Opinion

With the USWNT’s Olympic campaign in the rear-view mirror there’s one topic that was overlooked. Catarina Macario is one of the most exciting young prospects for the USWNT, yet she only saw the field for seven minutes during the Olympics. Thanks, Vlatko.

Macario is a versatile player who can play in the midfield or as forward. Born in São Luís, the 21-year-old had the choice to represent either the USWNT or Brazil. She received her U.S. citizenship on Oct. 8, 2020, and was cleared by FIFA to play for the USWNT in January.

Have you seen the potential Paris Saint-Germain starting lineups for the 2021-22 season? They all share two qualities: (1) they’ve got more boom boom than Charo and (2) they’re all wildly different.

All we know is that Mauricio Pochettino — previously a Marcelo Bielsa disciple whose high-press hit vertically, horizontally and everywhere in between — is now a protégé of FIFA Ultimate Team champion Fnatic Tekkz.

What will the tactics board look like at the Parc des Princes?

Messi moving centrally to shoehorn Ángel Di María into the starting lineup?

Ligue 1 gets a lot of shit these days. As the fifth-best league in Europe, it’s often derided as a “farmer’s league” by the snobbier football fans. Anyone who has actually paid attention to Ligue 1 over the last few years knows this isn’t the case. With the addition of Lionel Messi to the league now official, here are five reasons you should watch Ligue 1 not named Messi. 

Nearly four years after ignominiously bowing out of 2018 World Cup qualifying, the USMNT is ready to begin qualifying for the 2022 World Cup. The last four years have felt like a lifetime on and off the pitch in the U.S., but Sept. 2 marks the start of an opportunity to rewrite the script, a chance to cast off the miserable low of 2017 and show the country how much the team has improved.

Or not — we’ll see. 

Concacaf World Cup qualifying begins for the USMNT on Sept. 2 against El Salvador. After the match in El Salvador, the U.S. hosts Canada on Sept. 5 and then travels to Honduras to play on Sept. 8. The last game of this first WCQ window is the one that has me concerned.

I predict the USMNT to get seven points from these first three qualifying games in the form of victories against El Salvador and Canada, but a hard-fought draw in Honduras. Why is that? The Olímpico Metropolitano, and really anywhere in Honduras, is a fortress.

We’re all getting nice and familiar with 20-year-old USMNT phenom Brenden Aaronson at this point. The Medford, New Jersey native flew through the youth ranks at Philadelphia Union and immediately established himself as one of MLS’s brightest attackers despite being just a teenager. 

In December 2018, after more than a year without a coach, U.S. Soccer tapped Gregg Berhalter to lead the USMNT through the 2022 World Cup. Before he even took the field for his first training session, many American fans were unhappy with the hire. Now nearly three years later, is it OK to like what Berhalter is doing with the USMNT?

I’m pretty used to getting hate mail these days. When you discuss human rights in relation to soccer, people get pretty upset and are not afraid to send anonymous emails spewing hatred toward me, which ironically proves my point more often than not. 

I’ve never gotten as much hate mail as I have this week when I reported on Carli Lloyd refusing to join her teammates in kneeling to protest the ongoing racial inequalities in the U.S. and around the world. 

A single tear of joy trickled out of my eye Friday morning when the news appeared on my phone that Canada defeated Sweden to win the gold medal in women’s soccer. I wasn’t crying for the maple syrup queens; I was overwhelmed with happiness knowing I wouldn’t have to cover games in the middle of the night anymore.

Concacaf, the ragtag group of 41 soccer-playing nations and territories in North America, Central America and the Caribbean, can now definitively claim it is the best confederation in FIFA. With three medals from the 2020 Olympics, Concacaf is taking home more hardware than any other region.