Latest news with #Concacaf
Washington Post
a day ago
- General
- Washington Post
Injuries force USMNT to make roster changes as the Gold Cup nears
Already without several key players for its last tournament before the 2026 World Cup, the U.S. men's national soccer team announced Sunday that forward Folarin Balogun will miss the Concacaf Gold Cup with an ankle injury. As players began assembling in Chicago for training camp, Coach Mauricio Pochettino scratched three players from his roster, including Balogun, who was slated to return for the first time since September after recovering from a shoulder injury.
Fox Sports
a day ago
- Sport
- Fox Sports
USMNT's Folarin Balogun to miss Gold Cup with injury; World Cup vet Walker Zimmerman added
Folarin Balogun is the latest projected United States men's national team starter to withdraw from Concacaf Gold Cup duty this summer, joining the likes of Christian Pulisic, Antonee Robinson and Yunus Musah. Monaco striker Balogun was unable to recover in time from the ankle ailment he suffered last month playing for the French Ligue 1 club and will be replaced on USMNT coach's 27-man training camp roster by Eintracht Frankfurt winger Paxten Aaronson. Two other players were also dropped from the squad on Sunday because of injury, U.S. Soccer announced. San Jose Earthquakes fullback DeJaun Jones has what the federation called a "lower body injury," while midfielder Sean Zawadzki of the Columbus Crew has a knee problem. The changes come two days after Crew keeper Patrick Schulte (oblique) was forced out of camp in favor of Chicago Fire backstop Chris Brady. Philadelphia Union defender Nathan Harriel and center back Walker Zimmerman, who started three of the Americans' four games at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, were summoned to replace Jones and Zawadzki. With 43 career caps, Zimmerman becomes the third-most experienced player in camp after Tim Ream and Matt Turner. Zimmerman, who plays for Nashville SC in MLS, helped the U.S. win its most recent Gold Cup title back in 2021. Aaronson is the younger brother of USMNT vet Brenden Aaronson. The 21-year-old had six goals and four assists in 28 games for Dutch Eredivisie side Utrecht last season while on loan from Frankfurt. He, Harriel and Zimmerman were teammates on the 2024 U.S. Olympic squad that reached the second round at last summer's Games in Paris. The U.S. plays the first of its two Gold Cup tuneups on Saturday against Türkiye in East Hartford, Connecticut, then travels west to face Switzerland three days later in Nashville, Tennnessee. Pochettino's team opens the tournament proper on June 15 against Trinidad and Tobago in San Jose, California, then closes out group play with matches against Haiti and guest nation Saudi Arabia. Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports who has covered United States men's and women's national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him @ ByDougMcIntyre . Get more from United States Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
Straits Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- Straits Times
Catarina Macario and US women coast past China in friendly
US forward Catarina Macario wheeling away in celebration in a friendly at Allianz Field in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on May 31. PHOTO: AFP – Catarina Macario scored and had an assist for the United States women's national football team as 'security blanket' Naomi Girma made her return during a comfortable 3-0 friendly victory over China in a friendly in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on May 31. It was the 17th win in 21 games for the English coach Emma Hayes, who was tasked with restoring the Americans to the summit of the women's game following their early 2023 World Cup exit. She has already started the revival with gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics. On May 31, the former Chelsea manager hailed the return of defender Girma – the first million-dollar player in women's football history. It was her first appearance for the US in 2025. Hayes said: 'We've missed her... Just in terms of the way we control the game; her, in a deeper space, just making decisions when to play forward, when not to.' Sam Coffey added: 'Having her on the field is like having a security blanket.' Macario scored in the 28th minute and set up Coffey's goal in the 35th minute. Lindsey Heaps made it 3-0 in the 54th minute at Allianz Field. This was the first of five matches for the US ahead of Concacaf qualifying for the 2027 Women's World Cup in Brazil. Next up for the US are Jamaica in St Louis on May 3. Macario proved she is fully recovered and back to brilliance after an anterior cruciate ligament injury cost her nearly two years of action and saw her miss the 2023 World Cup. She has eight goals and five assists in her past nine starts and was in the right spot at the right time for the opening goal. Macario opened the scoring after 28 minutes, bundling home a close-range finish after good work from Alyssa Thompson. The US doubled their tally seven minutes later with a brilliantly worked goal, which began when the gifted 17-year-old midfielder Lily Yohannes released Thompson down the right, who crossed for Macario. Macario played a short pass into Coffey, who swept home with aplomb. Heaps bagged the US' third in the 54th minute, nodding in past China goalkeeper Pan Hongyan to effectively seal the win. A milestone occurred in the 70th minute when Lo'eau LaBonta replaced Yohannes. LaBonta, 32, became the oldest player to make her US debut, surpassing 30-year-old McCall Zerboni. LaBonta is more than 14 years older than Yohannes. LaBonta said: 'When they called my name, I was sitting being the best cheerleader I could be on the bench. I was like, 'This is amazing. I've never been field view watching the national team'. It was so cool. And they were like, 'Lo, go.' And I was like, 'Go where? All right, let's go!'' REUTERS, AFP Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Vancouver Whitecaps play for country, city and league in Concacaf Champions Cup final
