30 pm ESPN+ Leverkusen vs Stuttgart
1:45 pm Fox Austin vs LA Galaxy MLS
3 pm Peacock Aston Villa vs Chelsea
3 pm ESPN+ Atletico Madrid vs Athletic Club Spain
7:30 pm Ion Chicago Starts vs Portland Thorns NWSL
7 pm ESPN+ Indy 11 vs North Carolina
7:30 pm CBSSN Tampa Bay Rowdies (Jordan Farr) vs NM United USL
Sun, Apr 28
9 am USA Tottenham vs Arsenal
11:30 am USA Nottingham Forest (Reyna, Turner) vs Man City
12 noon Para+ Napoli vs Roma
Tues, Apr 30
3 pm CBS Bayern Munich vs Real Madrid UCL
Weds, May 1 Champions League
3 pm CBS Dortmund vs PSG
10:15 pm FS1 Monterrey 1 vs Columbus Crew 2 CONCACAF Champs Cup
10 pm CBSSN Bay FC vs Portland Thorns (Smith) NWSL
The USMNT defender had become a mainstay of the national team while enjoying one of the best campaigns of his club career at PSV Eindhoven on loan from Barcelona.
Now he will be forced to watch from the stands as what he helped create — an almost unbeaten league season, with PSV on course to become champions in May — unfolds without one of its main protagonists.
But even worse for the 23-year-old will be missing out on his second major tournament for the national team.
Dest has been a key performer in PSV’s outstanding campaign (ANP via Getty Images)
Dest played in each of the USMNT’s four games at the Qatar 2022 World Cup and was likely to remain one of the first names on Gregg Berhalter’s team sheet at this summer’s Copa America. Now the USMNT manager has some thinking to do.
Joe Scally, the team’s other bespoke right-back, has put together a decent season at Borussia Monchengladbach. He is 21 and, although his starting place has looked less certain in recent weeks, Scally has been in the starting XI for the Bundesliga outfit on 22 occasions, garnering big-game experience. On Saturday, he was named on the bench but contributed an assist during his 21 minutes on the pitch during Gladbach’s 4-3 defeat at Hoffenheim.
He will be in the mix to step into Dest’s boots this summer, but if Berhalter wants to try to emulate the attacking threat Dest brings, he might need to get creative — perhaps using Juventus’ Timothy Weah as a wing-back or even his club team-mate Weston McKennie.
AC Milan’s Yunus Musah could perform there and Westerlo’s 22-year-old full-back Bryan Reynolds offers another solution if Berhalter does not want to diminish his central midfield options by dragging a key man out wide.
Whatever the fix, it is a headache the national team coach could do without.
Dest competes with Mexico’s Gerardo Arteaga during the CONCACAF Nations League final in March (Stephen Nadler/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
Player of the weekend
Ever the man for the big stage, Sunday brought another show-stopping moment Haji Wright will never forget.
Wright scores from the spot (Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
City pushed the Premier League giants to the brink and almost made it to the final, only for Victor Torp’s stoppage-time strike to be ruled out for a negligible VAR offside call, made against Wright.
In the end, a penalty shootout decided the pulsating tie and Wright confidently netted his side’s first after United’s Casemiro saw his effort saved.
Yet it was not to be for the Californian and his plucky team-mates as United eventually prevailed and reached the final next month against rivals Manchester City.
Wright has been a goalscoring threat for Coventry all season, as can be seen from the variety of his shot map below.
“We get the equaliser from the penalty spot and it’s brilliantly dispatched from Wright,” said proud manager Mark Robins afterwards. “(Then) we’re back in it and, 20 seconds from the end of extra time, we get what feels like to be the winner, but it’s a toenail offside. I don’t know how unlucky we can be.
“They’ve written themselves into the history of this football club with the way they’ve come back in this football game, they have to be proud of themselves. It’s just really sad we couldn’t see it through.”
Coventry’s nervous support wait for Wright to find the back of the net (Nigel French/PA Images via Getty Images)
Quote of the weekend
Dest’s immediate future may be shrouded in doubt, but he can take solace that PSV remain keen to keep him permanently.
His Barcelona contract runs until June 2025, but with uncertainty over whether the wing-back will be part of the club’s plans next season, PSV president Marcel Brands has made it clear the Dutch club want to sign him regardless of his injury.
“We were in negotiations with him (Dest) and his agent last week,” Brands told Voetbal International. “Yes, that’s going in the right direction. We have to wait and see how or what, but we believe in Sergino and he will get fit again. We would love to keep him with PSV.
“’We had to convince him, but he became more and more enthusiastic and is having a good time. That’s why he wanted to talk to PSV about staying longer.”
Name: Zyen Jones Club: Kosice Position: Right midfield Appearances (all competitions): 11 Goals: Two
The 23-year-old created his side’s winning goal in a key fixture of the Slovakian top flight’s relegation battle on Friday. Kosice are three points clear of the drop and Jones, who joined in January, has one goal and two assists in six league appearances.
Sargent was the provider for team-mate Borja Sainz on Saturday as Norwich drew 1-1 with Bristol City to retain their position in the Championship’s final play-off place with two games remaining.
Sainz and Sargent celebrate Norwich’s equaliser (MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Name:Gianluca Busio Club: Venezia Position: Midfield Appearances: 34 Goals: Seven
The 21-year-old was the star man with his side’s second goal in their 2-1 win at Leco on Saturday, a result that kept Venezia third in Serie B and in contention for promotion. It was his seventh goal of the season.
It was a hugely successful return from injury for the USMNT international as he completed the 90 minutes of Palace’s emphatic 5-2 win against West Ham United, playing a significant role in winning back the ball in the build-up to the hosts’ second goal.
Richards had missed his side’s previous three games with a hamstring problem but slotted back into Oliver Glasner’s three-man defence as Palace edged further clear of trouble.
The Athletic FC: ‘Last Dance’ over for Klopp at Liverpool? Plus: Outrageous Mbappe nutmeg
Klopp’s ‘Last Dance’ looking unlikely at Liverpool
All good things are destined to end. Like Jurgen Klopp’s record at Goodison Park. Like Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool.
True, Liverpool aren’t finished. Not mathematically. It’s three points to the top of the Premier League table, or four if we factor in Arsenal’s goal difference.
Klopp consoles Diaz (Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)
Were the title a two-horse race, he could pray for salvation. But Arsenal and Manchester City — who are a point behind Klopp’s side with two games in hand — both imploding in the few games that are left? We’re somewhere between no chance and none.
Klopp said he was resigning because he was weary. Liverpool, in tandem and as a project, have begun to look weary too. And suddenly in need of the reset that’s coming their way.
Do players ‘really want to win the league’?
Two post-match comments at Goodison jumped out at me. The first was Klopp describing Liverpool’s counter-pressing as “horrible”. That’s an indictment of one of their biggest strengths under him.
From the moment Klopp announced he would resign at the end of the season, this became his version of ‘The Last Dance’, that immense documentary about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. The month behind Klopp has been more like Netflix’s Tour De France series: an elite rider broken by a Hors Categorie climb.
Klopp’s record as he prepares to bow out: seven major trophies in just under nine years, including a Premier League and a Champions League. Understanding him as we do, he’d have wanted more.
But he had the misfortune of coming up against a Manchester City team beyond compare and despite that, he took Liverpool back to the top table. Anfield’s love has been well-earned.
Klopp and Van Dijk (Photo: Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images)
How to Slot in?
Perhaps there is an upside to Liverpool’s downturn.
Klopp no longer looks like an impossible void to fill. Liverpool no longer look like they are losing a coach at his absolute peak. His expressions of fatigue sound honest, and are reflected in his body language.
Perhaps, on reflection, a new broom is just the ticket.
Until very recently, replacing Klopp resembled a hospital pass. As it is, and as James Pearce writes, a rebuild is now much easier to embrace. It’s been some ride for Liverpool. But nothing lasts forever.
WATCH: Brighton and Hove Albion vs Manchester City, 3pm ET / 8pm UK. Premier League. USA Network, Sky Sports
Mbappe’s masterful ‘megs + assist
Thoughts and prayers with Nathaniel Adjei. There he was, minding his own business with Lorient in France, when Kylian Mbappe made his name go viral.
You might remember the piece we did recently on the Chigwada spin: a mad bit of skill by Manchester City youngster David Chigwada. Watch it 10 times and you still won’t be sure exactly how he pulled it off.
Mbappe does tricks like that in his sleep and here he is destroying Adjei with a brutal nutmeg (more on the art of the nutmeg here) in Paris Saint-Germain’s 4-1 away win last night. I hate to say it but Adjei, who’s only 21, might just have experienced the most high-profile moment of his career.
From the vaults of the unexpected — Xavi is staying on as Barcelona manager next season.
Why unexpected? Because he announced that he was quitting a while back and has given the impression of being thoroughly sick of life at Camp Nou, calling it a ‘cruel job’. Ever heard of the Barca entorno?
Not only that, in the past week Barca have dropped out of the running in La Liga and the Champions League. But an emergency meeting with president Joan Laporta turned everything on its head. We’re expecting a formal announcement today.
This got me thinking. If U-turns are in vogue, any chance that Bayern Munich go into reverse gear with Thomas Tuchel?
How the USMNT could replace Sergiño Dest for the Copa America
Sergiño Dest put together the best season of his young career in 2023-24.
On loan at PSV Eindhoven from Barcelona, he eclipsed 2,000 league minutes — a clear breakthrough after a few nomadic seasons in Spain and on another loan to AC Milan. He was a fixture of PSV’s ongoing quest for an Eredivisie title, starting in all 25 of his league appearances while making another 12 appearances (11 starts) in the UEFA Champions League and the KNVB Beker.
Monday brought sobering news: The full back had suffered a knee injury in training on Saturday, with an early prognosis ruling him out for up to nine months.
That’s a big loss for PSV’s final four games, and arguably an even bigger one for the USMNT as it seeks to make a run in this summer’s Copa America. Ever since 2022 World Cup qualifying, he’s owned the right back position like few others have in any role under Gregg Berhalter.
Of course, time only moves forward. The Copa América will kick off on June 20, with the USMNT first taking the field on June 23 against Bolivia. Only two months remain for players to firm up their cases for inclusion — and, in the wake of Dest’s injury, for someone else to step up as the team’s first-choice right back.
Whoever steps up, though, the U.S. won’t find another player like Dest. His commitment to ball progression, chance creation (‘SCA’ in the table below means ‘shot-creating actions’) and the audacity to set up his shot comprise a rare blend for a fullback. Add in Dest’s press-resistant dribbling, and the USMNT has a way to break lines even when opponents are adequately stifling primary passing lanes.
The U.S. pool simply doesn’t offer a like-for-like replacement. As such, most viable alternatives will require reconfiguring how the U.S. center backs and midfielders patrol space in all phases of play.
Among those alternatives, one option immediately figures to have an inside track on the role.
A member of Berhalter’s squad for the 2022 World Cup, Scally has now cemented himself as a fixture of Borussia Mönchengladbach’s defense in the German Bundesliga. Although Gladbach’s season hasn’t gone as hoped, sitting 12th in the Bundesliga and four points above the relegation playoff place, Scally has now started 20+ games for them in three consecutive campaigns.
On the same day that Dest injured his knee, Scally came off the bench away at Hoffenheim. He provided an assist — his third of the year, a new career high — but was unable to catalyze a full comeback as Mönchengladbach lost 4-3.
Regardless of the results, though, Scally cuts an entirely different figure as a defender than Dest.
The Bundesliga’s playstyle is generally less free-flowing than the Eredivisie, which does cut into his ability to progress the ball to some extent. So too does Scally’s versatility – he is occasionally used as a left back, right midfielder and even center back.
Still, Scally doesn’t carry that same upfield compass that guides Dest’s every decision. Instead, he’s a more traditional full back. USMNT fans of a certain vintage might compare him to Steve Cherundolo: prone to slinging effective short passes and prioritizing his defensive responsibilities over the attacking stuff.
All said, his regular involvement in a league that is among the world’s best sets him apart from the rest of the pool.
The rest of the pool
Scally and Dest were two of four right backs to make Berhalter’s 26-man roster for the World Cup in Qatar. In the ensuing year and a half, however, both Shaq Moore and DeAndre Yedlin have faded from consideration for a full-strength USMNT compared to Dest and Scally.
Moore has had a rough start to the 2024 MLS season, although the same can be said for the entire team around him. Nashville’s system utilizes his long distribution frequently, but this season he’s performed just below league average in terms of tackling and allowing opposing dribblers to bypass him. Still, he’s a known entity in Berhalter’s planning and could allow for steady progress with his passing.
Yedlin has benefited greatly since being traded to FC Cincinnati from Inter Miami in March. The move from one of MLS’s most porous defenses to one of its best has allowed him to be a bit more aggressive with peace of mind that his teammates will be up to bail out any miscue. Although he’ll turn 31 in July, he’s also displayed an uptick in his upfield carrying volume, albeit not quite at the same rapid rate as when he broke out a decade ago. His crossing isn’t quite up to positional standard, but the 81-cap veteran could be a viable alternative to Scally in big games.
Reggie Cannon has been a steady on-ball defender since joining Queens Park Rangers this September. In his first season in the EFL Championship, he’s let opponents dribble past him just 15.2% of the time – one of the best marks in the league. The problem? Despite this strong run of form, manager Martí Cifuentes (appointed a month after Cannon signed) dropped the former FC Dallas defender from his lineup in February, opting to start center back Jimmy Dunne in a wide role. That lack of minutes could cost Cannon a chance at the Copa América roster, as he’ll struggle to return to peak form in time for the tournament.
The final pair of right backs who may be in contention seemed destined to make the Olympic roster before Dest’s injury. Bryan Reynolds has been a fixture of the U-23 side throughout its preparations, benefitting from earning regular starts in the Belgian Pro League with Westerlo.
Reynolds also started regularly at last summer’s Gold Cup under interim B.J. Callaghan, which could give him a leg up over Nathan Harriel. The Philadelphia Union homegrown is untested at the senior international level but is among MLS’s best one-on-one defenders. If either is picked for the Copa América, it could open the door for Jake Davis (another strong tackler who developed in central midfield) to crack the Olympic roster.
Tim Weah has been used as a right wingback with Juventus (Click Thompson/Getty Images)
The curveballs
If one of the above options doesn’t cut it for Gregg Berhalter, he may be able to find a solution by moving a versatile starter to the back four. Each has viable alternatives who could fill their place if they need to be relocated for the good of their country.
Tyler Adams’ return from a lengthy injury layoff was a sight for sore eyes at the Nations League. The Bournemouth midfielder has played just 211 minutes for club and country since his hamstring tear in March 2023, but he looked like his typically vital self during his two Nations League appearances last month. There’s some precedent for Adams at right back – he played there for the U.S. occasionally in the 2022 World Cup cycle. However, it’s a physically demanding role, and his recent injury history might not allow for it.
Weston McKennie’s best shift at the 2022 World Cup came as something of a right wingback. Against England, the midfielder lived in the right half-space to create a numerical overload that helped the United States in possession and frustrated the Three Lions’ build-up when the ball changed hands. However, he’s had a truly resurgent season for Juventus as a box-to-box midfielder, doing his usual all-around stuff while adding better pass selection and creativity in the heart of the park. While Luca de la Torre (or Gio Reyna, if he isn’t used on the wing) could take his place were he to move to right back, it may create more midfield imbalance than ideal.
Instead, the best bet among projected USMNT starters may be a few lockers down in the Juventus dressing room. This year, Massimiliano Allegri has utilized Tim Weah as a right wingback. The gambit worked wonders until recent weeks, where a poor run of form has Allegri shuffling his lineup on a weekly basis in hopes of keeping his job. At the club’s heights this fall and winter, however, Weah brought his usual direct speed into the role with great success, also showcasing impressive tackling acumen for a career forward.
Although he plays slightly more advanced for his club than he would for the U.S., his movement patterns are closer to Dest’s than a lot of the aforementioned alternatives. Weah has had a full season to get used to making downhill runs against more congested defenses than he finds on the wing, which would cut down on his learning curve tremendously. He would also benefit from having McKennie play in a similar spot as he does for Juventus, allowing for second-nature interplay between the pair as Weah builds a rapport with the center backs.
Moving Weah off of the right wing would also open that role up for Christian Pulisic. The USMNT star has been among the best wide attackers in Europe, enjoying an emphatic bounce-back campaign with AC Milan after some lean years at Chelsea. That uptick has coincided with a shift from his previous role on the left to playing on the right – the same role he played during his breakout with Borussia Dortmund.
The 25-year-old has more than held his own while sharing a forward line with Rafael Leao and Olivier Giroud, with 13 goals and 8 assists across 3,169 minutes in all competitions.
Compared to his form with Milan, Pulisic seemed to play less freely in the Nations League. At times against Jamaica and Mexico, he was caught in two minds as he navigated the final third in a role that has never quite brought out his best.
If Pulisic were to shift, the left wing has capable alternatives: Reyna for a creative spark and Haji Wright as an in-form wide forward, to name two.
If there’s a silver lining to be found around Dest’s injury, perhaps it’s the potential for a shake-up that keeps the USMNT from replicating the worryingly stale first 90 minutes against Jamaica. Not only would it put the team’s best player into his best role, but it would also make the USMNT harder to gameplan for due to a lack of previous utilization. Sometimes, those tweaks can make a major difference in a knockout format.
(Top photos: David Jensen/Getty Images; John Dorton/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
USWNT Olympic roster prediction 2.0: How things look after the SheBelieves Cup
As the interim head coach era of the U.S. women’s national team comes to a close, it’s time for a fresh round of evaluating who’s in and who’s out of Olympic roster contention. In less than four months, new head coach Emma Hayes will have to select just 18 players to take to France. Former USWNT midfielder Sam Mewis recently described the math equation she used when she was trying to figure out if she was in contention for a roster. Mewis would make her own depth chart, writing out the defenders, midfielders, and forwards in her hotel room. It’s likely the current U.S. group is doing the math now after two SheBelieves games, with both requiring comeback victories and the team needing penalties – again – to dispatch Canada.In Columbus, defender Tierna Davidson hinted at balancing the anxiety that leads to hotel room math with every athlete’s mantra about controlling the controllable. “I think for all of us, it’s just taking everything with a grain of salt and to just give everybody a little bit of space to be making the decision that they’re making, and to see different pictures on the field,” Davidson said. “We all know that nothing is guaranteed as a new coach comes in. So I think everyone (is) trying to put their best foot forward but also understanding that it is an unorthodox time for both us as players and the coaching staff, the technical staff as a whole.”As we guess at our Olympic roster 2.0 (see our first edition here), interim head coach Twila Kilgore’s summary of any roster construction provides good context.
