MANCHESTER, ENGLAND — Manchester City had Young Boys beaten by half-time on Tuesday and their UEFA Champions League group stage campaign is done and dusted after just four games. Pep Guardiola will want to secure the top spot in Group G but 12 points from a possible 12 so far means that, for the 11th year in a row, City will have an interest in the knockout rounds in the…
Another European soccer weekend is in the books, so let’s review! Bayern Munich shrugged off some recent woes with (yet another) comprehensive win over rivals Borussia Dortmund in the German Bundesliga, while Arsenal were left raging after a controversial 1-0 defeat at Newcastle United in the Premier League that again involved VAR and its various applications. Oh, and in LaLiga, Barcelona wrapped up a dramatic (and lucky) late victory at…
Spain international Jenni Hermoso, speaking publicly for the first time since winning the World Cup, told GQ in an exclusive interview that she underwent counseling after receiving threats over the unsolicited kiss she received from then-Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) president Luis Rubiales after the final victory. Rubiales, who stepped down on Sept. 10, is facing criminal charges for kissing Hermoso on the lips without her consent during the awards ceremony…
Celta Vigo captain Iago Aspas threw the pitchside VAR monitor to the ground after the on-field referee had used it to overturn a late penalty decision that had been awarded in Celta’s favour during their 1-1 draw with Sevilla in LaLiga on Saturday. Aspas had been substituted with his team winning 1-0, shortly after teammate Renato Tapia had been sent off, and was on the sidelines as Sevilla forward Youssef…
Moments after Chelsea’s emphatic 6-0 Women’s Super League (WSL) win at Aston Villa, the club announced that manager Emma Hayes would leave at the end of season. ESPN sources have confirmed she is now set to take the United States job, and those unaware of her achievements in the English game will wonder what she will bring. Since arriving at Chelsea in August 2012, Hayes has won six WSL titles,…
Germany women’s national team coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg has stepped down with immediate effect, with the German Football Association’s (DFB) board of directors approving the decision in a meeting on Saturday. The Germans drew 1-1 with South Korea and lost 2-1 to Colombia to crash out of the recent Women’s World Cup at the group stage, the worst-ever result at the tournament for one of the world’s traditional superpowers in the…
The U.S. Soccer Federation is in advanced talks with Chelsea women’s manager Emma Hayes to be the next manager of the U.S. women’s national team, sources confirmed to ESPN. Chelsea coach Hayes is to leave the club at the end of the Women’s Super League (WSL) season “to pursue a new opportunity outside the WSL and club football,” the club announced in a statement following a 6-0 thrashing of Aston…
It has been less than a week since the shocking scenes on Sunday in southern France, where the Lyon team bus was attacked on its way to the stadium for a game against rivals Marseille. As well as the trauma for Lyon manager Fabio Grosso, who needed 12 stitches around his left eye and on his face, for his assistant Raffaele Longo, also injured, and for the players who feared…
Football’s most prestigious individual prize, the Ballon d’Or, will be co-organised by UEFA from next year, giving the European governing body a global event that traditionally out-ranks FIFA’s own world awards. The deal comes seven years after a previous partnership between the French organisers of the award and world governing body FIFA ended. – Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.) – Women’s Ballon d’or mess shows soccer has long…
BIRMINGHAM, England — There’s a tough crowd at Birmingham City and Wayne Rooney has already experienced the wrath of the club’s long-suffering supporters, who booed him at the end of his first home game (a 2-0 loss to Hull City) as manager last month. Birmingham are a blue-collar team and proudly so, rooted in the Small Heath area of England’s second-biggest city that was the setting for “Peaky Blinders,” the…