Sunday's clash between Marseille and Lyon at the Vélodrome carries enormous stakes, and two Americans will be right in the middle of it. Tim Weah and Tanner Tessmann, both USMNT midfielders hoping to make their mark ahead of this summer's World Cup, find themselves on opposite sides of one of French football's most heated rivalries.
The match has significant implications for the Champions League. Lyon sits third in Ligue 1 with 45 points, five clear of fourth-place Marseille, and in France, only the top three sides earn automatic qualification for the Champions League group phase. After an extraordinary run of 13 consecutive wins across all competitions, Lyon stumbled last weekend with a 3-1 defeat in Strasbourg, but Paulo Fonseca's side remains firmly in control of its destiny. Tessmann has been a consistent contributor throughout that winning run, starting 18 league matches and earning strong ratings across Lyon's recent victories over Lille, Metz, and Nantes.
Marseille, meanwhile, is in crisis. Roberto De Zerbi's tenure ended following a humiliating 5-0 defeat to PSG on February 8, and new manager Habib Beye's debut last weekend produced a 2-0 loss at Brest. The club has managed just eight points from seven league games in 2026, leaving them in genuine danger of missing out on Champions League football—a financially damaging prospect. Weah has remained one of Marseille's brighter performers amid the turbulence, contributing two goals and two assists in the league this season and posting strong individual ratings even in difficult defeats.
For both players, Sunday represents a chance to shine on a big stage. Tessmann will look to help Lyon extend their advantage, while Weah needs a standout performance to help jolt his club back to life and remind Pochettino of what he can offer this summer.
Defender Solid as Crystal Palace Advance in Conference League
Chris Richards turned in a quietly impressive performance as Crystal Palace eliminated Zrinjski Mostar 3-1 on aggregate with a 2-0 win at Selhurst Park on Thursday, booking their spot in the Conference League round of 16.
The 25-year-old USMNT center back, still wearing a bandage on his forehead from a cut sustained in Sunday's Premier League win over Wolves, was a commanding presence throughout. Richards won all six of his aerial duels, made four clearances, two tackles and five recoveries as Palace kept a clean sheet against the Bosnian side. He also completed 91% of his passes, showcasing his composure in build-up play, with ten passes into the final third and five of six long balls finding their target.
Richards came close to adding to his attacking contributions when he connected with a Daichi Kamada free kick in the second half, but headed over the bar with the goal at his mercy—a big chance missed that would have put the tie firmly to bed. Palace's path to victory was more nervy than the scoreline suggests. Maxence Lacroix's 36th-minute header from an Adam Wharton free kick gave the hosts the lead, but a late Zrinjski goal was ruled offside, and Ismaila Sarr spurned several chances to put the match beyond doubt. Evann Guessand finally settled matters in stoppage time, converting a one-two with Brennan Johnson.
Manager Oliver Glasner, who had faced criticism following the 1-1 first-leg draw, exhaled after the final whistle. Palace are now among the favorites to win the competition, and Richards will be a key figure in their European run.
Forward Keeps Firing as Coventry Close in on Promotion
Haji Wright's remarkable scoring form shows no signs of slowing down. The U.S. men's national team striker netted his 15th goal of the Championship season on Wednesday, sparking a Coventry City comeback in a 2-1 victory at Sheffield United's Bramall Lane that sent the Sky Blues five points clear at the top of the table.
Coventry had been second best for much of the match, with Sheffield United dominating large stretches before Harrison Burrows gave the hosts a deserved lead three minutes after halftime. But Wright quickly silenced the home crowd, cutting inside from the left and drilling a low shot past Michael Cooper in the 52nd minute to draw level. Five minutes later, Jack Rudoni headed home a cross from Ephron Mason-Clark to complete the turnaround and seal a vital three points.
It was a classic Wright goal, arriving at precisely the right moment with clinical execution. It extended what has become one of the more impressive individual scoring runs in the Championship this season. With Coventry chasing their first Premier League promotion in 25 years, his contributions have been central to the push.
