Kazuyoshi Miura: Flashy 'King Kazu' steered soccer's rise
It could be said that no team sport in Japan has outpaced soccer's growth through the Heisei Era, and 52-year-old Kazuyoshi Miura is the only player who can claim to have been a part of that growth throughout.
Traffickers used Russia's World Cup to enslave us, say Nigerian women
Blessing Obuson thought Russia's soccer World Cup would be an opportunity to find a job and flew into Moscow from Nigeria last June on a fan ID. Instead, she found herself forced to work as a prostitute. Fan IDs allowed visa-free entry to World Cup ...
Olympic champion Sofia Goggia wins first downhill of post-Vonn era
Olympic champion Sofia Goggia won the first World Cup downhill of the post-Lindsey Vonn era on Saturday. Goggia was rewarded with her first victory this season after taking an aggressively direct racing line typical of Vonn, the American star who retired after winning downhill bronze ...
Kobayashi leaps into rarefied air with 11th World Cup win of season
Ryoyu Kobayashi won his 11th event on the 2018-2019 World Cup circuit on Sunday, the third day of competition in Willingen, becoming the sixth ski jumper in history, and the first Japanese, to post 11 wins in a single season. Kobayashi, who had the longest ...
World Cup-winning England goalkeeper Gordon Banks dies at 81
Gordon Banks, the World Cup-winning England goalkeeper who was also known for blocking a header from Pele that many consider to be the greatest save in soccer history, has died. He was 81. English soccer club Stoke, one of Banks' former teams, posted a statement ...
Former Japan international soccer defender Yuji Nakazawa, 40, to retire
Durable Yokohama F Marinos defender Yuji Nakazawa, who played in two World Cups for Japan, has decided to retire, an official source said Monday. Last Aug. 19, the 40-year-old sat out a game due to pain in his left knee, ending his string of 178 ...
A combined global audience of 1.12 billion watched the World Cup final between France and Croatia in July, FIFA, soccer's global governing body, said on Friday. In total, FIFA said, a "combined 3.572 billion viewers — more than half of the global population aged 4 ...
Russia retaliated for doping bans with hacks
In Russia, sports and the government are closely intertwined. Top athletes hold military ranks, Olympic medals are a matter of national pride, and champions receive luxury cars in Kremlin ceremonies. So when Russia was accused of doping its way to the top, the Russian state hit ...
Workers in Qatar World Cup final city went unpaid for months: Amnesty
Dozens of migrants working on Qatar's $45 billion World Cup final city of Lusail have gone unpaid for months, Amnesty International said Wednesday, the latest rights accusation against the 2022 tournament host. Mercury MENA "failed to pay its workers thousands of dollars in wages and ...
Brazil superstar Neymar admits that after his nation's quarterfinal defeat to Belgium at the World Cup he couldn't look at a ball and didn't want to see any of the tournament's remaining matches. "I wouldn't go as far as to say I didn't want to ...
Many of the teams that did well in the tournament were multiethnic and multiracial, but success in sports does not produce tolerance.
Soccer makes its fans unhappy in the long run
The results are in: The pain of defeat may outweigh the joy of victory.
