
A First in Cup Qualifying for Player, Team
Jonny Saelua did not always envision herself as an international soccer player. What she really wanted to do was join a dance company and “travel the world just performing.” ...
World CupArt Spander, RealClearSports
Martin Rogers, Yahoo! Sports
Thomas Kaplan, New York Times
Stephen Brunt, Globe and Mail
Pete Jensen, Independent

Is this the end or the beginning? Does soccer, football to the rest of the world, finally capture the United States? Or was this World Cup fascination only a brief affair, a fling ...(full article)

Amid the Netherlands’ preparations and festivities and nerve-jangling hope ahead of Sunday’s World Cup final, an extraordinary manhunt is under way. The Dutch nation, n...(full article)

People in soccer have historically paid little attention to statistics, arguing that the only way to judge players is to see them in action. Often, the only numbers associated with...(full article)

It is difficult to discern, not having dealt with the man on a regular basis, whether it is Lambertus (Bert) van Marwijk’s dour personality that emerges when he is under the spot...(full article)

To celebrate or not to celebrate? That was the question at 10.15pm local time here in the Catalan capital on Wednesday night. True, Spain had just reached its first ever World Cup ...(full article)


Jonny Saelua did not always envision herself as an international soccer player. What she really wanted to do was join a dance company and “travel the world just performing.” ...

Cleatus is going to Russia and Qatar. Sports Business Journal and SI.com are reporting that FOX has outbid ESPN and NBC for the U.S. based English language rights for the 2018 and ...

Next Wednesday is one of the most important days of the next decade for soccer in the United States. That's when bids are due in Zürich, Switzerland, for the U.S. broadcast righ...

The United States Women’s National Team may be ranked No. 1 in the FIFA world rankings, but is it the best team in the world? It’s difficult to answer in the affirmative, par...

The FIFA Women's World Cup, which begins Sunday in Germany, will be almost unrecognizable from the first event held 20 years ago. That tournament, played in China, was essential...

Ever since the good, godfearing Anglo nations were shut out of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, rumors have flown that Russia and Qatar bribed their way to the top. No one would be ...

FIFA has confirmed the number of qualification slots allocated to each continent for the 2014 World Cup will not change.The world football governing body held its first World Cup ...

The secret is out on Bob Bradley: The U.S. coach has some tactical wanderlust in him, after all. We all raised a curious brow at that dalliance with the 4-2-3-1 formation late la...

The campaign was extraordinary in terms of its cost – it proposed to spend £27 million last year alone on communications – and in the way it wielded influence fro...

In the days since FIFA's baffling decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar there has been a lot of talk about adjusting the timetable because of the oppressive heat. The heat ...

The Baur au Lac hotel, a five-star palace on the banks of Lake Zurich, was the epicenter of The Game here this week: the final lobbying of the nine bids vying to host the 2018 and...

It is easy to understand why so many among us who comprise the United States feel like they have a birthright to at least direct, if not actually control, the rest of the world. As...

Qatar’s victory in the race to be awarded the 2022 World Cup was a triumph for spin over substance and leaves a black mark on FIFA’s already-besmirched name. In the hours after...

Damn the World Cup, in Russia in 2018 and the one in the sand and cranked-up air-conditioning to follow four years later in Qatar. There, in the desert by a boiling sea, they will ...

Despite the best efforts of the great, David Beckham, David Cameron and Prince William, and the great unknown, Eddie Afekafe, England failed to convince Fifa they can host the grea...

FIFA delegates awarded Russia and Qatar the right to host World Cup tournaments in 2018 and 2022, ending a process that has been marred by accusations of vote rigging. The decision...

An insufferable little windbag by the name of Sepp Blatter—president of FIFA, the governing body of world soccer—has just disclosed to the world that Russia will host t...

In football it always come down to 22 men. In a Zurich conference hall this afternoon, 22 men in suits will make a decision that will either transform or traumatise English ...

Somewhere between Qatar's promise to unify the world, Australia's pledge to throw the best party on earth and Japan's plan to simulcast the tournament to crowds all over the world ...

With 24 hours to go before the vote in Zurich to decide who gets to host World Cups 2018 and 2022, the world's press is in a frenzy of speculation. We'll turn it over to them with ...

If you love soccer, you enjoyed the 2010 World Cup and, chances are, you will keenly follow the bidding process this week which could see the United States awarded hosting rights t...

