Sunday had a way of forcing honesty on everyone it touched. Atlanta United got two goals dropped on them in Columbus before they woke up, and the post-match answers from the coach and players were as direct as they have been all season. West Ham beat Leeds 3-0 and got relegated anyway, with 62,000 supporters turning their backs to the pitch to tell the ownership exactly what they thought. Lionel Messi walked down a tunnel in Miami grabbing at his leg with the World Cup 17 days away, and the whole planet stopped scrolling. The game asked hard questions on Sunday. The answers are still coming in.

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Sunday night offered Atlanta United a chance to carry some momentum into the World Cup break. Instead, the Five Stripes dropped a 2-0 decision to Columbus Crew at ScottsMiracle-Gro Field, finishing the pre-break stretch of MLS play at 3-9-2, 11 points, and 14th in the Eastern Conference. It was not the sendoff anyone in red and black was hoping for.

Context matters here: Columbus was not exactly in a stable place either. The Crew dismissed head coach Henrik Rydström after 14 matches and had interim manager Laurent Courtois in charge for just his second match on Sunday. A team in transition, playing at home, with something to prove. Atlanta needed to match that energy from the first whistle. They did not come close.

The Crew were the sharper side from the opening whistle. Diego Rossi and Daniel Gazdag tested Lucas Hoyos early, with Rossi curling a left-footed shot off the near post before Hoyos stopped the follow-up. Atlanta could not get on the ball and allowed Columbus to dictate the tempo, holding just 18 percent possession through the first 20 minutes. The first goal came in the 24th minute and it was a direct result of that passivity. Saba Lobjanidze's set piece went waist-high into the Crew wall, Columbus broke immediately, and Rossi and Mohamed Farsi combined to find Sekou Bangoura in space for a clean finish. Then, in second-minute stoppage time before the half, Farsi again attacked down the right and crossed to an on-rushing Rossi, who buried it first time at the back post. Two goals, both preventable, and Atlanta went into the break staring at a two-goal hole.

The second half told a different story in terms of effort. Atlanta out-shot Columbus 14-3 in the second 45, forcing 12 Columbus clearances and 8 blocked shots from the Crew defense. Tata Martino brought on Miguel Almirón at the 60-minute mark for his first MLS action since April 11, and the Paraguayan immediately injected urgency, drawing a free kick from range that deflected off the wall. Alexey Miranchuk had the best chance of the half in the 73rd minute, played in by Cooper Sanchez, only to see his right-footed strike blocked by a diving defender at the last second. Elias Báez was arguably Atlanta's best player on the night, making a full sprint down the left wing late and forcing Patrick Schulte to punch clear. The effort was real in the second half. The result was already gone.

Tristan Muyumba did not mince words after the match. "It's kind of childish how we concede goals," he said, pointing to the recurring pattern of giving up preventable goals and spending the rest of the game trying to dig out. He identified the first goal as the most damaging, not just for the scoreline but for the team's confidence heading into the half. Martino was equally direct about what has to change. "I'd like to not make so many mistakes," he said, before walking through the categories of errors that have plagued Atlanta across 14 league matches: set pieces poorly executed, turnovers playing out of the back, opponents getting in behind the back four in transition. That checklist covers a lot of ground.

Latte Lath, Matías Galarza, and Fafà Picault were all absent from the matchday 20, which limited Martino's options off the bench. The transfer window opens this summer and the coach acknowledged it will be part of the solution. But the math is stark. Jon Nelson put it plainly in his post-match report: Atlanta may realistically need to win ten matches starting in July to make the postseason. The World Cup break gives Martino six weeks to work. The results up to this point leave no question that every one of those weeks is needed.

Saba Lobjanidze made his 100th appearance for the club in all competitions on Sunday, becoming the 11th player in Atlanta United history to reach that mark. That milestone deserved a better stage. Atlanta does not play again until July 17, when MLS resumes and the Five Stripes travel to Nashville to face SC at Geodis Park (8:00 p.m. ET, Apple TV, 92.9 The Game).