“It’s not about young or old or less experienced or more experienced. It’s about getting the right combinations of players with the right amount of experience and different strengths and weaknesses where they can cover each other in different areas and also have some chemistry and make sure that they’re all able to highlight their strengths,” she said.
Now that SheBelieves is over, and Zambia has officially completed the USWNT’s Olympic group, it’s up to Hayes to determine the final roster — with just two international windows to do so.
Defenders (6): Naomi Girma (San Diego Wave), Tierna Davidson (Gotham FC), Abby Dahlkemper (SD Wave), Emily Fox (Arsenal), Crystal Dunn (Gotham FC), Jenna Nighswonger (Gotham FC),
Midfielders (5): Rose Lavelle (Gotham FC), Lindsey Horan (Lyon), Sam Coffey (Portland Thorns), Catarina Macario (Chelsea), Emily Sonnett (Gotham FC)
Forwards (5): Sophia Smith (Portland Thorns), Mallory Swanson (Chicago Red Stars), Alex Morgan (SD Wave), Trinity Rodman (Washington Spirit), Jaedyn Shaw (SD Wave)
Goalkeepers
Meg: I don’t think this combo will surprise anyone. Alyssa Naeher should have done a bit better on that super-quick Japan goal in Atlanta, but it was Canada’s opening goal that’s more troublesome when you’re thinking about your starting goalkeeper. Her form so far this year has been very solid — vintage, in many ways — and she reminded everyone to settle down with another absurd penalty shootout performance against Canada: three saves and a converted spot kick.
Jeff: I think we’ve all shared similar concerns about Naeher’s agility when converging on an open ball or reacting to a powerful shot. The former scenario played out Tuesday night and it cost the U.S. the opening goal. Unfortunately, there’s been very little rotation in net since the CONCACAF W Gold Cup group stage, and any alternative would need to start at least twice in June’s friendlies against South Korea to have any familiarity with the defenders. This is one area where Kilgore could have better prepared some viable alternatives in 2024.It’s also worth stressing that the chance for a player to parlay a really strong stretch with their club into a backup role — “pulling an Aubrey Kingsbury,” if you will — is lessened when the team will only bring two goalkeepers instead of three. Casey Murphy has been Naeher’s main alternative for the better part of four years, and I’d expect that to remain the case unless Hayes rates someone else.
Defenders
Here’s where we had the most debate this time around: do you bring three center backs and three outside backs? Two straight-up center backs and then maybe a defender who can slot centrally if you need them in a pinch? On the outside back front, do we need one of each, or better to have someone who can half-credibly cover both? Is it better to prioritize pure defense on these depth picks, or someone who can slot into the U.S.’s attacking patterns?
Girma is one of the few defenders from the USWNT’s World Cup roster who is still receiving regular starts. (Photo by Brad Smith, Getty Images for USSF)
Center backs
Meg: Everyone watching the opening SheBelieves Cup match was both praying and believing in the healthiest possible vibes for Naomi Girma after she was forced to exit the match in the 18th minute with what turned out to be a day-to-day thigh injury. It seems like the team is being super precautionary and not pushing it. As we discussed last time, Girma is name number one on the S-Tier mission-critical players for the Olympics. Davidson has inched closer to being that primary partner for her, but she might have some rough video review after this tournament going over two of the goals allowed.
Here’s our one shift of this Olympic roster as we move from 1.0 to 2.0: we’ve opted to add Abby Dahlkemper to the mix.
Steph: I think SheBelieves illustrated pretty neatly that you need a third center back as opposed to someone who can shift inside in a pinch. A dedicated center back is perhaps the one area where you don’t want versatility. You want a specialist who can do a few other things but is devoted primarily to being a center back. As we saw against Canada at SheBelieves, you lose a lot with Girma if you’re facing a team trying to play over your backline. Girma is exceptional in her ability to cover the long ball and to control the space to deny runners the ability to look at goal in the first place.
Jeff: Another factor playing in Dahlkemper’s favor is her familiarity with the two other center backs. Tuesday marked the 15th time that she’s partnered with Davidson, albeit the first in nearly three years. She also plays alongside Girma for San Diego, ensuring that any pairing from that trio will have established familiarity at a time when so much of the squad will be acclimating on the fly.
Meg: There is still a chance for Alana Cook to sneak in for one final look, finally returning to the Reign as a sub in an NWSL match last month, but that feels more like a chance than a definite right now.
Nighswonger earned her first USWNT cap in December 2023 (Photo by Andrea Vilchez, Getty Images for USSF)
Outside backs
Steph: Jenna Nighswonger has moved up to at least A-Tier for me, which we described last time as someone around whom to build the roster. I think Nighswonger has shown she’s a big piece of the USWNT’s ability to press, especially enabling Mal Swanson to go full Mal Swanson in their left-side progression.
Jeff: Nighswonger has provided width that was sorely lacking during the Vlatko Andonovski era, where both fullbacks tucked into the midfield rather than running the flank. While Fox is still doing that inverted wingback work on the right, having Nighswonger offer width and progression on the left gives a different element in the build-up — the U.S. sorely missed this in the first half against Canada, and moving upfield along the left was a slog.
Do we think Crystal Dunn knows what her role is moving forward? I wouldn’t be surprised if she is preferred to Nighswonger in the short term, but I still want to know if Hayes will keep her at left back or finally, mercifully, unleash her in midfield.
Meg: I really rate Casey Krueger, and think she should be on the USWNT. This 18-player roster is a killer.
Jeff: Kilgore did opt to bring Krueger in to replace Dunn on Tuesday rather than Nighswonger. It may have just been minute management at Gotham’s request, but we’ve also seen Krueger play right, center, and left in the past few months. If we’re highlighting versatility within the pool, she’s checked all the boxes.
Midfielders
Meg: Somehow, the one from the midfield I’m most on the fence about right now is Rose Lavelle, which isn’t anything Lavelle has done. She missed out on this camp due to injury. Assuming she’s healthy this summer (which, to be fair, sometimes is a greater assumption than anyone would prefer), she still has to make the trip. The USWNT has some different looks at the No. 10 now though, with Jaedyn Shaw getting the nod against Brazil. Catarina Macario could also slot there (or, as always: Dunn).
Steph: I think Olivia Moultrie is a little extraneous if a roster has to get trimmed to 18, and I say that only in the context of that trimming and not at all as a referendum on her talent or ability to play at this level. It’s just that with Macario and Shaw in the mix, and especially if Lavelle gets healthy in time, I think it pushes her down the list a bit. Even though I think she’s on track to eventually work her way deeper into this team.
Lavelle was left off the SheBelieves roster due to injury. (Photo by Omar Vega, Getty Images)
Jeff: If you were listing the 18 most talented players in the pool, or the 18 most important, I wouldn’t spare a thought at listing all three of Lavelle, Macario and Shaw before I even get to the difficult decisions. But with so many high-caliber forwards and wingers, and Horan being a two-way threat, can you afford to take three attacking midfielders and punt on depth elsewhere?
If there’s one thing I’m confident about, it’s that the roster’s biggest snub will either be an attacking midfielder (Lavelle seems most tenuous given her struggles to stay healthy since 2022) or a winger.
Meg: It feels safe enough to note that we know what we’re getting with Horan in this midfield, so let’s move to the No. 6. Sam Coffey has had a very strong start to her 2024. At this point, do we think she’s done enough to cement not just a spot on the 18-player roster for France, but as the team’s starting defensive midfielder?
Jeff: I think so. I’m not an NWSL awards voter, but I would’ve had Coffey as my MVP last season for her work with Portland. She plays with a willingness to advance into the final third only when necessary, which keeps a midfield safety net to stifle a counterattack if the U.S. turns the ball over. Her long distribution can also help unlock the team’s wingers in all phases, and she’s looked the part against high-caliber opponents.
We’ve already rattled off a lot of names we’d want to bring, but we should probably address what the past couple of weeks could mean for Korbin Albert’s hopes of inclusion. The midfield is incredibly crowded right now; we haven’t even brought up World Cup call-ups like Savannah DeMelo, Ashley Sanchez or Andi Sullivan, or the long-awaited inclusion of Jaelin Howell. Hayes’ Chelsea often plays with two midfield pivots in front of the back line, so there could be room for a non-attacking inclusion at the expense of a playmaker.
Still, Albert’s overcommitment against Brazil made her easy to bypass in the Gold Cup final, and the very real locker room chemistry concerns could make this a tournament roster too soon.
Meg: We’re not in that locker room, but those concerns are definitely heightened for an 18-player roster. I think the federation is largely satisfied with her public apology over her social media activity, but I also think that the USWNT technical staff have better options right now for soccer reasons, too.
Morgan has adapted to a new role with the young USWNT. (Photo by Carmen Mandato, Getty Images for USSF)
Forwards
Jeff: This is another area where the only real change from a month ago is an unfortunate injury. Midge Purce was at the top of my “tough omission” list after the Gold Cup, but an ACL tear has ruled her out for the Olympics and all of 2024. A player like Macario or Lavelle could be moved into a new role under Hayes and play as more of a winger, but beyond that, we’re likely talking about the same group of players with similar feelings about each.
Meg: For all the discourse on Alex Morgan, I think she’s going — and it feels like the players agree, based on this quote from Trinity Rodman in Columbus: “Alex is just a voice that we need with the experience. Being in the center, being the person that’s initiating press and attack, I think to have that voice, have that experience, have that veteran status is really good for us to build off of. And also just energy-wise, I think she sets the tone really well.” For as much as we talked about all those options at the No. 10, this team also has plenty at striker, but Morgan’s once again pulled off the return to the USWNT.
Steph: The forward group has been a historically delightful problem for coaches to solve. This team has never lacked scoring talent.
(Photo: Robin Alam/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
U.S. Soccer took a gamble waiting for Emma Hayes, leaving USWNT’s style of play in limbo
In November, U.S. Soccer gambled that it was worth sacrificing a year of continuous preparation under a permanent manager to hire Emma Hayes. For eight months following the 2023 World Cup, interim management has overseen the U.S. women’s national team. To her credit, Twila Kilgore’s tenure as placeholder helped turn over the player pool and saw her team win a pair of tune-up competitions this spring.Still, it’s been a lost year for the program at a time when it was in sore need of a clear new vision. Hayes’ first games as USWNT manager in June are still two months away, bringing the post-World Cup interlude to 10 months — and a full seven months from her appointment in November.With the CONCACAF W Gold Cup and SheBelieves Cup in the rearview, it’s time to take stock. Is the program any better prepared to contend at the Paris Olympics than it was when Sweden knocked it out of the World Cup?
The 2023 World Cup cycle (and, by association, the Vlatko Andonovski era) stands out as the low point for the USWNT on the field.The belated 2020 Olympics was a warning sign, as an aging core entered with varying levels of fitness amidst the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. The team played every game in empty stadia, a far cry from the raucous support it so often enjoys in major tournaments, and the team was ultimately eliminated by Canada in the semifinal.Rather than heeding lessons from that tournament, Andonovski largely ran it back for the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. The team’s style of play often looked languid as it failed to breach the final third. Multiple players failed to see the field for a single minute as the U.S. advanced from its group thanks in part to a friendly goalpost against Portugal. The relief was short-lived as the U.S. fell to another longtime rival, Sweden, in a round of 16 penalty shootout.Advanced metrics show that the U.S. did do some good things in its four games at the tournament. No team allowed fewer shots per 90 than the squad’s 4.6, and its average xG per 90 advantage of 2.14-0.32 certainly screams “contender” in isolation. However, the issues with build-up and chance creation were clear.The team progressed up the field quickly enough, ranking 11th in the tournament field with a direct speed of 1.71 meters advanced upfield per second of possession.
Speed isn’t everything. Tournaments are notorious for eliciting small sample size judgments, and the trendline is far from definitive. Nevertheless, none of the 10 teams that ranked higher in direct speed advanced any further in the tournament than the round of 16.Progressing the ball upfield with pace is a helpful tool in transition, but the USWNT seemed devoid of ideas once it met the opposing defense in the final third. All four teams that had a more rapid direct speed also bowed out in the round of 16. Unsurprisingly, all five teams that averaged fewer goals per 90 than the U.S. also failed to reach the quarterfinal or further.Playing direct and sharp final third decision-making shouldn’t be treated as a mutually exclusive proposition, mind you. Given the talent at the USWNT’s disposal, there’s the potential to create a near unstoppable balance in attack. With the benefit of hindsight, the federation wanted to ensure the team was better equipped to make smart decisions to score with dependability.
“There was definitely a sense that we need to be better with the ball and have more solutions,” U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker said in September. The federation polled players during the coaching search and much of the focus from the tactical feedback involved building the attack, playing through the midfield and having “creative solutions in tight spaces, having the players and the tactics to beat the low block.”After spending an entire cycle moving the ball despite its midfield — the Prayer Circle Formation, as Kim McCauley so brilliantly branded it — they wanted to make use of their engine room.Enter Hayes, a tactical chameleon who’s well-versed in the art of breaking down low blocks at the helm of her Chelsea juggernaut. She plans for the opponent rather than coaching from dogmatic principles. Each game’s instructions are curated with one aim in mind: winning, above all else.You can see the appeal at surface level, hiring a coach who habitually works to overcome the type of cynical tactics that sunk the team last summer. The catch: the team would have to wait while Hayes admitted her “full focus and attention is on what I do for Chelsea” until that season’s end.
If there’s a highlight performance over the last 10 months, it came in the Gold Cup quarterfinal against Colombia. In the preceding group stage, the USWNT was frustrated by opponents like Argentina and Mexico sitting in a low block as Kilgore maintained a possession-oriented structure perhaps too closely akin to Andonovski’s. Patterns of ball circulation slowed the team’s build-up, giving all too much time for defensive-minded opponents to get into their ideal placements.Colombia was a World Cup quarterfinalist last summer, blessed with one of the world’s great young attackers, Linda Caicedo, and a team that suited her skillset on the break. Kilgore strove to exploit those tendencies by letting her team play direct. It achieved two things: greater attacking intensity going forward, and fewer turnovers in the defensive half that would cater to Colombia’s strengths. A 3-0 win was a statement that the USWNT was back with a point to prove.
Taking a similar scoring initiative was impossible in a rain-soaked semifinal slog against Canada, and the team opted for a more controlled style of play in the final against Brazil, winning 1-0. It got results, ensuring the team won the inaugural Gold Cup.Still, the team wasn’t showcasing the type of consistent goalscoring necessary to be better prepared for the Olympics than it was in the World Cup. Fortunately, SheBelieves was right around the corner, providing another pair of games against high-level opponents to showcase Crocker’s desired “creative solutions in tight spaces.”Japan had other ideas. Kiko Seike became the first player to score against the USWNT in a game’s opening minute since 2003, putting the hosts at an early 1-0 deficit. With some savvy high-pressing the U.S. equalized 20 minutes later before a 77th-minute penalty kick sealed a 2-1 win for the U.S. It was a professional result, but not a showcase of the principles U.S. Soccer strove to install.Up next came Canada, which saw Kilgore drop one of her usual four attacking players for a second pivot at the base of midfield. Intentional or otherwise, this saw the team revert to their Prayer Circle tendencies.“Our attack is not built around one individual player and that is by design,” Kilgore said ahead of the final. “It’s important that we have the ability to score goals from a variety of different ways. And even though we have these predictable moments for us that we’re looking for, it’s important that different people are filling different roles and able to recognize when they’re the one that needs to maybe make an early run or get out ahead of the opponent for a cross.”Just over five minutes into the final against Canada, the USWNT seemed to look through its variety of chance-creation methods after a Lindsey Horan tackle sprung Sophia Smith on the counter.
Huh, that’s a let-off for Canada. Time to set up for another wave of attack.
Oh no, not the Prayer Circle.
No, no, no , no, no, no —
Over half an hour later, Canada opened the scoring after a miscommunication between goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher and her defense. Once again, the United States was forced to react to the game after allowing the opponent to establish its terms.
Ultimately, a fresh batch of Naeher shootout heroics saw the USWNT become SheBelieves champions again. The two conceded goals could be chalked up to individual errors.
Then again, the same could be said for the USWNT’s showing last summer: a team largely in control of games, but not showing enough bite to convert ball retention into goals — all while being prone to gaffes.
Is this team really better equipped to contend at these Olympics than it was last year?
If we’re looking for evidence of progress since August, we’ll need to start by looking at individual players. Alex Morgan struggled in the World Cup, but her gritty line-leading work was vital to the proactive success against Colombia. Mallory Swanson and Catarina Macario returned from injuries that limited their 2023 involvement and largely kept pace with the game around them.
The aftermath of the World Cup was always bound to see some program mainstays give way to the next generation. Julie Ertz and Megan Rapinoe both had send-off games, while captain Becky Sauerbrunn has faded from involvement. Horan has stepped up as a team leader, while Naomi Girma is already similarly impactful despite being just 23.
Young players benefited from Kilgore’s call-ups. Jenna Nighswonger has been a breath of fresh air at left back, providing sorely needed width in the build-up in a role that was previously instructed to tuck into midfield under Andonovski. Jaedyn Shaw is the latest attacking revelation, showing precocious decision-making in transition while being a capable first-time finisher. Sam Coffey seems poised to be the team’s defensive midfielder of the future, and Korbin Albert’s all-around game makes her seem like a possible successor to Horan in midfield (pending the off-field issues that could impact her locker room standing).
