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U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo's social media commentary earned her the wrath of Brazilians before she arrived in Rio. She dug a much deeper hole for herself Friday by insulting the Swedish team that had just bounced the heavily favored Americans from the tournament in a penalty shootout. "I'm very proud of this team. But I also think we played a bunch of cowards. The best team did not win today. I think you saw American heart. You saw us give everything we had today," she told reporters. "Sweden dropped off. They didn't want to open play. They didn't want to...

Pele apologized for disappointing BraziliansPele says his poor health will keep him from lighting the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics. In a statement on Friday, the 75-year-old soccer great says "I'm not physically able to attend the opening of the Olympics."

The-Linesman-small-logoBy any honest reckoning, this European Championship has been a prolonged exercise in mediocrity. The football on offer has been the football of an underconfident, uptight, even neurotic, Europe. Euro 2016 has been played under the shadow of the Islamist terrorism which devastated France last November and Belgium in March. While there have been no mass terrorist incidents in France in the course of the tournament, Istanbul’s international airport was attacked on June 28. Armbands were worn at the games after — including at Italy’s game last week to mourn nine citizens killed in an ISIL attack in far-away Bangladesh...

Dan Gilbert and Tom Gores have recently floated the idea of bringing a Major League Soccer team to Detroit. The initial plan for the team’s new stadium was to place it on the site of the unfinished Wayne County jail, and there’s been some talk about financing the project, in part, with taxpayer dollars. Attendance at MLS games has been strong and growing, averaging 21,574 fans per match in 2015 — more than the NBA’s average of 17,826. But despite the growing popularity of soccer in the United States and despite what proponents of this new team might say, a...

The fart heard 'round the world is an underdog story. It's the tale of a humble fart, unloosed on the world in a moment of innocence in the anonymity of a game between Swedish soccer clubs nobody had ever heard of. Its maker is Adam Lindin Ljungkvist, a left back for Järna SK's reserve team. They were playing Pershagen SK. He already had a yellow card. He also had "a bad stomach," per the Guardian. So, as he told Länstidningen Södertälje, which we're going to guess is either a newspaper or a cheap, self-assembled coffee table, "I simply let go."...

If you’re a casual football fan, there’s a chance you won’t be familiar with the 1983-84 season in Romania’s Divizia C, Serie VIII. It was so tight that in a 16-team league, with two points for a win, only two points separated second and 15th. Some teams avoided relegation on goal difference – and finished in the top half of the division. On the final day, the as-it-stands table probably exploded after 10 minutes. At least there was only one as-it-stands table. We’ll need at least two to make some kind of sense of this week’s matches at Euro 2016:...

The decision to expand Euro 2016 to a 24-team tournament suggested that the group stage would be somewhat cagey, particularly in the first matches, but the opening round of fixtures has met expectations. Who would have thought that Hungary would be the only team with more than a single-goal lead going into added time at this stage? There haven’t been many goals but a number of players have caught the eye. Here is our statistically calculated team of the round:

Dozens of Russian 'ultras' clashed with England fans chanting 'We hate Russia' during a fresh round of violence in the centre of Lille today. French police used pepper spray as two groups of supporters squared up in the northern French city – just hours after a separate flare-up at a bar. Punches were thrown during the brawl in the early hours of this morning after England fans had left a nearby pub. Russia's 'hyper violent' thugs had earlier ignored UEFA's threat to ban their country from Euro 2016 as they attacked English and Welsh supporters near the city's train station.

The BBC has warned English football fans not to dress as crusaders when attending the Euro 2016 tournament this summer as they might cause offence to Muslims. The advice comes via their ‘iWonder’ website, aimed at a younger audience, which asks such pressing questions as “Was Shakespeare a feminist?” and “How green is my commute?” Posing the question: “Is it wrong to dress as a crusader for an England match?” the answer appears to be a resounding “yes”. “Crusaders were the perpetrators of violent attacks across Europe and the Middle East on Muslims, Jews and pagans,” the website intones, suggesting...