If you were looking for a send-off befitting the defending World Cup champions, Sunday night in Miami delivered about half of what you wanted. Inter Miami beat the Philadelphia Union 6-4 in the second-highest-scoring game in MLS history, Luis Suárez completed a hat trick, Rodrigo De Paul scored a stoppage-time winner, and Lionel Messi walked straight down the tunnel in the 73rd minute grabbing at the back of his left leg. The World Cup starts in 23 days. So yes, people noticed.

The match itself was genuinely chaotic in the best possible way. Miami and Philadelphia traded goals on a rain-soaked pitch at Nu Stadium, tied 4-4 when Messi came off. Suárez put Miami ahead in the 81st minute to complete his hat trick, and De Paul sealed it in stoppage time. It was the kind of night that reminds you why this sport pulls people in. It was also the kind of night that immediately took a back seat to one man's left leg.

Messi had shown no obvious signs of distress before the substitution. He took a free kick in the 68th minute, made a dribbling run shortly after, and then spent several minutes at walking pace before rolling up his shorts and signaling to the bench himself. He exited and went straight down the tunnel without speaking to anyone on the sideline. Interim coach Guillermo Hoyos downplayed it afterward, calling it fatigue and citing the heavy pitch conditions from the rain. He said the club did not yet have a medical report. Worth noting: Messi has played a full 90 minutes in every match he has appeared in for Miami this season. This was not a routine precautionary substitution.

The timing could not be more loaded. Argentina opens World Cup group play on June 16 against Algeria in Kansas City, with pre-tournament friendlies against Honduras on June 6 at Kyle Field and Iceland on June 9 at Jordan-Hare Stadium. Messi is due to report to the national team directly after this match. He carries 116 international goals in 198 appearances, is the reigning back-to-back MLS MVP, and has 13 goals and seven assists in 16 matches this season. Argentina drew a manageable group with Algeria, Austria, and Jordan, but no group is manageable without your best player healthy.

There is reason to hold off on full alarm. In November 2022, Messi dealt with an inflamed Achilles heading into the Qatar World Cup and went on to play every minute of all seven matches as Argentina won the title. His body has a history of finding a way when it matters most. But the world will be watching every update between now and June 6 very closely, and Argentina fans everywhere will not exhale until he is on the pitch in Kansas City.

Sunday night in Miami was exactly the kind of match that makes it impossible to look away. Six goals, a hat trick from Luis Suárez at 39 years old, a stoppage-time winner from Rodrigo De Paul, and a rain-soaked atmosphere that felt more like a World Cup warm-up than a regular season MLS send-off. The Messi injury scare cast a shadow over all of it, but the game itself was a reminder of what this sport can be when everything goes sideways in the best possible way.

West Ham United beat Leeds United 3-0 on Sunday at the London Stadium. Valentín Castellanos headed home a corner in the 67th minute, Jarrod Bowen drilled in a second, and Callum Wilson blasted a third from distance in stoppage time. The crowd did not celebrate any of it. Tottenham beat Everton 1-0 at the same time, and the Hammers were relegated from the Premier League for the first time since 2011, finishing with 39 points, the most any team has accumulated while going down since that same season.

The match itself was almost beside the point. West Ham had been in the relegation zone heading into the final day and needed a result from Everton that never came. By the time Wilson scored, most of the 62,000 supporters in attendance had turned their backs to the pitch and directed their attention to the directors' box, where co-owner David Sullivan was seated. The chant they chose was the one normally reserved for visiting fans: "You've sold our soul, for this s***hole." That chant landing from the home end, on the final day of a relegation season, in a stadium they have rented since leaving Upton Park in 2016, is about as complete a summary of a club's collapse as you will find in modern football.

