Former U.S. men’s national team coach Bruce Arena was hired to take over as coach and sporting director of the San Jose Earthquakes for the 2025 MLS season.

Arena, 73, is the most accomplished coach in U.S. soccer history and was inducted into the U.S. National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2010. He has won five MLS championships and is the winningest coach in MLS and for the U.S. men’s national team.

“With an unsurpassed track record at all levels of soccer in our country that includes numerous MLS Cups and Supporters’ Shields, he’s the ideal choice to lead the Earthquakes,” Earthquakes managing partner John Fisher said in a statement Thursday. “We know he will help get the club back to the level that San Jose and the Bay Area deserve, winning games and competing for championships.”

Arena led the U.S. to two World Cups, including a run to the quarterfinals in 2002 that was the first time the country made it that far since the initial tournament in 1930. The U.S. failed to make it out of the group stage in the 2006 World Cup and Arena’s contract was not renewed.

He returned as interim coach when Jurgen Klinsmann was fired in 2016 after a 0-2 start in World Cup qualifying. The U.S. lost at Trinidad and Tobago in its final qualifier, ending a streak of seven straight World Cup appearances.

Arena won two MLS titles with D.C. United and three more with the Galaxy in 2011, 2012 and 2014. His 262 regular-season wins and 35 postseason wins are the most in MLS history. He also coached the New York Red Bulls and most recently New England from 2019-23.

He quit the Revolution in September 2023, six weeks after he was placed on administrative leave by MLS for what the league said were “allegations that he made insensitive and inappropriate remarks.”

MLS did not detail its findings except to say in a statement that the probe “confirmed certain of these allegations.” The league said then if Arena wants to accept a future position within MLS, he must petition the MLS commissioner.

Arena also won the CONCACAF Gold Cup three times, and his 81 wins are the most in men’s national team history.

“I am extremely excited for the opportunity to come to San Jose,” Arena said in a statement. “I coached my first ever professional game at Spartan Stadium in 1996 — the first game in MLS history — and my first international game with the U.S. in 1998 was in San Jose as well. The Earthquakes and Northern California have a proud soccer tradition. There’s a lot of potential with the club, and I am looking forward to working with everyone here to unlock that potential and get back to winning ways.”

TENNIS

Barbora Krejcikova grabbed the last semifinal spot at the WTA Finals with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Coco Gauff, a result that eliminated second-ranked Iga Swiatek from the season-ending tournament in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Krejcikova completes a last-four lineup that already included top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka, Zheng Qinwen and Gauff.

Krejcikova, the Wimbledon champion, won the Orange Group and will face Zheng in today’s semifinals, while Gauff will take on Purple Group winner Sabalenka.

Swiatek earlier routed alternate Daria Kasatkina 6-1, 6-0 in less than an hour, but she needed Krejcikova to lose to third-ranked Gauff in order to advance from the Orange Group. Krejcikova, Gauff and Swiatek all finished at 2-1, and Swiatek was eliminated because she has a worse percentage of sets won.

Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz are poised to add another entry into their rapidly developing rivalry when the ATP Finals open Sunday without any of the Big Three for the first time in 23 years.

The top-ranked Sinner and No. 3 Alcaraz evenly split the year’s Grand Slam titles between them with two apiece and it would be fitting if the pair meet again in Turin, Italy. Sinner and Alcaraz were placed in different groups in the draw.

The Ilie Nastase Group features Sinner, Daniil Medvedev, Taylor Fritz and Alex de Minaur. The John Newcombe Group features Alexander Zverev, Alcaraz, Casper Ruud and Andrey Rublev.

HOCKEY

The NCAA Division I Council approved a rule allowing players with Canadian Hockey League experience to compete at U.S. colleges starting next season, a landmark decision that has the potential of shaking up the NHL’s two largest sources of talent.

The decision, effective Aug. 1, lifts the NCAA’s longstanding ban on CHL players who were previously deemed to be professionals because they received a stipend of up to $600 per month for living expenses.

The approval was expected after the council introduced a proposal to lift the ban last month. Players competing at the major junior ice hockey or on professional teams can retain NCAA eligibility as long as they are not paid more than actual and necessary expenses.

In doing so, the council opened the door for a major change in how players approaching their 16th birthdays decide where to play. Rather than having to choose between one or the other, CHL players can now play NCAA hockey when they become college eligible.

GOLF

Kevin Streelman, Tom Whitney and Rico Hoey each shot 5-under 67 in windy conditions to share the first-round lead in the PGA Tour’s World Wide Technology Championship in Los Cabos, Mexico.

Defending champion Erik van Rooyen was a stroke back at 68 with Taylor Montgomery, Max Greyserman, Nate Lashley, Austin Eckroat, Kelly Kraft and Ryan McCormick.

Fine, but unimaginative. That was Rory McIlroy’s view of his new swing, which he tried out for the first time competitively in shooting 5-under 67 in the first round of the Abu Dhabi (UAE) Championship.

It left the No. 3-ranked McIlroy five shots off the lead held by Ryder Cup teammate Tommy Fleetwood in the first event of the European tour playoffs.

McIlroy, seeking a victory that can clinch a sixth year-long Race to Dubai title, returned to competitive action after a month away — most of which he spent shut away in a studio hitting balls against a screen in search of a more robust swing that can hold up in pressure-filled moments.

Fleetwood — the next highest-ranked player in the 70-man field at No. 10 — made eight birdies to go with an eagle in a bogey-free round of 10-under 62.

Fleetwood was a stroke clear of Thorbjorn Olesen of Denmark and Johannes Veerman of the U.S.

Nataliya Guseva of Russia shot a 5-under 67 for a share of the second-round lead in the Lotte Championship in Honolulu with A Lim Kim, Ruixin Liu and Yuri Yoshida.

Stewart Cink shot a 7-under 64 to take a three-stroke lead after the first round of the Charles Schwab Cup Championship in Phoenix, the final PGA Tour Champions event of the season.