9m ago / 10:36 AM EDTHarry Kane hopes goalscoring pace continues at World CupHarry Kane, one of the world’s dominant goal scorers, leads England into its first match against Croatia with the Three Lions seeking their first World Cup title since 1966, when they won on home soil.Kane has been a force over the past year with 61 goals in 51 matches for Bayern Munich across all competitions. The 32-year-old striker has eight goals in two previous World Cups and won the Golden Boot in 2018 by scoring six times in Russia.But he didn’t score in England’s semifinal loss to Croatia in 2018. In 2022, he missed a penalty late against France in a 2-1 semifinal loss in Qatar when he sent the ball over the crossbar.Kane’s eight World Cup goals are two shy of Gary Lineker’s England record.24m ago / 10:21 AM EDTWhy USA star Tyler Adams is building ‘mini-pitches’ across the country Tyler Adams of the U.S. men’s national team is helping to expand and diversify the game one field at a time by building mini-pitches across the country. The playing surfaces, however, aren’t made of green grass that can be a challenge to maintain, but of a blue hard-court.“When you go down to a park, no matter what surface you’re on, as long as you have a ball, you’re happy,” Adams said on NBC and Telemundo’s “My New Favorite Futbolista.”{"type":"custom-embed","data":{"type":"all-purpose-embed","value":{"embed":{"cmsDisplayName":null,"code":"","createdDate":"2026-06-17T13:46:44.423Z","type":"ALL_PURPOSE_EMBED"},"presentation":{"size":"MEDIUM","alignment":"CENTER"}}},"id":"f48757","children":[{"text":""}]}45m ago / 10:00 AM EDTMessi, Argentina and the traveling circus come to town as Kansas City makes World Cup debut This was supposed to be Kansas City’s big night, making history as the city hosts a World Cup game for the first time, but Lionel Messi had to go and steal the show and make it all about himself.Messi’s magical performance is all anyone anywhere is going to remember or talk about for days. The first World Cup hat trick of his career, to tie German legend Miroslav Klose for the most goals in World Cup history (16); that he scored all three goals and Argentina began their world title defense with a resounding 3-0 victory over Algeria in America’s Heartland; that at just a week shy of 39 years old, the magic is far from gone.He became the first male player to play at six different World Cups on Tuesday, but 69,405 still showed up expecting to be entertained, ooh’d and aah’d and wow’d, and somehow he still exceeded expectations. Messi had them in the palm of his hand for the 80 minutes he required to collect his goals. On the 20th anniversary of his World Cup debut, Messi remains the ultimate showman, still making it look effortless as he runs circles around world-class players a decade (or two) younger than him.“I can’t ask for anything more. God gave me too much, now everything is just to enjoy,” Messi told reporters after the game. “I’m just happy to be considered as one of the best in football history. I’m just grateful to be considered among many great players.”45m ago / 10:00 AM EDTMessi says his tears after first goal were caused by personal ‘difficult days’ An emotional Lionel Messi was wiping his tears with his shirt after scoring Argentina's first goal against Algeria in the World Cup, a strike that marked the beginning of a memorable performance where he netted thrice to secure a 3-0 win.But while his first World Cup hat-trick had many Argentine fans in tears of joy, Messi said he was crying for a personal reason unrelated to the sport.“Why did I cry? It was something completely unrelated to football. I went through some difficult days,” said Messi, who is playing in a record sixth World Cup, after Tuesday’s match.“But I’m grateful to the entire delegation and my teammates because they were always by my side, giving me a lot of strength to help me get through it.”