Having promising young players step up is essential to overcoming a bad four-year spell. But how many players like Nighswonger, Shaw and Coffey will need to reassert their readiness once Hayes comes in? It’s remained an open question just how closely Hayes is watching and assessing her upcoming pool of players. If that answer is less than “with a keen eye,” they’ll need to ace their second first impression to stay ahead of more veteran alternatives.
Ultimately, no matter who makes the 18-player Olympic roster, we don’t know how they’ll look to play in Paris. The questions that hung over the program still don’t have definitive answers.
In appointing a coach who couldn’t start her job for over half a year, the USSF gambled that her quality is so much more irresistible than any alternatives that it was worth spending half a year in purgatory.
The summer’s trio of friendlies come against South Korea and Mexico, both of which won’t partake in the Olympics, but will no doubt want to claim a win over one of the world’s most celebrated teams of any sport. They’ll provide tests at a time when Hayes will still be studying for answers.
Tuesday also saw the final member of the USWNT’s Olympic group qualify. Zambia joined the U.S., Germany and Australia in Group B. Australia was a semifinalist last summer. Germany has its point to prove after failing to advance from its group, while Zambia is riding high on the back of its first World Cup appearance. It won’t be a given that the U.S. will advance to the knockouts, to say nothing of its medal-winning ambitions.
It will be easy to spin a poor showing in Paris as a short-term sacrifice with a focus on the 2027 World Cup, which could potentially be played on home soil. That said, this isn’t a program that has ever treated any major tournament as a developmental tool. When the United States competes in a women’s soccer tournament, it’s there to win. That’s the benchmark that has been established for generations of players and one that the fans hold to account.
This summer, the players’ every performance will be scrutinized, and their future selections will hang in the balance more than Hayes’ job will (or should). If the program’s decision to spend so many months under interim leadership backfires, the blame will fall on them — and unfairly so.
(Photo: Brad Smith/Getty Images for USSF)
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El Classico this Sunday 3 pm on ESPN+ and ESPN Desportes. The last thing for Barcelona to play for as they travel to Real Madrid just 8 pts behind in the table with 4 games to go. In Germany Leverkusen has won the league but is looking to be the only team undefeated in league play in the top 5 leagues as they travel to Dortmund who needs to win to stay in the top 5 Champions League slots – that game is 11:30 am on ESPN2 Sunday. The EPL has Liverpool traveling to Fulham America to face American Jedi Robinson at 11:30 am Sunday on USA – as Liverpool must win to keep their title hopes alive. Arsenal travels to Wolverhampton Sat 2:30 pm on USA before hosting Chelsea on Tues at 3 pm on USA. Chelsea of course will face Man City in the FA Cup on ESPN+ Sat 12:15 pm from Wembley.
US Ladies Shootout Win over Canada
Wow what a special time to be on hand to see the USWNT hoist another trophy – this time the She Believe’s Cup Trophy at Columbus Crew Stadium. My daughter and I were lucky to be in the American Outlaws section behind the goal where US GK Alyssa Naeher refused to lose as she saved 3 and scored a goal of her own in leading the US ladies to a 2-2 (3-2) win over a solid Canadian Side. Sophia Smith struck this wonder goal just 5 into the 2nd half before moving to the 9 spot as subs Trinity Rodman and Mallory Swanson added life in the 2nd half on the wings as the young combo eventually fed Smith for the go ahead goal. (full highlights). I thought the reffing was horrific as the Concacaf crew was obviously not used to doing high level women’s games. Crystal Dunn’s penalty was mighty questionable to give Canada the tying goal with under 5 to play. The US certainly did miss Girma as Davidson and Dahlkemper struggled to hold Canada out of the US box – and Davidson especially looked horrific at times trying to work it out of play. All in all the US outplayed Canada and deserved to win the game.
It was great to see and be amongst the sold out crowd in Columbus following the sold out crowd (over 50K) in Atlanta over the weekend. We had an absolute blast watching from the American Outlaws Section – especially when all the players came up our aisle to receive their medals – European FA Cup Style. I was especially happy to see so very many youngsters in the stands – there were a ton of young girl soccer players there – speaks well to our future!! Here’s some quick pics and videos from the game. https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10161587182779104&id=501829103&mibextid=WC7FNe&rdid=hyLM9rF5RakR2VlM
Must See TV – Champions League Action is Unbelievable CBS 3 pm Wed
So sorry I didn’t get this out over the weekend or at least before today’s Champions League action – today’s Dortmund comeback to beat my Atletico and Barcelona’s choke job vs PSG was pure drama all game as multiple goals were scored and the game results were in question until the very end. Now I won’t use this space to talk about how ridiculous Europeans are to not have these games NOT Being played at the same exact time (but lets be real just because they invented the sport does not mean they know how to market it (idiots). Anyway Tuesday’s quarterfinals final legs were spectacular and Wed promises the same as Man City host Real Madrid tied at 2 @ 3 pm on CBS, while Bayern Munich host Arsenal also tied at 2 on Paramount +. The pregame and postgame action is on CBSSN so make plans now to cozy up to the bar or some TV or your phone tomorrow at work. Or at least tape the CBS game and watch the replay of Bayern vs Arsenal on CBSSN at 5 pm.
Europa League Thurs with Milan & Pulisic on CBSSN 3 pm, Liverpool, West Ham, Aston Villa
Europa League action wraps up with AC Milan and Pulisic & Musah tied at 1 traveling to Roma at 3 pm on CBSSN, while Liverpool is down 3 goals at Atalanta on Para+, and West Ham host the hottest team in the world Bayer Leverkusen down (1-3). Aston Villa travels to Lille at 12:45 pm Paramount plus. Oh and El Classico this Sunday 3 pm on ESPN+ and ESPN Desportes.
The ole ballcoach and daughter Courtney in the Outlaws Section !!Full house in KC to see Messi and Miami take down Sporting KC – too bad the game wasn’t on TV! Stupid MLS !
Games on TV
Weds, Apr 17
3 pm CBS Bayern Munich 2 vs Arsenal 2 UCL
3 pm Para+, Tele Man City 2 vs Real Madrid 2 UCL
8 pm mls.com Indy 11 @ Chicago Fire US Open Cup
Thurs, Apr 18
12:45 Para+ Lille (france) vs Aston Villa
3 pm CBSSN Roma vs AC Milan (Pulisic, Musah) Europa
3 pm Para+ Atalanta vs Liverpool
3 pm Para+ Leverkusen vs West Ham United
Sat, Apr 20
12”15 ESPN+ Man City vs Chelsea
12:30 pm ESPN+ Union Berlin ( ) vs Bayern Munich
1 pm CBS Washington Spirit vs NY/NJ Gotham FC NWSL
2:30 pm USA Wolverhampton vs Arsenal
7:30 pm Ion KC vs Bay FC NWSL
8 pm ESPN+ Indy 11 @ Colorado Springs
10 pm ion Portland Thorns vs Houston Dash NWSL
10:30 pm ESPN+ Phoenix Rising vs Pittsburgh (Eric Dick GK)
Sun, Apr 21
8:30 am USA Everton vs Nottingham Forest
11:30 am USA Fulham (Jedi) vs Liverpool
11:30 pm ESPN2 Dortmund vs Bayer Leverkusen
3 pm ESPN+, des Real Madrid vs Barcelona El Classico
USMNT weekend viewing guide: Playing with the big boys now
Coventry gets their shot. By jcksnftsn Apr 19, 2024, 10:52am PDT
There’s an exciting addition to our usual rundown this weekend with Haji Wright and Coventry City looking to play spoiler and continue their unlikely run in the FA Cup. That match will be on Sunday so first let’s take a look at the USMNT club matches we can watch on Friday and Saturday.
Friday
Caligari v Juventus – 2:45p on Paramount+
Timothy Weah has not made it off the bench in the past two matches though Weston McKennie continues to start for Juventus who have really trailed off in the back half of the Serie A season with just two wins in their last eleven league matches. They face Lazio on Tuesday in the second leg of their Copa Italia semi-final matchup so there may be a bit of squad rotation this weekend against fourteenth place Caligari. Juve do hold a twelve point lead for the final Champions League qualifying spot though Atalanta have a game in hand and if Juventus can’t get some wins they could actually make a run.
Saturday
Celta Vigo v Las Palmas – 8a on ESPN Deportes and ESPN+
Luca de la Torre has missed three straight matches due to injury but has been included in the matchday squad for Celta Vigo as they look to continue to hold off relegation this weekend. With seven matches remaining Celta are just three points out of the relegation positions in La Liga heading into their matchup with 12th place Las Palmas
Wolfsburg v Bochum – 9:30a on ESPN+
Kevin Paredes was back on the bench last weekend but did not play a week after missing due to injury. Prior to the injury Paredes had started nine straight matches. Wolfsburg have just one win in their last fourteen matches and currently sit just two points out of the relegation spot and one points ahead of this weekends opponent, Bochum.
Hoffenheim v Borussia Monchengladbach – 9:30a on ESPN+
Joe Scally did not make the field last weekend while Jordan Pefok came on as a substitute but had to come off ten minutes later due to an injury in Borussia Monchengladbach’s 2-1 loss to Borussia Dortmund. Gladbach’s opponent this weekend is Hoffenheim who are coming off a 4-1 loss to relegation threatened Mainz with John Brooks coming on in the 60th minute.
Heidenheim v RB Leipzig – 9:30a on ESPN+
Lennard Maloney has reclaimed his starting role for Heidenheim after returning from injury and played the full 90 minutes again last weekend in his team’s 1-1 draw with Bochum. Heidenheim sit in 10th place heading into their matchup with Leipzig this weekend with Leipzig looking to hold off Borussia Dortmund for fourth place and the final Champions League qualifying spot.
Union Berlin v Bayern Munich – 12:30p on ESPN+
Brenden Aaronson started his fourth straight match for Union Berlin last weekend but the team fell to Augsburg 2-0 and remain three points out of the relegation playoff spot just a year removed from Champions League qualification. They face a Bayern Munich side who have had their 11 year reign as Bundesliga champions come to an end as of last week but who also dismissed Arsenal from Champions League play mid-week.
Valencia v Real Betis – 12:30p on ESPN Deportes and ESPN+
Johnny Cardoso started and went the full 90 for Real Betis last weekend as they snapped a four match losing streak by defeating Celta Vigo 2-1 last weekend. The result drew them within five points of Real Sociedad for sixth place and European competition qualification and they are currently two points back of this weekend’s opponent Valencia who are in seventh and have won two straight matches 1-0.
Sunday
Everton v Nottingham Forest – 8:30a on USA Network
Gio Reyna received his first start since joining Nottingham Forest last weekend and picked up an assist off a corner as Forest drew with Wolves to gain a point on Luton Town for the final relegation spot. This weekend’s match will be a key one for Forest as they take on an Everton side who are a point ahead of them in the standings with a game in hand and coming off a 6-0 thrashing at the hands of Chelsea.
Aston Villa v Bournemouth – 10a on Peacock
Tyler Adams was held out again last weekend due to injury as Bournemouth drew with Manchester United 2-2. It’s a rough turn of events for Adams who had played in just two matches for Bournemouth before returning to the injury list. Bournemouth are squarely in the middle of the table from a points perspective while Aston Villa are currently holding on to fourth place, three points ahead of Tottenham.
Crystal Palace v West Ham – 10a on Peacock
Chris Richards has missed three straight due to injury but did return to training late this week for Crystal Palace who are coming off a shock 1-0 win over title contending Liverpool. With the win Palace pulled eight points out of the relegation scrap.
Coventry City v Manchester United – 10:30a on ESPN+
Haji Wright and Coventry City will look to continue their FA Cup run as they face Manchester United in the semifinals on Sunday. Coventry have seen their promotion hopes fade, falling eight points back of the playoff positions in the Championship but they can still make a splash this season. Coventry defeated Wolverhampton 3-2 in the quarterfinals after remarkably scoring a goal in the seventh minute of stoppage time followed by Wright’s game winner with the last kick of the match in the tenth minute of stoppage.
Brest v Monaco – 11:05a on beIN Sports
Folarin Balogun and third place Monaco face second place Brest on Sunday morning in Ligue One action. PSG have a solid grip on the league lead but with just three Champions League spots from Ligue One and Lille only three points back of Monaco (who trail Brest by a point) both teams have a lot to play for yet this season. Fulham v Liverpool – 11:30a on USA Network
Tim Ream was not included in the matchday squad last weekend but Antonee Robinson started yet again, he’s started all but one match this season, as Fulham defeated West Ham to move into twelfth place. They will take on a Liverpool side that is licking it’s wounds coming off being bounced from the Champions League quarterfinals by Atlanta and suffering a huge blow to their title hopes in a loss to Crystal Place last weekend that saw Manchester City take a two point advantage in the title race with six matches to play.
Arsenal, Liverpool’s moment of truth in Premier League title race
Mark Ogden, Senior Writer, ESPN FCApr 19, 2024, 04:00 AM ET
Arsenal and Liverpool have their own problems right now as they attempt to reignite their Premier League title hopes. But the aching bodies, tired minds and damaged morale that managers Mikel Arteta and Jürgen Klopp must overcome are suddenly threatening to halt Manchester City and Pep Guardiola, too.If the Premier League trophy is to end the season decked in red ribbons rather than blue, this weekend is the final chance for both Arsenal and Liverpool to turn the screw on City and capitalise on their moment of weakness. By the time City return to Premier League action, at Brighton & Hove Albion next Thursday, Arsenal and Liverpool could be four points clear of Guardiola’s team. If that turns out to be the case, don’t underestimate the scale of the task facing the reigning champions.The sight of Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne limping out of City’s Champions League quarterfinal defeat against Real Madrid on Wednesday, combined with the looks of exhaustion and failure on the faces of Guardiola and his players, has raised question marks over City’s ability to bounce back and win a fourth successive title. Who knows how significant a blow it will be to City to have their treble hopes extinguished by a penalty shootout defeat? But having gone 27 games without walking off the pitch in defeat — yes, they technically drew over 120 minutes against Madrid, but try telling Guardiola and his players they didn’t lose the game — City have now lost the air of invincibility that they have developed since their 1-0 loss at Aston Villa in December.
Some title races are defined by teams that really hit their stride as they approach the finish line. They deal with injuries, fatigue and opposition “mind games” as though they don’t exist. Leicester City’s fairy-tale triumph in 2016 and City’s hat trick of titles over the past three years are examples of sides blanking out all distractions to clinch the championship. But sometimes the teams at the top wobble, and their physical and mental strength are tested to the limit. In 2012, when Sergio Agüero’s 93rd-minute winner against Queen’s Park Rangers sealed the title for City in the final game of the season, both they and nearest rivals Manchester United built and lost significant leads — United were eight points clear with six games to play — during the run-in.
This season’s title race will be shaped by what happens this weekend. City’s FA Cup semifinal against Chelsea on Saturday (stream LIVE at 12:15 p.m. ET on ESPN+) gives their title rivals the chance to dislodge Guardiola’s side from top spot, with Arsenal away to Wolves on Saturday evening and Liverpool travelling to Fulham on Sunday. But although City’s confidence will have been dented by the Real defeat, Arsenal and Liverpool must also haul themselves off the floor.
Arsenal face Wolverhampton Wanderers having lost their past two games without scoring, against Aston Villa in the league and Bayern Munich in the Champions League, while a run of one point from Liverpool’s past two Premier League games has damaged their own title challenge. The 3-0 Europa League defeat at home to Atalanta between those dropped points against United and Crystal Palace inflicted drained belief at Anfield, too. But although both teams now trail City by two points at the top of the Premier League, momentum can shift quickly, and Arsenal and Liverpool simply have to win this weekend to keep their hopes alive.Arsenal need to buck their recent trend of faltering in the final weeks of a season if they are to win the title. Last season, the Gunners won just four of their last 10 league matches, while in 2021-22 they won five and lost five of their final 10 games. This time, they realistically need to win all six of their remaining games, but if they can claim all three points at Molineux and then beat Chelsea at the Emirates on Tuesday, a four-point lead (and a significantly healthier goal difference over City) would put Arteta’s team firmly back in the hunt for the title.Liverpool have a track record of finishing strongly in the league, so their recent dropped points are out of character for Klopp’s side. Last season, seven wins and three draws from their final 10 games were almost enough to clinch a top-four finish, while eight wins and two draws during the 2021-22 run-in left them just a point adrift of eventual champions City.Next up is Sunday’s trip to Fulham which, following Thursday’s Europa League elimination despite winning the second leg against Atalanta 1-0 in Italy, is crucial for Liverpool’s title ambitions. Although Liverpool haven’t lost at Craven Cottage since December 2011, they have drawn on their past two league visits to the stadium — a result they can ill afford this weekend. But a win at Fulham, coupled with another victory in the Merseyside derby at Everton o Wednesday, would lift them four points clear of City, who would have played two games fewer than Liverpool and Arsenal by the time they reemerge on league duty at Brighton.There are plenty of ifs and buts surrounding Arsenal and Liverpool, but one thing is absolutely clear: they both have to win this weekend to retain any realistic hope of winning the title. Yet if one or both of them can do the job this weekend and back it up with another win in midweek, a four-point deficit even with two games in hand would be a challenge for City to meet. History suggests Guardiola and his players will deal with that challenge, but the title race isn’t over yet.Real Madrid have shown that City can be overcome, so Arsenal and Liverpool must apply the pressure to make it happen in the Premier League.
Alyssa Naeher heroics, boos for Korbin Albert as USWNT wins SheBelieves Cup on penalties
The USWNT needed penalty kicks and another ridiculous shootout performance from goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher, but Emily Fox slotted the winning penalty kick to defeat Canada for the SheBelieves Cup trophy on Tuesday night. Despite misses from Trinity Rodman and Emily Sonnett during the shootout, Naeher once again played hero as she made three saves during the shootout and, as is her new standard, converted her own shot. It’s the seventh SheBelieves Cup trophy for the USWNT.Sophia Smith provided both of the USWNT’s goals during the second half, after Canada went up late in the first. Canada would get an equalizer of their own late in the match after Crystal Dunn was judged to have brought down forward Adriana Leon in the box, with Leon converting the penalty to make it 2-2. Canadian center back Kadeisha Buchanen nearly provided the game-winning goal via her head, but the U.S. was saved by the crossbar on the final, notable chance of the match.
