Last we saw the Panama women's soccer team, Yenith Bailey was doing everything she could to try to get the tiny Central American nation to its first ever women’s World Cup. Panama fell just short, finishing fourth place in the Concacaf Women’s Championship, missing out on the final automatic berth.
Lost amidst the scratched Frenchmen and bashed Irishmen during the opening day of the UEFA Nations League on Thursday was the start of the Concacaf Nations League. Kind of.
England’s putting on a finishing clinic versus Panama to begin Sunday’s World Cup group play. John Stones sent a precise downward header beyond Jaime Penedo to open the scoring, Harry Kane added England’s second with an emphatic penalty and Jesse Lingard added the third with one of the best goals of the tournament so far. A second from Stones and another Kane penalty has England up 5-0 at the half.
Here’s the opener from Stones.
Club América vs. Tauro delivered an entertaining CONCACAF Champions League fixture last night.
Barely 3,000 fans attended the game at Estadio Azteca as Las Águilas hosted Panama's powerhouse Club Tauro.
Even after Tauro achieved a shock victory against Dallas FC in the round of 16, it was expected that Miguel Herrera's pupils would come out victorious.
On paper, this is one of the more shocking upsets you’ll ever see in the CONCACAF Champions League. FC Dallas joined the Colorado Rapids as victims of the CCL Round of 16, leaving just Seattle and NYRB as the only remaining American representatives. But while Colorado’s defeat to Toronto FC was widely expected, Dallas’ plummet from grace continues to be a free fall.
Bayern Munich has opened an 18-point lead at the top of the Bundesliga after registering its eighth straight league victory with a 2-0 result against Mainz on Saturday, and it was Colombian attacker James Rodriguez again proving the side’s talisman with his second goal in three matches.
The World Cup draw was completed this morning at the State Kremlin Palace in Moscow with the 32 finalist nations placed into eight groups of four. The 2018 FIFA World Cup will kick off on June 14 at Luzhniki Stadium with a match featuring host-side Russia and Saudi Arabia. We now know the makeup of the entire field for the competition as well as the group stage matches that'll captivate the planet next summer. Here are the full results from the 2018 FIFA World Cup draw.
CONCACAF officially approved the CONCACAF League of Nations on Thursday, setting up a cool new competition for the 41 national teams in North America, Central America and the Caribbean. The League of Nations, which follows the lead of UEFA, is designed to provide quality, meaningful competition for all teams across the spectrum. Schedule and structural details will be announced in early 2018.
And so it’s settled. On November 15, Peru claimed the final spot in the 32-team field for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, bringing us to the final event before the June 14 kick off at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow: the draw to determine the eight groups of four for the finals.