Manager Frank Lampard was full of praise for his side's resilience. "The character to come from behind and score two good goals is all credit to the boys," he said. "There was a lot of pressure, the crowd get involved, we needed personality and that was first class."
The win extended Coventry's lead over second-place Middlesbrough to five points, with the top side earning automatic promotion. For Wright, now firmly in the conversation as one of the division's most dangerous strikers, the timing of his form couldn't be better—both for Coventry's title hopes and his own World Cup ambitions this summer.
Midfielder Announces Himself on the Champions League Stage
Johnny Cardoso scored his first goal for Atlético Madrid on Tuesday, a crucial strike that helped propel Diego Simeone's side to a 4-1 win over Club Brugge and a 7-4 aggregate victory in the Champions League knockout playoffs.
Three minutes into the second half, with the score level at 1-1 on the night, Cardoso collected a headed clearance outside the box and, after a quick touch, unleashed a powerful half-volley that whistled into the bottom-left corner past goalkeeper Simon Mignolet. The goal gave Atlético a 2-1 lead on the night and a 5-4 edge on aggregate, effectively swinging the tie in their favor. Alexander Sørloth went on to complete a hat trick as Atlético pulled away.
"I always dreamed about nights like this," Cardoso told Movistar after the match, "playing in the Champions League at home with these fans, scoring a goal and getting the win."
It has been a frustrating debut season for Cardoso in Madrid. After joining from Real Betis last summer, an ankle injury in September sidelined him for six weeks and disrupted his ability to establish himself in Simeone's midfield, leaving him with just 19 appearances so far. Tuesday marked a turning point. "I had problems with injuries at the beginning," he said, "but I know what I can contribute to the team, and now I feel good."
The goal couldn't come at a better time for his World Cup prospects either. With the tournament set to be played on home soil this summer, Cardoso will be eager to make USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino's final roster and performances like Tuesday's make a compelling case.
Midfielder Scores Again in the Champions League and Signs a New Deal
Weston McKennie continued his remarkable run of form on Wednesday, scoring a crucial 82nd-minute header to level Juventus' Champions League knockout playoff tie against Galatasaray at 5-5 on aggregate. Though Juventus ultimately fell 7-5 after extra time, with Victor Osimhen and Bariş Alper Yilmaz both scoring in the additional period, McKennie's contribution was a reminder of just how important he has become at the club.
The goal came from a set-piece sequence, with Teun Koopmeiners delivering a cross from a free kick that McKennie met at the back post, heading it into the net. It was his fourth Champions League goal of this season and 11th in his career and came despite Juventus playing with 10 men after Lloyd Kelly's red card just before the hour mark. McKennie has registered seven goals and seven assists across all competitions this season, the best goalscoring campaign of his career.
The timing of the performance is significant beyond the pitch. McKennie, who has been with Juventus since 2021—aside from a brief loan spell at Leeds United in 2023—was approaching the final months of his contract. Reports indicate he is close to signing a new deal that would keep him in Turin through 2030, a major commitment from a club that has come to rely on his versatility and attacking output under manager Luciano Spalletti. Entering his prime, McKennie is expected to play a central role for the USMNT at this summer's World Cup, played entirely on home soil.
On This Day in 2010, Ching and Kljestan Rescue a Rain-Soaked Night in Tampa, But Questions Linger as South Africa Draws Near
The hangover from October had barely lifted when January arrived with a fresh humiliation. Stripped of its European-based core, the United States traveled to Carson, California, for an exhibition against Honduras—the same Honduras it had dismantled four months earlier on that soaked field in San Pedro Sula—and was thoroughly outplayed, 3-1. Jimmy Conrad was ejected in the 17th minute. Carlos Pavon converted the penalty that followed. By the time Roger Espinoza slotted home the third in the 53rd minute, the result had stopped being a match and started being a verdict. "It's tough to fight back," Jonathan Bornstein, the one regular in a lineup of reserves, said afterward, "especially a man down." He left the more uncomfortable truth unspoken: even with 11 men, this group had never really been in it.
