soccer – The News Desk

Liverpool 0 Crystal Palace 1: Is the Premier League title bid over?

14Apr

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Liverpool 0 Crystal Palace 1: Is the Premier League title bid over?

Liverpool’s terrible week just got a whole lot worse.A shock 1-0 defeat to struggling Crystal Palace has dealt a blow to Jurgen Klopp’s hopes of a second Premier League title. Following on from the 3-0 Europa League defeat to Atalanta on Thursday, the season is in danger of fizzling out.We analyse the major talking points from Anfield…Is that the end of the title hopes?Even the most pessimistic minds on Merseyside would have struggled to envisage Liverpool’s week playing out as badly as it has.After the 3-0 humbling at home to Atalanta, a result that leaves progress to the Europa League semi-finals hanging by a thread, another ruinous setback has made a Premier League title all the more unlikely.Liverpool’s unconvincing form has been masked by late fightback, but Crystal Palace’s resolute...

Ryan Giggs and football: A very complicated relationship

13Apr

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Ryan Giggs and football: A very complicated relationship

The celebration was almost as glorious as the goal itself. The fuzz of chest hair, the twirling shirt, the body swerve to evade the Manchester United fans who had run on the pitch in their euphoria.On Sunday, it is 25 years since Patrick Vieira, a genuine great of Arsenal’s midfield, played a wayward pass amid the high drama of an FA Cup semi-final between the leading two English sides of the time.Ryan Giggs took the ball and then he was off and running, picking up speed from inside his own half, slaloming past opponents, one by one.Vieira tried to get back but Giggs, crossing the halfway line, dipped his shoulder to get away. Lee Dixon was next to come across. He, too, could not get near him.Arsenal had the most famously parsimonious defence in English football — yet Giggs had magic in h...

Inter Miami dumped from Champions Cup by Monterrey, Lionel Messi booed: Takeaways

12Apr

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Inter Miami dumped from Champions Cup by Monterrey, Lionel Messi booed: Takeaways

Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami saw its dream of a continental trophy ended Wednesday night in Monterrey, Mexico in the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Champions Cup.Liga MX power Monterrey overwhelmed Miami, 3-1, leaving no doubt in the two-leg series that ended with a 5-2 aggregate scoreline.Miami went into the night fighting an uphill battle. They gave up two goals in the late stages at home after falling down a man last week and thus had to overcome a deficit on the road.A big mistake by goalkeeper Drake Callender trying to play it out of the back gifted Monterrey forward Brandon Vazquez a first-half goal. Monterrey broke the game open in the second half with goals from Germán Berterame in the 58th minute and Jesus Gallardo in the 64th.GO DEEPERPatrick Schulte leads Crew to CONCACAF semisThe...

Gotham FC’s 13-year-old trainee Mak Whitham is scoring goals and readying to go pro

12Apr

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Gotham FC’s 13-year-old trainee Mak Whitham is scoring goals and readying to go pro

McKenna Whitham scored against Deportivo Cali in added time at the Women’s Cup in Colombia in February, finding her footing in a sea of defenders and tucking the ball away to send Gotham FC to the finals of the four-day preseason tournament.The goal was the 13-year-old’s first in a professional environment, and it came after weeks of preseason training with the NWSL defending champions. Whitham, who goes by Mak, was unfazed.“It’s just been spectacular,” she told The Athletic following her preseason debut. “I’ve always kind of been playing up at a high level, so I’ve just been motivated to be the best and just give 100% effort, and, I mean, just because they’re older, it doesn’t scare me.”The teen has made a name for herself already, garnering headlines for being the youngest women’s socce...

Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City: Every Premier League title-race fixture analysed

9Apr

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Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City: Every Premier League title-race fixture analysed

The Premier League remains a European outlier this season.Everywhere you look around the continent, title races have become virtual processions. Paris Saint-Germain are 10 points clear in France’s Ligue 1, Bayer Leverkusen are 16 ahead and one win away from winning the German Bundesliga title, while PSV Eindhoven have a nine-point cushion at the top of the Dutch Eredivisie.Elsewhere, Real Madrid lead by eight points in Spain’s La Liga and Inter Milan are 11 ahead of city rivals AC Milan with a game in hand in Italy’s Serie A.In England’s top division, however, things are a whole lot tighter. With seven games remaining, just a point separates table-topping Arsenal from third-placed Manchester City, with Liverpool sandwiched between on goal difference. Since the Premier League was launched ...