Earlier in the night, Brazil and Japan also went to penalties to decide the third-place team. Brazil ended up with that honor, as Japan struggled to convert any attempts in the shootout.
With decent weather and no torrential rain, we finally got a real look at what a true soccer game between the U.S. and Canada looks like right now — though somehow we ended up in the exact same place of needing penalties to decide a winner, while many U.S. fans made their displeasure with Korbin Albert known repeatedly throughout the night. Here are the takeaways from this edition of this matchup.
The USWNT celebrates after beating Canada. (Carmen Mandato/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
Naeher redemption
Even at her heights during the 2019 World Cup cycle, few would mistake Alyssa Naeher for being a sweeper-keeper. The Chicago Red Stars netminder is an exceptional shot-stopper on her day and a capable defensive orchestrator, providing a level-headed approach that has kept games from going off the rails. Nevertheless, she’s not the type who will converge onto a ball before an attacker sets up their shot, and is more of a traditional stay-near-the-net shot-stopper.
Canada’s opening goal exposed that fact, one that has only gotten more apparent with each passing year.
Even without the “Naeher won’t beat Ashley Lawrence in a footrace” factor, Naeher decided to close the angle far too late into Canada’s counter. Any split-second of indecision works against a goalkeeper who needs to time that challenge, and it was likely the difference between a last-gasp clearance and the actual result, which was an attempted clearance off of Lawrence’s shin right to Deanne Rose. The indecision also cost the USWNT time to adjust its defensive shape, leaving Rose with an easy pass to Adriana Leon for an empty-net finish.Of course, the resolution of the game — another tournament that ends with Naeher saving at least one penalty in a shootout — does reinforce her bona fides in the big moment. She remains one of the world’s best, if not its standard-bearer, in terms of handling spot-kick responsibilities in a big moment. Her resolve helped the U.S. bounce back from Rodman having the first penalty of the shootout saved. Naeher took control of the moment by making a save of her own, then immediately stepping up to take the U.S.’s third shot, then turning around and making two more saves. It was complete domination.
That said, and it goes without saying: a team only gets to penalties if it fails to win in the 90 or 120 minutes preceding it. When a team concedes goals like the one that opened the scoring tonight, coming up big in a shootout is a mandatory recompense.
If the team is determined to play a possession-based game that invites opponents to threaten on the counter, Naeher’s decision-making in similar situations could make or break the USWNT’s quest to earn a gold medal.
The U.S. fan base is still largely unhappy with Albert
Korbin Albert was a substitute in both games, and in both games she received boos when entering the field, though they were clearly audible even on Tuesday night’s television broadcast. In Columbus, where the in-stadium announcer had to re-do the substitution announcement when Albert came on for Shaw, Albert was booed both times, and yet again after the game when her name was read during the trophy ceremony.
Leaving aside that the team did look worse when Albert came on — who wouldn’t look worse with Shaw substituting off from the No. 10? — it’s clear that some fans are left unsatisfied by Albert’s apology and subsequent statements from USWNT leadership that, while they condemn anti-LGBTQ behavior, they are handling the issue privately.
Make it a double for Smith
Listen, it’s absolutely clutch for the USWNT to get Sophia Smith back in this goal-scoring form, but both of her goals help illustrate the sort of success this team can see when they move the ball with purpose and nail their first touch or one-time passing.
We’ve seen how playing a more direct approach has worked this year during the Gold Cup against Colombia, and when you think about the attacking talent (and depth of that talent) on this team, the direct approach is actually providing more options. Smith will get the credit for Tuesday’s two goals, but it was the introduction of Swanson and shifting Shaw back to the No. 10 that unlocked a more successful interplay between the forward line — and as we noted above, Shaw was involved on both goals in the build-up.Her decision to simply lay it off for Smith on the equalizer, in particular, was the perfect example of what happens when you make the simple, quick decision and trust the player on the other side of that call.
The double pivot is back…ish
Against Canada, the United States opted for a more defensive setup with Sam Coffey and Emily Sonnett in a double pivot. But playing Coffey and Sonnett together there — and keeping Lindsey Horan in the midfield, as well — obliges you to shift Jaedyn Shaw out of the midfield, which is what happened as Shaw moved to the left wing. The 19-year-old Shaw looked a little discombobulated to start; it would’ve been really interesting to see her start at the No. 10 two games in a row, instead of asking her to adjust positionally. With more experience, that’s the kind of switch that Shaw will no doubt make more seamlessly, but in this game, it left the U.S. hunting around for some kind of outlet to penetrate Canada’s box.
The U.S. shifted tactics a bit in the second half, returning Shaw to the No. 10 by substituting Coffey for Mal Swanson. With Shaw closer to Smith, it enabled Smith to drop into the pocket in the half space instead of staying wide and having to fight past a defender, helping to create the equalizing goal in the second half. Shaw also helped create the second goal by picking out Rodman on a nicely weighted pass.
Having looked at both setups across the halves, it feels hard to argue for the more stultifying double-pivot, although that may have been affected by players adjusting positions between games and the loss of Naomi Girma to injury. It also suffered from some baffling usage of Dunn, who sat out on the touchline in space by herself for long minutes without ever getting the ball.
Of course, there’s no rule that the U.S. has to use one formation forever, and against Canada in a friendly, why not examine a more defensive setup and see if you can score out of it? The team’s willingness to make adjustments in the second half paid off in the end, and that’s really what matters.
(Top photo: Brad Smith/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
Stars vs. balance: USWNT overcomes perpetual problem to lift SheBelieves Cup
Jeff Kassouf ESPN FC
Apr 9, 2024, 09:55 PM ET
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Another game United States–Canada matchup, another victorious penalty shootout for the Americans.
The USWNT defeated Canada in a shootout on Tuesday for the second time in 34 days, again after Canada equalized late in a match for a 2-2 draw. The win brought a seventh SheBelieves Cup title in nine editions of the tournament for the USWNT. While a trophy is nice, the most important aspect of the night was what did and did not work tactically as the Americans continue through this transition phase three months ahead of the Olympics.
On Tuesday, USWNT interim coach Twila Kilgore made four changes to the lineup that defeated Japan2-1 three days earlier. The “who” of the changes was far less important than the “how,” and they captured the essence of one of the biggest questions impending head coach Emma Hayes must address upon her arrival next month: Does she try to get her most talented 11 players on the field, or will she make necessary sacrifices to find her most cohesive squad?
The pitfalls of the former approach were on display Tuesday and stood in stark contrast to a dominant USWNT performance against Japan. On Tuesday, Jaedyn Shaw moved back to a winger role after thriving in the No. 10 position against Japan. She flanked striker Alex Morgan on the left, with Sophia Smith lining up on the right. Lindsey Horan pushed higher into the No. 10 role, but the net result was a familiar problem for USWNT: several players who prefer to occupy central spaces are tasked with providing width.
Horan tended to drift toward the right side alongside Smith in the first half, presumably to allow Shaw the freedom to tuck inside. The net result, however, was that the US was left without a central passing option in the space a No. 10 would traditionally occupy. At one point late in the first half, Shaw drifted all the way to the right touchline alongside Smith to find the ball.
“The first half, I felt their midfielders were going places they didn’t want to go because I think we did shut off the middle of the pitch,” Canada coach Bev Priestman said.
The problem was clear enough to require a change coming out of half-time: Mallory Swanson — likely on minutes restrictions as she returns from injury — replaced Sam Coffey, which shifted Horan deeper into midfield and Shaw inside to formally take over the No. 10 role. The changes paid off almost immediately: Smith equalized five minutes after half-time on an assist from Shaw. Eighteen minutes later, Shaw was the central playmaker again, finding second-half substitute Trinity Rodman, who fed a through ball to Smith for a second goal.
“I thought once we sorted out right after half-time where our pocket players were and making sure that we consistently had players in the pocket, the game changed for us,” Kilgore said. “That just comes down to basically creating our shape and getting into our shape as quickly as possible, and then being dynamic in it. I think the team has really bought in on that and it’s definitely something that we’ll carry forward with us.”
Shaw was a catalyst of the USWNT’s attack on Saturday in a convincing team performance against Japan. Swanson and Rodman ran the wings on each side of Morgan in that game, meaning the USWNT’s front four were all in their preferred and most natural positions. The USWNT looked out of sorts on Tuesday with those players shuffled, but balance was restored as soon as the half-time changes were made.
There lies the issue for Hayes — and it is a good problem to have.
If Shaw’s performances continue to command the starting No. 10 role — she certainly made that case against Japan and in the second half against Canada — and Horan shifts deeper into a No. 8 or double pivot role, what does that mean for a healthy Rose Lavelle or Catarina Macario?
And with Swanson and Rodman most comfortable in the winger roles, and Morgan continues to reassert her claim as the team’s central target, what happens to the uber talented Smith, recent NWSL MVP and Golden Boot winner? Smith is dominant in the NWSL for the Portland Thorns but has struggled to grasp hold of an exact role at the international level, in part because of this positional dilemma. It is no coincidence she scored both goals in the second half, including her second tally right after she moved to the No. 9 role.
“I think we just had a really good, fluid movement among the front three,” Smith said about the second half. “At any given time, I could find myself at any position and same with the other two players up front. We’re not shy of movement and interchanging, and I think that just works out really well for us. It keeps the defense on their toes and just presents different challenges for the other team.”
None of these issues are new, but a different coach will now be tasked with solving them. Hayes must figure out how to optimize a talented squad.
Last year’s tepid Women’s World Cup showing from the USWNT was a product of individualistic play and a team that lacked chemistry, in part because it couldn’t figure out its identity. Smith shoehorned into a wide role with Morgan as the striker, and the U.S. rotated its midfield in search of answers for a recovering and then injured Lavelle. Those solutions came too late, and the USWNT was bounced by Sweden in a penalty shootout in the round of 16.
Hayes previously criticized the USWNT for its lack of technical players, so the evolution of Shaw into a star before her eyes before she even arrives on the sideline is a fruitful development.Tuesday’s match reiterated that how the USWNT lines up is as important as who is on the field. There is not and never was, even through the struggles of recent years, a shortage of talent in the American player pool; there was a shortage of ideas and viable solutions — from coaches and players alike.Hayes was hired — and worth the wait as she finishes her time at Chelsea — because U.S. Soccer feels like she is the best coach to solve those issues. She will have only a few months to do so ahead of the Olympics, but the signs of what is and is not working were on display again on Tuesday in a tale of two halves.
Why Barcelona can only blame themselves after imploding vs. PSG
Sam Marsden, Barcelona correspondentApr 16, 2024, 05:52 PM ET
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Barcelona‘s wait for a first Champions League semifinal appearance since 2019 goes on after Xavi Hernández’s side imploded against Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday following Ronald Araújo‘s first half sending off at the Olympic Stadium.
Barça were leading 1-0 on the night, 4-2 on aggregate after last week’s first leg win in Paris, when Araujo lightly bundled Bradley Barcola down just outside the area in the 29th minute. The referee quickly branded a red card, and with it Barça’s hopes of reaching the last four disappeared as quickly as Barcola had dropped to the deck, with the game ending 6-4 on aggregate.
PSG’s comeback was led by Ousmane Dembélé on his return to Barcelona. He left Barça for France last summer in a transfer worth €50 million and fierce whistles greeted his every touch. He could afford a smile when he equalized just before half-time, converting Barcola’s cross to get his side back in the tie. It was just the third goal he has scored this season — two of them have come against Barça in the last week.
Barça may pin their collapse on being down to 10 men, but the truth is they made PSG’s route back into the game easy. Vitinha was left unmarked on the edge of the box from a corner in the 54th minute. He duly smashed in to the bottom corner and then, just after the hour mark, João Cancelo clattered into Dembéle inside the box. Kylian Mbappé, anonymous in the first leg, dispatched the resulting penalty to give PSG the lead in the tie.
The home side did have chances to level, but they came and went, with Mbappé adding his second goal on the counter-attack in the 89th minute to seal PSG’s passage into the semifinal as flares were set off in the away end in the second tier behind the goal where he had just scored.
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If that was the end to this frenetic tie, it is unlikely to be the end to the developing rivalry between the two clubs. Manager Luis Enrique was in the Barça dugout in 2017 when they beat PSG 6-1 to overcome a 4-0 first leg deficit. Now he has helped PSG overturn a first leg defeat in the competition for the first ever time. Before the game, he had said he was convinced that would be the case.
In between those two comebacks, PSG have taken Neymar, Lionel Messi and Dembéle from Barça, while they also hammered the Catalans at Camp Nou when the two sides met in 2021 in the last 16, Mbappé netting a hat trick on that occasion. All of those factors have added an edge to this fixture and it was apparent here, with the extra police presence palpable and supporters chanting their dislike for each other throughout the day in the city all the way up to the stadium in Montjuic.
When 16-year-old Lamine Yamal roasted Nuno Mendes in the 12th minute to set up Raphinha, it looked like the travelling supporters would finally be silenced. Barça were unbeaten in 13 games coming into this match, dating back to Xavi’s January announcement that he will step down when the season ends. They have kept six clean sheets in a row in LaLiga. With a two goal advantage, it looked like tie over.
Robert Lewandowski blazed a chance to add another goal for Barça over the bar before the game swung definitively just before the half hour mark. Araujo was adamant he had not fouled Barcola. The touch was light, but it existed and it is not the sort of decision VAR often intervenes in.
How Barça reacted to losing a man is what will haunt them. Iñigo Martínez came on for Yamal, limiting their counter attack ability, and PSG set up camp in the final third.
Xavi said about going a man down: “We are annoyed. The red card has marked the tie. We were well-organised 11 v 11. The referee was really bad. I told him, he was a disaster. He killed the tie. I don’t like speaking about refs but it has to be said. I don’t understand it.”
Dembélé’s goal just before the break bred confidence and PSG poured forward at the start of the second half. Marc-André ter Stegen was almost caught out by a skidding effort from Achraf Hakimi, Fabián Ruiz shot wide and then, finally, Vitinha made it 2-1 on the night and 4-4 on aggregate. The penalty soon followed as Barça, who conceded two goals in three minutes in the first leg, once again lost their bearings.
Once behind, they did rally. There was a penalty shout turned down on Ilkay Gündogan, which led to a fuming Xavi being sent off for protesting and kicking a barrier on the sideline, before goalkeeper coach José Ramón de la Fuente also received his marching orders. The anger felt as much about a loss of control of the match as it did the decisions on the pitch.
Still, Gianluigi Donnarumma had to save from Lewandowski, with Marquinhos preventing Ferran Torres from tapping in the rebound, and then Raphinha dragged a cross-shot just wide as Barça’s European campaign faded out.
In the 88th minute, Dembélé was whistled off, and a minute later, Mbappé sealed PSG’s passage to the semifinal. The French side will meet Borussia Dortmund in the last four as they continue their bid to win a maiden Champions League trophy.
Barça, meanwhile, head to Real Madrid for El Clásico on Sunday. With Madrid eight points clear at the top of LaLiga, anything but a win would now effectively end their hopes of silverware this season.
‘Special’ Sophia Smith leads USWNT to SheBelieves Cup title
Jeff Kassouf
Apr 9, 2024, 11:23 PM ET
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Scoring exceptional goals is nothing new for Sophia Smith, but she’s making a habit of finishing them against Canada.
It was the USWNT’s second penalty shootout victory over Canada in 34 days after prevailing in a Gold Cup semifinal, and Smith’s individual play was another example of the 23-year-old forward “being a special player in a special moment within our team concept,” USWNT interim coach Twila Kilgore said.
Smith scored an equalizer from outside the box five minutes after halftime and the go-ahead goal 18 minutes later, when she got on a through ball from second-half substitute Trinity Rodman.
“The first goal was just class,” Kilgore said. “Sometimes individuals just do special things. It was a left-footed finish for Soph in a crowded box, just an exceptional moment, but also there’s a big team concept there.”
Smith started the game on the right wing, a position she has been asked to play often in her blooming USWNT career but not her preferred No. 9 position, which she plays for the Portland Thorns. She won National Women’s Soccer League MVP and a league title in 2022 and the Golden Boot in 2023. Portland recently rewarded Smith with the largest annual contract in NWSL history.
Four minutes after Smith moved to her preferred No. 9 role Tuesday, she tallied her second goal. Jaedyn Shaw found the ball centrally after moving into the attacking midfield role, then Shaw turned and played a vertical ball to Rodman, who found a streaking Smith in behind.
Smith acknowledged that it is good to be versatile when the Olympic roster is only 18 players deep.
“I just try to do my job when I’m told I need to step up,” Smith said with her tournament MVP trophy beside her in the stadium tunnel Tuesday. “I don’t think anything of that. I try to lead this team in any way I can and if that’s putting the ball in the back of the net for the PKs or in the game, that’s what I pride myself in and that’s what I’m trying to do.”
The USWNT nearly wasted Smith’s efforts. Crystal Dunn conceded a penalty kick late when she fouled Canada forward Adriana Leon, and Leon stepped up to bury a late equalizer from the spot — just as she had 34 days earlier in the 127th minute of the Gold Cup semifinal.
Tuesday’s match went straight to a shootout, and it played out much like the previous meeting. USWNT goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher put in another dazzling shootout performance, saving three penalty kicks and burying one of her own to lift her team to victory.”I think it’s just something that we put the time into in training,” Naeher said of her focus in shootouts. “It’s just part of the game. Even on the men’s or women’s side, the champion of a World Cup or different tournament has statistically some very high number has had to go through at least one shootout within the tournament, so it’s something that we just put a lot of preparation into. The more you do it, the more confident [you are]. I think we’ve got 23 players that can step up and be comfortable taking a shot at any moment.”
Next up for the USWNT is the long-awaited arrival of head coach Emma Hayes at the end of May. Hayes was announced as the team’s next coach in November, but she stayed with Chelsea throughout the European season to finish her decade with the club.
