Month: June 2026

For 37 minutes on Sunday, Curaçao stayed with four-time champion Germany, with the World Cup first-timers daring to believe they could pull off the unimaginable. Livano Comenencia tied it with his left-footed shot through traffic from the center of the box in the 21st minute to give Curaçao its first goal in the tournament and send fans of the Blue Wave into a frenzy. But Germany broke a 1-1 tie in the 38th minute and overwhelmed this tiny Caribbean nation after that, running away with the game for a 7-1 victory in the group stage. “This is not a disgrace,” Curaçao coach Dick Advocaat said. “I think we can still be proud.” It was an emotional day for the 78-year-old Advocaat, a World Cup veteran who previously coached the Netherlands in 1994 and South Korea in 2006. He wept before the game as his team from a country of just 158,000 made history with its debut in the tournament. “This is related with the joy of the people in Curaçao,” he said. “It may be a matter of my age, but this is when the emotion comes to the surface. I don’t really like it … [but] the joy of the people is fantastic.” He became the oldest man to ever coach a World Cup game and did it against Germany’s 38-year-old coach Julian Nagelsmann, who is the youngest in this year’s tournament. Comenencia’s goal gave Curaçao confidence early and was yet another milestone in the team’s historic run. “The goal was absolutely fantastic for all of us, for the nation as well,” winger Kenji Gorre said. “It’s more history being made. The first goal ever scored on the world stage. It’s just phenomenal, and we’re all grateful that we were here to experience it [with] all the people in the stadium.” Nagelsmann was impressed with the fight shown by Curaçao and noted that it can be dangerous when an underdog gets confidence. “The opponent played better than many had expected in Germany,” he said. “They played with a lot of courage.” While Curaçao was proud to have stuck with a powerhouse like Germany for most of the first half, there was disappointment at the final score. Curaçao had the biggest goal difference in a defeat of a nation making its World Cup debut since South Korea lost 9-0 to Hungary in 1954, according to Opta. “Mixed emotions, mixed feelings. On one side, you think, ‘Wow, we’ve made history by coming to the World Cup,’” Gorré said. “On the other it’s like, ‘Wow, we wish that we could have got some points.’ But we’re playing against the world’s best and the world’s best punish you at every opportunity they can, and you see that they punished us seven times from mistakes that we made.” Curaçao hopes that the experience gained Sunday will help as it continues in the tournament against Ecuador on Saturday in Kansas City. “We still have matches to go and things can still end up differently,” Advocaat said. Reporting by The Associated Press.​Latest Sports News from FOX Sports

Pocono Raceway (Long Pond, Pa.) — Denny Hamlin won for the third consecutive week and all from the pole. And like any competitor, he wondered what could have been after his victory on Sunday at Pocono Raceway, which followed wins at Nashville and Michigan the previous two weeks. “I’m just thinking, ‘Holy crap, man, we’re three seconds away from having five in a row with Charlotte with the rain [ending the race before I took the lead],’” Hamlin said in his post-race news conference. Hamlin will take four wins in his last five events, as he won the All-Star Race at Dover the week before the race at Charlotte. Here are my Pocono takeaways: 1. Denny Gets GOAT Motivation Hamlin had an emotional few months prior to this season. He lost the 2025 title on a late caution and pit call, his 23XI Racing won a settlement in a brutal trial against NASCAR and his terminally ill father died in a house fire. He said in the preseason that he wasn’t really ready to race and that the season could go either great or awful. It’s obviously going great. And Hamlin can trace some of it back to a preseason rally for 23XI Racing and something said by team co-owner Michael Jordan. “I never forget Michael, when he addressed 23X1 in the offseason, he’s like, ‘What I’m interested to see is what does Denny do. Because after what happened in Phoenix, you either pick yourself up and you respond or you fold. We’ll find out,’” said Hamlin, who drives for Joe Gibbs Racing while co-owning 23XI Racing. “He’s finding out.” Said Hamlin race team co-owner Heather Gibbs: “He’s a consummate professional. I think for many of us that go through a lot of tough times, being at the racetrack is our home. That’s where we find the