Quick (no web searching!), who was the 2016 NCAA Division I women's basketball champion? (Don't tell me that your office didn't do a women’s NCAA tournament bracket contest!) Okay, given that they've (UConn) won it four times in-a-row, that's too easy. Let's try again: Who was the last (2015) WNBA champion? (Hint: They've won it four of the last five seasons.) Don't feel bad, I didn’t know either, and twice in their recent five-year championship run they defeated the team from my home state in the championship series. Even better: Can you name five WNBA teams? How about five WNBA...

Chilling evidence was unearthed following the confiscation of the laptop of Salah Abdeslam, primary orchestrator of the Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks. Following Abdeslam’s capture, police discovered plans to attack football fans in Marseille where England will play Russia next month in the Euro 2016. Authorities fear that ISIS followers will execute the attacks outlined despite Abdeslam’s arrest. Plans include suicide bombings and large scale shooting attacks on the tens of thousands of fans who are expected to flock to the city for England’s opening match. Marseille’s busy Old Port, home to many of the city’s most popular bars and...

Australia's players looked relaxed during training at the Stadium of Light on Thursday as they prepared to put a spanner in the works of England's Euro 2016 preparations. The Socceroos are in Sunderland ahead of Friday night's friendly clash with Roy Hodgson's men, a game in which all of the focus is on the home side. But while Three Lions boss Hodgson finalises his plans for France this summer, Australia are aiming to go under the radar and claim what would undeniably be a surprise victory.

“Eleven pages! You’ve got to be kidding me! No wonder they can’t give the magazine away. Can’t give it away. This is a magazine from my childhood. This is a magazine that I never, ever didn’t as a kid read from cover to cover.” “I’m sure to soccer fans this is an enormous event, which, God bless them, I have no issue with. But mainstream America doesn’t even know — if I go out and poll the newsroom right now, no one’s ever heard of this event. My guys in here didn’t even know what it is, nor did I.”

The retired U.S. Women's Soccer star has been hired to serve as an analyst and contributor for the sports network. Wambach will cover soccer during the Rio Olympics and the UEFA European Championships this summer and will also work for other parts of the network such as ESPN Films and shows like "Outside the Lines."

Offending video featured three young players engaging in explicit actsIt was billed as a goodwill trip and a chance to unwind after a heroic relegation escape, instead Leicester City's close-season Thai tour became the turning point in their improbable title charge - all thanks to a racist sex tape. The offending video featured three young players including James Pearson, son of then manager Nigel Pearson, engaging in explicit acts with a group of Thai women in a Bangkok hotel. Filmed by the players in May 2016, the footage of the sniggering men soon ended up in the British tabloid...

Chelsea and Tottenham play to a 2-all tie, giving Leicester City the Title. 5000-to-1 odds at the start of the season!

The 96 Liverpool soccer fans who died in the Hillsborough Stadium disaster were "unlawfully killed" because of errors by the police, a jury concluded Tuesday. Relatives of the victims of the 1989 disaster, some wearing Liverpool scarves, were in tears outside a specially-built courtroom after new inquests into Britain's worst sporting disaster.

Manchester City have been drawn against Real Madrid in the semifinals of the Champions League, while Atletico Madrid will take on Bayern Munich. City, in the final four for the first time in their history, will meet Zinedine Zidane's side at the Etihad on Tuesday, April 26 before making the trip to the Bernabeu on Wednesday, May 4.

These Colors, Don’t Ruin: Team USA goes incognito by Daniel Clark The United States national soccer team put on a dismal performance in a recent 2-0 loss in Guatemala, during which they were unfocused and incohesive, and generally very much unlike themselves. You might not have even known that the USA was playing if the graphics on your screen hadn't told you so, because the players were not wearing our national colors. Instead, they wore black jerseys with patches of blue and burgundy on the shoulders. If you didn't know better, you’d have thought the Guatemalans were playing against some...

Migrant workers building a stadium for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar "have suffered systematic abuses, in some cases forced labor," a new report from Amnesty International claims. The report, titled "The ugly side of the beautiful game: Exploitation on a Qatar 2022 World Cup site", paints a damning picture of conditions for migrant laborers.