USMNT draws another deathly group for Copa America Centenario

NEW YORK – The United States men's national team drew a deathly group against Colombia, Costa Rica and Paraguay in Group A of this summer's stateside Copa America Centenario in a glitzy ceremony on Sunday night.

The tournament, marking the 100th anniversary of South America's continental championship with a one-off edition pitting all of the Americas against each other, will take place from June 3 through June 26. Games will be staged in 10 cities nationwide, with the final happening June 26 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.

The Americans will open the tournament on June 3 against Colombia in Santa Clara, Calif., followed by contests against Costa Rica in Chicago on June 7 and Paraguay in Philadelphia June 11.

Group B will consist of Brazil, Ecuador, Haiti and Peru.


Group C is made up of Mexico, Uruguay, Jamaica and Venezuela.

And Group D comprises Argentina, Chile, Panama and Bolivia.

Even though the U.S. had just the eighth-best FIFA ranking in the draw – 32nd – it was seeded in Pot 1 courtesy of its hosting the tournament. So too were Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, for no apparent reason other than that they were the most reputable nations in their respective regions – maybe.

But that assured that the Yanks would likely encounter a strong opponent from Pot 2, which was loaded with defending Copa America champion Chile, Colombia, Uruguay and Ecuador – all currently ranked between fifth and 13th in the world. Pot 3, meanwhile, had the USA's CONCACAF rivals from North America, Central America and the Caribbean. Pot 4 included the four remaining CONMEBOL countries from South America.

It seemed a given that the Americans should draw a tough group, given the depth of the field. But they could hardly have had a worse draw. By pulling the top-ranked teams out of Pot 3 and 4 and the second-best team from Pot 2, the Yanks will find themselves struggling just to survive the group.

Mexico, likewise, got a tough bunch. But Brazil and Argentina will have been happy with their lots. The Selecao in particular have no challenge greater than Ecuador, while Argentina only has to ride out the group with Chile.

The Yanks, however, will feel hard done by that, with a major men's tournament finally returning to their country, they should have drawn such an arduous task.

Denial, acceptance: Ways for Martin Truex to handle Daytona loss

Michael Jordan drains that miraculous, game-winning jump shot in the 1991 NBA playoffs, Craig Ehlo collapses in heartbroken disbelief. As Malcolm Butler claims a Super Bowl-winning interception, Ricardo Lockette grasps at air. For every exultant victor, there’s a heartbroken loser. And it’s tough to imagine a loss more heartbreaking than the one Martin Truex Jr. suffered at Sunday’s Daytona 500.

If there’s a bright side, though, the club Truex just joined can give him tips on how to deal with seeing this loss for … well, for the rest of his life.

Truex had run in second place for most of the last half of the race, first to Denny Hamlin and then to Matt Kenseth. But in the last few yards of the race, as Hamlin pulled off the best pass in recent NASCAR history and shuffled Kenseth back into the pack, Truex found himself in the lead, right there, right-freaking-there, just a few yards away from winning the Daytona 500. The finish line was a couple car-lengths away, and a Truex win—after all that he and his loved ones had suffered—would have been one of the best sports stories of the year.





Hamlin, on a rail, just barely slid past Truex, winning by one-one hundredth of a second. Unfortunately for Truex, the award for being the closest loser in the Daytona 500 is pretty much the same award you got for watching the closest finish in Daytona history.

“Going to have to watch that on the highlight reel for the rest of my career, I suppose, the rest of my life,” Truex said. “I remember when it happened to Mark Martin [who lost a similarly narrow finish to Kevin Harvick in 2007] … I have a feeling I’m going to have to see that same thing for a long time.”

When Truex finally begins to process the madness of Sunday, he’ll have different routes to follow. Martin, Ehlo and Lockette all dealt with their starring roles on the wrong side of history in very different ways.

"It doesn't bother me at all," Martin told Yahoo Sports in 2012. "None. Why should it? ... I have not lost one ounce of sleep over it, other than when I missed it by 3 feet in 2007."

For Martin, the bigger picture was far more important than the momentary agony. "I figure I'm darn lucky to have been able to be in this sport, stumble around and win a few things. I'm not owed anything,” he said. “I've been lucky enough to win a few races. You don't get to choose which ones they are."







Lockette, the Seattle Seahawks wide receiver, saw the Patriots literally snatch a Super Bowl from his grasp. Writing in the Players Tribune just months after the Super Bowl loss, he was much less glib than Martin. “I can’t watch the film,” he wrote. “I absolutely can’t stand to see it. People have told me it was the perfect interception. People have told me there’s a camera angle where it looks like I’m about to walk right into the end zone. People have told me all sorts of things about the last play of Super Bowl XLIX. I wouldn’t know. Whenever it comes on, I turn away.”