In the interim, Kilgore has been working with Hayes to implement her plans ahead of her arrival. That process has been successful of late despite a concerning group-stage loss to Mexico at the Gold Cup. Since then, the U.S. has won or advanced in five straight games, picking up two trophies in just over a month.
“Now we’re just at a point where we are tried, true, battle-tested,” Kilgore said. “This is five games back-to-back against teams that have qualified for the Olympics. There’s only one more game that puts you into a final, for context.”
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USWNT in She Believes Cup Sat vs Japan 12:30 TNT & Tues 4/9 in ColumbusMallory Swanson and Catarina Macario will make their returns to the USWNT Sat as part of the 23-player roster for the She Believes Cup, U.S. Soccer. Two new names are also joining the roster and earning their first senior national team call-ups, both playing for European clubs: 21-year-old Paris Saint-Germain defender Eva Gaetino and 16-year-old Ajax midfielder Lily Yohannes. The question is do Mallory and Macario start or come off the bench vs Japan (presumably the weeker of the 2 games)? These will be the final two matches for Twila Kilgore as USWNT interim coach. Permanent head coach Emma Hayes will take over beginning with the June window, with Kilgore remaining on the staff as an assistant. The USWNT will play in a reformatted She Believes Cup that has a semifinals and final as opposed to a round robin tournament. They will play Japan in the semifinals in Atlanta on Sat April 6th at 12:30 pm on TNT, and then will face either Brazil or Canada in either the 3rd place match at 5 pm or the final at 7 pm on April 9th in Columbus, Ohio ( tixstill available- the OBC is going over) on TBS.
Indy 11 vs Louisville Sat 4 pm on CBS The Boys in Blue head south Saturday for the first installment of the LIPAFC rivalry in 2024 live on CBS at 4 pm. Indy is coming off a 2-1 loss to Detroit City FC to fall to 1-2-1 on the season, while Louisville defeated Birmingham Legion FC 5-0 to sit perfect atop the USL Championship’s Eastern Conference standings at 3-0-0.
LIPAFC The Louisville-Indianapolis Proximity Association Football Contest dates back to 2015 with Louisville holding the 10-5-6 advantage. Nineteen of the 21 matches have taken place since Indy joined the USL Championship in 2018 (2 playoff), with Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup matches in 2015 and 2016 making up the remaining two. The Boys in Blue were 1-1 in those match-ups. Indy is looking for its first road win since a 2-1 victory on May 29, 2021. Saturday marks the 22nd overall meeting between the sides all-time, with Louisville leading 10-5-6.
Champions League Elite 8 — starts April 9th & 10th on CBS
GAMES ON TV
Sat, April 6
7:30 am USA Crystal Palace (Richards) vs Man City 7:30 am ESPN+ Norwich City (Stewart) vs Ipswich Town (Champ) 9 am CBSSN AC Milan (Pulisic, Musah) vs Lecce 9:30 am ESPN+ Union Berlin vs Bayer Leverkusen 10 am USA Aston Villa vs Burnley 10 am Peacock Fulham (Robinson, Ream) vs New Castle United 12:30 pm TNT, Max, Telemundo USA Women vs Japan 1 pm para+ Lazio vs Juventus (Weah, McKinney) 7:30 pm Fox LAFC vs LA Galaxy 7 pm CBS Indy 11 @ Louisville Sun, Apr 7 10:30 am NBC Man United vs Liverpool 11:30 am NBC Sheffield United (Trusty) vs Chelsea 11:30 am ESPN+ Wolfsburg vs Mgladbach (Scalley) 1 pm USA Tottenham vs Notthingham Forest (Reyna) 2:30 pm ESPN+ Bayer Levekusen vs Wolfsburg 4 pm Fox Atlanta United vs Chicago Fire
Tues, Apr 9 3 pm CBS, Arsenal vs Bayern Munich UCL 3 pm Para+ Real Madrid vs Man City UCL
5 or 7 pm TBS, Universo, Peacock USWNT vs Brazil/Can winner Columbus, OH 8:45 pm Fox Sport 1 Columbus Crew vs Tigres CCL 10:30 pm FS1 New England vs America CCL Weds, Apr10 3 pm CBS PSG vs Barcelona UCL 3 pm Para+ Atletico Madrid vs Dortmund UCL 10:30 pm Fox Sport 1 Monterrey vs Inter Miami (Messi) CCL 8:15 pm FS1 Heredino vs Pachuca CCL Thurs, Apr 11 3 pm CBSSN AC Milan (Pulisic, Musah) vs Roma Europa 3 pm Para+ Liverpool vs Atalanta 3 pm Para+ Leverkusen vs West Ham United 7 pm ESPN+ Miami FV vs Tampa Bay Rowdies (Jordan Farr)
U.S. women’s national team midfielder Korbin Albert’s social media activity will soon be under the microscope – perhaps even more than it was last week, when her reposting of anti-LGBTQ content was resurfaced online and addressed by former USWNT star Megan Rapinoe.
This weekend, the USWNT opens SheBelieves Cup against Japan in the annual invitational tournament played between the U.S. and select international teams.
For the past two years, the USWNT has advocated for trans rights at the tournament – a track record of advocacy that feels especially important in light of transphobic and homophobic sentiments that continue to permeate American society, and after Albert’s social media activity. It’s a jarring contradiction to the way the USWNT has historically spoken out to advance reforms or to advocate for equal rights.
At the center of this discussion are videos Albert reposted to her TikTok account, including one of a sermon given in a Christian worship space talking about how being gay and “feeling transgender” is wrong. Among the posts on her TikTok profile was one from 2023, showing her family taking turns stating that “their pronouns are U.S.A.,” with Albert participating in the video. The post no longer appears on her profile as of Tuesday.
Albert also liked a meme on Instagram of an airplane landing with a caption reading “God taking time off performing miracles to make sure Megan Rapinoe sprains her ankle in her final ever game.”
Rapinoe has been an outspoken advocate of LGBTQ+ rights and trans rights in particular. She responded to Albert via her Instagram story, asking, “Are you making any type of space safer, more inclusive, more whole, any semblance of better, bringing the best out of anyone?” She later stressed to The Athletic that while Albert’s activity inspired the post, her focus is on the queer lives at stake, whether they be at risk through anti-trans commentary online or targeted legislation.
Rapinoe signed off her message with “Yours Truly, #15.” Albert wears the No. 15 shirt for the USWNT, a number made available after Rapinoe’s retirement last fall.
Albert wears No 15 against Brazil in March (John Todd/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
Queer and trans youth remain at higher risk of bullying, facing legislative hurdles and attempting self-harm. The Trevor Project’s 2023 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ Young People found that 41 percent of LGBTQ+ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, including roughly half of transgender and nonbinary youth. Additionally, the Trevor Project found that transgender and nonbinary youth were 2 to 2 1/2 times as likely to experience depressive symptoms, seriously consider suicide and attempt suicide compared to their cisgender LGBQ peers.
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Albert later apologized on Instagram, saying, “I truly believe that everyone should feel safe and respected everywhere and on all playing fields.”
The 20-year-old midfielder is not the only player on the team or in women’s soccer to hold conservative views. As noted by a former USWNT player in 2018 after Jaelene Hinkle’s public refusal to wear the team-issued rainbow pride jerseys, there have always been people in the locker room “that are not okay, or in agreement with, the (gay) lifestyle.” The difference with Albert, as it was in 2018 with Hinkle, was that other conservative players had kept their anti-LGBTQ opinions to themselves and the team managed to go out and play together.
Now, that dynamic may be challenged as SheBelieves opens in Georgia, a state where anti-trans rhetoric from high-level leadership is pertinent and playing out in real time.
Last Tuesday, the state senate passed House Bill 1104, originally intended to provide mental health resources for young student-athletes, but which now includes language that bans transgender girls from competing on girls’ public school teams and bans them from locker rooms that match their gender identity.
In past similar situations, the USWNT has been a direct advocate for the queer and trans community, many of whom make up a passionate part of their fan base. The 2022 SheBelieves Cup took place in Frisco, Texas. During the tournament, Texas governor Greg Abbott issued guidance to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services asking employees to report trans children and their parents to state authorities, referring to gender-affirming care as a form of “child abuse.”
On the night that letter was sent, several USWNT players wore athletic tape around their wrists with the message “Protect Trans Kids.” After the game, midfielder Catarina Macario (who displayed her wristband after scoring in the first half) said it was an idea prompted by Rapinoe — and one that she and others were determined to amplify.
Macario shows her wristband after scoring against Iceland in February 2022 (Brad Smith/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
“With the platform we have, we really wanted to show why this team is different and why we do things that are much bigger than just the game,” Macario said. “It was just a way to show awareness, especially because we were playing in Texas.”
The U.S. opened the following SheBelieves Cup in Florida, another state that had enacted anti-trans legislation. The players wore tape on their wrists again, this time with the words “Defend Trans Joy.”
Those games were played as the Missouri state legislature was reviewing a wave of proposed legislation along similar lines as Florida and Texas. Becky Sauerbrunn, a Missouri native and the team’s captain, wrote an op-ed piece for the Springfield News-Leader that left no questions about why she felt strongly opposed to the motions, stating that the proposals “don’t consider any of the actual challenges to women and girls in sport.”
“I have been championing gender equity in sport for a long time,” Sauerbrunn wrote in part, “and I am done seeing transgender youth being cruelly targeted to score political points. Transgender people are exactly that, people — not tools to be wielded in a climb up the political ladder.”
This wasn’t the case of a team’s captain championing a cause in isolation. The piece resonated within the locker room.
“I did read what Becky said, and she is a true leader,” Alex Morgan said at the time. “Not only within our team, but standing up for trans kids and being an ally and advocate for a lot of groups who are targeted.”
The USWNT’s advocacy has not been limited to SheBelieves Cup and trans rights. Albert has only just begun to be introduced to a team with a years-long history of taking visible stances on an array of political and societal issues. Sauerbrunn said it was a crucial part of representing the United States on its national team, and Morgan agreed.
“When I represent this country, it’s knowing that it is a great country, but it’s also a country that has a lot to work on,” Morgan told Time ahead of the 2019 World Cup. “But I’m willing to be a part of that, to put the work in, to make it as good as it can be.”
The USWNT has been a political body almost by virtue of its very existence, as women’s sports are inherently political.
USWNT players such as Rapinoe have used their platform for advocacy (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
In the United States, women were denied the ability to play organized sports until the landmark Title IX legislation passed in 1972, protecting people from discrimination based on “sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.” It took 13 more years for the first version of the USWNT to form, and nearly a full 20 before it played in the first Women’s World Cup.
With that context in mind, it’s inherent that today’s USWNT players are not just athletes, but also symbols of societal progress – whether they desire that label or not. Yet USWNT players tend to be highly aware that to represent one of the world’s most diverse nations in this particular arena — especially given the on-field prominence of the team — is a rare platform for advocacy.
Individually and as a group, USWNT figures have spoken out about racial justice in the weeks following the murder of George Floyd and the death of Breonna Taylor. They’ve fought for equal pay in their own labor deal with U.S. Soccer, even as the federation’s lawyers argued that they deserved less because the “overall soccer playing ability” for the men’s national team is “materially influenced by the level of certain physical attributes, such as speed and strength, required for the job.” After striking that deal, they’ve advocated to improve working conditions for other national teams, including Spain, Canada and Jamaica.
Publicly, all of this opened the USWNT up to a wave of criticism from detractors who felt their full focus should be on kicking a ball.
With Rapinoe’s retirement and veteran captain Sauerbrunn not rostered, the USWNT will enter this year’s SheBelieves with a group dynamic that is still in flux, playing under an interim coach until the arrival of Emma Hayes in May.
The next generation of players is already putting its stamp on the team’s on-field identity. In light of Albert’s social media behavior, this year’s SheBelieves may show us how that generation intends to shape its off-field identity as well.
(Top photo: Robin Alam/Getty Images)
Catarina Macario, Mallory Swanson discuss USWNT returns: ‘You can’t take your health for granted’
Two players that the United States desperately missed during the 2023 Women’s World Cup are back in national team camp, with Mallory Swanson and Catarina Macario both returning for the SheBelieves Cup after long injury recoveries.Swanson suffered a torn patellar tendon on April 8, 2023 in a national team game against the Republic of Ireland in Austin, Texas. Macario tore her ACL on June 1, 2022 while playing for her now-former club, Lyon. Macario’s last appearance for the USWNT was in a friendly against Uzbekistan on April 12, 2022 in Chester, Pennsylvania.“I think the first thing that comes to my mind is just being grateful,” Swanson said about her return. “One thing that I learned throughout my injury was that you can’t ever take life for granted. You can’t take your health for granted.”Both players ended up missing the World Cup. Their absences were a huge blow to the USWNT’s chances as they both played critical roles in the starting XI, and their return could be key for the USWNT’s Olympic hopes.Swanson said that there was a moment after her first surgery that she thought she might still make it back in time for the World Cup. “I remember texting my surgeon and being like ‘How long is this recovery,’ and he was like ‘Six months,’ and I was like ‘Oh, I can make it four. I’m gonna do it,’” she said.
But, as she revealed on The Women’s Game podcast in February, she suffered a septic infection in her knee after the first surgery and had to have a second surgery to remove the infection.“And I think that was the point that really slowed me down,” she said. “And looking back at it, I’m very thankful for how everything worked out because ultimately I learned a lot about life. I’ve never gone through something like what I went through and I think it gave me some time to evaluate myself, evaluate my life, and also take a step back and enjoy, honestly, being with my husband in Chicago.”Meanwhile, Macario was rehabbing in London during the World Cup and said it was difficult to watch the tournament. But it was also a sunny summer in the city, which helped.“(The sun) helped a lot to feel like I was a little bit back home in San Diego or Brazil,” she said. “I just tried to focus on the little things that I could control, and obviously it did take a lot longer than I expected, which was devastating. But the most important thing is that now I’m back and I hope that I can contribute to the team as much as possible leading up to the Olympics and this tournament as well. I just feel like I’ve been very, very blessed with all the people around me showing so much support and love and not feeling rushed to come back.
“Even though I could have had two children by now,” Macario added, laughing.
The USWNT will face Japan on Saturday, April 6 in the first of two games for the nation in the truncated SheBelieves Cup. Before joining the USWNT in training, Swanson and Macario returned to play for their respective clubs and have looked in good form. Swanson played a full 90 minutes for the Chicago Red Stars last weekend, scoring a goal against the Orlando Pride. Macario has been building her minutes for Chelsea since her return to play on March 3 as a substitute against Leicester City, a game in which she also scored a goal.Being able to get back into the rhythm of games with their clubs has been a matter of communication between themselves, their clubs, and U.S. Soccer, and some good timing. Macario, of course, can go directly to future U.S. head coach Emma Hayes at Chelsea for feedback, but said she ultimately left the loading to the experts.“I know that Chelsea and U.S. Soccer, they’re basically having meetings all the time and just try and figure out the right way to manage me in order to allow me to be in this environment for as long as possible,” she said. “Considering that I’ve been out for so long, we do have to take certain things into consideration.”wanson, who also played 80-plus minutes in two NWSL games before that last weekend, didn’t hide that it was a grueling transition.
“I was just like, ‘Welcome back!’ I forgot how hard (playing 90 minutes) is,” she said. “I think with U.S. Soccer and then with the Red Stars and talking to (head coach) Lorne (Donaldson), I think the timing actually worked out pretty well being able to use preseason and those preseason games as games that I can build minutes in.”
SheBelieves will be the last games under interim head coach Twila Kilgore. Emma Hayes will arrive in June for two friendlies against South Korea, which is a short window for both Swanson and Macario to get back up to speed with the national team as well as to adjust to newer and younger teammates who have joined the pool, including Jenna Nighswonger, Olivia Moultrie, and Jaedyn Shaw. There are also newcomers like Eva Gaetino and Lily Yohannes, whom Macario got a chance to see up close when Chelsea faced Ajax in the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinal.
“She’s a tremendous player. Really sweet girl. I honestly cannot believe that she’s 16,” said Macario. “She just reads the game so well and you can really see that. Ajax, they had a tremendous run in the Champions League and I do feel like that was a lot thanks to her.
“I remember joking around with her after the first game, I was like, ‘Oh, you’re American, right? You’re gonna join us?’ or something like that. And then I find out a few days later that she was called into camp. So that was really sweet.”Both Swanson and Macario were clearly in good spirits, laughing as they answered questions and ruminated on returning to play together after long recoveries.
“I feel like it’s always once something’s taken away from you, you always have a new perspective on it,” said Swanson. “I’m very just grateful to be back in this environment, back with this team and wearing the crest because it means so much.”
Macario described how it felt to step back on the field when she substituted in for Chelsea against Leicester. She said it felt the same being back in USWNT camp.
“It just really felt like a dream, just felt surreal,” she said. “It almost, looking back in the 641 days that it took, it just kind of all happened in the blink of an eye.
“I felt like crying but at the same time not because well, first of all, I’m in public and I hate crying in public. … I think probably the biggest thing was just getting over that mental hurdle that was like, ‘OK, I’m safe, I’m good to play again. I got this.”
(Top photo: Getty Images)
Alex Morgan, Lindsey Horan on Korbin Albert social media activity: ‘Disappointing and extremely, extremely sad’
“We just want to address the disappointing situation regarding Korbin that has unfolded over this past week. We’ve worked extremely hard to uphold the integrity of this national team through all of the generations, and we are extremely, extremely sad that this standard was not upheld,” Horan began. “Our fans and our supporters feel like this is a team that they can rally behind, and it’s so important that they feel and continue to feel undeniably heard and seen.”
Albert had engaged with content on TikTok that runs counter to the U.S. team’s long-running and public support of LGBTQ+ rights. Her activity included reposting videos — one of which included a sermon given in a Christian worship space talking about how being gay and “feeling transgender” is wrong. She also liked content about Rapinoe being injured in her final game.
“We stand by maintaining a safe and respectful space, especially as allies and members of the LGBTQ+ community,” Morgan continued in the statement. “This platform has given us an opportunity to highlight causes that matter to us, something that we never take for granted.”
Morgan stated that the team has also had internal discussions over Albert’s social media activity, and those discussions “will stay within the team.”
