A younger United States team with eyes firmly fixed on the future emerged from the ashes of a thwarted World Cup campaign on Tuesday night in PortugalWorld Cup cycles normally end with the World Cup finals and only then begin anew. But after a disastrous qualification campaign, the theme for the evening in Leiria, Portugal was that the new cycle for the United States started on Tuesday with a 1-1 draw against the European champions. “To get that kind of result against that kind of team is huge,” right back DeAndre Yedlin said in the immediate aftermath. “Obviously the feeling of not making the World Cup is not going to leave, but it’s something that makes it a little bit...
The Celtics are on a 12-game winning streak – and that’s without some of their best players. How their Eastern Conference rivals must envy themA few weeks ago, it felt like the Boston Celtics’ season had ended before it had begun. Gordon Hayward, the team’s prime free-agent acquisition over the summer, suffered a season-ending ankle injury just a few minutes into the NBA’s opening night. Unsurprisingly, Boston went on to lose to the Cleveland Cavaliers, despite a valiant comeback attempt, and then fall to the Milwaukee Bucks the very next night.And then, somehow, the Celtics became unbeatable. With their 94-95 win over the Toronto Raptors on Sunday, the Celtics improved their winning streak to 12 straight games, something the team...
It once looked like Drew Brees’s career would wind down with a bunch of yards and a heap of 7-9 seasons. But suddenly he has a defense to help him outSo much time has passed since the New Orleans Saints became the best story in the NFL it’s hard to remember their miraculous rise. That came back in the fall of 2006 just a year after Hurricane Katrina tore the roof off their Superdome and filled the city with so much water that many wondered if New Orleans would be the same again. But as the politicians failed and the government failed and the utilities failed, the football team that once broke their fans’ hearts actually came through. The dreadful...
The New York Cosmos and San Francisco Deltas meet in the title game this weekend. It could end up being the league’s final ever gameTo an outside observer, it may be hard to believe that the North American Soccer League was able to play at all this season.Last winter, the league was left for dead. Having just watched two teams fold, another move to MLS, and two more head across the second division landscape to the USL, the six-year-old NASL was left with just eight clubs. News came out that the historic New York Cosmos (linked to the days of Pele and Franz Beckenbauer in brand alone) had lost $30m over their first four years and were likely to fold....
The end of the season could see as many as eight well-known quarterbacks end their careers, or at least change jobsBetween 1993 and 2000, the NFL careers of Phil Simms, Joe Montana, Jim Kelly, Boomer Esiason, Dan Marino, John Elway, Steve Young, Troy Aikman and Warren Moon all came to a close. It was a mass exodus of talent at the quarterback position – all but Simms and Esiason are in the Hall of Fame – and led to Super Bowls being won by the likes of Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson before the Tom Brady and Peyton Manning era truly kicked into high gear.So while the NFL saw nine big-name quarterbacks leave the league over eight years two decades...