The context mattered, as it always does with the national team. The players who had finished first in the CONCACAF hexagonal, with Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard and Oguchi Onyewu at the spine of the side, were still in Europe, still playing for their clubs, still unavailable until the calendar allowed otherwise. What Bob Bradley sent onto the field in Carson was less a national team than an audition, a roll call of domestic players competing for spots on a roster that would be announced in the spring. The loss stung, but its significance was always more diagnostic than damning.
Still, a diagnosis can be unsettling. The Americans were four months from their opening match against England at Rustenburg, and the gap between what they were and what they needed to be remained visible to anyone watching.
February brought them to Tampa, to Raymond James Stadium, and a Wednesday night in the rain against El Salvador, ranked 71st in the world, a team that had not qualified for South Africa. A team that, on paper, should have provided little resistance. The roster Bradley assembled was nearly identical to the one that had lost to Honduras: 20 players, 19 from MLS, the lone European-based exception being defender Clarence Goodson, who had flown in from Norway's IK Start after New England's Kevin Alston strained his hamstring. Charlie Davies was still months away from anything resembling a return. Onyewu's patella tendon, severed on the October night after Davies's accident, kept him sidelined.
The February 24 game itself unfolded with the ambivalence one might expect from two teams with different stakes. The United States controlled the first half in the way a superior team often does, without actually threatening: five shots on goal to El Salvador's one, a pair of diving saves from goalkeeper Miguel Montes to deny Sacha Kljestan and Robbie Rogers, corners accumulated without conversion. The Americans were pressing but not piercing, moving the ball but not finishing—the same imbalance that had haunted them in Carson.
Then Brad Evans, starting at right back in place of the more experienced Bornstein, made an errant header deep in his own end that appeared intended for goalkeeper Nick Rimando, the surprise starter ahead of Troy Perkins. Rudis Corrales read it before either of them did, collecting the ball and putting El Salvador ahead in the 59th minute. A crowd of 21,737, gathered in part to signal Tampa's ambitions as a potential host city for a future World Cup bid, fell quiet. This was the script from Carson replaying itself: an undermanned opponent taking advantage of a team that couldn't afford the errors it kept making.
Brian Ching had entered at the start of the second half, replacing Conor Casey. At 31, he was fighting a different kind of battle—not just for a result on this particular night but for a place on a plane to South Africa. He had been on the 2006 World Cup roster, made the trip to Germany, and never gotten off the bench. Four years of that memory had sharpened something in him. In the 75th minute, Heath Pearce delivered a long cross from the left that Montes misread and mishandled. Ching, arriving late and low, met it with a diving header from seven yards and redirected it into the net. The kind of goal that doesn't require much explaining. He was a forward doing what forwards do, reading the moment before anyone else does.
"I was extremely disappointed in 2006," Ching said afterward, the understatement carrying the full weight of a man who had stood on the game's biggest stage and watched it from the wrong side of the touchline. "Anytime you go to a World Cup, you want to be on the field. I wasn't able to last time, so it was a goal of mine as soon as it ended to put myself in a good position to make the team first of all, and hopefully get in and play a little."
The equalizer changed the atmosphere without yet changing the result. El Salvador, defending a lead they had no business holding, dug in. The U.S. pressed with 18 shots to three on the night, nine corners to two, but precision continued to elude them. And then, two minutes into stoppage time, Kljestan picked off a careless pass just outside the penalty area, slipped a quick exchange with Ching, and drove inside to slot the ball to the far post. The stadium exhaled. The Americans had their first win of the World Cup year.
Kljestan was 24, a product of the 2008 Olympic side, a player who had impressed in qualifying and who understood this moment for what it was. He had squandered two decent chances in the first half. The winner was partly redemption. Bradley, speaking with the tempered satisfaction of a man who knew exactly what he had and hadn't seen, framed it carefully. "(The win) was especially important for this group. To have the chance to come back in February, work a little more and get another game and get a result," he said, "yeah, it feels good."
