NEW YORK — About 65 minutes of Tuesday’s Group I opener between France and Senegal were mired with missed opportunities and sloppy play.

A match with some of the best attacking power in the world went scoreless well into the outing, with France’s Kylian Mbappé unable to convert on poor touches and Senegal’s Ismaila Sarr turning a tap-...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Unprecedented sports feats and historical firsts are usually joyous affairs. Something to celebrate, fun trivia to tuck away for later.

On Monday in Inglewood, the history was much more fraught, and not at all trivial.

Iran's national soccer team played on American soil — this time on SoFi Stadium's natural turf — for the ...Read more

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Security working the entry gates Monday at SoFi Stadium were searching for two items to confiscate.

Water bottles.

And flags depicting a yellow lion holding a curved sword with a rising sun in the background.

One was in the name of Dasani, the other in the name of Melli.

Dasani is the bottled water company owned by FIFA...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Fox is under fire for missing on-field action during the first match of the World Cup last week.

Many sports fans were irate when the network aired a full-screen ad when play resumed after a water break during last Thursday's Mexico-South Africa match.

In the second half, the referee called for the newly instated hydration ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The Iranian national team finally got to just play soccer.

Their journey to the World Cup has been uniquely fraught, with a war erupting between the host of their matches and their home country.

They had to relocate their base camp from Arizona to Tijuana, struggled to get all of their traveling party into the United States ...Read more

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — The thick book chronicling the broad history of major sports in South Florida may start to be written now. We are complete. The one glaring chapter that had been missing began to write itself Monday night with color and pageantry as Miami was home to a soccer match in the FIFA World Cup for the first time.

We have hosted...Read more

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Miami Gardens felt like Montevideo on Monday as a sea of Uruguayan soccer fans, many with giant blue and white striped flags draped over their shoulders, nearly packed Hard Rock Stadium and had to settle for a 1-1 tie against Saudi Arabia in their World Cup opening match.

The crowd of 62,764 was awash in light blue as ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — The United States did not play soccer Friday the way it had in many other high-profile matches over the years.

The Americans were crisp and connected, not wooden and dull.

They played like American men do in basketball and American football.

We’re good, and we know it — that was the vibe of this stunning red-white-and-blue ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — It took 96 years, but the most sacred version of the beautiful game came to Philadelphia.

Both the city and the match met the moment.

Extra public transportation, hydration stations and modest traffic framed an evening of graceful and powerful football, the kind every other nation reveres except ours.

Amid the spectacle of ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Iran’s World Cup team arrived in Tijuana last week bearing gold lapel pins on their jackets honoring the 168 victims, most of them schoolgirls, killed in a Feb. 28 U.S. missile strike on an elementary school in southern Iran at the outset of the war.

The World Cup kicked off last week as that war in the Middle East continues, ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The U.S. men's soccer team isn't only trying to win games in this World Cup. It is trying to win hearts and minds as well.

"We want the game to grow," star midfielder Christian Pulisic said. "We want to get Americans excited to watch this game, to watch our team. That's obviously a big goal of ours. And being successful would ...Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Helllllo, world, especially all the teams and their fans playing and staying in Kansas City for the 2026 FIFA World Cup: Ahla bik. Bienvenidos. Bon bini. Merḥba bikum. Servus und herzlich willkommen. Welkom.

First things first: You may most reasonably assume “Kansas City Stadium” and the FIFA Fan Festival at the ...Read more

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The World Cup finally returned to the Bay Area after 32 years, bringing people from all around the globe together at Blank Stadium — don’t call it Levi’s, per FIFA rules— in unity for their love of the beautiful game and their deep, collective hatred of the star that keeps our planet alive.

Saturday’s Qatar-...Read more

NEW YORK — The only real heavyweight battle of this World Cup group stage produced an entertaining, if unsatisfying, 1-1 draw at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J., on Saturday evening.

Brazil, ranked No. 6 in FIFA’s latest world rankings, rallied to earn the point against Morocco (ranked No. 7) on a moment of sheer brilliance from ...Read more

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – The 60,000 or so people who braved the hot Santa Clara sun to watch Switzerland face Qatar in the Bay Area’s World Cup opener at Levi’s Stadium rarely raised their voices beyond anything resembling a mild hum.

That is, until Boualem Khoukhi flew into the box and equalized the match with a 95th-minute header that gave...Read more