An early goal from Mallory Pugh, followed by an Alex Morgan brace and Carli Lloyd’s 99th USWNT goal led to a 4-1 U.S. friendly victory over Mexico Thursday night in Jacksonville, Florida. Katie Johnson pulled one back for El Tri with a nice chip, but the U.S. showed why they’re the overwhelming favorites at next October’s CONCACAF Women’s Championship.
Mallory Pugh scored the opening goal for the USWNT against Mexico on Thursday night, continuing her scorching start to 2018. The 19-year-old’s strike was her fourth of the year for the U.S., including a January brace against Denmark and last month’s goal against France in the SheBelieves Cup.
Captain Alex Morgan took possession in Mexico’s attacking third and played Megan Rapinoe into the box. Rapinoe used the outside of her right boot to flick the ball beyond the onrushing keeper and towards the streaking Pugh.
The Highlands Ranch native did the rest.
A few days ago, Mexico manager Juan Carlos Osorio was lamenting Croatia’s decision to send Luka Modric and Marcelo Brozovic back to Europe ahead of the two nations’ meeting on Tuesday night. Osorio was looking forward to playing one of Europe's most talented midfields, and the loss of those two exceptional talents appeared to have dumbed down the excercise.
For anyone who paid the slightest bit of attention to Argentina throughout the CONMEBOL World Cup qualifying cycle, Spain’s resounding 6-1 defeat of La Albiceleste comes as no surprise. Without Messi, Argentina has zero business being at this World Cup. The statistics, again, bear repeating:
Without Messi, Argentina played eight matches in qualifying. They won one. They scored 0.75 goals per game. They lost to Ecuador, Paraguay and Bolivia. They drew with Venezuela. Tata Martino was sacked and so was his successor, Edgardo Bauza.
Andrija Novakovich is a 21-year-old forward for Dutch club Telstar. He’s not exactly a household name among U.S. fans, but his debut for the USMNT on Tuesday was one of the best moments for U.S. soccer in months.
France defeated Russia 3-1 on Tuesday in a friendly at Saint Petersburg’s Krestovsky Stadium (the most expensive World Cup stadium of all time) with a brace from Kylian Mbappe and a wonderfully struck free kick from sometimes Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba.
There is a massive divide in how different generations have come to view and use the video-sharing network known as YouTube. I’m an old man geezer kind of content boy, and when I first learned that people were using YouTube to do things besides watch Ronaldinho highlights, I stared off into space for 17 straight hours and whispered the word “vlogger” until my temporal lobes exploded in a cacophony of new age understanding.
We all know Messi has infinite magic in his left foot. However, not many of us are aware that ‘La Pulga’ also possesses some hypnotic verbal abilities.
FC Barcelona’s Paulinho has recently revealed in an interview with El Periódico that a few words uttered by Messi were enough to prevent him from taking a free kick in an international friendly against Messi’s Argentina.
There was a truly frightening moment during yesterday’s 2018 King’s Cup Final (an annual international tournament in Bangkok) between Slovakia and Thailand when Slovak captain Martin Skrtel went down in the 28th minute after being struck in the face by the ball.
The 33-year-old Fenerbahce defender was immediately knocked unconscious by the impact, and a quick-thinking teammate did the right thing by ensuring that Skrtel hadn’t swallowed his tongue, an action which could potentially be fatal because of the resulting airway obstruction.
Nobody expected a 36-year-old Landon Donovan (who’d really been out of the game for a few years) to tear it up with Club Leon following his shock return to soccer, but we certainly expected more than just four league appearances totaling 37 minutes after joining back on Jan. 12.
Minutes have been hard to come by for Donovan as manager Gustavo Diaz monitors his progress. However, with a match against Tigres looming next Saturday, Donovan might’ve forced himself into the conversation with this instinctive finish against the San Jose Earthquakes.