It felt good partly because it needed to. The win was earned, the statistics comfortably in the Americans' favor, the comeback against a team ranked 57 places below them perhaps more than it might otherwise appear. But the subtext hummed beneath everything. The players auditioning tonight, like Ching, Kljestan, Bornstein, and Heath Pearce, among others, knew this was likely their final audition before the European regulars arrived in May and reset the hierarchy. "Everyone's in the same position now. We really don't know," said Jeff Cunningham, who played 22 minutes and found nothing decisive. "You just have to make the most of your opportunities and wait."
The next test came a week later in Amsterdam, and it arrived with the cruelty that only a match against a third-ranked side can produce. The European-based players had returned: Donovan, Howard, Jozy Altidore and Carlos Bocanegra. The team that took the field against the Netherlands on March 3 more closely resembled the one that had won in Honduras, qualified in October, and defied expectation all autumn. For a night at least, this was the real team.
What the night revealed was harder to absorb. Bornstein, so recently the hero of the RFK equalizer, gave away the penalty that Dirk Kuyt converted in the 40th minute, grabbing Wesley Sneijder's arm in the penalty area. The second goal was equally painful: Klaas-Jan Huntelaar's shot in the 73rd deflected off Bornstein's chest and left Howard helpless. Two-nil, and the Americans had contributed to both. Bocanegra pulled one back in the 88th minute, heading in DaMarcus Beasley's long free kick with a sharpness that suggested the game's margin was narrower than it had looked. But it ended 2-1, the United States' fifth consecutive loss on European soil.
Stuart Holden had limped off in the 34th minute with a bruised shin, taking X-rays and joining a list that already included Dempsey, Onyewu, Richardo Clark, Benny Feilhaber, Steve Cherundolo and Davies. The list had become its own kind of story. It was a roster of absences that shadowed every lineup, every tactical conversation, every projection about South Africa. Bradley, coaching on his 52nd birthday, acknowledged the positives in Beasley's performance while absorbing the result with the composure of a man who had spent two years managing exactly this kind of complexity. "There are always going to be tough decisions," he said. "As a staff, we're committed to seeing as many games as we can, and we have a lot of work to do."
The road to South Africa still ran through May exhibitions against the Czech Republic and Turkey, through whatever the MLS labor situation would ultimately produce, through the fitness reports and form assessments that would shape a 23-man roster announced to a nation now paying genuine attention. England waited on June 12. Slovenia after that. Algeria to close. The questions from October, the ones that had hung unanswered in the cool Washington night, had not disappeared. They had only multiplied.
It was a moment that shifted the entire course of the Scottish Premiership title race. Auston Trusty's straight red card for violent conduct in the 73rd minute proved the decisive turning point as Celtic fell 2-1 to Hibernian at Celtic Park on Sunday. It was manager Martin O'Neill's first domestic defeat of the season and a result that leaves the champions six points behind league leaders Hearts.
The incident itself was contested in its severity. With the scores level at 1-1, Trusty and Hibernian midfielder Jamie McGrath became entangled at a corner, and the American defender forcefully batted away McGrath's arm. Referee Matthew MacDermid initially intended only to speak to both players, but a VAR review changed everything. After being called to the pitchside monitor, MacDermid upgraded his assessment to violent conduct and issued the red card—ending Trusty's afternoon after 74 minutes of otherwise solid defensive work that had included five headed clearances, two interceptions and a perfect aerial duel record.
O'Neill was candid about the impact, acknowledging that Celtic had the momentum at the time of the dismissal and had created chances they simply didn't convert. He stopped short of condemning the decision outright, conceding that thrusting down in the manner Trusty did constitutes violent conduct under current rules, while also noting the original plan had been a simple warning.
The consequences extend beyond Sunday. Trusty now faces missing the Old Firm clash at Ibrox against Rangers next weekend, which is a match Celtic can ill afford to lose, given the gap at the top. An appeal appears unlikely based on O'Neill's comments, meaning the 27-year-old will watch from the stands as his teammates face arguably their biggest test of the season.
Defender Suffered Possible Head Injury in Shutout Win Over Wolves
It was a week of mixed emotions for Chris Richards. The American center-back had helped Crystal Palace earn a workable 1-1 draw at Zrinjski Mostar in the Europa Conference League on Thursday, before playing a full 90 minutes—including the final stretch with a bandaged head following a collision—as Palace edged Wolves 1-0 on Sunday to offer some much-needed relief at Selhurst Park.
