The championship tournament of Asian soccer is under way at the moment in the United Arab Emirates, and I sorta/kinda wish I were there. Asian teams are becoming more interesting, and perhaps a bit more competitive, in recent years, and to have a look at the top 24 of them, all playing this month in […]

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What a curious match Brazil versus Belgium turned out to be. It was a sort of soccer experiment: “What would happen if 11 crazy-fast Munchkins with elite technical skills … met up with 11 mostly big and beefy guys with decent technique but marginal speed and quickness?” The soccer scientists perhaps could have chosen a […]

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Reaching the quarterfinals of a Fifa tournament is pretty much the definition of success, on the male side of the U.S. national soccer realm, and the Under 17 team just did it, at the U17 World Cup in India. And what does it mean for the senior side to have the kids get to the […]

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That’s what you say when the ball gets away and rolls into another court, in tennis or basketball. “A little help, please?” A request, not a demand. Which is what the U.S. national soccer team is asking of Mexico and Costa Rica. “A little help, please?”

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I pretty much gave up advocating the dismissal of coaches and managers a decade ago. Maybe more. I make an exception for Jurgen Klinsmann. This man is doing so much harm to U.S. soccer that every day he mismanages this team leaves them in a deeper hole from which they must eventually climb. The 4-1 […]

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The biggest sports competition in Europe is not the various soccer leagues, nor any of the tournaments within those leagues. It is the European Champions League. The competition that brings together the best clubs in the continent. Which I try to watch when I am particularly interested in a match. The trouble? This time of […]

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First, the irony. World soccer governing body Fifa won’t tell you how its two-dozen executive committee members voted after they hand out the World Cup … But Fifa gives us chapter and verse on how the voting goes for the Ballon d’Or, the player-of-the-year award. Which Cristiano Ronaldo won tonight, as he should have, for […]

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Two reactions, in quick succession, upon hearing today that Landon Donovan will play a farewell match with the U.S. national soccer team, in October. 1. It’s nice that they are giving him a chance to say goodbye. 2. Gosh, the whole thing could be awkward.

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I didn’t think The End would come so quickly. No, Landon Donovan did not play at the World Cup in Brazil. No, he has not had a particularly productive Major League Soccer season. Yes, he is 32, which is not young for an attacking player in the modern game. Yes, he has been carrying injuries […]

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One of the surest ways to move your soccer career forward is to do a little something with a successful team at the World Cup. Like the one that ended on Sunday. —Luis Suarez scored two goals against England, bit a guy, and got a huge deal to more from Liverpool to Barcelona. —Toni Kroos […]

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