Nick Rimando Was Never Too Short To Stand Tall
One dream is that it never ends. The cartilage never recedes and the synapses fire as fast as ever, and you just keep going. Every morning you pop out of bed without the reminder of the 100 times you hit the ground in practice the day before and your body and mind never tire of the routine. Everyone...
Almost Every Penalty Kick Save Ever Is Illegal Now And It's A Mess
The idea, which is not an unreasonable one on its face, is to “get it right.” The less inspiring extension of that is “to avoid something horribly embarrassing.” There are examples that spring to mind when it comes to justifying VAR’s existence—the people in charge are probably thinking of moments ...
Too Much Of The World Cup Is Just Soccer Failing To Get Out Of Its Own Way
Ideally, this would be a story about the best saves of the group stage from the group stage of the 2019 World Cup. The field for this eighth run of the women’s tournament is deeper and more talented than ever, and there have already been a number of highlight-worthy stops to match. I would love to u...
Hugo Lloris Reminded Us That There Are Infinite Ways To Craft A Goalkeeping Howler
History will show that Tottenham defender Toby Alderweireld’s 90th minute own goal was responsible for gifting Liverpool a 2-1 win during a tight race for their first league title since 1989-90. History can be a strange and misleading thing. In this case what Alderweireld is responsible for is stand...
David De Gea Is Proof That Goalkeepers Should Embrace The Kick Save
You can not read the book on goalkeeping because the book does not exist, and that is for the better. A book might be helpful for outlining fundamentals and common techniques, but it might also be an anchor drowning effectiveness in a pool of orthodoxy, a dagger sacrificing creative problem-solving...
American Soccer Is Fine
Zack Steffen, an American soccer player who currently plies his trade on U.S. soil, is set to join the English Premier League’s reigning champions. The Columbus Crew have announced that the MLS Goalkeeper of the Year will be moved to Manchester City Football Club next summer for an undisclosed trans...
UFC Is Streaming A Bizarre Donald Trump Propaganda Documentary
If parody is still possible, the opening montage is beyond parody. You’ve got your orchestral strings. An American flag. The ubiquitous name slapped on the back of a helicopter: TRUMP. Then Dana White in his traditional uniform, jeans and a black shirt with an extra button undone, lavishing praise....
Keepers Wield More Than Just Guesswork In The Battle Against Penalty Kicks
Penalty kicks are bad. They’re dramatic and can be a fascinating experience out of context, but we don’t get to experience them out of context. We have to deal with penalties as a clumsy method of deterring fouls in the box and as a makeshift solution to tied games dragging on forever. The fact that...
The USWNT Looks As Good As Ever And Is Rolling Toward The World Cup
CARY, N.C. — How are we not talking about this team all the time? Sustained dominance is easy to take for granted, sure. And as far as it has come in recent decades soccer still isn’t close to leading the sports conversation in the USA. These are answers, and they aren’t wrong, but they mostly evade...
Some Common Goalkeeping Mistakes Aren't Actually Mistakes
It’s not really surprising that an eccentric position played by only one-tenth of a sport’s population and operating under a completely different rule set is relatively overlooked and misunderstood. That’s not always a major problem. After all, a goalkeeper’s job boils down to “Keep the ball out of ...
It's Time For A Better Conversation About Goalkeeping
Goalkeepers have no business existing in soccer. Maintaining an entire class of players whose job is to snuff the joy out of a game is absurd, and strapping on gloves to play a sport that prohibits the use of the hands is blasphemy. In defiance of not just strikers, but more or less everyone, the ke...
The Big Ugly Battle Over The World's Largest Rubber Duck
SANDUSKY, Ohio — There is more than one enormous rubber duck. I did not know this when I decided to travel to Sandusky to see one, but I can’t unlearn it now. Though there was once a bigger duck in Saint-Nazaire, France, the monstrosity anchored in Sandusky comes with a registered trademark: it is t...
Daniel Cormier Has Waited So Long To Be King
When the fight was over, in the short lull before the selling of the next fight began, Daniel Cormier was alone in the center of the canvas with his eyes closed. His arms were raised, holding his own head, and he was beaming. Bruce Buffer was bellowing his name. A beat later during an interview, gri...
UFC 200 Is Still The Best Card Of The Year
All the old knocks still apply. The Ultimate Fighting Championship is a corrupt, exploitative brand in a corrupt, exploitative sport. It functions in large part to enrich the egos and bank accounts of people lacking for neither, and it does so belligerently. At the moment it’s a business that may or...
Is The Fight Game About To Destroy Yet Another Legend?
Fedor Emelianenko will be 39 years old when he returns to Japan to fight on New Year’s Eve. His comeback will be promoted by an organization so new that it only announced its name—Rizin Fighting Federation—after announcing the fight. His most recently rumored opponent is a relatively unknown, used-t...
Demetrious Johnson And John Dodson Face The Pain, Step To This
There is an Ultimate Fighting Championship card scheduled for this Saturday, like many—probably too many—other recent Saturdays. What makes this one special is that it will be capped off by a main event of the highest caliber, with a dominant champion facing a threatening, wildly athletic challenger...
Even God Cheats: How Anderson Silva Shocked Us By Doing The Expected
The Nevada State Athletic Commission is a bumbling, soulless government agency, and so a strange agent for the delivery of the message that our gods have forsaken us. They never have been particularly diligent messengers in any event, but for whatever reason—bureaucracy, incompetence, something more...
UFC Runs Disastrous, Embarrassing Card, Blames Fighters And The Media
On Thursday, UFC 177 was positioned to be a terrible pay-per-view event, just really bad by any objective standard. At the risk of being accused of doing what promoter Dana White calls "the most disgusting fucking despicable thing," I would have discouraged fans from purchasing it, if asked. It wa...
Robbie Lawler Returned From Oblivion To Impose His Will On The World
Sometime shortly after Robbie Lawler started hitting Matt Brown unreasonably hard in San Jose, Calif. Saturday night, a low rumble shook my apartment. It felt and sounded strangely like—and turned out actually to be—fireworks. This was silly, entirely too literal, but given that the fight featured L...
Donald Cerrone And John Lineker Are What's Right With Fighting
I love body shots. There is a horrible, wonderful noise generated when a professional athlete hits another professional athlete in the torso, a thudding slap of skeleton and meat. It sounds like a Foley artist's garish exaggeration of what you think a body shot should sound like. I love this sound...