The Mostar result left Richards with complicated feelings. Speaking afterward, he acknowledged the draw offered something to build on for the home leg, while also recognizing Palace hadn't quite done enough. "We're a little bit disappointed with the result, but also a 1-1 is also something you can take into the next leg with a lot of optimism," he said. The American was candid about defensive lapses and a failure to convert chances, though he remained focused on the opportunity at home ahead.
Three days later came a tougher test than the final scoreline suggests. Wolves arrived at Selhurst Park in decent form and gave Palace genuine problems throughout the first half, with Richards involved in one nervy moment when a mix-up between him and Dean Henderson nearly gifted Adam Armstrong a tap-in. The American recovered, though, and finished the match having made five headed clearances and an interception across 90 minutes. It was solid, if unspectacular, work that contributed to a vital shutout.
He also showed his toughness, seeing out the final 10 minutes with a bandage wrapped around his head after taking a knock in a collision during the match. The clean sheet was Palace's to cherish, sealed by Evann Guessand's 90th-minute winner. With the Conference League second leg and continued Premier League survival concerns ahead, Richards' durability and defensive steadiness will remain important for a Palace side still finding its footing.
Ricardo Pepi provided an exciting return from his arm injury. The 23-year-old American striker marked his return from a six-week injury in emphatic fashion, coming off the bench for PSV Eindhoven and curling a composed effort into the right corner three minutes from stoppage time to seal a 3-1 Eredivisie victory over Heerenveen—his 11th goal of the season across all competitions.
Pepi had been sidelined since January 10, and his absence coincided with a turbulent period off the pitch as well. Fulham had shown significant interest during the winter window, and both clubs reportedly agreed on a transfer fee on Deadline Day, only for the deal to collapse when PSV couldn't find a suitable replacement. He stayed, and on Saturday, he reminded everyone exactly why he was so difficult to replace.
Introduced in the 75th minute with PSV leading 2-1, where Ivan Perisic had equalized before halftime, and Myron Boadu added a second just after the break, Pepi wasted little time making his mark. Despite having a goal ruled out right after subbing on, patience paid off when, in the 87th minute, he collected the ball just outside the box and curled a right-footed strike into the corner.
In just 15 minutes of action, he registered two shots, both on target, and created a chance—a cameo that belied its brevity. With PSV now 17 points clear at the top of the Eredivisie table and the March international window approaching, the timing of Pepi's return could hardly be better. The USMNT's World Cup preparations are starting to come together at exactly the right moment.
Midfielder Plays in His First Match Since December in Draw with West Ham
For Tyler Adams and those watching America's World Cup preparations closely, Saturday brought a significant sigh of relief. The USMNT midfielder made his return to the pitch for the first time since December 15th, starting Bournemouth's goalless draw at West Ham's London Stadium and playing 66 minutes—a hugely encouraging sign with the tournament on home soil less than six months away.
Adams had been sidelined with an MCL injury sustained at Manchester United, a blow that initially prompted fears of a two-to-three month absence. Given his history of significant injury layoffs, which included hamstring and back problems that kept him out for lengthy stretches in both 2023 and 2024, the timing felt particularly cruel. He made the bench in Bournemouth's win over Everton on February 10 but didn't feature, making Saturday his first competitive action in over two months.
On the evidence of his return, the rust was minimal. Deployed in front of the center backs, Adams was tidy in possession, completing 91 percent of his passes, and diligent without the ball, making five clearances, five recoveries and an interception. His overall contribution underlined why Bournemouth missed him so badly.
The broader context matters enormously. Adams has been a USMNT fixture for eight years, captained the side at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and is expected to be central to Mauricio Pochettino's plans for 2026. After missing the October and November international windows last year, the March friendlies against Belgium and Portugal in Atlanta could represent a time to get back into the first-team fold. With the World Cup opener approaching, Adams' return was a very welcome sight.
