Asia

The Iraq U16 national team has been caught using overage players. Airport officials in Baghdad were suspicious of the players, who had used the trick of shaving as a way to look younger.

Qatar’s 2022 World Cup just can’t seem to stay away from controversy. First it was the allegations of bribery, then it was the deaths of workers building the stadiums (still an ongoing issue), and more recently it was the decision to host the 2022 World Cup during November and December.

The USWNT defeated Japan 4-2 to begin Tournament of Nations play (essentially the warmup for October’s World Cup qualifying event) with Alex Morgan registering a hat-trick inside 56 minutes and The Best FIFA Women’s Player finalist Megan Rapinoe adding the fourth in the 66th.   

The final day of the dramatic cave rescue operation in northern Thailand has come to a close after the final four boys and their coach were successfully freed from the Tham Luang cave complex, following on from the two previous days in which eight members of the Wild Boars soccer team had been successfully rescued by a team of elite divers.

Fernando Torres just finished his time at boyhood club Atletico Madrid, and he's now a free agent. The world is his oyster. Torres is 34 years old, and he's obviously coming to the twilight of his career. But, as he showed for Atletico this past season in La Liga and the Europa League, there's still life in him.

After expert divers rescued four members of the Wild Boars soccer team yesterday during a dramatic operation inside the Tham Luang cave complex in Northern Thailand, Thai navy seals confirmed that an additional four boys had been rescued Monday. A further four boys and their coach remain, but the threat of monsoon rains re-flooding the cave has been downgraded as the chance of rain over the next couple days is low, according to forecasters.

Four members of the Thailand youth soccer team that’s been trapped in the Tham Luang caves have now been rescued, but eight boys remain along with their 25-year-old coach. But why was the soccer team in the cave to begin with, and how have they spent more than two weeks inside the sprawling complex? 

Four of the players from the Wild Boar soccer team in Thailand have been successfully rescued from the Tham Luang caves in Chiang Rai province, but eight boys, ages 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach remain underground with the operation set to resume in 10 to 20 hours.

Rescuers found the missing soccer team in Thailand late Monday local time after a nine day search and rescue operation. Twelve members of the Wild Boar soccer team, ranging in age from 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach had not been seen since June 23.

Some of the team's belongings were spotted outside the cave the day they disappeared. The boys and their coach were exploring popular caves in the Chiang Rai province in northern Thailand. They navigated beyond warning signs that are posted deeper inside the cave network. 

Japan’s entire 2018 World Cup cycle was something of a bitter complaint. Yes, the Samurai Blue qualified for a sixth straight tournament, but manager Vahid Halilhodzic was fired ten weeks before the finals for doing things like losing to the UAE and drawing with Iraq. To begin World Cup play, Japan recorded a 2-1 win over Colombia but somehow managed to look second-best despite playing 87 minutes with a man advantage.