England and Croatia played out a testament to the UEFA Nations League in front of 78,221 Wembley spectators with the unique winner-takes-all circumstances in Group 4 making it immensely more enjoyable than a typical November friendly two years before a major international tournament.
The USWNT U-17 Women's World Cup campaign took a bad turn on Saturday. Featured on FS2 — one of the few soccer matches on TV in the U.S. on a day dominated by college football — the Americans were routed by North Korea 3-0 in their second Group C match in Uruguay.
The U.S. opened the tournament with a 3-0 win while North Korea lost 4-1. Perhaps the Americans assumed they’d have an easy win based on those scores, but that was anything but the case.
The U.S. will be at the U-20 Men’s World Cup. Alex Mendez and Uly Llanez made sure of that on Friday night.
The USMNT is currently playing in the Concacaf U-20 Championship in Bradenton, Florida. After crushing it in the first group stage — five wins with 39 goals for and two against — the U.S. needed just one more win in the second group stage to ensure one of four Concacaf spots at the 2019 U-20 World Cup.
They got that win in style, beating Costa Rica 4-0 thanks to a couple impressive goals from Mendez and Llanez.
Guillermo Ochoa was awarded the Silver Glove at the 2018 World Cup, but it seems never really has gotten his due as one of the world's best goalies. A serially underrated goalkeeper (he probably should’ve won the Gold Glove), Ochoa is still making incredible saves more than 13 years after this Mexico national team debut.
The Netherlands has had its share of troubles in recent years. The three-time World Cup runners-up missed out on the 2016 Euros and the 2018 World Cup.
On Friday, the Dutch looked like they’re back among the world’s elite, dominating World Cup champion France in a 2-0 win in the UEFA Nations League. Much of the praise must go to coach Ronald Koeman and the defensive efforts of the men in orange.
In 2016, Iceland was the darling of the football world. Buoyed by bearded backers belting out their brilliant Viking chant, Iceland reached the quarterfinals of the European Championship, the country’s first-ever major international tournament.
The following year, Iceland qualified for its first-ever World Cup, becoming the lowest-populated country to ever reach the tournament. Qualification coincided with Iceland peaking at No. 18 in FIFA’s rankings of international teams earlier this year, an astonishing climb after hitting the nadir of No. 131 just six years prior.