Mal Swanson and Catarina Macario were the two players originally scheduled for the virtual media availability, and Swanson declined to get into any specifics about those conversations when asked.
“We’ve had internal conversations and ultimately, those just stay internal,” Swanson said.
Morgan stressed at the end of the prepared statement that such an internal discussion would not be avoided, even if unpleasant. “One thing to also to know is that we have never shied away from hard conversations within this team,” she said.
In Albert’s apology, posted on March 28, she wrote in part, “I’m really disappointed in myself and am deeply sorry for the hurt that I have caused to my teammates, other players, fans, friends and anyone who was offended. I truly believe that everyone should feel safe and respected everywhere and on all playing fields. I know my actions have not lived up to that and for that I sincerely apologize. It’s an honor and a privilege to play this sport on the world stage and I promise to do better.”
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UPDATE (4/5): On Friday, USWNT interim head coach Twila Kilgore followed up on Horan and Morgan’s comments by saying, “It is disappointing when somebody falls short of the very high standards that we set within this team. This team has always been a beacon of respect, inclusion and demonstrated great allyship through actions for underrepresented and marginalized groups, including the LGBTQ+ community. And we will continue to do so.
“As Lindsay and Alex mentioned, this team has never shied away from hard conversations and today we’re here continuing to work on getting better, continuing to work on preparing ourselves to make ourselves proud, make our fans proud and put ourselves in the best position to continue to look towards success as we start this tournament.”
Kilgore added that Albert is available to play in the SheBelieves Cup. The U.S. will face Japan in their opening match on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. ET.
USMNT up to 11th in latest FIFA men’s world rankings, England down to fourth
The USMNT have climbed up to 11th in the latest FIFA men’s world rankings, while England have dropped to fourth.Following their CONCACAF Nations League victories over Jamaica and Mexico in March, Gregg Berhalter’s U.S. side have moved up two places to 11th, just behind Croatia who complete the top 10.Gareth Southgate’s England, though, have failed to secure a victory in their last three games, drawing with Belgium and losing to Brazil during the March international break, having drawn with North Macedonia in their final European Championship qualifier in November.
Germany, who host the European Championship this summer, remain 16th.
Argentina, who won the World Cup in 2022 and have only lost one of their last 12 games since the competition, are still ranked as the world’s No 1 side.
France remain in second while Belgium, who are unbeaten in their last 13 games, move up to third from fourth place.
Indonesia are the biggest climbest in the most recent rankings, moving up eight places to 134th, while Vietnam suffered the biggest drop, going down ten places to 115th.
It’s really getting to crunch time and despite La Liga taking a break this weekend for the Copa del Ray final there is a lot of action to watch as the Old Firm derby and some key Championship matches add themselves to the mix. Here’s what we’re watching:
Friday
Eintracht Frankfurt v Werder Bremen – 2:30p on ESPN+
Timothy Chandler has appeared in three straight matches and four of the past five for Eintracht Frankfurt though all four appearances have been with under five minutes remaining in the match. Frankfurt drew with Union Berlin last weekend and remain in sixth place on a little tier by themselves; they are nine points back of fifth place RB Leipzig and five points ahead of seventh place Augsburg.
Saturday
Norwich City v Ipswich Town – 7:30a on ESPN+
We’re keeping an eye on the English Championship as well this weekend where Josh Sargent and Norwich City take on league leading Ipswich Town. There are a couple of tight races in the promotion hunt with three teams, including Ipswich Town separated by just two points and battling for the top two spots and automatic promotion. Sargent and Norwich city are involved in the second race which is for sixth place and the final promotion playoff position. Currently Norwich hold the position by four points over Haji Wright’s Coventry City but Coventry have a game in hand so it’s still a wide open race with six matches to play and there are three other teams just two points removed from Coventry as well that will be looking to sneak in.
Crystal Palace v Manchester City – 7:30a on USA Network
Chris Richards picked up a knock last weekend against Nottingham Forest and is expected to miss a couple of weeks for Crystal Palace who take on Manchester City on Saturday morning. Palace are coming off a 1-0 loss to Bournemouth and their recent run of form has included draws to relegation candidates Forest and Luton Town but they remain eight points out of the relegation scrap heading into a brutal final stretch of the season that will see them play five of their seven matches against top eight opponents including City and league leading Liverpool.
AC Milan v Lecce – 9a on CBSSN
Coming off of International break Christian Pulisic and Yunus Musah were both substitutes last weekend, typical for Musah but an extra rest for Pulisic after long travel. Milan defeated Fiorentina 2-1 and hold a six point advantage over Juventus for second place in Serie A. This weekend’s opponent is Lecce who are five spots, but just four points, removed from relegation in what is a tight lower third of the Serie A table.
Union Berlin v Bayer Leverkusen – 9:30a on ESPN+
Brenden Aaronson saw a second straight start last weekend as Union Berlin played Eintracht Frankfurt to a scoreless draw. After their incredibly rough start to the season Berlin have straightened things out a bit and are now nine points clear of relegation but things will be quite challenging this weekend as they face a Bayer Leverkusen side that is running away with the Bundesliga title and undefeated in 40 straight matches.
Heidenheim v Bayern Munich – 9:30a on ESPN+
Lennard Maloney returned from injury last weekend and saw a minute off the bench in Heidenheim’s 3-3 draw with Stuttgart after missing the past three matches due to injury. Heidenheim have avoided the relegation scrap in their first year following promotion but are winless in their past six matches heading into their fixture against Bayern Munich who are having a down year but handled Heidenheim 4-2 in the first meeting between the clubs this season.
Fulham v Newcastle United – 10a on Peacock
Tim Ream has not been seeing minutes recently but Antonee Robinson continues to play nearly every minute for the EPL side, he’s over 3,100 minutes for the club across all competitions this season with seven matches (and 630 minutes) still remaining to play. Fulham are coming off a bad loss to Nottingham Forest but remain in thirteenth place, five points behind their opponent this weekend Newcastle, who are in eighth.
Luton Town v Bournemouth – 10a on Peacock
Tyler Adams was back in a big way last weekend, picking up man of the match honors while going the full 90’ in Bournemouth’s 2-1 win over Everton. Adams received an understandable break mid-week given that he’s just returned from injury as Bournemouth defeated Crystal Palace 1-0. Bournemouth have won three straight and the nine points has they well clear of the relegation zone and in the middle of the table as they take on a Luton Town side that currently sit in the relegation zone, three points from safety and are looking for their first win in twelve matches.
PSV Eindhoven v AZ Alkmaar – 12:45p on ESPN+
Sergino Dest, Malik Tillman, Ricardo Pepi, and PSV saw their undefeated Eredivisie campaign come to an end last weekend with a 3-1 loss to NEC Nijmegen but bounced back midweek with a 2-0 win over Excelsior. PSV still hold a nine point lead for the league title with six matches remaining. They take on fourth place AZ Alkmaar who they defeated 4-0 in December which included Malik Tillman assisting on a Sergino Dest goal.
LAFC v LA Galaxy – 7:30p on Fox
Timothy Tillman and Aaron Long will start for LAFC as they take on the LA Galaxy in the most recent edition of el Traffico. The Galaxy are currently leading the Western Conference while last years champions, LAFC, are off to a slower start, currently in 9th place.
Sunday
Rangers v Celtic – 7a on CBSSN
Cameron Carter-Vickers and Celtic have a one point lead over Rangers who have a game in hand as they head to Ibrox Stadium for the latest edition of the Old Firm Derby with huge title implications. Carter-Vickers has dealt with some injury issues this season but has started four straight for Celtic including wearing the captains armband in the last three.
Hoffenheim v Augsburg – 9:30a on ESPN+
John Brooks has returned from his red card suspension and will be available for Hoffenheim as they take on Augsburg who are three points ahead of them in the table, with both teams looking unlikely to threaten for European qualification nor be threatened by relegation. It remains to be seen whether Brooks will return immediately to the starting lineup, he has been in and out of the lineup a bit this season and cards have been a bit of an issue recently; in addition to his early red card that led to his suspension Brooks has received a yellow card in three of his previous four matches.
Monaco v Rennes – 11:05a on beIN Sports
Folarin Balogun didn’t get the start last weekend but came on as a sub and netted two goals in Monaco’s 5-2 win over Metz last weekend. With the win Monaco remained within a point of second place and three points ahead of Lille in the race for the final Champions League spot.
Wolfsburg v Borussia Monchengladbach – 11:30a on ESPN+
Wolfsburg snapped an eleven match winless streak last weekend as they defeated Werder Bremen 2-0 with Kevin Paredes starting yet again. The win gives Wolfsburg an eight point cushion over Mainz for relegation and leaves them tied with Joe Scally, Jordan Pefok, and Borussia Monchengladbach who fell to Freiburg 3-0 last weekend.
Sheffield United v Chelsea – 12:30p on NBC
Auston Trusty started at left-wingback for Sheffield United on Thursday in the team’s 3-1 loss to league leading Liverpool. The loss leaves Sheffield on track for both relegation and a historic goals-allowed number. On Sunday they face Chelsea who broke back into the top ten with a 4-3 win over Manchester United on Thursday.
Tottenham Hotspur v Nottingham Forest – 1p on USA Network
Matt Turner wasn’t on the field but he did make it into the refs book on Tuesday as he picked up a yellow card for kicking a ball onto the field to delay a Fulham restart as Nottingham Forest needed a full team effort to pull off the 3-1 win. Giovanni Reyna saw minutes as a substitute for the second straight match, coming on in relief of Morgan Gibbs-White who had already picked up a goal and an assist in the match.
Juventus v Fiorentina – 2:45p on Paramount+
Weston McKennie was also given a bit of a rest coming out of the international break and was brought on as a halftime substitute in Juventus’ 1-0 loss to Lazio in league play. Midweek Juventus bounced back to win the first leg of their Copa Italia semi-final matchup, also against Lazio, 2-0. Timothy Weah came on as a late substitute in both matches and picked up a yellow card in each one as well. On Sunday Juventus will take on tenth place Fiorentina who are also coming off a midweek Copa Italia win, 1-0 over Atalanta.
“Tyler has been always (talkative). He’s a captain with the national team. Even in the trainings, he’s going to be arguing. If he’s losing, he’s not gonna be happy. He will be demanding with the others. And this is a very good thing to have in the team.”The above quote is from Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola, when asked about Tyler Adams’ leadership qualities just after Tyler’s first start of the season Saturday against Everton. The 25-year-old from Wappingers Falls, N.Y. went the full 90 in the Cherries’ 2-1 win, and was named Player of the Match. Heat maps that wouldn’t look out of place at a Jackson Pollock exhibit — paint sprayed across the entire canvas — will do that for a player.So is it safe to say that Adams is back? Well, based on the fact that he didn’t come off the bench in Bournemouth’s 1-0 win over Palace on Tuesday, it could be a case of the USMNT midfielder still working his way back to full-full fitness. But for a player as focused, vocal, and intense as Tyler, it would seem that he’s going to be tough to keep off the pitch for long.”He wants to go for all the balls,” continued Iraola. “He’s very instinctive and he wants to cover a lot.”Here’s to hoping he gets the chance to continue to provide cover in the Cherries’ next match: a visit to Luton Town on Saturday.Elsewhere in England …Four USMNTers were at the City Ground on Tuesday, as Nottingham Forest beat Fulham 3-1 in the most recent Premier League Bowl. Highlights of the match included: Antonee Robinson (26; Liverpool, ENG) playing his 12th straight complete game for Fulhamerica; and Gio Reyna subbing on in the 77th minute for the Tricky Trees, meaning in the last week the 21-year-old from Bedford, N.Y. has seen more playing time (45 minutes) than he had the entire two months prior (41). Tim Ream (36; St. Louis, MO) and Matt Turner (29; Park Ridge, NJ) did not see any action, although Matty T showed he’s a dawg who’s always up for a dawgfight, after getting a yellow card for barking at the ref from the bench. In the Championship, Haji Wright (26; Los Angeles, CA) made it five goals in his last six games for Coventry City, popping in a far-post worm-burner (Watch) in the Sky Blues’ 3-1 win at Huddersfield Town on Friday. Not to be outdone, Josh Sargent (24; O’Fallon, MO) made it four in his last six with a lovely little set-piece first-timer (Watch) in Norwich City’s 2-1 win over Plymouth Argyle on Friday. And then Duane Holmes (29; Columbus, GA) completed the end-of-week Americans Abroad Hat Trick by driving one home from close range (Watch) in Preston North End’s 3-0 win over Rotherham United. Good Friday, indeed.Balogun Brace Built by Extra Train Rides, Extra Training:We at ASU could not be any happier for Folarin Balogun (22; London, ENG), after the USMNT striker scored his seventh and eighth goals of the season (Watch) as a sub in Monaco’s 5-2 win at Metz on Saturday. The off-the-bench brace was the first by an American Abroad in Europe’s Top 5 leagues since Charlies Davies did the same for Sochaux in 2009.The current campaign has been a bit of a struggle for the former Arsenal forward, whose summer arrival with the French club was met with lofty expectations after joining for $44 million on the heels of 22 goals for Reims in Ligue 1 in 2022-23. But after scoring three goals in his first five games for Monaco, Balo has been in and out of the starting lineup for Les Rouge et Blanc, only scoring three times since October 7 before his brace over the weekend.While his goal-scoring struggles have been front and center for all to see, something that had been kept behind the scenes until now was the hard work and sacrifice Balogun originally put in to become a high-level finisher. Speaking to the Inside Track podcast, individual instructor Saul Isaksson-Hurst talked about how Balogun, then with Arsenal, would take the train from London to France on his off days to get extra one-on-one training with the former Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs academy coach.“Flo would be doing a finishing session at Arsenal, but there would be six or seven other players there and it may not be specifically on what he needs to work on,” said Isaksson-Hurst. “Flo used to come back on the Eurostar on his days off to do sessions and then go back. He’s another really committed young pro.”Here’s to hoping the hard work done years ago continues to pay dividends for one of America’s finest.News and Notes:After his assist against Lazio in Juventus’ 2-0 Coppa Italia win on Tuesday (Watch), it’s now 10 dimes in all comps for Weston McKennie (25; Little Elm, TX) this season. Half of these have been to Dusan Vlahovic, so naturally Wes gave him a friendly shout-out on IG.Malik Tillman (21; Nürnberg, GER) had an assist (Watch) — his 11th of the season — in PSV’s 2-0 win at Excelsior on Tuesday. The victory comes on the heels of their first league loss of the season on Saturday, a 3-1 defeat at NEC Nijmegen, which ended a remarkable 26-match undefeated streak to open their Eredivisie campaign.Brenden Aaronson (23; Medford, NJ) got the start and played 65 minutes in Union Berlin’s scoreless draw at Frankfurt on Saturday. The Iron Ones are now undefeated in Aaronson’s last three starts.Alex Zendejas (26; El Paso, TX) scored his fifth in his last six games for Club America (Watch) in a 4-0 win at New England Revolution Tuesday in the CONCACAF Champions Cup.Gianluca Busio (21; Greensboro, NC) scored his sixth goal of the season for Venezia (Watch) in their 3-2 loss at Reggiana Monday. The Canal Boys are now one point out of the Serie B automatic promotion spots with seven matches to play.In Spain’s second tier, Konrad de la Fuente (22; Barcelona, ESP) bagged a brace (Watch) in Eibar’s 5-1 win over Eldense on Sunday. Los Armeros are in second place — hence, in the automatic promotion spots — with nine matches to go in LaLiga2.Parting Shots:Massive congrats to teen striker Joel Imasuen for making his Werder Bremen first-team debut in the Green-Whites’ 2-0 loss to Wolfsburg on Sunday. The 19-year-old born in Atlanta, Ga. came on in the 89th minute of the match, having earned his place in the senior squad thanks to 27 goals in 21 matches for Werder Bremen II this season. Imasuen played with Hertha Berlin from 2016-21, then spent a season with Viktoria 1889 Berlin before joining Werder Bremen in 2022.
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Wow Dos a Cero again !! The US Men dominated Mexico from start to finish leaving little doubt who the top team in CONCACAF is as the US has now won this competition for the 3rd straight time and it gets worse for Mexico each time. The US men were got fantastic goals from Tyler Adams in his return to play for his nation in over a year – this blast from distance. (Proper Spanish) Then Pulisic worked his magic and Gio Reyna finished on the rebound making it Dos a Cero. (Full Highlights) The US has better players and they are simply playing better. After obviously looking ahead against Jamaica needing a 95th minute goal to take it to ET and win easily 2-0 It was Gio Reyna who again was darn near the man of the Match for a second straight game for the US. You could argue he’s locked down the #10 slot no matter what is happening with his club Nottingham Forest (idiots). I for one am sick and tired of hearing the Gregg Berhalter bashing – this team seems to love him, plays for him – and excels for him. Do I love GB – no but lets see how he does in Copa America this summer before making further judgement. Certainly a final 4 birth should be expected at least this summer but we’ll see. (lots of stories below)
USWNT in She Believes Cup Next Sat 4/6 vs Japan 12:30 TNT & Tues 4/9 in ColumbusMallory Swanson and Catarina Macario will make their returns to the USWNT next week as part of the 23-player roster for the She Believes Cup, U.S. Soccer announced on Tuesday. Two new names are also joining the roster and earning their first senior national team call-ups, both playing for European clubs: 21-year-old Paris Saint-Germain defender Eva Gaetino and 16-year-old Ajax midfielder Lily Yohannes. These will be the final two matches for Twila Kilgore as USWNT interim coach. Permanent head coach Emma Hayes will take over beginning with the June window, with Kilgore remaining on the staff as an assistant. The USWNT will play in a reformatted She Believes Cup that has a semifinals and final as opposed to a round robin tournament. They will play Japan in the semifinals in Atlanta on Sat April 6th at 12:30 pm on TNT, and then will face either Brazil or Canada in either the 3rd place match at 5 pm or the final at 7 pm on April 9th in Columbus, Ohio ( tixstill available- the OBC is going over) on TBS. The USWNT defeated Canada and Brazil in the knockout stage on their way to claiming the inaugural W Gold Cup title.