In his post-election victory speech late on the night of 28 April, Canada's prime minister Mark Carney celebrated a momentous political comeback by reinforcing what he felt were the country's three core values: humility, ambition and unity. But in the face of constant threats, gleeful taunts and mounting tension, there was also a warning to the United States. 'President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. That will never ever happen.' Two nights later at Chase Stadium, about 40 minutes south of Trump's Xanadu at Mar-a-Lago, an unfancied but spirited and confident Vancouver Whitecaps outfit embarrassed the garish glitz of Inter Miami – rather deliciously, with the help of a couple of Americans – and easily booked their place in the final of the Concacaf Champions Cup for the very first time, becoming only the third Canadian side ever to qualify for the decider. They play Cruz Azul on Sunday night, and could end the night as the first Canadian side to win the competition – any version of it, dating back to 1962. The team's domestic form sees them currently leading Major League Soccer's Western Conference, while they're one point from the summit of the overall standings. They've been on an unbeaten run of fifteen games and have just two defeats in 24 across all competitions this season, but it somehow gets better. They've accomplished this with a novice MLS boss, Jesper Sørensen, only in the job since the start of the year and having replaced the beloved Vanni Sartini who'd led the club to back-to-back MLS playoff appearances and three successive Canadian Championship titles. Oh, and one more thing. Last December, the Whitecaps ownership group of Greg Kerfoot, Steve Luczo, Jeff Mallett and Steve Nash dropped a bombshell and announced they were selling. Should new investors be found there's a distinct chance the club will be relocated to an American city. And yet, the timing of such a doomsday scenario could hardly be any better. With a remarkable surge in nationalistic sentiment since Trump's ramblings about annexing Canada, the country has never been more solidified and compelled to protect what's theirs. The Whitecaps, a club that proudly boasts over half a century of impactful soccer history and local cultural resonance, have felt the benefit of the swell and a rescue mission is already well under way. 'You wouldn't be able to do my job if you weren't optimistic because you always have to believe that a positive development is ahead of you,' says Axel Schuster, CEO and sporting director of the Vancouver Whitecaps. 'Sometimes, if there's a risk that you'll lose something it's only then you realise how important it is to you.' Leaning into the patriotism and community seen in recent months, Schuster is pushing hard for a new, privately funded downtown venue for the Whitecaps at the city's landmark PNE fairgrounds site, a stone's throw from Empire Stadium, the original home of the Whitecaps. The team's current base at BC Place is owned by the province and greatly restricts the club's revenue streams and commercial opportunities. A shiny asset is one distinct way of enticing new ownership to keep the team where it is and the City of Vancouver has confirmed that 'high level discussions' have already happened. 'Maybe it's the Canadian way: to do good things but not speak about them very much and we haven't always told our stories,' Schuster says. 'There are enough people who believe in this club being a major asset to our community and to the soccer landscape in Canada and believe that it's worthwhile to fight for it, to keep it alive and keep it in Vancouver.' After a long stint in the Bundesliga and influential roles at Mainz and Schalke, Schuster took the Vancouver job just as a global pandemic brought everything to a halt. Since then, he's overseen an impressive rise. Three visits to the playoffs, a mammoth increase in attendance, a litany of domestic cup success and all achieved on an always-conservative budget. In 2024, the club paid $17.4m in salaries to leave them comfortably mid-range in MLS. In contrast, Inter Miami splashed out $41.7m, while cross-country rivals Toronto FC racked up an outlay of $31.8m. Look closely, though, and Vancouver boasts a perfectly proportioned roster between small, medium and big earners. But perhaps Schuster's most impressive achievement has been ensuring off-field distractions and all of the worry, concerns and anxiety that come with an uncertain future, have not seeped on to the field or into the front office. 'It hasn't always been easy to be a Whitecaps employee and wear our badge,' he admits. 