Football

Jun 25, 2021 Roberto Martinez is a man of his word. Before Euro 2020, he promised he would sit with ESPN to do a long interview. After Belgium booked their place in the round of 16 — they face Portugal on Sunday (stream LIVE on ABC/ESPN+, 3 p.m. ET) — we talked for more than

1:50 PM ET Hailing from the country of fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen, this group of Denmark players are writing their own epic story this summer. The Danish contingent are not letting their remarkable Euro 2020 journey end anytime soon. Their 4-0 knockout victory against Wales on Saturday saw yet another unlikely hero write another

7:35 PM ET Call it a scare. Call it a warning light on your dashboard. Call it a reminder not to believe your own hype. Call it an opportunity to assess what’s wrong and what needs fixing. Call it football. Because, as the cliche goes, every game starts at 0-0, you get a chance to

10:45 PM ET Nani continued his sensational season with a stunning 80th-minute strike to lift visiting Orlando City to a 2-1 victory over Inter Miami on Friday. Nani also assisted Chris Mueller’s equalizer seven minutes earlier as Orlando (6-1-3, 21 points) completed a perfect week with three wins in seven days. In the process, the

9:19 AM ET Kathleen McNamee U.S. Soccer and the United States women’s national team continued to clash on Thursday after the governing body accused a lawyer working for the squad in their equal pay lawsuit of showing “a concerning level of dishonesty” presenting “a misleading and inaccurate account of the facts” in a new documentary

5:39 AM ET Walk the walk, take your time, breathe and score. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But as Euro 2020 prepares to enter the knockout stage, and with it comes the jeopardy of penalty shootout, you can be sure that at least one player will forget the basic principles of scoring with a free shot

First there were 24 teams and now, after a wild two-week group stage, just 16 teams remain as the Euro 2020 knockout rounds begin this Saturday. Will France add Euro glory to their World Cup from 2018, or will Portugal become just the second team ever to defend a Euro title after Spain did it

4:42 PM ET Gabriele Marcotti Julien Laurens ESPN writers Gab Marcotti and Julien Laurens delve into the thankless job of putting together our 2020 Euro Group Stage Best XI. It seemed logical to limit ourselves to players who had played a minimum of two games and to employ a 4-3-3 formation, because that’s what many

12:41 PM ET Timing is everything in sports. Success requires both quality and well-timed opportunity. One might not figure that a year would make that much of a difference, but a few of the teams on display at Euro 2020 look quite a bit different than they would have had the tournament gone on as

7:00 AM ET With the Euro 2020 group stage done and dusted, we asked our writers for their views on some big questions based on what we have seen. Which teams can do better, which players have made their mark and who will contest the final? Euro 2020: News and features | Fixtures and bracket

6:22 PM ET Germany are alive. Not just that, but their reward is one of the juiciest — in terms of history and hype — matches that the game has to offer: a Euro 2020 knockout game at Wembley against England. How about that? – Report: Germany scrape through with Hungary draw Fundamentally though, Germany

7:19 PM ET It was one of those nights. The kind of night that Cristiano Ronaldo owns and has owned throughout his career: the big occasion, the floodlights, the star-studded field, the high stakes, the obligation to deliver, the pressure and the tension. It was Portugal vs. France, in the heat of Budapest, with Portugal

4:33 PM ET “Messi or no Messi, I don’t give a f—. I am not going home tonight.” Picture the scene: France are about to play Argentina in the last 16 of the 2018 World Cup in Russia. It’s June 30, and Paul Pogba decided to speak up louder than he’d even done before. In

1:31 PM ET Everybody who’s been to a gym will be perfectly aware of the phrase: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Now, I can promise you that there’s no question of Luis Enrique’s sanity, nor does he need much time in a gym

6:07 PM ET GLASGOW, Scotland — They came to Hampden Park hoping for a night to remember, but in the end, Scotland’s success-starved supporters had to make do with a goal they will never forget. Croatia’s 3-1 victory in Glasgow secured the 2018 World Cup finalists qualification for the round of 16, but it was

5:51 AM ET It’s win or bust for Scotland against Croatia on Tuesday, and they know that victory will almost certainly be enough to reach the knockouts. Given that Euro 2020 is Scotland’s first major tournament in 23 years and they’re 30 places below Croatia (14th) in the FIFA World Ranking, this might seem —

2:27 PM ET Last week, Harry Kane was asked whether he had a special goal celebration planned in tribute to former Tottenham Hotspur teammate Christian Eriksen following the Denmark midfielder’s recovery from cardiac arrest. “I’d have to score a goal first before I think of anything like that,” he replied in what felt like an

7:55 PM ET The Danish players huddled in a tight circle, shoulder to shoulder, eyes to eyes, heart to heart. Around them, embracing them and joining them in an outer ring of affection, belonging and hope was the crowd at Copenhagen’s Denmark Stadium. We’d seen this before. Nine days earlier, just a few feet away