Football

12:58 PM ET AL RAYYAN, Qatar — Wheeling out an inflatable World Cup before kick-off just felt cruel. The giant replica has been a regular feature of the prematch build-up throughout this tournament but Saturday’s third-place play-off between Croatia and Morocco was the one game that didn’t need it. This is the only fixture where

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Dec 15, 2022 Military minds are fond of saving that “no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.” Substitute “opposition” for “enemy” and we have a fair approximation of a situation that Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni has already faced twice in his brief coaching career. One was in his side’s opening game at the

9:35 AM ET France have been hit with a virus that could see the team’s starting centre-back pairing miss the World Cup final, sources have told ESPN. According to sources, Raphael Varane has small symptoms of the virus and fellow defender Ibrahima Konate has not left his room after feeling unwell. – Stream on ESPN+:

10:00 AM ET The 2022 World Cup in Qatar has flown by. Wedged into the middle of the European club season, it has had to. It’s hard to believe that the tournament began 26 days ago, yet so much has transpired in that time, including whittling down a field of 32 to just France and

3:16 PM ET Back in November, before the World Cup began, I dove into the treasure trove that is StatsPerform’s World Cup charting data archive to look at the trends that have changed and taken over the sport from 1966 to 2018. When did the possession game start to really take over? (1990 or so,

2:10 PM ET Rob DawsonCorrespondent DOHA, Qatar — The 2022 World Cup has felt like a ‘Last Dance’ for two of football’s biggest stars, neither of whom have ever won the sport’s biggest prize. Lionel Messi, 35, told the media back in August that it would be his last while Cristiano Ronaldo, who turns 38

5:05 AM ET The 2022 World Cup draws to a close this weekend, marking the end of an era for the tournament before it rolls into the United States, Mexico and Canada in four years’ time. – World Cup 2022: News and features | Schedule | Bracket The current format, which sees 32 teams drawn

7:55 PM ET The stage is set for the 2022 World Cup final, and it’s going to be a doozy. Lionel Messi and Argentina will take on Kylian Mbappe and defending champions France on Dec. 18 at 10 a.m. ET. Will Messi equal the feat of Argentina icon Diego Maradona while cementing his status as

4:45 PM ET AL KHOR, Qatar — France are on their way to a second consecutive World Cup final after goals from Theo Hernandez and substitute Randal Kolo Muani gave Les Blues a 2-0 win over Morocco at Al Bayt Stadium on Wednesday. – World Cup 2022: News and features | Bracket | Schedule Hernandez

6:39 PM ET DOHA, Qatar — On Wednesday, as he lines up for the anthem before the second semifinal against Morocco, Hugo Lloris will be looking for his wife and children in the stands as he always does. He will wave discreetly before refocusing on one of the most important games of his career. At

6:54 PM ET AL DAAYEN, Qatar — Knockout tournaments like the World Cup generally require you to finish strong, unlike, say, a league format where you can build up a big lead at the start and hobble first across the finish line. Argentina evidently got the message. On the night that Lionel Messi scored his

4:42 PM ET Rob DawsonCorrespondent AL DAAYEN, Qatar — Lionel Messi led Argentina to a sixth World Cup final with a comfortable 3-0 semifinal win over Croatia at Lusail Stadium on Tuesday. – World Cup 2022: News and features | Bracket | Schedule Messi scored his fifth goal in Qatar with a first-half penalty after

5:02 AM ET Adriana Garcia Brazil great Ronaldo believes Neymar and other Brazilian players should have psychological help to deal with the “disproportionate pressure” from the World Cup. Neymar admitted after his team’s World Cup quarterfinal defeat to Croatia on penalties that he was “psychologically destroyed.” “I would advise having a psychological support to withstand

8:00 AM ET Rob DawsonCorrespondent DOHA, Qatar — There’s a spot on the Corniche promenade in Doha where the 2022 World Cup organising committee erected a flag each time a new nation qualified for the tournament. Croatia‘s went up in November 2021. While heavyweights like Germany, Spain, England and Brazil have had theirs removed now

3:41 PM ET United States midfielder Giovanni Reyna took to Instagram on Monday to call reports of him nearly being sent home from the World Cup “highly fictionalized,” adding he was disappointed that details regarding his participation in Qatar were not kept “in house.” On Sunday, comments that manager Gregg Berhalter had made at a

7:00 AM ET Argentina‘s dance goes on, as their fans sing, to Tuesday’s World Cup semifinal match against Croatia, followed by either a shot at eternal glory in Sunday’s final, or a melancholic end to the Lionel Messi era in Saturday’s third-place consolation game. Barring the gateway to glory are the very opponents against whom,

8:34 PM ET United States midfielder Giovanni Reyna was almost sent home from the World Cup in Qatar due to a lack of effort in training and in a pre-tournament scrimmage against Qatari side Al Gharafa SC, sources told ESPN on Sunday. Reyna, 20, did not start a single game for the US in Qatar