Yesterday in Sports 06 26

Hey, I'm Chris Horvidell, and this is Yesterday in Sports. The show that gets you caught up on the biggest things that happened yesterday, why they mattered, and what you need to know before pretending you watched every second of it. Here we go. Welcome to Yesterday in Sports. I'm Chris Horvidell, and we've got a busy show to get through, leading off with the US falling to Turkey in the World Cup, the MLB putting a major labor proposal on the table, and the WNBA suspending Alyssa Thomas after the Kaitlyn Clark incident. Today's episode is brought to you in part by our friends at NordVPN. More on that later. We'll start with the World Cup, where the United States have already locked up first place in Group D, but still, but still got a reminder that momentum is never guaranteed. Turkey A beat the US 3-2 in Inglewood, handing Mauricio Pactenio's team its first loss of the tournament. Christian Pulisic returned for the United States, and there were some positives. Austin Trustee scored his first international goal, and the US showed enough attacking life to keep the game interesting, but defensively it just wasn't the cleanest night, and Turkey A punished them. The bigger picture is important here. The US had already won the group, so this wasn't a tournament-damaging loss in the standings, but it does matter moving forward because knockout soccer is unforgiving. You can't give away moments, you can't lose track in transition, and you can't assume the game state will save you. For Mauricio, the question is balance. He got Pulisic minutes, he managed some risk, but now he has to decide what the team's best version looks like in the round of 32, and the World Cup itself keeps producing big picture storylines. Reuters reported that the tournament has already set the all-time attendance record, passing the previous mark from the 1994 World Cup in the United States. That's partly because this is the first 48-team World Cup, but it also speaks to the scale of this tournament across the United States, Mexico, and Canada. And the goal-scoring record is gone too. The World Cup's already broken the record for the most goals in a single tournament. Again, expansion helps, but the style of the tournament matters as well. More teams, more open games, more mismatches, and more late chaos have created a tournament that feels massive in every direction. The other big World Cup result from Thursday came in New Jersey, where Ecuador stunned Germany 2-1 to reach the knockout stage. Germany scored first, but Ecuador fought back, and Gonzalo Plato delivered the winner in the 77th minute. It's a huge result for Ecuador, and it's also a warning shot for Germany. They still have enough talent to scare anybody, but this is exactly the kind of result that changes the tone around a contender. Now to baseball, where the MLB made a proposal that could shape the next collective bargaining fight. Major League Baseball accepted the Players Association's proposal to reduce the service time requirement for free agency from 6 years to 5 years for players who are 30 or older. MLB said 354 current players would be projected to reach free agency a year earlier under this provision. The proposal also includes eliminating the qualifying offer system, raising the minimum salary to $1 million for many full-year pre-arbitration players, increasing the pre-arbitration bonus pool, and adding a cornerstone player mechanism that would give teams advantages when trying to retain their own stars. The catch, however, is that MLB is trying to tie this into a broader push for a salary cap and a salary floor. That's where things get complicated. Players have historically resisted a salary cap, while owners argue payroll disparity is one of the sport's biggest competitive balance problems. So this proposal includes some things that players have wanted for years, but it's also part of a much larger negotiation. It's not a final deal, it's not close to a final deal, but it is a real signal of where the next CBA battle is heading. To the WNBA, where Alyssa Thomas has been suspended one game after making contact with Kaitlyn Clark's throat during Phoenix's game against Indiana. The league upgraded the play after review, and Thomas will miss Phoenix's next game. The incident added to an already heated conversation around Clark, officiating, and how much physicality the league is allowing around its biggest draws. Indiana coach Stephanie White was clearly frustrated after the game, calling out what she viewed as dangerous, repeated contact. And whether you agree with every word or not, the larger issue is real. The WNBA is growing fast, the spotlight is bigger, and every high-contact moment involving Clark is now going to become a league-wide talking point. Clark is averaging 16.5 points, 8.8 assists, 5.1 rebounds this season, and she's already near the top of the league in technical fouls. Thomas, meanwhile, remains one of the WNBA's most physical and versatile players. The contrast is exactly why this has become such a flashpoint. The league has to find a way to protect players without softening the sport into something it isn't. It's a hard line to walk, but with viewership and attention where they are, every disciplinary decision is going to be magnified. Let's stay in women's sports for a minute because Gotham FC locked in an important piece of their backline. Emily Sonnet signed a new contract extension with Gotham through the 2028 NWSL season. Sonnet is 32, has 118 caps for the United States women's national team, and has been a part of the World Cup-winning and Olympic Gold-winning national team setup. For Gotham, the value is stability. Sonnet helped the club to a team record with 11 clean sheets last season, and she gives them experience, passing security, and defensive structure in a league where roster management can come fast, keeping a player like this matters. Now to tennis, where Chris Everett has unfortunately announced that her ovarian cancer has returned and she'll miss Wimbledon while stepping away from the professional duties to focus on treatment. Everett is 71, an 18-time Grand Slam singles champion and a 3-time Wimbledon champion. She announced that she'd already undergone surgery and will begin chemotherapy in the coming weeks. This is her third battle with the disease, and she's been very public in using her platform to advocate for awareness and early detection. Wimbledon begins June 29th, and ESPN issued its support as she steps away from coverage. For a fun sports business story of the day, curtains finally went up at AT&T Stadium. For Thursday's World Cup match against Japan and Sweden, FIFA installed black curtains at the stadium to block sun glare coming through the West End. That matters because Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has famously resisted using curtains during NFL games, even though players have complained for years that the glare affects visibility. The match ended 1-1, and both Japan and Sweden advanced, but the visual of FIFA solving a problem in one afternoon that has frustrated Cowboys players and fans for years was pretty hard to ignore. And now for an interesting rumor-slash-developing story from the world of soccer. We keep an eye on Wrexham. Pete O'Rourke is reporting that Wrexham are closing in on the appointment of Newcastle's departing head of recruitment, Steve Nixon, as their new director of football. Nothing has been officially announced by Wrexham as of this recording, so this stays in the rumor category, but O'Rourke is credible around the EFL, and Nixon is a serious name behind the scenes. Nixon has spent 15 years at Newcastle and has been the club's head of recruitment since 2017. The Athletic previously reported he was leaving Newcastle. He's also been linked to West Ham before Wrexham reportedly moved into pole position. For Wrexham, this would be a really interesting off-the-field ambition signal. The club has grown incredibly fast, but the championship has been another level of squad building. You need sharper scouting, better recruitment structure, cleaner data, and a director of football who can connect the manager, ownership, analytics, and transfer strategy. Nixon's Newcastle background matters because he's been part of a Premier League recruitment operation that had to identify players for a club trying to move upward quickly. Wrexham aren't Newcastle, obviously, but the logic is similar. If you're trying to climb, you need to win the margins before the market gets too expensive. It's not as fun as a striker rumor, but for Wrexham this could be one of the most important moves of the summer if it gets finalized. And that's a good place to bring NordVPN back in. Because having a day like this is exactly why I like having something simple in the background working to protect me. You're moving from World Cup results, to labor proposals, to disciplinary rulings, to football recruitment reports, and internet security gets scary. NordVPN makes the whole process feel a little bit cleaner and a little bit more secure while you're trying to sort out what's real, what's reported, and what's just noise. I'm Chris Horvidell and that's it for today's show about what happened yesterday. We'll see you tomorrow.