MANCHESTER - Next week's World Cup qualifying games in Europe and beyond are set to be heavily affected by clubs refusing to release players for international duty, COVID-19 quarantines and travel restrictions.
Inter Milan announced on Thursday that all of their players will be pulled out of international duty after two more positive COVID-19 cases at the club.
LONDON - England manager Gareth Southgate has dropped Liverpool full back Trent Alexander-Arnold from his squad while recalling on-loan West Ham midfielder Jesse Lingard for this month's World Cup qualifying matches against San Marino, Albania and Poland.
Alexander-Arnold has been a regular in the England squad since breaking into the side ahead of the 2018 World Cup but Southgate said his form had cost him his spot.
Former Italy captain Daniele De Rossi has joined Roberto Mancini's national team staff as technical coach, the Italian Federation said on Thursday.
Ex-Roma midfielder De Rossi is fourth on Italy’s all-time appearance list having played 117 times for the Azzurri, and takes up his first coaching role after retiring from playing last year when he left Boca Juniors.
Arsene Wenger says FIFA should consider holding the World Cup and Euros every two years and that a review of the international match calendar will consider compressed qualifiers and enforced breaks for players.
The former Arsenal manager is Chief of Global Football Development at world soccer's governing body and a close advisor to president Gianni Infantino.
Wenger said the current four year wait for a World Cup is unfair to players and the focus should be on "competitions of meaning," including the European Championships.
MADRID - Luis Enrique has named four uncapped players in Spain's 24-man squad for the upcoming triple header of World Cup qualifiers against Greece, Georgia and Kosovo later this month.
Barcelona's 18-year-old forward Pedri, Brighton & Hove Albion goalkeeper Robert Sánchez, Eibar attacker Bryan Gil and fullback Pedro Porro of Sporting are the new faces in a squad that only contains six players from Spain's “big three” clubs.
The fighting spirit of Uruguay has enabled the country with a population of just 3.5 million (smaller than Connecticut) to collect two World Cup titles and the ninth-most wins in the tournament’s illustrious history. However, this combativeness has occasionally crossed the line, most notably in the collection of the fastest red card in World Cup history and Luis Suárez’s bite of Giorgio Chiellini.
FIFA will aim to announce in the last quarter of 2021 the host cities for the 2026 World Cup being jointly staged by the United States, Canada and Mexico, soccer's world governing body said in a statement on Tuesday.
Paolo Rossi, Italy's goalscoring hero from their victorious 1982 World Cup campaign and scorer of a hat-trick against Brazil in one of the most famous matches in the competition's history, has died at the age of 64.
The celebrated striker's death comes with the soccer world still in mourning for Argentina icon Diego Maradona, who passed away late last month. Italian TV channel RAI Sport, where Rossi had been working as a pundit, said on Thursday "Pablito" had died of an "incurable disease.”
The draw for UEFA World Cup 2022 Qualifying took place Monday, December 7, leaving us with an enticing list of matchups to look forward to in 2021.
The 2022 World Cup qualifying groups have been drawn for European countries pic.twitter.com/rfziJTsq0j
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) December 7, 2020
La selección nacional de Brasil, conocida históricamente por ser la mejor selección del mundo en su historia (por tener más copas del mundo que cualquier otra), está volviendo a tener números de miedo, que asustan a cualquiera. Luego de haber tenido una era catastrófica entre el 2010 y el 2018 en el que fracasaron en absolutamente todo, están volviendo a renacer desde la llegada de su actual entrenador, Tite.