Wayne Rooney announced his retirement from international football on Wednesday, bringing a close to a tumultuous 14-year England career. While Rooney goes down in the record books as England’s all time leading goalscorer and most capped outfield player, his legacy is still a polarizing one given the profligacy of the Three Lions during that period.
The United Bid Committee, the organizers of the joint 2026 World Cup bid from the United States, Canada and Mexico, announced the 49 stadiums and 44 cities across the three countries that are currently being considered for the event. With 20-25 venues anticipated in the final decision, there’s certainly a lot for the committee to consider before submitting their final bid by March 16, 2018.
In a World Cup year, it’s only natural that national team regulars are put under the microscope every week. With only 23 spots available on the final World Cup roster, each and every week during the club season is a personal battle and test of merit. In that sense, no USMNT player has been failing as spectacularly as Los Angeles Galaxy forward Gyasi Zardes.
Friday was the deadline for FIFA to accept bids to host the 2026 World Cup, the first to be awarded since scandal rocked the organization following Russia and Qatar controversially winning the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, respectively. The U.S. had already turned in a joint bid with Mexico and Canada that’s expected to win easily, but at the last minute Morocco decided to throw its hat into the ring.
Newly appointed Argentina manager Jorge Sampaoli has wasted no time putting his own stamp on the national team by recalling once-exiled Inter Milan striker Mauro Icardi and dropping the oft-criticized Gonzalo Higuain for crucial upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Uruguay and Venezuela.
Icardi is joined in Argentina’s attack by Lionel Messi, Paulo Dybala, Joaquin Correa and Sergio Aguero, who was left out of Sampaoli’s first Argentina squad for friendlies against Brazil and Singapore back in June.
According to the latest FIFA World Rankings, Switzerland will approach the 2018 FIFA World Cup bracketed amongst the traditional favorites of Brazil, Germany and Argentina. Those are the only three nations above them in the latest August rankings. It’s easy to laugh at the Swiss opening up a sizable gap over the traditional European powers of France, Spain, Italy and England, but there’s no reason to not have them pegged as dark horses in Russia.
Christian Pulisic isn’t named Lionel Messi, he doesn’t play for Real Madrid and he’s never been on the cover of FIFA, so many North American and British folk are rightly confused about just how good he really is. He’s only scored five Bundesliga goals, so he must suck, right? Not so fast, Paris Saint-Germain’s latest die-hard supporter!
We all know that Pele loves nothing more than a bit of Pele. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you spent over 50 years fielding questions exclusively about yourself to an adoring audience, you’d probably think you were the world’s greatest too. It's either that or you have a massive mental breakdown in the face of the enormity of the lie that is your life.
It’s easy to say now, sure. Now that his trophies are won, his legacy cemented, Diego Maradona has no problem supporting VAR. Video Assistant Referees can’t review his past indiscretions.
In an attempt to curry favor for its VAR system, FIFA posted an interview with Maradona and his views on VAR. Unsurprisingly, he's in favor of VAR.
On Thursday, FIFA announced the plans for the FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour, an immense trek across the vast landscape of Russia as the world’s most coveted hardware visits 24 cities from Sept. 9 to July 7, 2018.
For World Cup groupies, better stock up on gas, Red Bull and beef jerky if you want to follow along.
Here’s a closer look at scheduled route.
(While FIFA didn’t give details on travel arrangements, we’re going to assume the trophy travels by plane at the start and end of each of two phases and by car the remainder.)