The numbers behind this failure are genuinely staggering. West Ham generated £238 million in revenues last season, ninth highest in the Premier League. They have spent £654 million on players over the past five years. They have the second-highest average attendance in England at 62,341, ahead of Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester City. None of it translated into stability, because the recruitment was consistently poor and the leadership above it was consistently worse. The list of expensive, underperforming signings runs long: Gianluca Scamacca, Edson Álvarez, Jean-Clair Todibo, Maximilian Kilman, Niclas Füllkrug. Director of football Tim Steidten oversaw much of the spending before departing in February 2025, leaving Sullivan effectively running player recruitment himself. That is not a compliment.

Three managers in three seasons did not help. Julen Lopetegui clashed with senior players and lasted six months. Graham Potter got the priorities wrong in his summer transfer window and was replaced by Nuno Espírito Santo, who steadied things briefly before a string of poor results and a reportedly distant management style eroded the dressing room. Nuno is expected to leave this summer. Bowen, Mateus Fernandes, and Crysencio Summerville will almost certainly follow. West Ham lost £104 million last year and their own accounts flagged a potential liquidity shortfall this summer. The club needs to raise over £100 million through player sales while playing Championship football in a 62,000-seat stadium that will not come close to filling.

The tragedy is not that a poorly run club got relegated. It is that West Ham had every structural advantage that most English clubs would envy, and squandered all of it through a decade of reactive decision-making and no coherent long-term vision. They won the Conference League in Prague in 2023. That night feels like it belongs to a different club entirely. The Championship awaits, Sullivan faces growing calls to sell, and the fans who chanted their own stadium's name as an insult on Sunday have been proven right in the harshest way possible.

The World Cup is 17 days away. Rosters are being finalized, camps are opening, and the soccer world is shifting into a different gear entirely. This edition's Kick Into Summer has a lot of ground to cover, from roster decisions that will define the summer to some genuinely wild stories happening well before the first ball is kicked.

On The Field

The USMNT roster is set, and the biggest story coming out of it is who is not on it. Diego Luna, who had been a staple of Mauricio Pochettino's plans throughout 2025 and a central figure in the team's public-facing World Cup build-up, was left off the 26-man squad. His Real Salt Lake coach Pablo Mastroeni was visibly shaken by the decision, calling Luna a difference-maker and someone for whom no stage would ever be too big. The reported reason is a combination of hamstring tightness and muscular issues that kept Luna out of RSL's lineup in mid-May, which may have been the final factor in Pochettino's thinking. Teammate Zavier Gozo, who had emerged as one of the most exciting young players in MLS this season with six goals and four assists in 14 matches, was also left off, though his omission was less surprising. Gozo took it with remarkable maturity. "I thought I would be less disappointed than I was," he said. "It just gave me so much more motivation." The player who likely benefited most from Luna's absence is Club América winger Alejandro Zendejas, who forced his way onto the roster with four goals and three assists in 14 matches after returning from injury in March. Pochettino's hand was tipped by circumstance and performance both.

Spain's roster carries its own historic footnote: for the first time in 92 years of World Cup competition, no Real Madrid players are included. Luis de la Fuente named his squad with Lamine Yamal headlining despite a hamstring injury that could cost him Spain's opener against Cape Verde. Gavi returns after seven months out with a knee injury, Mikel Merino is back from a four-month absence, and Nico Williams is in despite an inconsistent season. The boldest calls came in defense, where de la Fuente went with Barcelona's 19-year-old Pau Cubarsi and Atletico Madrid's Marc Pubill over Dean Huijsen and Robin Le Normand. It is a squad that rewards loyalty and recent form over reputation. Ronald Koeman, meanwhile, is preparing to name the Netherlands' 26-man squad on Wednesday and has been pushing back against what he describes as Dutch pessimism surrounding the team's prospects.

