ORLANDO, Fla. — It’s become a relatively easy and clichéd crutch of a nickname. And it’s been popular for so long that one of the original Captain Americas, Claudio Reyna, has a son who’s a US men’s national team regular. If you’re American and you do well at a foreign club, there’s a decent chance … Read more
The word “vergogna” is not one you see or hear often in Italy, but you wouldn’t know it from the last 24 hours. Directed toward the Italian men’s national team, it was shouted from the crowd in Palermo on Thursday night. It was written with venom on the front pages of Friday’s morning paper. It … Read more
When North Carolina’s Brady Manek fired an elbow into the face of Baylor’s Jeremy Sochan with 10:08 left in an NCAA Tournament second-round game Sunday, it sent the officiating crew working the game to the replay monitor with a big decision to make. Eject a key player from an elimination game, or assign a lesser … Read more
Coaching hires in college athletics are a bit like blue jean trends—what’s all the rage at one point in time might be considered hopelessly passé just a few years later. One day you wake up and your skinny jeans coach who looked so good when you purchased him has a losing record and has to … Read more
No US men’s national team fan needs the reminder—especially not this week—but sometimes to get to where you want to go, you need to look back at where you’ve come from. For Christian Pulisic, the images of his face buried in his shirt upon the devastation of the US’s failing to qualify for the 2018 … Read more
It was chippy, it was tense and it certainly wasn’t pretty. But No. 2 UConn pushed past No. 7 Central Florida to land a place in the Sweet 16 on Monday, extending its own NCAA record for the program’s 28th consecutive appearance in the women’s tournament’s second weekend. Monday’s second-round game was notably rough for … Read more
1. Earlier this week, ESPN announced it hired Joe Buck and Troy Aikman to call Monday Night Football starting this season. Aikman’s contract was up after this year’s Super Bowl while Buck’s still had a year remaining. Fox and ESPN worked out a deal this week that allowed Buck to leave Fox a year early … Read more
Until this season, the away goals rule in European football had been in place since 1965 to determine the winner of a two-legged knockout tie in cases where the two teams had scored the same number of goals over the course of two matches. In such cases, the winner of the tie was the team … Read more
A coalition of social justice is demanding the ouster of Robert Sarver as majority owner of the Suns, citing the numerous accounts of racist and sexist revealed in an ESPN story last November. The group—which includes members of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network—detailed its concerns in a March 11 letter sent to NBA … Read more
1. Amazon was determined to put together an A-list booth for Thursday Night Football and it appears it has succeeded. The New York Post’s Andrew Marchand reports that Amazon is ready to lock up Al Michaels for three years at $10 million per year to call all 16 of their games beginning this season. Michaels … Read more