Politics and sports, particularly on the international stage, often intersect. Their connection is amplified during the ConIFA World Cup.
Held every other year since 2014, the ConIFA World Cup gives teams comprised of stateless peoples, ethnic minorities and sub-national entities the opportunity to compete at an international level.
Daniel Arzani has played one season of professional soccer, and his performances have earned him a spot on the Australian team for the World Cup. But how has the 19 year-old taken the A-League by storm, and how did he manage to book his ticket on the plane to Russia after one season with Melbourne City to become the youngest player at World Cup 2018?
Peru is on something of a tear in the Unofficial Football World Championships — the hugely enjoyable competition that uses a boxing-style title system dating back to the first-ever international match to determine which nation is the current title holders.
The World Cup will be held in Russia for the first time ever this coming month. Four World Cup participants in particular will be quite pleased the tournament is scheduled for summer, because all good historians know it’s impossible to conquer Russia in winter (unless you are the Mongols, who didn't qualify). Germany, France, Sweden and Poland have all failed invasions of Russia in their past, so they’ll hope history doesn’t repeat itself when July rolls around.
When Argentina manager Jorge Sampaoli announced his final 23-man roster for the World Cup, he didn't call on one of the hottest strikers on the planet. Inter Milan's Mauro Icardi tied Lazio's Ciro Immobile for golden boot honors in Serie A, scoring 29 goals in 34 games during the 2017-18 season. Instead of being rewarded for a stellar season, Icardi joined the unenviable list of World Cup snubs.
The World Cup is a global phenomenon, with almost the entire world paying attention to the beautiful game at some point over the month-long tournament. This is especially true on social media — the last World Cup final set a record for tweets per minute. So if you want to get involved, you need to know what Twitter handles to follow for the World Cup.
With the World Cup nearly upon us, everyone is making their bold predictions about who is going to win it all, which country will flop and who will win the golden boot
For the first time ever, the FIFA World Cup will utilize video replays after voting unanimously to adopt the system back in March. The Video Assistant Referee (VAR) is most prominently used in Italy’s Serie A, Germany’s Bundesliga and MLS, but a World Cup debut is a different animal entirely. So how does VAR work in soccer and at the 2018 World Cup? Can you get sick from VAR?
Everyone knows the World Cup really gets going once the group stage ends and the knockout rounds begin. While plucky underdogs can get to the Round of 16 and maybe even the quarterfinals, the World Cup bracket is where the big boys make names for themselves.
Soccer, unlike pretty much every other sport, regularly features massive upsets. Because sports like American football and basketball are higher scoring, typically the better team wins in the end. Soccer is low scoring, meaning an underdog can often hold off an opponent for an unlikely result.