most peace and want to be back at the track. That’s normal to him. I think he wanted to be back. He had records to break. He had something to prove. He’s doing it now.” 2. Hamlin Closing In On Reddick With 10 races left in the regular season, Hamlin — with four points-race victories — has cut Reddick’s lead in the standings to just 19 points. Reddick had five wins early in the year and had more than a 100-point lead. The regular-season champion starts the 10-race Chase (postseason) with 2,100 points. The runner-up starts with 2,075 points. Hamlin isn’t as strong as Reddick on road courses and the next two races are on the street course at Naval Base Coroando and the road course at Sonoma Raceway. “There’s a lot of tracks coming up where we’re both going to be very strong at. It’s just going to be a matter of who puts together the better weekend, really, to close the thing out,” Reddick told me and other reporters after a second-place finish at Pocono. 3. Bell Feels OK Christopher Bell said his broken left wrist, suffered in a crash last week at Michigan, impacted him some on restarts and when he wanted to make quick maneuvers in the race at Pocono. Bell was leading until five laps to go, as he tried to stretch fuel until Hamlin caught him. It was a huge roll of the dice and Bell didn’t feel this was a race that slipped away. The JGR driver finished 26th after having to pit for fuel on the white-flag lap. “My wrist is fine whenever I’m by myself, but certainly in like any sort of adverse conditions, like whenever I banged with [Josh Berry], getting into [Turn] 3 and then that wreck in front of me, I just don’t really have the ability to make sharp quick corrections to the car. … [And] I certainly think it affected my restarts,” Bell told me and other reporters. Bell said he didn’t have any pain, and he’ll have to see how he is next week on whether he can race the 16-turn street course at Naval Base Coroando. 4. Three Weeks, Three Wrecks For Keselowski Brad Keselowski has fallen outside the Chase cutoff after three consecutive weeks where his race ended early because of an accident. At Pocono’s incident, he cleared the initial wreckage as several cars tangled. But then Bubba Wallace and Joey Logano had contact, and Keselowski had nowhere to go to avoid Logano. “Guys run really stupid races where they’re like three-wide on Lap 5 in a race where the strategy is going to reshuffle the field three more times,” Keselowski told me and other reporters after being released from the infield medical center. “So you’re just trying not to get caught up in their junk. And I missed the first wave of their junk but not the second.  … We just keep digging the hole. I know we have good cars for these last three races, and we didn’t get any results on, so that’s not good.” 4 ½. What’s Next NASCAR heads to a special one-off event as it conducts a race at Naval Base Coronado. The 16-turn, 3.4-mile street course will be a challenge, as a new event and one with very little room for error. Shane van Gisbergen, who won the inaugural Chicago street race in his NASCAR debut three years ago, is the prohibitive favorite.​Latest Sports News from FOX Sports

Sunday’s four-goal thriller at Dallas Stadium was one that started slowly but undoubtedly came to life in the second half. The Netherlands drew 2-2 against Japan thanks to goals from Virgil Van Dijk and Crysencio Summerville that were then respectively canceled out by Keito Nakamura and Daichi Kamada. This was also a battle between two very high-skilled, fast-playing chess players that took some time to get going as the first half was played at a passive pace due to Japan’s uber-counter-attacking and defensive strategy and the Dutch’s inability to break through. But once the second half arrived, it was clear the message at the break to both dressing rooms was exactly the same: to play at a faster pace and to gamble. In the end, the excellent Japan — a team I have waxed lyrical about for a long time — rescued a point against the Netherlands, who failed to win the opening match at a World Cup for the first time in its history. Here are my takeaways: The 24-year-old winger scored his team’s second goal, and it was a wonderful left-footed shot from inside the box. Throughout the game, he showed lively runs that caused mayhem for Japan’s inverted fullbacks. For West Ham, he plays on the left wing but Koeman smartly placed him on the right and allowed him to cut inside with his quick decision-making. It’s amazing to think that, prior to this World Cup, he had never played a competitive game for the Netherlands