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Mexico has never won a knockout game in either of the two global soccer tournaments put on by FIFA, the World Cup and the Confederations Cup, when that tournament was notstaged on its home soil.

El Tri won its only World Cup round of 16 game in 1986, when it hosted. And it managed to win the 1999 Confederations Cup when it came to Mexico, claiming a semifinal victory over the United States in extra-time, and then outlasting Brazil 4-3 in a slugfest final. When Mexico put on the World Cup in 1970, it stumbled in the quarterfinal, which was the first knockout game then.

On Thursday, it kept the ignominious streak going with a 4-1 defeat to Germany in the semifinal of the Confederations Cup in Russia. Leon Goretzkas goals in the sixth and eighth minutes doomed Juan Carlos Osorios team to a ninth straight lost knockout round game in an intercontinental tournament on foreign soil. Timo Werner and Amin Younes made things worse in the second half, rendering Marco Fabians blast from distance fairly meaningless.

So Germany advanced to Sundays final against Chile, which is aiming to lift a trophy in a third consecutive summer, after claiming the 2015 Copa America and the 2016 Copa America Centenario. Die Mannschaft may think twice about the implications of winning, however. Because the defending world champions must know that no team has won the World Cup after taking the Confederations Cup home the summer prior.

As for Mexico, its disappointment will be exacerbated by the knowledge that this was Germanys B-team. Manager Jogi Loew left his first string at home, opting to use the tournament to test out younger and fringe players who might fill out his World Cup roster next summer.

This will once again call into question Osorios position in charge of Mexico. When El Tri was hammered 7-0 by Chile in the quarterfinals of the Copa America last summer, he only just clung on. He has a strong record in qualifying and this was just the Colombians second competitive loss. Yet his is one of the most closely scrutinized jobs in international soccer.

This might be the blow that does the American-educated Osorio in. If confidence has eroded that he might get his team to that elusive fifth game at the World Cup next summer, his days are surely numbered.

It didnt take long for Germany to decide Thursdays game and possibly Osorios fate. In the sixth minute, Goretzka made a trailing run, found space at the edge of the box and cleanly one-timed the ball behind Guillermo Ochoa:

Within another two minutes, Goretzka was dispatched through the line and beat Ochoa one-on-one:

Mexico finally woke up after Werner almost made it three but was denied point-blank by Ochoa. And for much of the way, El Tri was actually the more dangerous side. Giovani Dos Santos and Javier Hernandez had credible chances, but neither could breach Marc-Andre Ter Stegens goal.

Mexico dominated possession to the tune of 70 percent at some points and outshot the Germans 24-12 in an end-to-end affair, but before it would finally get on the scoreboard, Werner had scored his third goal of the tournament. Before the hour, Jonas Hector was played through, and he found the wide-open Werner beside him for the simple tap-in:

Raul Jimenez headed off the bar for Mexico and Rafa Marquez failed to score on two promising headers of his own. So by the time Fabian scored with a dazzling long shot from a free kick in the 90th minute, it was far too little and much too late.

Besides, Younes was gifted a simple fourth goal in injury timeon another pitiless German exploitation of Mexicos undermanned three-person backline.

Even Germanys reserves are capable of winning a major(ish) international tournament. And in Mexico, the inquisition over its failures in the key games begins anew.

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Leander Schaerlaeckens is a Yahoo Sports soccer columnist. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.

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Mexico gets knocked out ... again. By German B-team in Confederations Cup this time - Yahoo Sports

Germany's impressive attacking performance earned a comfortable win over Mexico and a spot in the Confederations Cup final. Germany's impressive attacking performance earned a comfortable win over Mexico and a spot in the Confederations Cup final. The FC crew have a heated debate in reaction to Mexico's rout defeat to Germany in the Confederations Cup semifinals. John Sutcliffe believes Mexico will feel they failed to prove themselves to the world's best after their Confed Cup exit. The FC crew answer your tweets on Germany's Confederations Cup squad, Juan Carlos Osorio's future with Mexico and much more.

SOCHI, Russia -- If anyone needed a barometer of how Mexico's 4-1 loss to Germany in Thursday's semifinal of the Confederations Cup was received back home, the country's greatest player, Hugo Sanchez, provided it.

The former Real Madrid striker talked about the structure of the Mexican game, the lack of autonomy of the league, national team and federation, and said those factors keep Mexico from making a jump to the next level. Sanchez added that teams such as Spain and Chile have been given the time and have had a consistent project behind them in order to achieve international success and join the elite.

