World Cup

Mexico is off to an auspicious start in its World Cup qualifying group, defeating El Salvador at home 3-0 and Honduras away 2-0. What will come as a pleasant surprise to Mexico fans is how well El Tri's youngsters have played in the two games.

Everyone knows how good Jesus "Tecatito" Corona can be, the Porto winger having flashed his considerable potential on numerous occasions, but his goal to put Mexico ahead of Honduras on Tuesday was something special. 

UPDATE: here's footage of the singing of La Marseillaise at Wembley. 

Despite our geographic proximity, or perhaps because of it, the English and French endure a relationship that is best labelled “tetchy”.

Andres Cantor is the best soccer announcer in the world this is not up for debate, although we do allow we have not seen/heard every single soccer announcer in the world. It's kind of like how we haven't seen every single soccer player in the world, but still recognize Lionel Messi as the best. 

In news that can perhaps be filed under “Yet More Evidence That The Pope Is a Committed Catholic”, the World Anti-Doping Agency has released a 325-page report accusing the Russian Athletics Federation (ARAF) of sending athletes to the 2012 London Olympics that it complicity encouraged to use performance enhancing drugs. The report calls for Russia to be banned from the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

Mexico's run in the U-17 World Cup came to an end Thursday in a 4-2 loss to NIgeria in a game that mayy would describe as a thriller (we would describe it like this, for example).

The U-17s got off to a near-perfect start when Kevin Magaña put El Tri ahead in the seventh minute.

Goal Mexico to Nigeria https://t.co/0DguFijwxJ

The Mexico U-17 team took another step toward earning a third-straight trip to the U-17 World Cup final Monday by defeating Ecuador 2-0.

Claudio Zamudio's volley from the center of the box off of a corner in the 41st minute opened the scoring, and Bryan Salazar nailed a penalty in the 55th minute, after Jose Gurrola drew a foul, to put the game away. This is Mexico's third-straight trip o the semi-finals.

One of the cool things about winning something major in sports (other than, obviously, winning something major in sports) is that you get to meet the President. This is what happened to the USWNT Tuesday, as they visited the White House and hung out with Barack Obama. 

Obama had some very kind words to say about the USWNT, including this perfect line about the USWNT and changing peoples' minds about womens sports and soccer.

Shocking is a good word to describe how the World Cup qualifiers in South America started. From historic victories to close calls, here are the biggest winners and losers in South America during the first round of qualifying games for Russia 2018.

Winners:

Ecuador

Happy for this result. We neep to keep united to get more victories for our country. Thank you all. See you pic.twitter.com/JltCNhxO3o

It's hard to become one of the World Cup top scorers. Generally, the stakes are higher, the competition is more competitive and the atmosphere is more intense.

But, somehow, these players have managed to do it anyway. Here are the top scorers in World Cup history.

World Cup Top Scorers

1. Miroslav Klose: 16 goals, 24 appearances (Germany)

2. Ronaldo: 15 Goals, 19 appearances (Brazil)

3. Gerd Muller: 14 goals, 13 appearances (Germany)

4. Just Fontaine: 13 goals, five appearances (France)