Stadiums

If I had a nickel for every time an EFL Championship match had a goal that was too big, I'd have two nickels — which isn't a lot, but it's weird it's happened twice.

For the second weekend in a row, a Championship match had a delayed start as one goal was larger than the other, again by two inches. This time, the inconsistency occurred in Kingston upon Hull, where Hull City hosted Birmingham City. Referee Leigh Doughty noticed the issue during his pre-match check.

Austin FC has advanced to the Western Conference semifinals of the MLS Cup Playoffs after overcoming the realest of Real Salt Lake challenges: Pablo Mastroeni's team — a massive underdog away from home at Q2 Stadium — played down a man for 68 minutes, faced 38 shots and still managed to get it to a penalty shootout.    

I've played on long fields, short fields, skinny fields, wide fields. Fields with metal fencing as the net and fields so hilly you could barely see from one goal to another. In high school, the inauguration of our newly-turfed home field was even delayed because movable goals were brought in instead of anchored ones.

But never have I heard of the goals being two different sizes — as was the case at Saturday's EFL Championship match between Wigan Athletic and Cardiff City.

MALANG, Indonesia - Andi Hariyanto says he will never watch a football match again after his wife, two teenage daughters and a cousin were crushed to death in a stampede at an Indonesian stadium last week.

Watching local team Arema FC play on Saturday was a special outing for soccer fan Andi's family, including his two-year-old son.

Saturday night's soccer stadium disaster in Indonesia was one of the world's worst such incidents. Here is a look at some of the worst soccer stadium disasters over the last 40 years:

Back in March, Charlotte FC set the MLS attendance record when 74,479 showed up at Bank of America Stadium for the club's inaugural home match against LA Galaxy. Now the visitors are looking to bring the record back home with a 2023 El Tráfico of LA Galaxy vs LAFC at the Rose Bowl (capacity: 88,565).

Oh, and it's the season opener.

Leicester City's King Power Stadium, which opened in 2002 and became world-renowned as boisterous crowds of over 32,000 roared the Foxes to an impossible 2015-16 Premier League title, has been given the green light by city council to construct an entirely new East Stand.

When you see photos of the ground, you're usually given a view of the 7,000-seat West Stand facing the River Soar.

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.