How can you tell if a football manager is actually good at their job?

9Apr

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How can you tell if a football manager is actually good at their job?

An important thing to remember about Andre Villas-Boas is that he had ridiculously good hair.You don’t spend a record-shattering €15 million (£12.9; $16.3m) fee to sign a rookie manager away from Porto unless you’re pretty sure you know what you’re getting, and one thing Chelsea knew for certain, back in the heady days of 2011, was that the man with a swirling, fox-red side-parting looked impossibly cool getting tossed in the air during trophy celebrations. Villas-Boas at Porto in 2010 (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)Hair like that had sexy new ideas — a philosophy, perhaps. It had the sort of rakish sweep that could command a press conference, smouldering volcanically above the jagged peaks of an unbuttoned collar. But when the 33-year-old prodigy conducted his first i...

Do big sporting wins cause an increase in birth rates among fans?

4Apr

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Do big sporting wins cause an increase in birth rates among fans?

Football arguably doesn’t need anything extra to feed its collective sense of self-importance, but the idea that it can cause new life to be created will certainly do it.You might remember a rather dramatic game in the National League towards the end of last season when Wrexham and Notts County faced each other in what was effectively a ‘winner takes promotion’ clash. In the 97th minute, Wrexham goalkeeper Ben Foster saved a penalty to seal a 3-2 win, putting them three points clear with a game in hand on their rivals.According to Foster, the result of the collective ecstasy of that moment was made clear nine months later: he recently recorded a video in which he claimed the birth rate in the Wrexham Maelor Hospital went up by 24 per cent in January 2024 when compared to a year earlier.Th...

The Briefing: Will Haaland’s form cost Man City? Cole Palmer: MVP? Xabi Alonso’s power move

2Apr

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The Briefing: Will Haaland’s form cost Man City? Cole Palmer: MVP? Xabi Alonso’s power move

Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday during this season The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions to arise from the weekend’s football.This was the round when Newcastle snatched victory from the clamped-shut jaws of defeat against West Ham, Liverpool went top of the league after an early scare against Brighton, Manchester United went 1-0 up in the 96th minute and still didn’t win and Sheffield United threw away another two-goal lead.Off the back of all that and more, we will ask if Erling Haaland is playing poorly at the worst moment for him and his club, if Cole Palmer is the Premier League’s most valuable player and whether Xabi Alonso turning down Liverpool and Bayern Munich to stay at Bayer Leverkusen is the real power move…Is Haaland’s bad form at the worst poss...

Kylian Mbappe’s transfer status: Free to talk to clubs, Real Madrid’s deadline, PSG’s stance

2Jan

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Kylian Mbappe’s transfer status: Free to talk to clubs, Real Madrid’s deadline, PSG’s stance

Today, as we begin 2024, Kylian Mbappe enters the final six months of his contract with Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), which means he will be able to negotiate with clubs who are interested in signing him on a free transfer at the end of that deal.Aged 25, Mbappe is already a World Cup winner, runner-up and Golden Boot winner, and widely recognised as one of the finest football players on the planet. His future has also been the subject of frenzied and protracted speculation with the Frenchman frequently flirting with Real Madrid and falling out with PSG.At some point in the near future, Mbappe will have to decide whether to extend his contract in Paris (something he declined to do last summer), sign for Madrid (something he came mightily close to doing in the summer of 2022) or move somewher...

PGA Tour, Saudi Deadline Passes With No Deal—but Talks Will Continue

1Jan

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World

PGA Tour, Saudi Deadline Passes With No Deal—but Talks Will Continue

The stunning agreement last June between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf’s Saudi backers came with a deadline to hammer out a deal: the end of 2023. As New Year’s Eve came and went without a pact, the sides now say they are poised to continue negotiations into 2024. In a memo to players Sunday, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan wrote that the goal remains to strike a finalized agreement—but it hasn’t happened yet. Instead, he said, there are “active and productive conversations” with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and they are “working to extend our negotiations into next year based on the progress we have made to date.”Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8