Indy 11 face Detroit City Sat night 7 pm at the Mike
The Boys in Blue continue their homestand Saturday, hosting the first Eastern Conference foe of the season in Detroit City FC. Kick is slated for 7 p.m. ET and will air locally on WNDY, while streaming on ESPN+. Single-game tickets are available now for all matches via Ticketmaster. Season Ticket Packages can also be purchased, as well as tickets for groups and hospitality areas. For more information on these options click here.
Huge Game Weekend
Some huge games this weekend as Germany has Bayern Munich vs Dortmund on ESPN Saturday at 1:30 pm and Sunday gives us a massive EPL battle for 1st as Man City hosts Arsenal on Peacock of course at 11:30 am. Too bad NBC doesn’t give Crap about soccer in the US – that game on USA or NBC would really grab a nice viewership on Sunday. Great to see NWSL on ESPN at 3:30 pm KC vs Angel City right after the Bayern game. Fox gives us MLS Sunday Atlanta United vs Chicago Fire at 4 pm. So hard to watch MLS these days. Of course FS has the CCL Cup games Tues/Wed night. (See schedule below). Oh and Indy 11 @ Louisville City next Sat on CBS, with Champions League next Tues/Wed on CBS as well.
Champions League Elite 8 — starts April 9th & 10th on CBS
GAMES ON TV
Sat, MAr 30
7:30 am USA New Castle United vs West Ham
10:30 am ESPN+ Borrusia Mgladbach (Scally, ) vs Frieburg
11 am USA Nottingham Forest (Turner, Gio) vs Crystal Palace (Richards)
11 am Peacock_ Bournemouth (adams) vs Everton
11 am Peacock Sheffield United (Trusty) vs Fulham (Robinson, Ream)
1 pm para+ Lazio vs Juventus (Weah, McKinney)
1:30 pm ESPN Bayern Munich vs Dortmund
1:30 pm NBC Aston Villa vs Wolverhampton
3:30 pm ESPN KC Current vs Angel FC FC NWSL
3:45 pm Para+ Fiorentina vs AC Milan (Pulisic, Musah)
6:30 pm Ion Portland Thorns vs Racing Louisville NWSL
7 pm ESPN+ Indy 11 vs Detroit
Sun, Apr 1
9 am USA Liverpool vs Brighton
11:30 am Peacock Man City vs Arsenal
3 pm ESPN+ Real Madrid vs Atletic Club
2:30 pm ESPN+ Bayer Levekusen vs Wolfsburg
4 pm Fox Atlanta United vs Chicago Fire
Tues, Apr 2
2:30 pm USA New Castle United vs Everton
2:30 pm Peacock Notthingham Forest vs Fulham (Robinson, Ream)
3 pm Para+, CBSSN? Juventus (Weah, McKinney) vs Lazio
7 pm Fox Sport 1 Columbus Crew vs Tigres CCL
9 pm FS1 New England vs America CCL
Weds, Apr 3
2:30 pm USA Arsenal vs Luton Town
3:15 pm Peacock Man Vity vs Aston Villa
3 pm CBSSN? Forentina vs Atalanta
8 pm Fox Sport 1 Inter Miami (Messi) vs Monterrey CCL
10 pm FS1 Heredino vs Pachuca CCL
Thurs, Apr 4
2:30 pm USA Liverpool vs Sheffield United
3:15 pm Peacock Chelsea vs Man United
Sat, April 6
12:30 pm TNT, Max, Telemundo USA Women vs Japan
Tues, Apr 9
3 pm CBS Champions League
5 or 7 pm TBS, Universo, Peacock USWNT vs Brazil/Can winner Columbus, OH
USMNT’s Tyler Adams and Gio Reyna went from fitness doubts to Nations League game-winners
By Jon Arnold Mar 25, 2024 The Athletic
When Tyler Adams lined up a shot from nearly 30 yards out, both United States center backs, up for a corner kick, had the same thought: “Time to run back and defend.”“Usually, when Tyler shoots, you go ahead and get back into your position,” Chris Richards said.“Row Z,” added Tim Ream. “I thought, ‘OK, there’s a goal kick coming.’”Instead, the center backs’ runs were towards Adams, celebrating a goal unlike any he had scored before in a mob with a full group of jubilant teammates. The midfielder made his first start for the U.S. since the 2022 World Cup in Sunday’s 2-0 win over Mexico in the CONCACAF Nations League final following almost a whole year out through injury, as the USMNT captured the competition’s title for the third time in a row.
Adams had never scored a goal from outside the box in his professional career and rarely even shoots from distance, but felt the time was right to change that.“When the ball came to me and I felt like I had time on the ball, it was a no-brainer,” Adams said.Adams came off at halftime due to a minutes restriction agreed between the USMNT and Bournemouth, the Premier League club that was surely hoping Adams would return to England following this international break a bit fitter and much more confident.“Now I feel like I can shoot whenever I feel like,” Adams said, sporting his medal after the match. “I’ve been practicing that in my rehab recently. It was a good feeling scoring that one.”Adams and Gio Reyna both came into the game with rust: Adams having played 20 league minutes this season and Reyna 309 between Borussia Dortmund and Nottingham Forest. They were the two core pieces of the U.S. team that had the most question marks around their match fitness. Coach Gregg Berhalter opted to start both on Sunday and enjoyed the rewards, with Reyna adding the second goal.Once Ream got over the shock of seeing Adams’ long-range effort beat goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa, he was able to reflect more deeply on Adams’ return to the field, coming back from a pair of hamstring injuries that required surgery and putting in a solid shift in the first half of a final.“To see him rewarded after the amount of work he’s had to put in to get back to where he is, I think that’s the most impressive part,” the defender said.
Adams was mobbed after his goal (Darren Carroll/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
That Adams and Reyna scored the goals and had a huge influence on proceedings may be a return to normal instead of a big shock for the U.S. side. The 25-year-old Adams and 21-year-old Reyna have long been seen as some of the brightest stars of a promising generation of U.S. players who have raised expectations around this squad.The surprise may be just how much they contributed — and that they did so from the opening whistle.Mexico coach Jaime Lozano said after the match he and his coaching staff expected to see Reyna from the beginning but perhaps not Adams after the midfielder’s long night against Jamaica, in which he was brought on in the second half of Thursday’s semifinal, only to be taken off again in extra time due to that minutes restriction.Still, he said, they’ve watched Adams since he was a young player and are well aware of his skills.“Today, he had a great goal, which I think changed the course of the game,” Lozano said. “We know, despite the fact that they came in (out of rhythm), that they’re totally international-quality players.”
Reyna, meanwhile, was named player of the tournament after assisting two goals in extra time in the semifinal to go with Sunday night’s insurance score. His performances merited it, but after the drama that surrounded Reyna, his family and Berhalter following the 2022 World Cup, seeing the coach run down the touchline to celebrate the title-clinching goal with Reyna last night wasn’t what many might have imagined in the aftermath of that fiasco.Other national teams might have frozen Reyna out, but since returning as U.S. manager in June 2023 after a brief hiatus following that World Cup, Berhalter has worked slowly to reintegrate Reyna into the team.“I think when I took over the team again, I talked about needing time,” Berhalter said. “The more that we worked together and the more that he believed that intentions were true and our whole staff has his best interest in mind, I think we started to gain trust.”“If we didn’t put it in the past, it would’ve been affecting the team, and I think that was most important for both of us: to put it in the past and focus on the team,” Reyna said. “I think the last few camps since we’ve been back together, they’ve been pretty successful camps.”
Reyna was named player of the tournament (Darren Carroll/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
Increasingly, it feels that when it’s a successful camp for Reyna, it’s a successful camp for the U.S. and vice versa. After a stingy Jamaica nearly denied the U.S. any scoring opportunities in 95 minutes of the semifinal, Reyna unlocked the Reggae Boyz and lifted the U.S. into the final.On Sunday, Reyna was there to finish a move just after the hour mark, surging into the box to apply a strong finish to an attempted clearance. His hit on the half-volley beat Ochoa to the near post and doubled the lead Adams had given the U.S.“I think both of us came in ready to perform,” Reyna said. “I don’t think the outside noise of maybe not getting enough minutes really affects us. The body of work we’ve shown in the first few days of training here, and the preparation, really shows what we’ve done and I’m just super-happy for him and also pumped up for me, to be honest.”
The hope for the U.S. now is that both players not only excel upon their return to their clubs in England but that they stay healthy and gather strength. While Berhalter was thrilled to have 45 minutes from Adams and 78 from Reyna last night, he’ll hope to soon have 90 from both.That will be especially important in the Copa America on home turf this summer, which the U.S. begins June 23 against Bolivia. The matches only get more difficult from there and Berhalter must have Reyna creating and Adams patrolling the midfield
USMNT’s Nations League win over Mexico was expected – that’s what made it important
That the opening goal of the CONCACAF Nations League final happened the way it did — a blistering shot uncorked 30 yards out — felt fitting for the environment around this U.S. men’s national team this week. The pressure had been building up in the days ahead of Sunday’s game and was bound to explode — positively or negatively.The U.S. was coming off of a less-than-decisive 3-1 win over Jamaica in the semifinal on Thursday that required a last-gasp own goal to take it to extra time — a performance significantly below expectations for a U.S. team that’s believed to be capable of more than any that came before, and with a U.S.-hosted Copa America just months away. U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter chuckled to himself on Saturday when asked by a media member whether it was true that they had more pressure on them than Mexico ahead of the big occasion. Berhalter tried to deflect, pointing out that Mexico was coming off of a dominant semifinal win (3-0 against Panama) and would be expected to continue that against their bigger rival. But Berhalter’s smile was also an acknowledgment of the truth: the U.S. — and Berhalter — had more to lose. Nothing but a win on Sunday would have been enough, and Tyler Adams’ goal late in the first half brke the pressure of expectation in the U.S.’s 2-0 win. “There’s always going to be talk,” said Gio Reyna, who scored the second goal on 63 minutes and was named player of the tournament. “And I think looking into Jamaica was a bit much. It obviously wasn’t our best performance, but it’s one game. Not every team can play well every game and we responded really well tonight.”While neither team dominated the final, the U.S. never looked overwhelmed, circulating the ball and probing Mexico for weak points. They gave up very little defensively. Mexico had to chase the result in the last half-hour after Reyna doubled the lead. While El Tri had some half-chances, they never truly threatened the U.S.he postgame press conference for Mexico coach Jaime Lozano had a clear tilt to it: El Tri were chasing the U.S. now. How could they catch their biggest rivals? There was no doubt which team was favored — a sign of how far the U.S. has come since Berhalter first took over.The U.S. was smashed by Mexico in September 2019, a 3-0 loss in Berhalter’s first year that altered the course for this group. After that loss, the U.S. became a more transitional, high-pressing and physical team. They learned the intensity it would take to win those big games against their rival. That result, six meetings ago now, is the last time Mexico beat the U.S.
The U.S. was able to limit Mexico’s chances throughout the final (Shaun Clark/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
But while Sunday’s win was a requirement, it will bring little relief ahead of the Copa America. If anything, a third straight regional crown will only ramp up the hopes that the U.S. can do something special against bigger opponents in a tournament that will include the likes of Lionel Messi’s World Cup champions Argentina and world power Brazil.“I would say that, as a federation, those teams (such as Argentina and Brazil) have proven something already; they’ve won everything there is to win,” Adams said. “That’s kind of the role model, so to speak, of what the U.S. wants to become and kind of: ‘How do we get there?’.“I would say that we’re making the right steps in order to get there. Obviously, people want us to be there tomorrow and win a World Cup, but that’s not an ideal situation. We need to go through a lot of ups and downs before we get there. But steps like this tonight, playing in finals, getting that experience now, winning three in a row, this means something… We’re learning how to win in pressure situations.”The Nations League tournaments have served as markers for this group.The first win, in June 2021, was crucial in that it was a validating moment for a young team asserting itself in the region. That they battled back twice from deficits to win, 3-2 after extra time, showed the character of a group that has shined through since on multiple stages, including at the following year’s World Cup in Qatar.Last year’s dominant 3-0 semifinal win over Mexico only reinforced the U.S.’s position atop CONCACAF but, more importantly, it showed off the growth of Reyna playing in a central role. After the off-field issues in and after Qatar, Reyna came back into the group in 2023 looking to show he could be the influential playmaker the U.S. fans hoped he would be, and he then assisted on both goals in a 2-0 win over Canada in the final before being substituted for the second half due to a leg injury.
Adams celebrates his long-range goal (Omar Vega/Getty Images)
Reyna continued that impact into this year’s tournament, setting up both goals in extra time against Jamaica and then scoring in Sunday’s final. He went through the mixed zone still holding his trophy as player of the tournament.This Nations League final was never going to be the same type of marker for this group — not with the Copa America just around the corner. Instead, it served as almost a checkpoint. The U.S. was supposed to win this game. And that, in itself, spoke to the difference of this cycle.The U.S. isn’t going to be considered a young team anymore. They are expected to get results. “I think it’s something that we do respond to,” Berhalter said. “When the guys feel like we’re pressured, then we come out and we play really good performances. In the last World Cup, as soon as they got to camp, it was like, focus, focus, focus, they were on it. And the same thing in this camp as the camp went on. So I know they’re focused.“For me, it’s about really taking advantage of every single opportunity we have because, before we know it, ’26 (the World Cup being co-hosted with Canada and Mexico) is gonna be here.”(Top photo: Shaun Clark/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
UNITED STATES
Gio Reyna has been ‘killing it’ for the USMNT. Can he now do it at the club level?
Published Mar. 25, 2024 3:52 p.m. ET
ARLINGTON, Texas — The look on Gregg Berhalter’s face was the epitome of glee. In the 63rd minute of the Concacaf Nations League final, Gio Reyna perfectly positioned his body over a bouncing ball at the top of the penalty box and struck a low volley past Mexican goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa. It was a spectacular and technical goal that gave the United States men’s national team a 2-0 lead over their rival.The score went unchanged for the remainder of the match, and the U.S. fought against a feisty and physical opponent to hold on and win its third straight CNL title.After Reyna scored — his second goal of the tournament — he ran to the right corner flag while pointing at the U.S. crest on his chest. His teammates — those on the field and on the bench — joined him in a jumping-up-and-down-in-a-circle celebration. Berhalter sprinted down the touchline to join the group with a joyous smile that took up his whole face. Despite playing outside of Dallas, the crowd was pro-Mexico and the opposing fans roared with boos after Reyna’s goal. As the American players celebrated, nearby fans threw cups of beer at them. Seeing this happen in real time, Berhalter made his way to Reyna and tried to shield him from any other flying objects.A little while later, Reyna was subbed off in the 75th minute. He was on a minutes restriction, was starting to cramp up, and the USMNT had the lead in hand, so it made sense. When he stepped off the pitch, Berhalter put his arms around the player for a second. They both seemed happy.
“[He said] something along the lines that he was proud of me,” Reyna, who was named the tournament’s best player, said after the match.
“It was a long night, a lot’s been happening since the game,” Reyna said smiling, a nod to the beer and goggles celebration the players had in the locker room after the win, “and I just couldn’t tell you word for word. But it was just something nice. It wasn’t anything too special, but it was nice.”This is all a testament to how far both Berhalter and Reyna have come since the drama that ensnared their relationship at the 2022 World Cup. After the Americans were eliminated in the round of 16 of that tournament 15 months ago, Berhalter revealed that he nearly sent an unnamed player home due to a poor attitude in training. It was eventually discovered that the player was Reyna. His parents – former USMNT captain Claudio Reyna and former USWNT player Danielle Egan – retaliated by bringing up a decades-old domestic violence incident between Berhalter and his now-wife to U.S. Soccer. Berhalter’s contract expired shortly thereafter, though he was re-hired a few months later.In the aftermath, there was a lot of interest in the relationship between Berhalter and Reyna. Would Reyna be called into camp? Would he start? How would the vibes be? How would it affect the team? Etc, etc.
Reyna was recalled to the USMNT last October, and started the final four matches of 2023. In the USMNT’s semifinal win over Jamaica on Thursday, he had two beautiful assists in extra time that helped the squad to a 3-1 win. Following that game, Reyna spoke with reporters for the first time since everything transpired after the World Cup.
“Obviously, what happened, happened,” Reyna said. “But I think both of us are so far past it, and just so focused on the group that it’s not even an issue at all anymore. We’re just so far past it.”
He essentially repeated those sentiments late Sunday night, adding that he felt like this was all water under the bridge after their first camp back together last year.
“If we didn’t put it in the past, it would have been affecting the team and I think that was most important for the both of us,” Reyna explained. “I think the last few camps that he’s been here and we’ve been back together, it’s been pretty successful. So yeah, like I said, it’s in the past. It’s pretty simple.”
Time heals. Even if it didn’t, there’s no way Berhalter could avoid Reyna, who, at just 21 years old, is establishing himself as one of the most valuable players in the team.
“The kid’s unbelievable, honestly,” said Tyler Adams, who also scored a banger of a goal to put the USMNT up 1-0 right before halftime. “So many people talk about the noise that surrounded him and everything that he went through. But at 21 years old, every single one of the players on our team has gone through a situation like that. Maybe not as extreme, of course, because it was surrounding a World Cup and we didn’t play in a World Cup at 21.
“He’s got that grit, he’s got that intensity, and when he plays like that every night, he’s gonna be playing at a big club very soon.”
Last month, Reyna joined Nottingham Forest on loan from Borussia Dortmund for the remainder of the season. Minutes have been sparse for Reyna, and there were questions about his fitness entering this camp. He played 75 minutes against Jamaica, coming on at halftime and playing through extra time; then 75 more in the final against Mexico.
“He was determined to grind through it and power through it and I thought he was doing really well,” Berhalter said.
Berhalter, who said he and Reyna “started to gain trust” and were patient in rebuilding their relationship after the World Cup fallout, gushed about the young player’s talent.
“He can unlock defenses and he just has these qualities that are really good,” Berhalter said. “I also believe, and I’ve said this before, that he can be a midfielder. I think that’s the next evolution for him because he can control the tempo so well and he can make final passes when he gets the ball in pockets in transition and he’s a good finisher.”