Like guests on some television reality show, politicians and royalty, oil barons and corporate billionaires are gathering in Zurich. There they will fawn over 22 — maybe 23 &...

World leaders and the world's sporting press (except for the US, of course) are now descending upon Zurich for Thursday's votes on who gets to host soccer's World Cups in 2018 and ...

Fifa’s controversial process of picking World Cup hosts must never be repeated. No more secret ballots, please, no more collusion and no more double bids. For all his faults,...

It's decision week in the race to decide who gets to host World Cup 2018 and World Cup 2022. Last week, we set odds on the victors - Russia and Spain as co-favorites for 2018,...

The intrigue continues in the world of soccer's equivalent to the proverbial smoke-filled room. Yesterday, we previewed the controversy-ridden, conspiracy-laden run-up to the sele...

It involves global intrigue, a bitter clash among some of the world's leading powers, even a whiff of financial scandal. A spy incident or the latest trade war? No, it's just one o...

Ostensibly, this paso doble began because the Barcelona coach enjoyed his two years playing for Al Ahli and genuinely believes the emirate can “host a spectacular, passion...

For most of the past two years, Qatar's bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup has been a punch line in global soccer. The small desert kingdom has just one fully functional soccer st...

They're killing the most important rivalry in American soccer. That's my unavoidable conclusion after speaking to Chuck Blazer, the general secretary of CONCACAF, who confirme...

Soccer’s governing body FIFA is considering a series of drastic new proposals that could dramatically change the face of future World Cups, Yahoo! Sports has learned. Followi...

Having failed to play like England at the World Cup, at least Fabio Capello’s team looked like England again at Wembley last night: and in more ways than one. The win wa...

LONDON—Winning football's World Cup is arguably the toughest feat in all of sports. Earning the right to stage the sport's showpiece event may be a close second: a delicate g...

Thierry Henry will not say American soccer fans sing better than English fans. But they do sing well. And maybe that is the missing link, the natural order of soccer progression. ...

Stephan Nopp headed a team of 55 students from the German Sports University in Cologne who spent almost 1,000 hours analysing Fabio Capello’s team during the b...

Fabio Capello claims England were in poor physical condition for the World Cup in South Africa and he knew from the outset that they were too tired to make any impact. In a remar...

Calling Diego Armando Maradona a soccer god is not idle exaggeration. There is after all a Church of Maradona with a reported membership of 100,000 people. Now, however, Maradona i...

Some of the record $3 billion brought in by the 2010 World Cup is helping fund a program to develop soccer in Africa. But FIFA, the organization that governs world soccer, hasn't m...

Here in the epicenter of soccer dysfunction, we have yet another ghastly headline involving those chaotic French footballers. Franck Ribery didn't manage a goal during the World ...

I wasn't quite as down on this World Cup as most people seem to have been, but these things are relative. I'd place it high above 2002 and just above 2006, but behind every other ...

A tradition that began in the early 1930s, players have been swapping jerseys at the end of big international matches for the last 80 years. Have you ever wondered what the players...

The scenes in Madrid yesterday when hundreds of thousands welcomed home the World Cup winners and celebrated Spain becoming only the eighth nation to win the trophy were extraordin...

From his office inside Holy Cross Anglican Church in Soweto, Father Steve Morero has seen the tour buses come and go by the hundreds. From the beginning of the World Cup last month...

Day after day as a kid, Andres Iniesta had watched his family work. He was from a tiny village of Fuentealbilla, Spain, where his grandfather owned a small tavern called Bar Lujan....

Eight picks, eight correct, eight tentacles. Paul the Oracle Octopus is clearly the biggest winner of the World Cup after recording a perfect prognostication record whether he know...

Amid the rubble of what was supposed to be one of the great World Cup finals it was entirely, beautifully appropriate that it was Andres Iniesta of Spain who in the end came shinin...

This was not how it was supposed to happen. When Howard Webb blew the whistle at the end of extra time he was hounded by a pack of Dutch players, Mark van Bommel to the fo...

Here's a list of 10 players, who've raised their transfer profiles considerably and could be on the move this summer (in no particular order):...

Controversial World Cup referee Howard Webb came under attack from furious Netherlands players and head coach Bert van Marwijk after Spain’s 1-0 extra-time victory on Sunday ...

It seems so odd, now it is over and the streets did not run with blood and the stadiums did not fall down, that so many said, so vociferously, that it was Africa on trial here th...