'When the news broke that the club was for sale, it was easy to say 'Look, nothing will change. We'll have the best ever season, we'll be the most attractive club in MLS that everyone wants to own.' But it's something else to fill those words with real life.' Winning has, at least for now, seemed to ease that instability. Sign up to Soccer with Jonathan Wilson Jonathan Wilson brings expert analysis on the biggest stories from European soccer after newsletter promotion 'There were a lot of questions,' Schuster said. ''Will this club still be here?' 'Why should we sign this sponsorship deal with you?' And we told those people: 'Come with us because everything will be great'. After the second leg in Miami, I was so happy because I could feel how much it meant to everyone. To give them these special moments made me super happy. It was like we all got rewarded for everything.' Schuster felt the 2024 season had been a 'missed opportunity' of sorts and that a fresh approach could unlock something new in the group. In Sørensen, he found a coach that has managed to get career-best performances out of players up and down the roster – a big reason why the team has excelled as much in continental competition as it has in MLS, where most teams involved in both tend to struggle in one or the other. 'There were two main criteria that our new coach needed to have: firstly, that he was a developer with a track record of improving players and not just young players,' Schuster says. 'Secondly, we didn't want a coach who would say, 'Some of these players won't fit my plans and I'll need one or two transfer windows to build a team'. We wanted someone who looked at the existing group and knew what to do with them to make it successful from the first day.' Under Sørensen's watch, certain players have stepped up and the group has adapted impressively to the loss of talisman Ryan Gauld, sidelined since early March with a knee injury. While the likes of Brian White and Sebastian Berhalter have garnered much of the focus given their call-ups to the US national team, Schuster pinpoints the developments of Ali Ahmed and Tristan Blackmon as examples of Sorensen's coaching nous. 'Ali doesn't have that many years of being in a professional environment and Jesper has simplified his game, focusing on key areas rather than on his overall profile,' Schuster says. 'Tristan Blackmon has made big progress. In all of our stats, he's the best defender in MLS. You always felt he had the skills to be a top defender but maybe wasn't using them in the right way. But his consistency this year has been unbelievable.' Despite the positivity this season, Schuster admits that he hardly ever enjoys watching games. 'Even the second leg win over Inter Miami took a long time before I really believed it was done,' he says with a laugh. 'During the game there is nothing to enjoy. I can't watch with a lot of people around me, at least people I don't know, because I get pretty active about what we could do better and should do better.' Schuster will certainly take some enjoyment from Sunday's Concacaf Champions Cup final against Mexican heavyweights Cruz Azul. Because on this particular international stage at this particular time, the Vancouver Whitecaps will not represent Major League Soccer. They'll represent the humility, ambition and unity of an entire nation. 'For us, we are proud to be Canadians,' Schuster says. 'Our players can appreciate living in this country and this province. I have a player who told me that at some point he might be ready to play in a more challenging league. But then he said, 'My family feels so good and so safe here and that's even more important than where I play'. So we also represent that. This is what we think is right. This is how a country, a city, a province should be. It's what we stand for. We will go there as proud Canadians and we will have the Maple Leaf everywhere. And we'll make it very clear that we are not just one of 30 MLS teams. We are one team from British Columbia in Canada.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How to watch LAFC vs Club America for FREE: TV channel and live stream for Club World Cup play-off
The final spot in the new-look Club World Cup is up for grabs this evening as LAFC take on Club America in a play-off. Club Leon were due to take part in the expanded summer tournament, but were disqualified due to FIFA's multi-club ownership rules. The same ownership group has a controlling stake in Pachuca, who also qualified. Advertisement LAFC earned their play-off chance because they were beaten by Leon in the 2023 Concacaf Champions League final. FIFA soon after picked Club America as the next-best ranked team in the Club World Cup confederation ranking. Now the two teams will face off in Los Angeles for a spot in the USA-based tournament. The winner will face Chelsea in their opening game June 16, then Esperance from Tunisia in Nashville, and Flamengo of Brazil in Orlando. How to watch LAFC vs Club America TV channel and live stream: LAFC vs Club America will be streamed for free on with coverage starting at 3.20am BST ahead of a 3.30am kick-off time. Advertisement DAZN is the global broadcaster of the new-look Club World Cup and will show all 63 matches of the competition, plus the play-off clash between LAFC and Club America. No subscription is required to watch the game, with DAZN making the play-off game and the entire tournament available to their 'Freemium' members, which means you only need to sign up for a free DAZN account.