In case anyone needed reminding, Mexico has struggled when confronted with elite-level competition. It's difficult to remember the last time El Tri defeated a top-quality opponent in a major tournament. Last summer, Mexico lost 7-0 to Copa America champions Chile, and world champions Germany swatted Mexico away on Thursday.

Indeed, Mexico has never won a knockout game in a World Cup outside the country, and its last such win came in 1986.

Sanchez, a former manager of the Mexico national team, went on to blame those who installed current manager Juan Carlos Osorio. Sanchez doesn't agree with Osorio's philosophy.

"We don't have the style to think that [things] will change between now and the World Cup," lamented Sanchez on ESPN. "Osorio is stubborn. He keeps his rotations, center-backs [play] as full-backs, forwards as wingers, and that will not help make the most of football in Mexico in the league and with the national team."

But while Sanchez may not agree with Osorio's philosophy -- and may still eye the job himself (if the power structure in Mexican football changes) -- he would surely accept that the Colombian deserves time and space to continue the process that hasn't yet helped El Tri reach new heights, but certainly hasn't been any worse than past performances and has shown some promise.

The victory of this so-called Germany reserve side, however, was decisive.

"We went up against the world champion, and it's been useful for Mexican football to know where we are," said Javier Hernandez after the game.

It was a key statement. The match summed up where Mexico is at. El Tri were handsomely beaten by a Germany side featuring a number of players who won't be featuring next year at the World Cup.

But Mexico wasn't without its merits in the game. El Tri had more than 60 percent of possession, had 26 shots (to Germany's 12), drew 17 fouls and forced keeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen into seven saves compared to Guillermo Ochoa's three.

These statistics perhaps don't mean much in the emotional sense when you lose 4-1, but they do highlight that Mexico has a style. El Tri's real problem is depth of the player pool compared to the top nations. Not having injured defensive duo Diego Reyes and Carlos Salcedo meant Miguel Layun had to move over to the right and center-back Oswaldo Alanis came in at left-back. It left Mexico weak on the left side, something Germany exploited ruthlessly.

The world champions, on the other hand, are showing at the Confederations Cup and the European Under-21 Championship that every position is well-covered both now and for the foreseeable future.

"This was for us a 10-year plan," said Germany general manager Oliver Bierhoff on Thursday. "You can't change it in one or two years. Now you have to work with the players you have. It's good to have long-term investment, and every country that wants to improve the players has to do that."

What Osorio has at his disposal is significantly weaker than Germany manager Joachim Low's arsenal, as Thursday's game highlighted. Playing more Mexicans in Liga MX, and then exporting them to the best leagues in the world, is the most accessible path.

"The league is fundamental [to the growth of the Mexican game]," said Hernandez. "More than anything, for them to give opportunities to Mexican players like I got."

With many of Mexico's 18 first-division teams fielding about five or six foreigners in each starting 11, the opportunities for Mexicans are limited.

Osorio can't do too much about that, and the way his side came together in the Confederations Cup was positive. The worry is that in key games Mexico haven't been up to the test, although that is historical and not just down to Osorio, of course.

Mexico can ill-afford to change things up one year from the World Cup. Sanchez may not particularly like Osorio's style, but he is right in ascertaining that if Mexico is to step up and make the leap to the elite in the future, someone needs time overseeing the project.

Tom Marshall covers Liga MX and the Mexican national team for ESPN FC. Twitter: @MexicoWorldCup.

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Humiliation vs. Germany reveals how tall Mexico's task is at Russia 2018 - ESPN FC (blog)

Baseball injuries are just the worst, and we unfortunately had two severe ones last night, to two very promising young players. Thats a downer way to start a Friday leading into what might be a long holiday weekend, but hey, its only getting better from here, right?

This happened as the Nationals took on the Cubs, a game Washington would eventually blow late. But more than the game, the bigger loss for Washington was young shortstop stud Trea Turner, who took a Pedro Strop fastball off the right wrist, resulting in a fracture:

Ugh.

Turner could be back in a few months, at least, which is probably more than we can expect for the other young player who went down injured last night.

This is so, so hard to watch. Ranked as a consensus top prospect in the Yankees system, Fowler was making his major league debut last night in Chicago when he went all out for a foul ball down the right field line. Theres not much room there. The result was about as bad as it could have been:

Damn it. Thats a ruptured patellar tendon. The kind of injury that results in pictures like this one, which was what I immediately thought of, from when former Indiana guard Maurice Creek suffered the same injury:

What an unfortunate thing.