before. Consequently, Ronald Koeman calls him up and after impressing, the manager not only takes him to the tournament, but starts him in the first match. Summerville repays the decision with a winning goal for this team. Speaking of West Ham, he won’t be there much longer as multiple clubs are very interested in him. If he carries on playing the same way he is doing, the sky will be the limit. After Summerville’s goal, the Dutch manager, a former defender himself, decided to shut shop — but there were still 26 minutes left, and that was a massive error from the Netherlands as Japan pushed for another equalizer. Crystal Palace’s Kamada capitalized from a corner in the 88th minute and fully deserved it. It’s a lesson for the UEFA side, who now realize that the best form of protection is to keep going. We all know about the imperial presence of Virgil Van Dijk as the Liverpool man is one of the best defenders in the history of the modern game. For his country, just like his club, everything begins and ends with him from the back, but just as shown today thanks to the opening goal, his aerial ability is often unmatched. There is no one who distributes the ball like him in the game. The overlapping strategy that came from Japan’s full backs when penetrating the final third, was also a problem for the Netherlands. Their wing backs play the role of wingers whenever they counter, trying to cross the ball as fast as possible. And the actual wingers cut inside to create an overwhelming line inside the Dutch box. The interesting thing is that all of Japan’s wide players are inverted (left wingers with a stronger right foot looking to come inside and vice versa but love to come inside, hence Nakamura’s goal. It was truly a hard-fought effort from both sides as defenders took center stage. The Netherlands will stay in Texas to face Sweden in Houston on Saturday whilst Japan travels to Tunisia a day later at Estadio Monterrey in Guadalupe. This group is most definitely there for the taking.​Latest Sports News from FOX Sports

Lamine Yamal is in “ideal condition” to play in Spain’s World Cup opener against Cape Verde on Monday, coach Luis de la Fuente said. Yamal is not expected to start the game in Atlanta, but has been cleared to play in his return from a hamstring injury that forced the 18-year-old superstar to miss the final weeks of the season for Barcelona. “We are following the indications of medical staff from Barcelona, his club, and also from the Spanish national team, with the fitness coaches. Everything says that Lamine Yamal is ready to play tomorrow,” de la Fuente said at a news conference. “We don’t know how much. It is a matter of how the game is evolving, the game situation, that gives you a hint of when he might jump on the pitch, but he is in ideal condition to play tomorrow.” Yamal has established himself as arguably the brightest emerging talent in Europe after helping Spain win the European Championship in 2024, despite only turning 17 on the eve of the final. His popularity in the United States has been evident during the opening days of the World Cup. An advertisement with his image towers over Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where Spain kicks off its campaign. On Sunday, fans congregated outside Kennesaw State University where Spain was training, with several children copying his trademark blond curly hair. Fans hoping to catch a glimpse of him Monday may not be disappointed. “Lamine Yamal is ready to play a few minutes and our medical team agree on that decision. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be even on the bench,” de la Fuente said. Spain’s one World Cup title came in 2010, when, like now, it entered the tournament as European champion. It is the co-favorite with France to win the title. “This is just recognition for everything we have done to come this far,” de la Fuente said. “We are humble. We know how difficult it is to win any match and to win the World Cup.” Cape Verde is playing in its first World Cup and is the third-smallest country ever to qualify. It is not expected to pull off a historic upset against Spain. De la Fuente, however, said there was no danger of his players underestimating their opponent. “They might be one of the teams springing a surprise in this World Cup,” he said. Cape Verde coach Pedro Leitão Brito agreed. “I believe the match will be competitive on the field,” he said. “Our will is to play without fear. … When we mention identity, we are talking about who we are as a people.” Reporting by The Associated Press.​Latest Sports News from FOX Sports