The road to the 2026 FIFA World Cup finals is reaching a thrilling crescendo, with the majority of Europe's footballing heavyweights on the verge of confirming their spots in the expanded 48-team tournament. In the next three days, nations like France, Norway, Portugal, Croatia, Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain are aiming to officially punch their tickets to the World Cup tournament in North America next June-July.
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Arsenal Football Club just beat Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals. They won 2-1 in the second leg at the Bernabéu Stadium last week after winning 3-0 at home in London the prior week. This win secured Arsenal's place in the semi-finals for the first time since 2009. This victory over the Spaniards was very unexpected. Real Madrid is by far the best team in Champions League history. They are, many would argue, the best team in the world and have the best player in the world in Kylian Mbappé. Despite these odds against them, Arsenal just beat Real Madrid not once, but twice in a row. After completing this 5-1 aggregate victory they now face French team Paris Saint-Germain F.C (PSG) in a two legged Semi Final, at home on April 28th and away in Paris on May 7th.
Here is a summary of statistics and results from the Summer Olympics over the course of history (last 128 years). The first table is the historical medal count for all Modern Summer Olympics prior to Paris 2024:
| Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  United States | 1061 | 830 | 738 | 2629 |
| 2 |  Russia | 608 | 515 | 501 | 1624 |
| 3 |  Germany | 438 | 457 | 491 | 1386 |
| 4 |  Great Britain | 284 | 318 | 314 | 916 |
| 5 |  China | 263 | 199 | 174 | 636 |
| 6 |  France | 223 | 251 | 277 | 751 |
| 7 |  Italy | 217 | 188 | 213 | 618 |
| 8 |  Hungary | 181 | 154 | 176 | 511 |
| 9 |  Japan | 169 | 150 | 178 | 497 |
| 10 |  Australia | 164 | 173 | 210 | 547 |
This past Sunday, July 14th, 2024, has to go down as one of the most incredible single day achievements by a nation in modern sports history. Spanish sportsmen and sportswomen won four major titles that day across four different sports. In my previous article I wrote about the young Spanish tennis prodigy, Carol Alcaraz, winning Wimbledon for the second time. Little could he have known that after his victory in London, later that same day, his countrymen would go on to win the European Championship soccer tournament versus England, then the LIV Golf tournament in Spain later that afternoon. And then that evening, the Spanish sailing team won the San Francisco Grand Finale and thereby were crowned SailGP Champions for the season. A remarkable sequence of events.
Manchester, a city in the north of England, has a proud football (soccer) tradition. There are two professional teams based in the city. Manchester United Football Club is commonly referred to as Man United, or just United. United's nickname is the Red Devils and they were founded in 1878. In 1880, Manchester City Football Club was founded. They are referred to as Man City, or just City. I've written about these two teams before, for good reason. Last year Man City won the "continental treble" - the English Premier League, the FA Cup and the UEFA Champions League final. The only other English team to have achieved that are their local rivals, Man United.
The FA Cup, also known as the Emirates FA Cup due to sponsorship, is a storied knockout tournament in England. It's the oldest national football competition in the world, dating back to 1871.
The FA Cup is unique and distinct from the Premier League itself in that it involves professional teams from both the Premier League and English Football League, but also some semi-professional clubs. That means hundreds of teams vying for glory!
Lionel "Leo" Messi may be a global icon today, but once upon a time he was a young boy with big dreams in a small town in Argentina called Rosario. At that time Argentinian economy was not doing well and the people were suffering. In Rosario itself the unemployment rate around then was at least 20%. Messi was born in 1987, the third child out of four in his family. His parents both had blue collar jobs and they lived a humble life. Young Leo followed his brother and cousins to play football (soccer) every day. It was Messi's grandmother that eventually bought the young man his first football boots when he was 8 years old.
In November 2020, Hollywood A-listers Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney made headlines when they announced that they had purchased Wrexham AFC, a semi-professional football club in North Wales. The duo, who are known for their work on films and television shows such as Deadpool, Free Guy, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, had no prior experience in football management, but they were determined to turn Wrexham into a success.
Lionel Messi is arguably the greatest soccer player of all time. He has won a record seven Ballon d'Or awards, a record six European Golden Shoes, and in 2020 he was named to the Ballon d'Or Dream Team. Until leaving the club in 2021, he had spent his entire professional career with Barcelona in Spain, where he won a club-record 34 trophies, including ten La Liga titles, seven Copa del Rey titles and the UEFA Champions League four times. With his country, he won the 2021 Copa América and the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The 2021 Copa América victory led Argentina to a spot in the 2022 Finalissima, where Messi was the winning captain.
The FIFA World Cup is more than just a sports tournament, it's a global phenomenon. It is considered the most prestigious soccer compet...