Berhalter and Reyna both hope that Reyna can use this momentum as a springboard to get more minutes with his club. And for the USMNT, it’s especially heartening to see a confident and healthy Reyna in form with Copa America looming this summer.
“He’s killing it here,” defender Chris Richards said of his teammate. “Hopefully he continues that form.”
Laken Litman covers college football, college basketball and soccer for FOX Sports. She previously wrote for Sports Illustrated, USA Today and The Indianapolis Star. She is the author of “Strong Like a Woman,” published in spring 2022 to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX. Follow her at @LakenLitman.
USMNT late week viewing guide: Back to the grind
Haji Wright, perhaps Josh Sargent, and others re-start club season on Friday
Friday
Huddersfield vs Coventry, 11a: Haji Wright and Coventry (8th) meet relegation-zone Huddersfield (22nd of 24 in the Championship).
Norwich City vs Plymouth Argyle, 11a on ESPN+ (free trial): Josh Sargent and sixth-place Norwich look to maintain promotion playoff position against Plymouth (18th).
América vs San Luis, 10p: Alejandro Zendejas and América are second in the Liga MX Clausura with 12 games played; San Luis are 13th of 18.
Ukraine qualify for Euro 2024: ‘The world is going to watch and see we never give up’
More than 40 members of Ukraine’s national-team party were spread around the centre circle of Wroclaw’s Tarczynski Arena.Players, coaches and backroom staff locked their gaze on the 30,000 spectators sporting blue and yellow as they revved up their version of the Viking thunderclap. Iceland, the architects of that celebration during the 2016 European Championship, could only listen in despair having lost this Euro 2024 play-off final to a late strike from Chelsea forward Mykhailo Mudryk.Strangers embraced. Families posed for photographs draped in Ukraine flags. Others video-called, possibly home to war-torn Ukraine, sharing the moment with others unable to experience first-hand this release of emotion around 600 miles (1,000km) away in south-west Poland.kraine had done it.Ukraine’s players address the crowd (Sergei Gapon/AFP via Getty Images)
Despite enduring over two years of Russian invasion and indiscriminate bombing with millions of its citizens displaced, a weakened domestic league and home advantage for matches long since diluted, Serhiy Rebrov’s side had come through two tense play-off matches to qualify for this summer’s Euros — a mountain they had failed to climb two years ago when pursuing a World Cup spot, losing to Wales at this final stage.
As Oleksandr Zinchenko, the captain, led his team around the pitch to celebrate a second comeback victory in five days, the 2-1 win over Iceland following a similar late success by the same scoreline away against Bosnia & Herzegovina, a guttural chant reverberated around the arena.
“Z-S-U! Z-S-U! Z-S-U!”
The acronym stands for ‘Zbronyi Syly Ukrainy’ — the Armed Forces of Ukraine. These Ukrainian supporters — almost all draped in the nation’s blue and yellow flag — were reminding the world of why this victory was not just a footballing triumph.
This was not so much a lap of honour as a vignette of how conflicting it is to be Ukrainian today; jubilant at a second major finals qualification via play-offs from seven attempts, yet acutely aware of how small sport seems in the shadow of war. United in a foreign city, but separated from loved ones across the border; grateful for international support, yet fearing that their struggle is fading from the public consciousness.
“I’m all emotioned out — it’s one of the most important, if not the most important, win for Ukraine in its history,” says British-Ukrainian journalist Andrew Todos, founder of Ukrainian football website Zorya Londonsk.
“It is the context of having to make the tournament to give the country a massive important platform. People are going to see the country and hear about the war carrying on during the build-up and the weeks that they are in the tournament.”
English-born drummer Andriy Buniak (bottom) of Ukrainian folk band Cov Kozaks with Andrew Todos (third right) and Myron Huzan (right) (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)
The Ukraine FA, drawn as the hosts, chose Wroclaw for this play-off final because they knew it would be their best chance of approximating a home advantage. The 1-1 group-phase draw with England here in September attracted a crowd of 39,000 and Wroclaw has been one of the main cities to which Ukrainians have fled over the past two years.In 2018, there were already suggestions that one in every 10 Wroclaw residents was Ukrainian. The city’s university status means family reunions have driven that number up to around a third of the population. It would have been slightly higher again on Tuesday, with the city transformed into a ‘Little Kyiv’.
Drummers dressed in traditional attire beat a rhythm for jolly sing-alongs and heartfelt rallies in the market square. Every act of joy from the Ukrainian contingent quickly felt like an expression of defiance.
The constant was a sense of unity, captured by the charity match played earlier in the day between a team of former players and the ‘potato soldiers’, a nickname coined by organiser Mykola Vasylkov for the amount of food his team have delivered to the front line thanks to fundraising assistance from national-team players.
“‘No Football Euro without Ukraine’ has been our message — now we’ve done it, ” says Vasylkov, who was part of Andriy Shevchenko’s setup during his five years as Ukraine manager.
Vasylkov helped then manager Shevchenko in the Ukraine setup (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)
The majority of the Ukrainians in attendance at last night’s play-off had lived elsewhere in Europe for some years before the conflict. Unless they receive special dispensation, males between the ages of 18 and 60 are banned from leaving the country.
Unable to fight for the cause in the conventional sense, this was the day when the diaspora played their part. Goalscorers Viktor Tsygankov and Mudryk, who play for clubs in Spain and England, and an eclectic fanbase combined to put their country on the map at this summer’s tournament in Germany.
“There were amazing emotions and atmosphere in the dressing room — these days wearing the Ukrainian badge on our chest is something special,” says Zinchenko. “The feelings inside are so hard to describe as, today, every Ukrainian was watching our game.
“All the video messages we received before the game from Ukrainians, in the country and abroad, from the military who are staying on the front line fighting for our independence and freedom… they were all supporting us. It was extra motivation for us.”
Zinchenko applauds the fans after Ukraine’s win (Andrzej Iwanczuk/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
It was only last summer that Zinchenko used Arsenal’s pre-season tour in the United States to call for American F-15 fighter jets to be given to Ukrainian forces. He did not want the world to become fatigued and forget his compatriots’ suffering.“It (Euro 2024) will be so important,” he says. “We all understand that. All the world is going to watch this competition as it’s one of the biggest in the sport. It’s an unreal opportunity to show how good we are as a team and how good it is to be Ukrainian.“Our people are about never giving up and fighting until the end.”
Iceland’s population of 375,000 is dwarfed by Ukraine’s estimated 34million and their FIFA ranking of 73rd is well below their opponents’ 24th, so Zinchenko and his team-mates were hardly underdogs last night — but Ukraine’s players still have to cope with the mental toil of having family members enduring life in a war zone.
When Ukraine missed out on a place at the most recent World Cup in its June 2022 play-offs, winning 3-1 away to Scotland in their semi-final but then being beaten 1-0 in Cardiff by a Gareth Bale shot that took a big deflection, their domestic-based players had only been able to feature in friendlies against club sides for the previous seven months. That was not the case this time, but four of the starting XI and 11 of the 23-man squad are based in Ukraine.
The domestic league resumed in that summer of 2022 but it has dropped in quality as most of its top foreign players have left, and only in the last month have small crowds been allowed into top-flight games again. They are only able to do so with the provision of air-raid sirens, and with bunkers to shelter in readily available.
Ukrainian fans celebrate qualification (Andrzej Iwanczuk/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
During that play-off final, footage appeared of Ukrainian soldiers in the trenches watching the match on their phones. That connection to home was strong in Wrocław on Tuesday.
“I work in the army and brought a flag that Ukrainian soldiers signed,” says Artem Genne, a London-based fan, holding up the message “Keep up the good work for peace and prosperity in Ukraine”, sporting the signatures of different regiments. “We went to visit the team the day before the game and we got a picture of them with the flag to send back to the troops and boost morale.
“Some family members live near some military facilities and they have been witnessing lots of attacks. Many of my friends live in Kyiv (the capital) and they were sending me footage from their balconies of windows being smashed. It goes on every day and, even though we are not there, it still affects you knowing your friends are in underground shelters.”
Artem Genne and a friend hold up their flag signed by Ukrainian soldiers (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)
Roman Labunski travelled from Berlin in West Germany, over 200 miles, with his wife and two sons to be at the game.
His eldest son Nathan, 13, has only ever been to Ukraine twice, but was on his father’s shoulders during the 2014 Maidan revolution. He witnessed something en route to the stadium that served as a wake-up call.
“We saw lorries carrying tanks to the border,” Roman says. “It reminded us that we’re still able to do something safe and fun. I sometimes feel guilty that I am not living it, as my cousins came to stay with us after the invasion but went back after they thought it was safe. Now they are facing rockets again.
“It is not just football that we wanted to win for, and the team know that. It is no longer that they are up here and the fans are down there. We feel together with them now. The Euros will bring everyone back home some hope and happiness.”
Aron, Natan and Roman Lanunski travelled to Wroclaw from Berlin (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)
Although most at the game had moved away from Ukraine years earlier, there are those who only narrowly avoided life on the front line.
Serhii was a 16-year-old living in a village 5km from Kyiv when a column of Russian tanks started moving towards the capital.
“It was the last town not to be occupied. If that had happened, it would have been a big problem for Kyiv,” he says. “Once the war started, I moved west; then to Germany for seven months before going home.
“Now I have been living in Chelm (just over the border from Ukraine in eastern Poland).”
Fedir (centre) and Serhii (right) in Wroclaw’s market square (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)
His friend Fedir is from Vinnytsia, a city south-west of Kyiv.
“The Polish people have been very kind and welcoming to us,” Fedir says. “We appreciate this support from them, but it is lower than it was two years ago. This war is making everyone tired. Ukrainians, Polish. People are starting to forget about it. We are not.”
Vitaliy is part of the select group of fighting age who has permission to cross the border, due to his work in Denmark dating back to 2010.
“I grew up with the stories of my grandparents not being able to read Ukrainian books, so it was not a surprise to me when war came,” he says.
Vitaliy (left) with his family outside the stadium (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)
“They try to tell us that western Ukraine is not the same as the east — whether it’s language, culture, history.
“That is why football is so important. Since we got independence, we are more able, as a people, to resist and see things for ourselves. We have our own identity and this summer is our chance to show that to the world.”
(Top photo: Sergei Gapon/AFP)
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McKennie believes the U.S. are contenders for the Copa America title (John Dorton/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)U.S. captain Pulisic — who has scored 28 goals in 66 international caps — also believes the team are challengers for the title.“We want to win the tournament, that is why we are playing in it,” 25-year-old Pulisic said.“We want to go as far as we can, get out of the group, then go game by game from there and at the end of the day we want to win the tournament.“With the tournament being in the U.S., this is perfect for us to showcase our abilities in a big tournament. We want the big crowds against the big teams in the big stadiums. That is what you live for as a soccer player.”McKennie added that the U.S. enjoying home advantage was “important” and believes it can provide the momentum ahead of World Cup 2026, which the nation will co-host alongside Mexico and Canada.
Emma Hayes knows the hard work has only just begun for the USWNT. (Photo by Brad Smith, Getty Images)“It’s a group that’s had a lot of learning since the last World Cup,” she said Monday. “I always like to look externally, these really fatal moments, from my perspective, I don’t believe they could grow without that. You need those setbacks sometimes — on the biggest stages it’s not ideal, but the team wasn’t ready. The expectation in this country is (to) win every game, every week, every tournament, every trophy. It just isn’t gonna work like that I’m afraid.”Maybe that point is more of a gut surgery for this team, one that has been driven by external pressure to win and win big, on and off the field. Hayes said she feels like the group is ready to move on. Can the USWNT keep its hunger to win following the brutal World Cup round of 16 exit last summer, while still evolving into something greater? Players have been saying they can for months, but now Hayes has joined the chorus on an official basis.
Teammates surround Lily Yohannes after her goal against Korea Republic (Brad Smith/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images)
Giroud and Griezmann could be among the overage selections for France (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
Yamal could be in the Spain squad (Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images)
Hayes previously spent time coaching in New York. (Photo by USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
Hayes won five consecutive WSL titles with Chelsea. (Photo by Clive Brunskill, Getty Images)
Ian Darke, ESPN.com writerMay 21, 2024, 01:00 PM ET
Pulisic has played well at right wing for AC Milan this season (Getty Images)
Zendejas has played well for Club America but misses out on the USMNT roster (Alfredo Moya/Jam Media/Getty Images)
Emma Hayes’ side won 6-0 at Old Trafford on the final day of the season (Alex Livesey – The FA via Getty Images)
The moment Chelsea were confirmed as WSL champions (Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images)
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The VAR decision is shown to supporters at Stamford Bridge (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
The VAR hub at Stockley Park in the summer of 2019 (Chris Radburn/PA Images via Getty Images)
Dean shows Soucek the red card in February 2021 after an on-field VAR check (Adam Davy/PA Images via Getty Images)
Webb, the chief refereeing officer for PGMOL, attends the women’s League Cup final in March (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
Reinfeldt, president of the Swedish Football Federation (Michael Campanella/Getty Images)
Reiten celebrates, believing she has scored for Chelsea against Spurs (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Leverkusen made it through to the Europa League final on Thursday night (Marvin Ibo Guengoer – GES Sportfoto/Getty Images)
Madrid fans let off flares as the team bus approaches the Bernabeu (Diego Radames/Europa Press via Getty Images)
Joselu celebrates at the Bernabeu on Wednesday night (Helios de la Rubia/Real Madrid via Getty Images)
Antonio Rudiger, Ancelotti and Vinicius Jr singing with fans (Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)
Harry Kane is taken off by Bayern Munich at the Bernabeu (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
Joselu equalises for Real (Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images)
Joselu celebrates his winner (David Ramos/Getty Images)
Aitana Bonmati celebrates winning the 2023 World Cup with Spain (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
Infantino announces the venues for the 2026 men’s World Cup (Brennan Asplen – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
Sane fires in Bayern’s equaliser (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
(TNT Sport)
Kane slams home his penalty (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
Courtois was a welcome presence on the Real bench (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
Fullkrug hammers home the opening goal (Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images)
Sancho’s dribbling came to the fore in the first period (Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images)
Dembele after his miss (Oliver Hardt – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
Adeyemi was effective in defence as well as attack (ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images)
Lunin was Madrid’s hero against City (Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)
Lunin helped Ukraine qualify for this summer’s Euros (Mateusz Slodkowski/Getty Images)
Dest has been a key performer in PSV’s outstanding campaign (ANP via Getty Images)
Dest competes with Mexico’s Gerardo Arteaga during the CONCACAF Nations League final in March (Stephen Nadler/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
Wright scores from the spot (Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
Coventry’s nervous support wait for Wright to find the back of the net (Nigel French/PA Images via Getty Images)
Sainz and Sargent celebrate Norwich’s equaliser (MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Klopp consoles Diaz (Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)
Klopp and Van Dijk (Photo: Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images)
Tim Weah has been used as a right wingback with Juventus (Click Thompson/Getty Images)
Girma is one of the few defenders from the USWNT’s World Cup roster who is still receiving regular starts. (Photo by Brad Smith, Getty Images for USSF)
Nighswonger earned her first USWNT cap in December 2023 (Photo by Andrea Vilchez, Getty Images for USSF)
Lavelle was left off the SheBelieves roster due to injury. (Photo by Omar Vega, Getty Images)
Morgan has adapted to a new role with the young USWNT. (Photo by Carmen Mandato, Getty Images for USSF)
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The USWNT celebrates after beating Canada. (Carmen Mandato/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
Sam Marsden, Barcelona correspondentApr 16, 2024, 05:52 PM ET
Albert wears No 15 against Brazil in March (John Todd/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
Macario shows her wristband after scoring against Iceland in February 2022 (Brad Smith/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
USWNT players such as Rapinoe have used their platform for advocacy (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
England lost to Brazil at Wembley Stadium last month and have not won since beating Malta 2-0 in November (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73258322/2046188517.0.jpg)
“Tyler has been always (talkative). He’s a captain with the national team. Even in the trainings, he’s going to be arguing. If he’s losing, he’s not gonna be happy. He will be demanding with the others. And this is a very good thing to have in the team.”The above quote is from Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola, when asked about Tyler Adams’ 
leadership qualities just after Tyler’s first start of the season Saturday against Everton. The 25-year-old from Wappingers Falls, N.Y. went the full 90 in the Cherries’ 2-1 win, and was named Player of the Match. Heat maps that 
In the Championship, Haji Wright 
(22; London, ENG), after the USMNT striker scored his seventh and eighth goals of the season (
(25; Little Elm, TX) this season. Half of these have been to Dusan Vlahovic, so naturally Wes gave him a 
(21; Nürnberg, GER) had an assist (
(23; Medford, NJ) got the start and played 65 minutes in Union Berlin’s scoreless draw at Frankfurt on Saturday. The Iron Ones are now undefeated in Aaronson’s last three starts.Alex Zendejas 
(26; El Paso, TX) scored his fifth in his last six games for Club America (
(22; Barcelona, ESP) bagged a brace (
Adams was mobbed after his goal (Darren Carroll/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
Reyna was named player of the tournament (Darren Carroll/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
The U.S. was able to limit Mexico’s chances throughout the final (Shaun Clark/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
Adams celebrates his long-range goal (Omar Vega/Getty Images)
Ukraine’s players address the crowd (Sergei Gapon/AFP via Getty Images)
English-born drummer Andriy Buniak (bottom) of Ukrainian folk band Cov Kozaks with Andrew Todos (third right) and Myron Huzan (right) (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)
Vasylkov helped then manager Shevchenko in the Ukraine setup (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)
Zinchenko applauds the fans after Ukraine’s win (Andrzej Iwanczuk/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Ukrainian fans celebrate qualification (Andrzej Iwanczuk/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Artem Genne and a friend hold up their flag signed by Ukrainian soldiers (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)
Aron, Natan and Roman Lanunski travelled to Wroclaw from Berlin (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)
Fedir (centre) and Serhii (right) in Wroclaw’s market square (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)
Vitaliy (left) with his family outside the stadium (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)
The Ole BallCoach 