Ricardo Pepi won’t be playing in Major League Soccer for much longer. The 18-year-old American phenom has requested a transfer from FC Dallas and is being eyed up by some of Europe’s biggest clubs. In an interview with 90 Minute Football, Pepi revealed that his dream is to play for Real Madrid. That begs the question; has an American played for Real Madrid?
An incredible Portland Timbers bicycle kick goal from Dairon Asprilla rocked Providence Park on Wednesday night as his side defeated San Jose 2-0.
Asprilla’s goal instantly went viral. A bicycle kick from outside of the penalty box is a rarity in soccer and quickly was featured on SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays.
Tajon Buchanan scored the lone goal and the New England Revolution broke the MLS record for points in a season by notching a 1-0 victory over the Colorado Rapids on Wednesday night at Foxborough, Mass.
Buchanan's tally in the 74th minute helped the Revolution (22-4-7) improve their point total to 73, one more than the mark set by Los Angeles FC in 2019.
The Houston Dynamo are in a heated race in the standings as we head into the final stretch of the MLS season. With just a few matches left, Houston leads rivals FC Dallas and Austin FC for the “First Place In Texas And Not Last Place In The West Cup” I just made up. But the Dynamo stumbled in their attempts to not suck as much as the other Texas clubs with a 3-0 loss to the LA Galaxy on Wednesday night, a match highlighted by a Houston Dynamo proposal fail.
Luka Stojanović drove home the tie-breaking goal in the third minute of stoppage time, and the visiting Chicago Fire stunned reeling FC Cincinnati with a 4-3 victory on Wednesday night.
Just two minutes after Cincinnati's Tyler Blackett clipped in a cross amid traffic to tie the match at 3-3, Stojanović drilled a laser from outside of the top of the box that just cleared the arm of leaping FCC goalkeeper Przemysław Tytoń. It's just the second road victory of the season for Chicago (8-16-7, 31 points), which like Cincinnati, has already been eliminated from playoff contention.
Coming from the Italian word typhu, meaning fever, tifo now refers to "passionate support for a sports team," as sports fandom often consumes the body much like a sickness.
The 2009 Confederations Cup was simultaneously the closest the USMNT has come to a major international trophy and a near abject failure. Bob Bradley’s Americans were extremely lucky to escape the group stage but then came within a Lucio header of global glory. A dozen years later, where are those USMNT players? Many of them remain fixtures on our TVs — not all as players, but as pundits. Others now fill the ranks of coaching and technical staffs at clubs around the world.
Everyone is well-versed in Alphonso Davies’ game-changing pace and ability to dice any defender on the planet off the dribble, but it’s his increasing effectiveness in the final third that makes the 20-year-old standout as one of football’s brightest talents.
That’s not to say it’s a new development in his game. At the tender age of 17 Davies was already one of Major League Soccer’s most devastating players in attack, scoring eight goals and providing 10 assists in 31 games to help facilitate his $11 million move to Bayern. (He’s now valued at $155 million.)
If you were a documentary filmmaker, you couldn’t be handed a much better subject than the life of Wayne Rooney. He achieved worldwide recognition at the age of 16, played with an unmatchable style, finished as the all-time leading scorer for both Manchester United and England and courted controversy throughout it all.
Like it or not, the fate of the USMNT is intrinsically linked with Major League Soccer. While there will always be players who jump straight to European football like Christian Pulisic, the U.S. men’s squad will always be comprised mostly of players who at some point in their careers have gone through the MLS ranks. For this reason, the league’s 22 Under 22 list of the best young MLS players is a road map for future USMNT success.