This USMNT team is very young; they'll be the youngest at Qatar. Sometimes they look like serious 2026 World Cup contenders, sometimes they look lucky to have qualified for the 2022 tournament. Friday's 2-0 loss to Japan was a look at, as we outlined in our match preview, many of the worst-case scenarios for this team.
The world works in mysterious ways. That was the case for Indonesian forward and captain Zulham Zamrun as he made one of the most remarkable recoveries in sports history during a Liga 2 match in Indonesia.
The 34-year-old captain had given it all for his team Persela. With his team leading 2-1 and just seconds left in the game... disaster struck. Zamrun had picked up a horrific injury. We’re not sure what was hurt, all we know is that he had to be taken off via stretcher.
In the final international break before the World Cup, the USMNT faces an interesting set of matches against some infrequent opponents as Gregg Berhalter looks to formulate his final roster.
The international period begins on Sep. 22 with a friendly match against Japan at 8:25 a.m. ET in Düsseldorf, Germany. This is followed by a friendly against Saudi Arabia on Sep. 27 in Murcia, Spain.
Gregg Berhalter’s United States men’s national team plays its first of two friendlies on Friday vs. Japan. The game is being played on neutral ground in Düsseldorf, Germany. Here are some USMNT vs Japan predictions and scenarios.
Up first will be the overall scenarios, and then it'll be broken down by the three sections (attack, midfield and defense).
DOHA - "Stop! Can't you see the metro station is full? Stop!" a frazzled supervisor shouted as green-vested marshals linked arms to contain thousands of fans streaming from the stadium that will host soccer's World Cup final in Qatar.
It was after midnight on Friday and, for hours, nearly 78,000 people had been filing out of the stadium after a near-capacity match tested the small Gulf state's readiness for the tournament, which kicks off on Nov. 20.
Sydney United 58 FC — a semi-professional club that plays in the third divison — made history Saturday by reaching the Australia Cup final with a dramatic 3-2 extra time victory over the A-League's Brisbane Roar.
In a back and forth affair, Riku Danzaki opened the scoring for Brisbane, but Sydney's Matthew Bilic leveled before halftime. 33-year-old Englishman Charlie Austin restored normality with a 63rd-minute penalty, but Patrick Antelmi kept the "cupset" alive with one in the 71st to knot the match at 2-2.
HONG KONG - Iran hopes history will repeat itself at this November's World Cup in Qatar, 24 years after overcoming a fractious build-up to score a memorable triumph over the United States — the country's decades-long geopolitical rival — in France.
As the teams prepare to clash again, and their governments wrangle over reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear pact, the Iranian side's preparations have been thrown into turmoil by a divided squad and maneuvering over its leadership.
BENGALURU - India's soccer fraternity breathed a sigh of relief as FIFA lifted the suspension imposed on it after 11 days, but the decision came too late for Gokulam Kerala FC whose hopes of playing at the AFC Women's Club Championship were shattered.
FIFA suspended the All India Football Federation (AIFF) on Aug. 15 for undue third-party influence leading to Gokulam Kerala being banned from the club championship — a pilot tournament before the launch of the AFC Women's Champions League in 2024.
No country has been distancing itself from middle school putdowns as effectively as Turkey this summer.
Back in June, the United Nations agreed to officially change the country's name from Turkey to its Turkish name of Türkiye. While obviously not a big deal inside the country, NPR's Peter Kenyon reported that the move was a rebrand "to dissociate the country's name from the bird that traditionally appears on American dining tables at Thanksgiving and from the slang definition of a turkey as something that doesn't work or is foolish."
The Ballon d’Or will be announced in October this year, however the Fallon d’Floor award may as well be handed out now. A player in Malaysia’s Premier League by the name of Sunday Afolabi put on one of the most magnificent flop performances the soccer world has ever seen. Is this the worst soccer flop ever?
Afolabi’s team Perak FC had a 2-1 lead over league leader Kelantan on Wednesday with little time left in the game.