San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
U.S. earns win; Pulisic honored
Cole Bassett scored in the 89th minute of his U.S. national team debut and the Americans set a record for victories in a calendar year with a 1-0 exhibition win over 10-man Bosnia and Herzegovina on Saturday in Carson (Los Angeles County).
Bassett, a 20-year-old midfielder for the Colorado Rapids, slammed home a rebound of a shot by 18-year-old Jonathan Gomez, the former Louisville City defender headed to Real Sociedad. Gomez had also just made his U.S. debut as a second-half substitute.
The newcomers teamed up for a goal that salvaged the Americans’ 17th win of 2021, surpassing the team mark set in 2013.
Before the game, Chelsea forward Christian Pulisic was named U.S. Soccer’s male player of the year.
Pulisic became the first American to play in the Champions League final and the first to win it during Chelsea’s championship season. He had six goals and four assists across 40 appearances for the London club, highlighted by a two-goal game against Crystal Palace in April and a goal against Real Madrid in the first leg of the Champions League semifinal.
For his national team, Pulisic served as team captain four times and also scored three game-winning goals, including two against archrival Mexico. The Pennsylvania
native put in a penalty kick in the CONCACAF Nations League final, and he scored on his first touch last month after coming off the bench in a World Cup qualifier.
England: The English Premier League’s pandemic-affected schedule took a further hit when a coronavirus outbreak in Aston Villa’s squad sparked the postponement of its match against Burnley, reducing the number of EPL games this weekend to four.
England continued to be the most heavily disrupted of the major soccer countries in Europe, reflecting the growing public health emergency in Britain as the omicron variant spreads.
So depleted was the Premier League schedule, there was only one game on Saturday — Arsenal’s 4-1 win over Leeds. That was played despite Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta saying there had been more coronavirus cases among the club’s players and staff.
The Aston Villa-Burnley match was called off around two hours before kickoff, with Villa telling the league it did not have enough players to field a team following more positive tests in its squad.
The league approved Aston Villa’s request to postpone the match “based on the number of COVID-19 cases, injuries and illness.”
Five matches scheduled for this weekend had already been called off because of coronavirus outbreaks in squads.