LOS ANGELES — The Women's World Cup will expand to 48 teams and 104 games in 2031, making it the largest and longest women's tournament in history, FIFA announced Friday. The event is widely expected to be held in the U.S., the only country to bid for the rights to the competition.

FIFA is scheduled to announce a host country next summer.

...Read more

CHICAGO — Chicago Stars striker Mallory Swanson and her husband, Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson, announced Wednesday in a joint Instagram post that they’re expecting their first child.

Mallory Swanson hasn’t played this season after the Stars released a statement Jan. 27 that she wouldn’t be participating in training camp for “personal...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Growing up Japanese American in Southern California, Saki Watanabe had plenty of role models who showed her she could be whatever she wanted to be. There were baseball players, judges, politicians and actors. Writers, artists, teachers and business leaders.

But there was nobody doing what she wanted to do, which was play soccer....Read more

MIAMI — A crowd of 60,000-plus awaits Lionel Messi and his teammates for the second weekend in a row as Inter Miami takes on the Columbus Crew at Cleveland’s Huntington Bank Field in a Saturday afternoon battle of the only unbeaten teams in Major League Soccer.

The game was moved from the Crew’s cozy 20,000-seat Lower.com Field, which ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — LAFC head coach Steve Cherundolo will step down at the completion of the season and return to Germany, the club announced Friday.

"It is an honor to be the head coach of LAFC," Cherundolo said in a statement. "After much reflection and discussion with my family, we made the decision that at the end of this year we will return to...Read more

MIAMI — Inter Miami is about to embark on arguably the toughest back-to-back road trips in club history and Lionel Messi will have two newly signed teammates along for the journey, 18-year-old Ecuadorean forward Allen Obando and 21-year-old Argentine midfielder Baltasar Rodriguez.

Obando is on loan from Barcelona SC of Guayaquil and ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — The first question about any new sports franchise is whether its games can be entertaining enough to attract and retain fans.

San Diego FC, the new soccer squad in town, has gone for broke on the pitch since the first whistle blew. That style earned respect. But, without special talent, tactical gusto goes only so far.

Turns out,...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Saturday's women's soccer friendly between the U.S. and Brazil was billed as a rematch of last summer's Olympic final. That was a bit of a misnomer since two-thirds of the women on the 23-player U.S. roster weren't in Paris last August.

Even the uniforms weren't the same.

As for the result, only the score was different, with ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Trinity Rodman is taking a coffee break.

Not a break for coffee. A break from coffee. Specifically espresso.

Last summer Rodman and teammates Mallory Swanson and Sophia Wilson (née Smith) combined for 10 goals and five assists to lead the U.S. to its first Olympic title in women's soccer in a dozen years. One of the three had ...Read more

Café Bustelo is one of Inter Miami’s sponsors, and fans may want to drink a cup of Cuban coffee Wednesday night to make sure they are awake to watch the road game against Los Angeles FC in the first leg of their Concacaf Champions Cup quarterfinal.

It is a highly anticipated matchup that kicks off at 11:30 p.m. Eastern time. Fans will be ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Even when he doesn’t start, and enters a game in the second half, it usually doesn’t take Lionel Messi long to find the back of the net.

On Saturday night, it only took him two minutes.

Messi began Inter Miami’s matchup against Philadelphia on the bench.

He entered in the 55th minute. By the 57th minute, Messi ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — Major League Soccer newcomer San Diego FC showed Sunday it can hang with Austin FC in the Texas heat.

Though the 2-1 loss was deserved, the San Diego newbies won in possession by more than 50 percentage points. They didn’t let the 87-degree heat and Texas humidity crush them.

But there’s an area where SDFC doesn’t and ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Mauricio Pochettino’s first major test as coach of the men’s national team ended in disaster Thursday when Cecilio Waterman scored deep into stoppage time to give Panama a 1-0 victory in the CONCACAF Nations League semifinals before a tiny crowd at SoFi Stadium, where the Americans will play two of their three group-play ...Read more

Lionel Messi was back in the Inter Miami starting lineup Sunday night against Atlanta United for the rematch of last season’s MLS playoff upset and a fired up crowd of 42,844 showed up at Mercedes Benz Stadium for the occasion.

The home crowd got a thrilling game, but not the result it wanted. A sublime first-half equalizer from Messi and a ...Read more

MIAMI — Lionel Messi, fresh off his late-game goal in Jamaica, is expected to be back in the lineup on Sunday night for the MLS road game against Atlanta United.

The plan is for Messi to travel to Atlanta, coach Javier Mascherano said on Saturday morning, as he has recovered from the muscle strain that kept him out of three games.

“The ...Read more