Aberg expected milder temperatures, but instead got a layer of snow on his home course.
Ludvig Aberg is quickly ascending to Swedish golf royalty after his selection to the European Ryder Cup team as well as a pair of professional victories in what was a whirlwind year of 2023.
A year ago at this time, Aberg was plying his trade in the flat, warm climes of Lubbock, Texas, as a member of the Texas Tech men’s golf team.
Aberg missed just one cut in 11 starts during the Tour’s fall schedule, and finished inside the top 25 eight times, including a runner-up at the Sanderson Farms Championship.
And with royalty comes the spoils, right?
Aberg enjoyed some well-deserved time off by heading back to his native country and snuck in a round at Valkommen till Eslovs Golfklubb, the course where he was introduced to the game by his father.
But while Aberg expected milder temperatures, he instead got a layer of snow on his home course. Rather than sit the day out, he took to the links with an additional accessory in his bag: a broom to sweep away the snow.
“The biggest challenge is probably to get the tee in the ground,” Aberg said during the clip.
The Swedish club was founded in 1968 with the building of the first nine, but the course is located on historic land that belonged to the Ellinge Manor dating back to the 12th century.
Ellinge Castle can be seen from holes 11 and 12, a spot Aberg passed consistently by during his rise to royalty.
Asllani: “You have to pay tribute to your women’s national team and put it in a bigger arena”
Progress is not linear, particularly in women’s soccer.
Just consider Italy, a country that has a glorious tradition in the sport on the men’s side, but only did away with government regulations preventing Serie A Femminile from becoming fully professional in 2020.
The problem? The Italian federation (FIGC) decided to schedule the match in a small town’s equally small stadium.
Following a 1-0 win to the visitors, Sweden star Kosovare Asllani — who currently plays in Italy for AC Milan — ripped into the FIGC over its venue choice.
“It is under all criticism of the Italian federation to put the match here out in the forest,” Asllani told Swedish outlet SVT Sport. “I have seen more animals than people here.”
Reports held that just 2,500 people showed up for the match, which was played at the humble Stadio Teofilo Patini, a 7,200-seat venue that just so happens to be located in FIGC president Gabriele Gravina’s hometown. Castel di Sangro isn’t near any major population center, with the nearest city of note (Pescara) a 90-minute drive to the north.
“You have to pay tribute to your women’s national team and put it in a bigger arena and see how much you can pull,” said Asllani. “You can’t put the match out in the woods. It is under all criticism.”
Sweden’s previous match in the Nations League, a gripping 3-2 defeat against Spain, was played at Gamla Ullevi, a modern venue with a capacity of 18,416 that serves as home to men’s top-flight club IFK Göteborg. It had all the trappings of high-level international soccer.
Four days later, the Swedes stepped out onto the pitch at the Patini, nestled in a town with a population of 6,461. The normal home team, Castel di Sangro Cep 1953, currently sits in third place in the Eccellenza Molise, one of 29 regional divisions making up the fifth tier of Italian men’s soccer.
The Patini is a fine venue for fifth-division soccer played by a club that has never been to Serie A, and hasn’t been to Serie B since one eventful two-year stint from 1996-98 that was immortalized in Joe McGinniss’ book “The Miracle of Castel di Sangro.”
Readers of that book may be forgiven for seeing Gravina — whose exploits in that book included signing an actor and pretending he was actually a big addition from Leicester City — and being puzzled as to how he became the president of one of world soccer’s most successful federations.
In any case, the rolling green hills of the Abruzzo are visible from the stands at the Patini. It seems nice!
(Photo by Giuseppe Bellini/Getty Images)
“Nice” does not, however, mean “venue suitable for the top level of European women’s soccer,” which is the entire thing Italy and Sweden were meeting up to do on the day.
It’s not that the FIGC always sends its women’s national team as far away from population centers as it possibly can. Next month, Italy will host Spain at Stadio Arechi in Salerno. Which is to say, at a 37,800-seat venue in a city of 133,000 that happens to be just south of Naples.
“Women’s football is on such a sharp upward curve,” Sweden’s Magdalena Eriksson told TV4 on Monday. “We are coming from a World Cup with such fantastic attendance numbers… It’s an important match and obviously we would have liked to see and test the limits of how many people would have come if we had played in a bigger arena, but also in a bigger city.”
The USWNT was knocked out of the World Cup by a penalty that crossed the line by millimeters
U.S. national team goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher said she’ll go to her grave claiming she saved Sweden’s penalty that knocked the USWNT out of the World Cup.
With a round-of-16 penalty shootout into sudden death, Sweden’s Lina Hurtig stepped up to the spot knowing that a converted penalty would send her side into the quarterfinal.
Naeher dove and stopped Hurtig’s shot, which popped up into the air and was then clawed out a second time by the USWNT goalkeeper. It appeared that the shootout would go on but after a review, the penalty was shown to have crossed the line by the absolute slimmest of margins.
After review, the penalty is good and Sweden wins 🇸🇪
Naeher was in disbelief on the pitch and nearly a month later, the goalkeeper still wasn’t sure Hurtig’s shot had ever actually crossed the line.
“It felt like it was in slow motion,” Naeher said on the Snacks podcast. “As I was diving, I was like, ‘Oh, this is behind me.’ So I just tried to get anything on it.”