Off The Field

Iran is relocating its World Cup training base from Tucson to Tijuana after FIFA approved the transfer. The Iranian federation cited visa problems for support staff as the reason for the move, with Tijuana putting the team roughly 45 minutes by plane from Los Angeles, where they open group play against New Zealand and Belgium. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is dealing with a more unusual pre-tournament complication: defender Saud Abdulhamid had his passport stolen during a break-in in Amsterdam, where he was attending his own wedding. The Saudi federation is coordinating with Dutch and Saudi authorities to get him the documents he needs to join the national team camp.

Scotland is celebrating in style. Scott McTominay's bicycle kick against Denmark in qualifying secured Scotland's first World Cup appearance since 1998, and the goal has now been commemorated on a limited-edition £20 note, with only 100 copies produced. Fans can acquire them through online auction, a raffle, or two points of sale in Glasgow and Edinburgh. It is the kind of moment that reminds you what qualifying means to a country that has waited 28 years for it.

Fake Stickers and the World's Biggest Album: Brazilian police seized roughly 200,000 counterfeit 2026 World Cup Panini stickers in Nova Iguaçu last week. The expanded 48-team format means collectors need 980 stickers to complete the album, up from 670 in 2022, making fakes harder to detect and easier to move. The investigation into who produced them is ongoing.

Australia's Comeback Story: Forward Martin Boyle spent the 2022 World Cup on crutches in Qatar after waking from knee surgery to find doctors had performed a full reconstruction. He was on the plane anyway, serving as what coach Graham Arnold called the team's "Official Vibes Manager." Now 33 and training with the Socceroos in Sarasota, Florida, Boyle is fighting for a roster spot as Australia prepares to face Turkey, the United States, and Paraguay in Group E.

América Femenil Wins Concacaf W Champions Cup: Club América Femenil claimed their first international trophy with a 5-3 victory over the Washington Spirit in the final at Estadio Hidalgo in Pachuca. América rallied from behind after blowing a 2-0 lead, securing a place in the 2027 Women's Champions Cup in Miami and a path toward the inaugural Women's Club World Cup in 2028. Pachuca completed a Liga MX Femenil sweep of the placement matches, beating Gotham FC 3-0 for third place.

Swanson Returns, Stars Climb: Mallory Swanson scored her first goal since returning from maternity leave as the Chicago Stars beat Bay FC 1-0. The winner came in the 70th minute, with Bay FC already down to nine players after two red cards. The three points lifted Chicago out of the NWSL basement.

Utah Royals Extend Unbeaten Run to Nine: Kiana Palacios and Mina Tanaka scored as the Royals beat the Denver Summit 2-1 on Saturday, pulling level with the Portland Thorns at the top of the NWSL standings. The two sides meet next weekend in Portland in what shapes up as the match of the weekend in women's soccer.

Zaha Says Goodbye to Charlotte: Wilfried Zaha confirmed Sunday that his loan at Charlotte FC has come to an end, with the 33-year-old winger's deal expiring June 30. Zaha had three goals and four assists this season after a standout debut campaign that helped Charlotte reach the Eastern Conference's top four. He returns to Galatasaray and did not make the Ivory Coast World Cup squad.

SDH AM is live this morning on YouTube and Twitch with Jon Nelson hosting alongside guests Abe Gordon from 92.9 The Game and Bart Keeler from the Soccer for US podcast. With Atlanta United's pre-break performance still fresh and the World Cup roster picture coming into focus, this is the morning show worth catching in real time. Miss it live and you can watch on demand or pick up the podcast edition.

Soccer Over There returns tonight at 8:00 p.m. with Jon Nelson putting a bow on the domestic season across leagues around the world. With the World Cup less than three weeks out, this is the last real chance to take stock of where club soccer stands before the international game takes over completely.

Atlanta United's academy is making history at MLS NEXT Cup in Salt Lake City this week, with four teams competing in the postseason for the first time in club history. The U-16s and U-18s wasted no time making their presence felt on Sunday. The U-16s opened with a 2-1 win over Cedar Stars Academy Bergen in the morning, then the U-18s followed in the afternoon with a convincing 4-1 victory over Indy Eleven U-19. Both squads are back in action today as tournament play continues.