Ehlo, immortalized on film and posters as the most broken victim of Michael Jordan’s relentless will, went through his own journey from despair to annoyance to acceptance. “The first four or five years after it happened, it was, like, enough, let’s move on,” Ehlo told the Seattle Times in 2015. “I got tired of seeing it and people saying it. But after awhile, I realized it was the situation every athlete wants to be in, my signature moment. I just decided, OK, let me just ride this pony.”

It’ll be awhile before Truex gets to that point, but even in the first minutes after the loss, he’d retained some perspective. “You’d rather get beat by a few inches than a few feet, absolutely,” he said Sunday night. “I’m fine. I’m proud of what we did. Beats the hell out of what we did earlier in the week, getting crashed every race in the last lap … Sometimes you just come up a little short.”

The short inches between victory and defeat spread instantly to a chasm. As Truex sat in the Daytona infield media center, answering every question with a resigned, weary smile, Denny Hamlin celebrated in victory lane, spraying champagne and grinning in a broadcast that was very much within Truex’s line of sight. He answered every question, then stood up, donned his sunglasses, and left the media center as fast as he could without running.

Off in the distance in one direction, Hamlin continued to celebrate, confetti sticking to the No. 11 car that will remain here at Daytona for the next year to honor Hamlin’s achievement. Off in the other, the planes of Truex’s fellow drivers were taking off.

Truex headed in that direction, walking past a half-dozen fans calling his name. He slapped hands with each of them, accepted a couple congratulations from security guards, then walked across the already-empty garage. He was alone save for his PR rep … and, of course, his own thoughts. It’ll be a long time before the memory of this exhilarating, heartbreaking day fades.

After All-Star farewell, all that's left for Kobe Bryant is goodbye

TORONTO – Kobe Bryant was walking for the All-Star Game door on Sunday night, his wife and daughters bundled for the coldest night of a Canadian winter. His ferocity has flickered out, replaced with reflection. At All-Star weekend, the NBA's biggest stars hadn't come to beat Bryant, but treat him like a monument. Never again does Bryant get to be surrounded with such greatness, never again surrounded with context to his career. Kobe Bryant is rounding third and headed for home. Yes, his wife and girls were walking for the door with him.

"It hasn't hit home yet," Bryant told The Vertical. "I'm not going through this and thinking, 'Oh, it's coming to an end.' I'm enjoying it moment by moment. And it feels damn good to be able to experience it."

As Bryant and his family awaited the elevator to bring them downstairs, he hesitated and said, "I mean, it feels damn good to just be playing still. … To just be playing."

This is your life, Kobe Bryant. This was your goodbye. That's how All-Star weekend had played itself out, how the relentlessness of Bryant's 20 years had been honored. For all these years, Bryant never felt terribly compelled to gift the most intimate details of his craft. He gassed himself to understand the nuances of it all, and never, ever wanted to cost himself a competitive advantage. Bryant didn't want only to win, but destroy you, too. The force of his will was nothing short of predatory.

‘Crazy’ Chinese spending spree just the start – Cahill

MELBOURNE  – The spending splurge by Chinese clubs to secure top Europe-based talents is “crazy” and will do little to benefit the players or the game in China, according to Australia’s Shanghai-based striker Tim Cahill.

His nation’s most prolific goal-scorer, 36-year-old Cahill is set for a second season with Chinese Super League (CSL) club Shanghai Shenhua, having moved across from New York Red Bulls last year on a lucrative one-year deal.

Since Cahill re-signed for Shenhua last October, CSL clubs have spent over 130 million euros ($145 million) in transfer fees on just four players, with Jiangsu Suning shelling a Chinese record 50 million euros to secure Brazilian midfielder Alex Teixeira in a move completed last week.

The spending spree has raised fears in Europe of a talent drain, with the top leagues unable to compete with CSL clubs backed by the financial might of local tycoons.

Cahill said it was only a matter of time before a Chinese club spent $100 million to secure a player.

“It’s crazy to see but this is only going to get worse,” the former English Premier League player told Australian broadcaster Fox Sports. “This is going to be massive.

“I don’t know whether it’s going to help the league, but they’re investing. They’re doing great things.

“They’ve got the power.

“When they want something they get it, and when they don’t want something they get rid of it.”

Teixeira’s signing came only days after Guangzhou Evergrande secured Colombian striker Jackson Martinez from Atletico Madrid for 42 million euros.

AS Roma striker Gervinho completed a move to Hebei China Fortune FC last month, with leading Premier League names Demba Ba and former Sunderland striker Asamoah Gyan also moving to China last year.

“Choices now players are making, it’s not about football like it was in my day, it’s purely about personal gains,” Cahill said.

“Is (going to China) going to help players? No.

“Is it going to be big for the country? Yes.”

China’s soccer has never matched its vast population or its economic clout, and the national men’s team currently ranks 93rd in the world and 11th in Asia.

But the country’s President Xi Jinping is a known soccer fan and has demanded soccer officials lift the standard rapidly.

Cahill was not convinced the foreign signings would help.

“This sort of investment in players is a catch 22,” he said.

