Football

3:46 AM ET The battle for the Premier League title this season is a tight one, with champions Manchester City just one point ahead of Liverpool. But take away the decisions made by the VAR (video assistant referee) and the pendulum swings — with Jurgen Klopp’s men two points better off than their title rivals

6:00 AM ET SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Inside a luxury hotel roughly nine miles from the site of the final game of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying, United States men’s national team coach Gregg Berhalter was at ease Tuesday. Six days earlier, he called the forthcoming week the most important of his coaching career and

Mar 29, 2022 Caroline Graham Hansen was 14 when she first found out there was a women’s national team in Norway. It was only then, after 10 years of playing football for three hours every day — however cold or wet the weather would get in Oslo — that she realised the game she enjoyed

Mar 28, 2022 The race to the 2022 World Cup is drawing to a close, with four games to be played on Wednesday to decide which nations from the CONCACAF region will head to Qatar in November. – World Cup 2022 qualifying: How it works around the world How many CONCACAF nations qualify for the

5:53 PM ET PORTO, Portugal — Cristiano Ronaldo is heading to Qatar, but Mohamed Salah isn’t and neither is Zlatan Ibrahimovic, whose dream of becoming the first outfield player to bridge a 16-year gap between appearances at the World Cup fizzled out in a late, fruitless substitute rescue act for Sweden in Poland. Every World

8:00 AM ET The countdown to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar will begin in earnest when the draw for the group stage takes place in Doha on Friday. From that point on, each team can work out how it will navigate its path to the final on Dec. 18. But the tournament promises to

9:27 AM ET Rob DawsonCorrespondent Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal has told Erik ten Hag to steer clear of the manager’s job at Manchester United. Sources have told ESPN that Ten Hag has been interviewed as part of United’s search for a new permanent manager. – ESPN+ viewers’ guide: LaLiga, Bundesliga, MLS, FA Cup, more–

2:26 PM ET With World Cup qualifying reaching its dramatic conclusion around the globe over the past few days, Gab Marcotti takes a slightly different approach to his Monday Musings this week. There’s a look at the weird way in which teams book their place (or don’t) at the World Cup, as well as the

10:18 AM ET ORLANDO, Fla. — Tyler Adams has been the de facto captain for the U.S. men’s national team during this World Cup qualifying cycle, but when the U.S. players emerged from the tunnel on Sunday, Christian Pulisic was at the front, the armband wrapped tightly around his sleeve. It was fitting, too. On

11:44 PM ET ORLANDO — It’s a manager’s lot in life to be second-guessed. Decisions get analyzed to the smallest of details. Mistakes get highlighted. That’s especially true of international managers, with a country’s armchair coaches never holding back. Credit is due then to U.S. men’s national team manager Gregg Berhalter. Over the last week

Saves 0 Shots 0 0 Shots on Target Fouls Committed 0 0 Fouls Against Assists 0 Discipline 0 Yellow 0 Red Goals 0 Shots 0 0 Shots on Target Fouls Committed 1 0 Fouls Against Assists 0 Offsides 0 Discipline 0 Yellow 0 Red Goals 0 Shots 0 0 Shots on Target Fouls Committed 0

5:27 AM ET World Cup qualifying has entered its final stretch, with 19 of the 32 finalists now known. But who could take the 13 places that remain? We take a look at how qualifying looks. – World Cup 2022 qualifying: How it works around the world Europe Qualified (10/13):GermanyDenmarkBelgiumFranceCroatiaSpainSerbiaEnglandSwitzerlandNetherlands – Olley: England still a

12:39 PM ET MEXICO CITY — When the final whistle blew, bodies started dropping. The Estadio Azteca was every bit the energy sucking force the young United States men’s national team had been warned of and after 90-plus minutes, there was nothing left in the tank. Even striker Jordan Pefok, a 60th-minute substitute, immediately dropped

4:11 PM ET ORLANDO — As the U.S. men’s national team prepares for Sunday’s World Cup qualifier against Panama, and with the possibility that the U.S. could clinch a spot in Qatar, manager Gregg Berhalter has a simple message for his players: Stick to the process. “I preach to the team about just one game

Mar 24, 2022 Less than five years ago, Ben White was so far removed from top-level football that his typical matchday experience involved a pregame curry and a half-time fistfight. In August 2017, White was sent on a season-long loan to League Two side Newport County by parent club Brighton & Hove Albion, with the

11:38 PM ET Associated Press Lionel Messi says he will reconsider his future in soccer later this year but said it’s likely “many things will change” after the World Cup in November and December in Qatar. Messi’s comments came after Argentina beat Venezuela 3-0 on Friday in the remaining match of the penultimate round of

8:46 AM ET It’s like the old joke about buses: you wait hours for one, and then two come along at once. Except in reverse. Italy went 60 years without missing a World Cup and now, after Thursday’s 1-0 playoff defeat to North Macedonia, they’ve missed the last two buses to the biggest show on

5:00 AM ET MEXICO CITY — The number of times that the United States men’s national team has walked out of Estadio Azteca seething, on the wrong end of a scoreline, are too many to count. Usually it was because the visitors had been subjected to death by 1,000 passes, no match for Mexico‘s methodical