“I will go to my grave claiming that I saved it, you cannot convince me otherwise,” she added. “I have the picture saved on my phone. I have looked at it an unhealthy amount of times since the game has ended. I genuinely thought that I saved it.”
After Hurtig’s penalty, Naeher faced an agonizing wait as the referee consulted goal-line technology to determine if the ball crossed the line. Finally the referee signaled goal, ending the USWNT’s World Cup in heartbreaking fashion.
“When [the referee] blew the whistle and I watched them run, I don’t think I can describe the sinking feeling that was,” Naeher said. “It was the most bizarre way to end the game.”
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Here are the top five candidates to take home the biggest individual prize at the World Cup
The 2023 Women’s World Cup is finally coming to a close. After a stacked field battled it out over the course of the past month, just two teams — England and Spain — remain ahead of Sunday’s final. But while the World Cup trophy is what everyone is chasing, there’s another race to keep an eye on.
That, of course, is the race for the Golden Ball. Soccer is a team sport, but it’s important to recognize individual excellence, too, and that’s exactly what this award does. Who will take home the honor as the best player in this year’s tournament?
Let’s take a look at the top five candidates for this year’s Golden Ball.
In the first semifinal of the World Cup, Spain snuck by Sweden in the final moments of regular time
The first game of the World Cup semifinals brought the heat, as Spain took on Sweden in what would end up being one of the more exciting games of the tournament.
After 80 minutes of play, neither side was able to find the back of the net, but Spain changed that in the 81st minute when Salma Paralluelo opened the scoring. But just when it looked like Paralluelo’s goal would be the winner, Rebecka Blomqvist of Sweden managed to tie things up in the 88th minute.
With just two minutes left in regulation this one seemed destined to go to extra time, as both teams refused to give each other an inch of breathing room. But that wasn’t the case.
Olga Carmona had a different plan in mind. Less than two minutes of game time after Blomqvist evened things up, Carmona received the ball at the top of the box off a corner kick.
She took one controlling touch before smashing the ball over the keeper’s head, off the crossbar and in.
It was not only an incredible finish, but it was enough to punch Spain’s ticket to the World Cup final for the first time in the nation’s history.
Let’s check out how Twitter reacted to Spain’s amazing victory.
One of the World Cup semifinals is now set following two tight quarterfinal matches
The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup is quickly coming to a close, as we are officially down to the final six teams of the tournament. In the first two games of the quarterfinals, Spain defeated the Netherlands 2-1 in extra time, while Sweden beat Japan by the same scoreline.
Before we take a look at the games, here is your reminder that you can follow the entirety of the World Cup right here at Pro Soccer Wire! Make sure to check out the full TV/streaming schedule for the event and the rankings in this year’s race for the Golden Boot.
The top two ranked teams in the world are now out before the quarterfinals
The drama has reached a whole new level at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. On the second day of knockout stage games, the USWNT got bounced, meaning the top two ranked countries in the world (the U.S. is first and Germany second in FIFA’s rankings) are no longer in contention — and it all came down to penalty kicks.
“I thought we played really well,” Rapinoe said. “I’m so happy for us that we went out like that, playing the way that we did and having a ton of joy on the ball.
“I mean, this is like a sick joke. For me personally, I’m just like, this is dark comedy I missed a penalty. Alyssa [Naeher] came up huge though, kept us in it, obviously scoring one herself.”
She added: “This is the balance to the beautiful side of the game. I think it can be cruel and just [wasn’t] our day. But I still just feel really grateful and joyful. I know it’s the end and that’s sad, but to know that this is really the only time I’ve been in one of these this early (an interview after an early exit from the tournament) says so much about how much success I’ve been able to have, and just how much I’ve loved playing for this team and playing for this country. It’s been an honor.”
In his post-game press conference, USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski paid tribute to Rapinoe while expressing his surprise to see her miss a vital penalty.
“Megan Rapinoe is a legend,” the coach said. “If I had my life on the line right now, and I had to pick who was going to take the penalty, Megan Rapinoe is my choice.”
Watch Rapinoe’s post-game interview
"I think this team has always fought for so much more and that's been the most rewarding part for me… To know that we've used our really special talent to do something that's changed the world forever." 🇺🇸❤️@USWNT's @mPinoe speaks with @JennyTaft after the game ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/NUx9Oku4mf
The USWNT finally played like themselves, but soccer can be cruel
Soccer has always been a cruel sport, and today it came calling for the U.S. women’s national team.
After three underwhelming performances in the group stage, the USWNT finally looked like themselves against Sweden, bossing one of the best teams in this World Cup.
Unfortunately, they found goalkeeper Zećira Mušović having one of the games of her life, and when she wasn’t making a big save, the errant finishing that has plagued this team appeared again, and the result was a penalty kick elimination after a scoreless 120 minutes.
It was a heartbreaker for the U.S., who missed a shot in the shootout that would have seen them advance, and then had to watch Sweden’s winning kick require a VAR check to reveal that the ball had crossed the line by a nearly imperceptible margin.
Still, when it comes to ratings, this was by some margin the best performance from the USWNT at this World Cup as a team, and for many players as individuals.
As a reminder, here’s the Pro Soccer Wire player rating scale:
Our scale:
1: Abysmal. Literally any member of our staff would have been been able to play at this level.
6: Adequate. This is our base score.
10: Transcendent, era-defining performance. This is Carli Lloyd vs. Japan in the 2015 final.
