After more than a year of rumors and speculation, Major League Soccer confirmed earlier this month that international soccer icon David Beckham intends to create a professional team in the Miami area. Slated to become the 22nd team in the U.S.’s top professional division, the as-yet-unnamed team joins Manchester City-owned New York City FC and […]
Category: On the Bench
On the Bench: UEFA Champion’s League
Need a break from the Olympics already? Yeah, me too. They’re exciting and all, but come Feb. 18, the world’s foremost club competition returns to the center of the sporting world’s attention: the UEFA Champions League. Yes, after two months of painful isolation from the biggest soccer event outside of FIFA’s World Cup, the Champions […]
On the Bench: Cold weather Super Bowl
This year’s Super Bowl matchup of the Denver Broncos, led by Peyton Manning, and the Seattle Seahawks, led by Richard Sherman, will be the fifth time in Super Bowl history that the best offense is matched against the best defense. But the team’s biggest challenge may be the weather. Manning, the Broncos’ quarterback, had a […]
On the Bench: Cristiano Ronaldo Ballon d’Or winner
In a glitzy ceremony in Zurich last week, Cristiano Ronaldo was awarded the Ballon d’Or, FIFA’s award for the best player of the year. And in 2013, the Real Madrid attacker seemed to stand out from the pack, above competitors Lionel Messi and Franck Ribery. However, there was quite a bit of contention in the […]
On the Bench: The end of the BCS era
Florida State’s recent win over Auburn in the BCS National Championship Game marked the end of two overlapping eras. In the first, they became the first school not from the Southeastern Conference (SEC) since Texas in the 2006 season to win the championship, beating an SEC opponent in the process. Indeed, Auburn won the title […]
On the Bench: Winter X Games
The start of winter can only mean one thing: four days of blood-pumping, exhilarating flips, tricks, passion and a whole heck of a lot of snow are in store for excited viewers. That’s right. The Winter X Games return to Aspen, Colo., in January. And with them come some of the best athletes in the […]
On the Bench: One and done
College basketball season has just kicked off, meaning we’ve got around four months to watch teams duke it out for the top seats in March’s NCAA tournament. And for many players, one of their goals will surely be to boost their draft stock as they look forward to June 2014’s NBA draft. Thanks to the […]
On the Bench: Hazing in sports
Hazing is a rite of passage in sports these days; it is an acceptable practice in professional sports, especially in the NFL. Rookies come into the league and go through a brief period of hazing from the veterans on the team to be “initiated.” This might include carrying a teammate’s shoulder pads after practice, taking […]
On the Bench: Boston Strong
No team in professional sports embodies its city quite like the Boston Red Sox. The players are hard-working, gritty blue-collar types that are the life blood of the city that keeps it going. Both the team and city have seen their fair share of heartbreaks over the past century. And after the April 15 tragic […]
On the Bench: Brazil 2014
The World Cup to be held in Brazil next summer promises to be a great spectacle. After all, Brazil is a nation where soccer is not just a game but a way of life. I’m also optimistic about the 2018 World Cup in Russian. While Russia isn’t a place we would normally associate with soccer, […]