From Wednesday, we wrote about umpire John Tumpane, who physically and verbally helped prevent a woman from committing suicide in Pittsburgh on his way to the park. On Thursday, the crowd and both teams gave Tumpane the standing ovation he clearly deserved:

Thats fanatastic.

-Were in a bit of a dead season, sports-wise, but along with baseball and the NBA free agency/trade market, theres also some international soccer, routinely one of the most entertaining parts of any summer.

Yesterday, Germanys B-team handled Mexico easily in the Confederations Cup semis, despite this ridiculous late goal from Marco Fabian:

Good heavens, thats a firecracker. This was yet another knockout round defeat in a FIFA tournament for Mexico, and as Leander notes at Yahoo, thats becoming an unfortunate trend for Mexico:

Mexico has never won a knockout game in either of the two global soccer tournaments put on by FIFA, the World Cup and the Confederations Cup, when that tournament was notstaged on its home soil.

El Tri won its only World Cup round of 16 game in 1986, when it hosted. And it managed to win the 1999 Confederations Cup when it came to Mexico, claiming a semifinal victory over the United States in extra-time, and then outlasting Brazil 4-3 in a slugfest final. When Mexico put on the World Cup in 1970, it stumbled in the quarterfinal, which was the first knockout game then.

Mexico manager Juan Carlos Osorio has an absurd record since his first match in charge in November of 2015, having managed 29 matches while suffering just 3 defeats, only two in competitive games. Unfortunately, one of those was the loss yesterday, and the other was a 7-0 shellacking at the hands of Chile during last summers Copa America. Germany and Chile are both top-class teams, of course, and it would seem absurd to boot Osorio; that would basically be admitting that in order to keep your job as manager of Mexico, you essentially cant lose, ever, to anyone.

Still, its Mexico, who have burned through 11 managers over the past 10 years. (Including, hilariously in retrospect, Sven-Goran Eriksson.) Its not a place for stability, but considering all the good work hes done, and how dangerous Mexico has looked under his leadership (including looking like a much better squad overall despite a 1-1 draw with the United States earlier this month), that would be a pretty foolish decision to make. Osorio deserves to lead the squad through the World Cup, barring further meltdown.

-Hey, theyre making another movie that takes place in the Jumanji Cinematic Universe, which isnt actually a thing but might as well be, apparently. It has the Rock, and Kevin Hart. It does not look great, to me, but your mileage may vary, so heres the trailer:

-A ref in Brazil pulled a gun on a player. (Reading the story, though, it almost sounds justified!)

-So, John Calipari may or may not be angling to lead the Knicks basketball operations, along with coaching the team.

-A professional golfers mom waded into a water hazard to retrieve a putter he chucked in.

-What should the San Francisco Giants do? A rebuild could be the right call, but they probably dont have the stomach for that.

-Ty Duffy wrote a great piece over at Awful Announcing on the likely future of the online media industry. Itsnot uplifting.

-Whats been the biggest disappointment of this years baseball season so far? Our staff offers plenty of options, though my choice would have just been the Cubs. But, as a Cubs fan, I honestly dont care that much. Its hard to. The last thing I want to do is become the Boston fans who immediately sounded entitled as hell after winning multiple titles.

Guy Buying The Shredded Cheese Brand Not On Sale Must Be Some Kind Of Billionaire Playboy

Ducks are excited about lunch

What the hellsin that container?

The rest is here:
The Cheat Sheet: A pair of devastating baseball injuries, a big loss for Mexico, and excited ducks - The Comeback (blog)

Benfica won a record fourth straight Portuguese league title in May.

Porto communications director Francisco J. Marques has accused the Portuguese champions Benfica of resorting to sorcery to win the past two seasons.

Marques told local TV channel Portothat he saw emails that Benfica president Luis Filipe Vieira and Dr. Armando Nhaga, the national Police Commissioner of Guinea-Bissau, exchanged earlier this year regarding agreements for witchcraft services.

Marques told reporters: "In 2015-16, Benfica spent 75,000 (65,945) to fix the Championship [using sorcery]."

The Porto communications chief claimed that Nhaga warned Benfica that their attempts to win a fourth straight league title could be in jeopardy due to "sabotage" if the club did not increase their payments for using their services with respect to the 2015-16 campaign.

Vieira was reportedly not aware of the deal that was in place between a former ex-board member of the club, Rui Gomes da Silva, and Nhaga for that season. There was an agreement that also included the possibility of renewal.

