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VITORIA-GASTEIZ, Spain — Barcelona goalkeeper Neto made an embarrassing gaffe as his side were held to a 1-1 draw away to Alaves on Saturday, despite playing the final half an hour with an extra man.

Barca fell behind in the 31st minute after a moment of madness from Brazilian keeper Neto, who clumsily allowed a back pass from Gerard Pique to trickle through his legs towards goal, and Luis Rioja nipped in to nudge the ball into the empty net.

The USL Championship title game set for Sunday was called off because of a COVID-19 outbreak among one the teams.

The Tampa Bay Rowdies had multiple positive COVID-19 tests confirmed early Saturday and will not play the Phoenix Rising FC for the league title. Both teams will be named their respective conference champions instead.

USL Championship Final Cancelled, Season Concludes with Tampa Bay, Phoenix as Conference Title-Winnershttps://t.co/WKoToP0zTV

Those of us waking up Saturday morning hoping to see some more rampaging action from Christian Pulisic were disappointed when the American was pulled out of the Chelsea lineup late with an injury suffered during warmups. Fortunately, Josh Sargent filled the void admirably, scoring his first Bundesliga goal of the season with a well-taken strike.

Is Frank Lampard anti-American? Jesse Marsch appeared to make such claims last week, but now the Chelsea boss is hitting back at the accusations.

Marsch, who coaches RB Salzburg, laid some heavy accusations at his fellow coach on a recent podcast. The Wisconsin native essentially claimed Lampard had anti-American bias over his treatment of Christian Pulisic upon his arrival at Chelsea.

Former U.S. women's national soccer team coach Jill Ellis talked informally with D.C. United last week about the club's head-coaching vacancy, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

According to the newspaper, Ellis is believed to be the first woman ever viewed as a candidate to become the head coach of a Major League Soccer team. It's an idea The18 floated last year.

With several teams destined to finish the regular season without playing all of their scheduled games, Major League Soccer announced Thursday that qualification and seeding for the playoffs will be determined on a points-per-game basis.

Jaroslaw Niezgoda scored twice and added an assist as the Portland Timbers clinched a Major League Soccer playoff berth with a 5-2 victory against the visiting Los Angeles Galaxy on Wednesday night.

Diego Valeri, Eryk Williamson and Andy Polo also tallied and Yimmi Chara had three assists for the Timbers (10-5-5, 35 points). Portland moved into a second-place tie with the rival Seattle Sounders in the Western Conference, one point behind Sporting Kansas City.

DORTMUND, Germany — Borussia Dortmund needed a 78th-minute penalty from Jadon Sancho and a stoppage-time goal from Erling Haaland to beat visitors Zenit St Petersburg 2-0 in their Champions League Group F match on Wednesday.

The Germans, who lost their opener to Lazio, controlled the game from the start but carved out few chances before Vyacheslav Karavaev inexplicably wrestled Thorgan Hazard to the ground for Sancho to score from the spot.

Haaland added a second in stoppage time with a powerful run.

Christian Pulisic put on a display of modern footballing excellence (handball!) in Chelsea’s 4-0 Champions League win over Krasnodar on Wednesday. Chelsea’s one-goal advantage was under siege when Pulisic entered the match in the 71st minute, but the American quickly smashed a shot into Alyaksandr Martynovich’s arm for a penalty, whiffed on an overhead kick, provided a hockey assist on Hakim Ziyech’s goal and finally scored one of his own. 

It was 19 minutes of pure Pulisic Ball.