FIFA Men's World Cup

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. 

In terms of glamour, no group stage game comes close to matching Portugal vs Spain on June 15 at Fisht Olympic Stadium in Sochi. This is, after all, a meeting between the last three European Champions (Spain in ’08 and ’12, Portugal in ’16), and a clash between arguably the world’s best player, Cristiano Ronaldo, and a who’s who of talent concentrated at the mega clubs of the world’s two best domestic leagues.

When it was confirmed that Russia would be opening the 2018 FIFA World Cup with a match against Saudi Arabia at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, the general response was one of deep cynicism: here was a bit of home cooking on FIFA’s end; certainly this was the worst opening match in the history of the tournament.

Let’s see a show of hands: With the U.S. not participating in the World Cup this summer, how many of you are just interested in seeing who wins? OK, that’s about 15 percent of you. Well you’ll probably be asking yourself: When is the World Cup final? 

The World Cup begins on June 14 and lasts more than a full month. The group stages run through June 28, with the knockout rounds beginning on June 30. So when is the World Cup final?

Germany’s “Snubbed XI” just added one of the most electric talents in all of world football. A few weeks ago, the “Snubbed XI” began assembling itself with a preposterously strong attacking core spearheaded by the dropped Borussia Dortmund duo of Mario Gotze and Andre Schurrle (the two players who expertly combined to sink Argentina in extra time back in 2014).

The united bid from the U.S., Mexico and Canada far outscored the Morocco’s 2026 World Cup bid in FIFA’s technical review of the hosts after inspections earlier this year, the Associated Press first reported on Friday. 

The “United Bid” from North America received a score of four out of five while Morocco’s bid scored 2.7, including three aspects labeled “high risk” for the African nation. 

Let’s be honest, you’re probably sick of the Paolo Guerrero story by now. The will-he, won’t-he narrative has gone on for eight months and it’s almost as unbearable as the Ross and Rachel storyline that kept people watching “Friends” for years even though it was never ever really all that funny. 

No qualified nation’s World Cup cycle has been quite as dramatic as that of Egypt’s. The Pharaohs got off to a flyer in qualifying before an August defeat to Uganda threw everything in jeopardy. Step forward Mohamed Salah.