However, Gomes da Silva did not maintain his place on the board.

Nevertheless, he alleged that Vieira was willing to consider an agreement.

The Porto chief claimed he saw an email that Nhaga sent to Vieira which said: "Regarding the 2016-17 campaign, which starts on Aug. 7 with the [Portuguese] Supercup, it could be a close fight for the [league] title, in which Benfica can make history.

"This entails the urgent need to reach a mutual agreement to provide services for the parties."

Nhaga then reportedly sent an itemised list of fees for his services for the season -- including 100,000 (88,000) to win the league title and a fee of 30,000 (26,398) for every Champions League knockout game.

However, Benfica lost 4-0 at Borussia Dortmund on March 8 to be eliminated from the Champions League round of 16. Marques alleged that after the loss, Vieira sent an e-mail to Nhaga asking "what happened?"

Nhaga replied that he was not "in Guinea at the time and that whoever was dealing with it [alleged sorcery] did not do it at the right time," but reportedly said: "However, now we are going to concentrate on what is essential, which is the league title and the Portuguese Cup. I thank you for your understanding and this will not happen again."

Marques said he was disgusted by the revelations.

"We are talking about witchcraft," he said. "Hundreds of thousands of euros were spent on that.

"I don't know what to make of this.

"This calls into question the coach, the players, but also [club executives] Paulo Goncalves and Pedro Guerra.

"There are people that in order to win, anything goes."

Benfica won a record fourth straight Portuguese league title in May with one game to spare, with Porto finishing runners-up, six points adrift.

The Lisbon-based club also lifted the Portuguese Cup after beating Vitoria Guimaraes 2-1.

Adriana Garcia is a Valencia-based football writer who covers La Liga for ESPN FC.

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Benfica used sorcery to win past two seasons - Porto ... - ESPN FC - ESPN FC

OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. -- Phil Mickelson isn't sure what's next for Jim "Bones" Mackay. He is sure there are going to be plenty of options for his longtime caddie.

Mickelson and Mackay announced last week they had decided to split up after 25 years and more than 600 tournaments around the world, ending one of golf's most successful relationships.

Mickelson's brother Tim is going to caddie for him for the rest of the year, and Lefty thinks there will be no shortage of potential suitors for Mackay.

"He's going to have some incredible opportunities," Mickelson said Monday in his first public comments since the split. "There's going to be a great player -- a lot of great players, but one great player's going to be lucky enough to have him and he's going to bring a lot to his game and they're going to be a great team. And then it gives me an opportunity to spend time with my brother for the rest of this year, which I'm looking forward to."

Tim Mickelson was the golf coach at Arizona State before he left the position to become Jon Rahm's agent, and Phil Mickelson thanked Rahm for approving his brother's new schedule. Tim Mickelson also carried his big brother's bag during the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship when Mackay went down with a stomach virus.

Asked if Mackay will start working for Rahm, Phil Mickelson said he had no idea and didn't want to speculate on Mackay's next job.

"He's not told me anything and I think that he's going to have a lot of players call him and inquire about his services," Mickelson said. "That would be what I would anticipate. But I don't know."

Mickelson, who celebrated his 47th birthday on June 16, and Mackay started working together at a U.S. Open qualifier in Memphis, Tennessee in 1992. Mickelson was hoping to have their final round together at this year's U.S. Open, but he skipped the tournament to attend his oldest daughter's high school graduation in California.

Mackay went to Erin Hills in Wisconsin to scout the course in case a weather delay would have allowed Mickelson to make his tee time, but it didn't work out. Instead, their last round was in the FedEx St. Jude Classic.

"We knew that final round in Memphis that that was our last round together -- or most likely," Mickelson said. "We were holding out hope that it wasn't, that we had one more week, and it was an emotional day. But we both know it's time."

Mickelson joined LPGA stars Brooke Henderson, Lydia Ko and Stacy Lewis for a skills challenge at Olympia Fields on Monday ahead of this weekend's KPMG Women's PGA Championship. Mickelson and KPMG also announced a donation by the Phil and Amy Mickelson Foundation to the company's future leaders program, which awards college scholarships to young women and brings them to Stanford University for a leadership development retreat.

Mickelson signed autographs for about a half-hour after winning the skills competition, which included a couple different chipping contests and a knockout game involving images of each player behind plates of glass.

"I was nervous because I know how good they are," he said, "and it was fun because it gave me an opportunity to be around some of the best players in the world, best athletes in the world."

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Mickelson confident in opportunities for 'Bones' - pgatour.com