“Does it help the Chinese? To a certain extent no.

“When you sign players like this, everything in the final third is up to us, if we don’t deliver, it doesn’t happen.”

($1 = 0.8978 euros)

When Von Miller and the Broncos realized they had broken Cam Newton

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – On the sixth snap of Cam Newton's Super Bowl, Von Miller charged at him from the edge, hit him face first and promptly ripped the football out of his hands. Just tore it out.

This was grown man stuff. This was violent, blunt-force defense. This was the best player on the Denver Broncos confronting the best player on the Carolina Panthers, and just taking what he wanted – the ball, the Super Bowl, his football soul for the next few hours.

"That play did it," Denver linebacker Brandon Marshall said. "That play rattled [Newton]. We got in his head like that. We got in his mind. He hasn't been harassed like that all season."
This was some unholy stuff, balletic brutality that made him the most important player defensively and offensively – the Super Bowl 50 MVP was far more responsible for Denver's points scored than Peyton Manning.

Maybe more than anything, though, Miller proved to his teammates exactly what they suspected – that for all his size and speed and daps and dances, Newton  was capable of being shredded like a paper MVP. Oh, they respected his ability. They didn't trust anything else.

Not the 17-1 record. Not the stats, such as the 31.25-points-a-game average (plus 80 more in two playoff games). Not all the highligh- reel stuff.

Here's a fix for Roger Goodell's Pro Bowl problem

SAN FRANCISCO – NFL commissioner Roger Goodell finally said what we already knew: The Pro Bowl isn't working.

He could have reached further at Friday's annual pre-Super Bowl media address. The word "embarrassment" comes to mind. Rather than developing a showcase for stars, the event has devolved into a glorified walkthrough. Now it sadly is a bookend of two things fans hate: preseason games and pre-Super Bowl shame.

But there is hope. Goodell said he is open to new ideas. Here are a few, which could be considered a Pro Bowl booster shot:

Ditch the game. We are growing exponentially smarter about long-term physical consequences of playing football, so it's irresponsible to ask players to risk themselves in full-contact situations in an exhibition game. The franchises don't want that, the players don't want it and fans surely aren't interested in having stars put into harms way for what amounts to an NFL infomercia.

MVP John Scott and his fans overwhelm oblivious NHL

NASHVILLE – John Scott, captain of the Pacific Division All-Stars, sat on the bench between Taylor Hall and Johnny Gaudreau. Their team was leading the final game of the NHL’s new 3-on-3 mini-tournament. The fans would vote on the event’s Most Valuable Player, an honor that included a new car. 

Three Twitter hashtags flashed on the Bridgestone Arena video screens, revealing the three MVP candidates selected by the NHL. They were goalie Roberto Luongo of the Atlantic Division, Hall and Gaudreau.

John Scott, who scored twice in the preliminary game and was the single most popular player in Sunday’s tournament, had been snubbed.

“I was sitting next to Johnny and Taylor on the bench, and I said, ‘You guys better give me that van, because I need it,’” said Scott, whose wife is expected to deliver twins this week, to go along with their two young daughters.

What happened next was the epitome of Scott’s surreal All-Star journey: The NHL thudding, clueless reaction to his unexpected popularity; the fans rallying to defend the people’s champion; and the off-script, utter chaos that support causes.

They booed. Loudly. They chanted “JOHN SCOTT!”, loudly. Ther screamed “MVP!” whenever Scott touched the puck.

They pulled out their phones inside the arena, as others did around the world while watching the NHL All-Star Game on Sunday, and tweeted “#VoteJohnScott” again and again and again.

And so it ended as it began: With a fan vote. With people – for various reasons – shoving a career enforcer with five goals in 285 career games to the top of the All-Star voting leaderboard. With the NHL seeking to subvert or deny that will, either through disregard or disqualification. With those fans’ voices growing louder, more defiant, and eventually forcing the NHL to acknowledge the man and the movement.

So the same organization that told John Scott to reconsider his All-Star status because of what “his daughters would think” now had to reconsider their own decision on Scott, as his daughters watched from the stands.

As the Pacific Division won the All-Star Game tournament, 1-0, the NHL had to acknowledge that Scott received the most Twitter votes – although, like with the initial fan vote that got him into the game, no totals were revealed – and was the 2016 NHL All-Star Game Most Valuable Player.

(They also probably knew that anyone not named “John Scott” from the Pacific Division team would have been lustily booed by the Nashville fans.)

With that, Scott was lifted off the ice by Drew Doughty and Brent Burns in celebration.

Burns was Scott’s teammate with the San Jose Sharks, and has been his leading advocate during the NHL All-Star weekend. Seeing the big man snipe two goals in the previous game, and more than admirably hang playing in the 3-on-3, was no surprise to him.

“He’s a great player,” said Burns. “We said it before: You have your own role. You do it. It comes down to minutes and opportunities. But to get to this league and play, you have to be a good player.”