The U-13s and U-14s join them on Thursday, May 28, opening Championship bracket play against Cincinnati United SC and Weston FC respectively. Both younger squads earned top-bracket berths through Quality of Play scores, with the U-13s posting an 85.9 mark to lead the Southeast Division. Director of Methodology Javier Pérez called this moment a reflection of where the program is headed, noting it is the first time in club history all four academy levels are competing in the MLS playoffs at the same time. The connection runs all the way up: Cooper Sanchez, Jay Fortune, Luke Brennan, Will Reilly, and Matt Edwards are all products of this same system, and they are playing first-team minutes right now.

Barcelona Femenil Dominates to Claim Fourth Women's Champions League Title: Barcelona beat OL Lyon 4-0 in Oslo to win their sixth consecutive UEFA Women's Champions League final appearance and fourth title overall. The victory sparked unprecedented media coverage for women's club soccer in Spain, with thousands gathering in Barcelona on Sunday for a three-hour celebration on the Avinguda Reina Maria Cristina.

Cruz Azul Wins Liga MX Clausura in Stoppage Time: Rodolfo Rotondi scored in the 95th minute to give Cruz Azul a 2-1 win over Pumas in the second leg of the Clausura final, claiming the club's tenth Liga MX title. The goal was a moment of redemption for Rotondi, who conceded the penalty that cost Cruz Azul the 2024 championship in the same fixture.

Belgrano Claims First Argentine First Division Title in Club History: Belgrano de Córdoba defeated River Plate 3-2 at the Mario Alberto Kempes Stadium on Sunday, with Nicolás Fernández scoring twice in the final minutes to complete a stunning comeback. It is the first top-flight championship in the club's history and the first ever won by a club indirectly affiliated with the AFA.

Como Reaches Champions League, Milan Falls to Europa League: Cesc Fàbregas's Como beat Cremonese 4-1 on the final day of Serie A to secure a Champions League spot for the first time in the club's 119-year history, while AC Milan lost 2-1 to Cagliari and dropped to fifth place. Roma's 2-0 win over Hellas Verona also pushed Juventus into Europa League football for next season.

Antonio Conte Leaves Napoli: Antonio Conte confirmed Sunday he will not continue as Napoli head coach after two seasons, with the club finishing second in Serie A, 11 points behind Inter Milan. Conte won the Scudetto in his first season in charge and said the decision to leave was his own.

Mamelodi Sundowns Win African Champions League: The South African club claimed its second African Champions League title, beating FAR Rabat 2-1 on aggregate after a 1-1 draw in Sunday's second leg in Rabat. Goalkeeper Ronwen Williams saved a second-half penalty to preserve the result after conceding one earlier in the match.

American Consortium Makes €2 Billion Offer for Napoli: A group led by Underdog Global Partners has made an offer in the region of €2 billion to acquire Napoli from owner Aurelio De Laurentiis, per The Athletic. De Laurentiis has indicated the club is not for sale, though negotiations that began six months ago are said to be ongoing.

Torreense Pulls Off Portuguese Cup Upset: Torreense, a club from the second division based 40 kilometers north of Lisbon, beat Sporting Lisbon 2-1 after extra time to win the Portuguese Cup for the first time since 1956. Captain Stopira, who is in Cape Verde's World Cup squad, scored the winning penalty in the 112th minute.

Six weeks is a long time in soccer, long enough to fix something or long enough to pretend you did. Atlanta United knows exactly what needs to change, Tata Martino said so himself in plain language after the final whistle in Columbus, and the transfer window and the training ground will both have answers to provide before July 17. The break is a gift. What the club does with it is the only thing that matters now.

Song of the Day: "Back in the High Life Again" by Steve Winwood. Where Atlanta United needs to be pointing when MLS comes back in July, and the kind of belief this club is going to need to manufacture between now and then.

Jason