USMNT

18-year-old American Sergiño Dest made his Ajax senior debut on Saturday in the Johan Cruijff Shield, going the full 90 minutes and helping his side to its first piece of silverware this season following a 2-0 victory over Chucky Lozano’s PSV.

Dest impressed last season for Jong Ajax, the club’s reserve team, while making 17 appearances in the Eerste Divisie (the Dutch second tier) and tallying one goal and two assists. He also scored one goal and provided one assist in seven appearances in the prestigious UEFA Youth League.

After making his Chelsea debut as a 65th-minute substitute against Kawasaki Frontale on Friday, Christian Pulisic was handed his first-ever Chelsea start Tuesday as the Blues defeated Barcelona 2-1 in Saitama, Japan. 

True to his word, Christian Pulisic began training with Chelsea FC on Tuesday, July 16, just nine days after the USMNT’s defeat to Mexico in the Gold Cup final. His decision to join-up with the squad in lieu of an extended holiday break earned praise from Blues boss Frank Lampard, and he now has three full training sessions under his belt following today’s open practice in Yokohama, Japan.

If you don’t believe me, just look at his feet.

We still don’t know what number he’ll be wearing in Chelsea blue, but we now officially know what day 20-year-old American Christian Pulisic will be joining up with his new club: Tuesday, July 16 — just nine days after the USMNT’s defeat to Mexico in the Gold Cup final.

We’ve known, for a while now, that Giovanni Reyna, the son of former USMNT captain Claudio Reyna, is a special talent. Now he’s starting to show Europe how good he is.

It’s with great sadness that our summer of soccer 2019 draws to a close. The USWNT lifted the World Cup, Brazil triumphed on home soil at the Copa América, Mexico reclaimed the Gold Cup and we’re into the final week of the Africa Cup of Nations. Unless you’re eagerly anticipating the ICC, our glorious summer is at an end.

Let’s face it, women have faced inequality for as long as we have written history. Women’s soccer players are no exception. 

Today, the U.S. women’s soccer team — the No. 1 women’s soccer team in the world — has to deal with the reality that if both the men and women’s teams played 20 friendlies a year, the women would earn, at most, $99,000 while the men would earn an average of $263,320. That’s just ridiculous. It seems like some kind of sick joke, but I can assure you, it’s not. 

Concacaf announced the redesigned qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup on Wednesday. The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football has made it even simpler for the two heavyweights in the region — Mexico and the United States — to qualify for the 2022 tournament in Qatar.