Are you gripped with International Champions Cup fever yet? Because Miami sure as hell is — or at least ticket sellers on the secondary market are. Miami’s newly refurbished Hard Rock Stadium will play host to the second-ever meeting outside of Spain between Real Madrid and Barcelona on July 29 in the ICC.
As a new MLS season approaches, we've been informed of some points of emphasis that league officials will look to clamp down on in 2017. The Professional Referee Organization (PRO) general manager Peter Walton said that the four points of emphasis that MLS referees will focus on for the upcoming season are: holding and pushing in the penalty area, acts of visual dissent, delayed restarts and persistent infringement.
The anticipation is building in Atlanta for their club’s inaugural season in MLS as they’ve now sold more than 40,000 tickets for their home opener against the New York Red Bulls on Sunday, March 5. The match will be televised nationally on FS1 at 7:00 PM ET, and club president Darren Eales says they are on pace for a sell out.
Atlanta United will begin play at Georgia Tech’s 55,000-seat Bobby Dodd Stadium while construction on the Mercedes-Benz Stadium is completed. United are slated to begin play there on July 30 against Orlando City, a match that will be broadcast on FOX.
Football kits bridge performance and lifestyle like no other sporting attire. Without even knowing what they’re wearing, only knowing that it looks fly as hell, you see people walking around in the famed blaugrana stripes of Barcelona, the white sleeves of Arsenal or the historic bianconeri shirt of Juventus. They're really the only sports garments you can wear outside the stadium without looking like a child trapped inside the body of a demented adult.
When we read about things like allocation lists, sums of targeted and general allocation money and the processes of discovery and re-entry in MLS, we usually just smile, nod our heads in feigned understanding, and murmur things like “But of course.” In truth, it’s all terribly confusing and best left to the poor sporting directors and player personnel managers who need to assemble an entire roster for $3.845 million.
Qatar, the small country on the Arabian Peninsula with a population less than that of Nevada, is spending almost half a billion dollars per week in preparation for the 2022 World Cup according to the country’s finance minister.
As reported by World Soccer’s Jamie Rainbow, this will amount to more than $200 billion by the time the tournament rolls around.
In a recent interview with Mundo Deportivo, Ronaldinho revealed that Pep Guardiola, rather than wanting to move forward without the Brazilian star as was believed, actually wanted him to stay before he left for AC Milan.
Even with the shadow of the collective bargaining agreement hanging over the United States Women’s National Team, the 2017 NWSL season is set to be the best one yet. Two new ownership groups and a new stadium in Orlando are positive achievements for the league, but Thursday’s announcement of an agreement between the NWSL and A+E Networks is the biggest news yet.
The conversation about technology in soccer reached a fever pitch following FIFA’s use of Video Assistant Referees at the Club World Cup. Video replay technology has long been an area of fierce debate, but it’s finally beginning to make headway after the unmitigated success of goal-line technology.