New Zealand-born forward Tyler Boyd has been approved to switch affiliation to the United States by FIFA.

Boyd, 24, scored five goals and had four assists in 13 games for Ankaragucu, in Turkey's top division, in the second half of the season on loan from Portugal's Vitoria Guimaraes.

- Davis: Lletget is the most interesting man in U.S. soccer

Boyd played for New Zealand at the 2013 Under-20 World Cup and made his debut for the senior national team in Japan in 2014. He has played six international matches, all exhibitions.

The U.S. Soccer Federation announced on Saturday that soccer's international governing body had approved Boyd's application.

LONDON, England -- Pep Guardiola believes that Manchester City's domestic Treble was harder to achieve than winning the Champions League.

City wrapped up the final part of the Treble on Saturday with an emphatic 6-0 victory over Watford, just six days after pipping Liverpool to the Premier League title by a single point.

"It's one of the best seasons I've experienced as a manager, not the best but one of the best for sure," Guardiola said at a news conference. "To be for 10 months playing in all competitions. No team, including incredible teams in this country, have done this and we were the first.

"I love the Champions League, but to do [the Treble] is more difficult than to win the Champions League and we did it.

"It's not easy for 10 months, every three days being there because when you have one bad night you are out of competitions. And especially the way we played today we were a little bit short of energy but that's normal."

City were ruthless against Watford as they equalled the record FA Cup final winning margin set by Bury more than a century ago in 1903.

- Ogden and Smith: How Pep & Co. won a remarkable Treble
- Man City ratings: Sterling 10/10, Jesus 9/10 in FA Cup rout

Raheem Sterling scored twice and looked to have become the first player to score a hat trick in a final since 1953. But City's second from Gabriel Jesus crossed the line just millimetres before Sterling could claim the goal, although it wasn't officially given to the Brazilian until more than 30 minutes after full-time.

"I've disputed it!" Sterling said. "What can we do?

"The boys were brilliant today and my goals just added to the win. Everyone was fantastic.

"Credit to all the boys today. It's been a fantastic year."

Sterling, whose boyhood home was in view of the Wembley Arch, added: "Growing up here, growing up seeing this get built, it's a dream to be on this football field and winning trophies. It's a massive dream come true."

Teammate Bernardo Silva said that there will be no let-up next season and warned City's rivals that they can get even better.

"There's always space for improvement, and that's what we will try to do," he said.

"Next season we'll try to get better and we'll try to win even more titles, to be even better, to control more of the games, to have more possession, to create more chances to score more goals. We'll work on that.

"To win all the massive competitions, first time any team has done it, it's amazing, what a team this is. The fans were amazing this season as well, they pushed us this far.

"Now it's time to rest and time to celebrate. Next season we will try again."

San Jose Earthquakes forward Chris Wondolowski has broken Landon Donovan's all-time Major League Soccer goals record with the first two of four strikes against the Chicago Fire on Saturday.

Wondolowski, 36, is now on 148 goals in 338 MLS appearances, while Donovan took 340 games to reach the previous record of 145.

His first goal goal came in the 21st minute when Cristian Espinoza delivered a long, cross-field pass to Shea Salinas on the left wing, and Salinas' low, driven cross was stabbed home by Wondolowski at the far post.

And Wondolowski set a new mark on 48 minutes when a seemingly innocuous cross from Nick Lima was floated into the box, but when Fire goalkeeper David Ousted fumbled the delivery, Wondolowski was there to pounce and side-foot it in.

He then added additional strikes in the 74th and 76th minutes to round out his historic afternoon.

Wondolowski started his career with the Earthquakes in 2005, but scored his first four goals for the Houston Dynamo, where he played from 2006-2009 after the franchise relocated.

MLS returned to San Jose in the 2009 season -- and so did Wondolowski, who had his breakout year in 2010, scoring 18 times in 28 appearances.

He had a record-tying year in 2012 when he scored 27 times to match Roy Lassiter's 1996 mark for most goals in a season. That mark was equaled by the New York Red Bulls' Bradley-Wright Phillips in 2014 before Atlanta's Josef Martinez surpassed the trio's mark in 2018.

Wondolowski also has 11 goals and 35 caps for the United States and was part of the squad that went to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup.

Rounding out the top five leading scorers in MLS history after Wondolowski and Donovan are Jeff Cunningham with 134 goals, Jaime Moreno (133) and Ante Razov (114).

LONDON -- It is never easy to put history into context just as it's being made, so it may be many more years before the real magnitude of Manchester City's domestic Treble can be properly judged. But by inflicting a 6-0 defeat on Watford in the FA Cup final on Saturday, Pep Guardiola's City achieved what no men's club has done before by winning the Premier League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup in the same season. However you feel about it, their place in history is certainly assured.

Saturday's Cup final win against Javi Gracia's team was City's 50th victory of the campaign, in their 61st game, and they took their goals tally to 169 and equalling Bury's 116-year record for the biggest-ever FA Cup final winning margin in the process. It's clear that the record books are in need of some rewriting.

- Ratings: Sterling a perfect 10/10 at Wembley
- Report: Man City smash Watford to win FA Cup

English football has produced some iconic sides over the years -- the Double winners at Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool, or the Treble winners (Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup) at Manchester United -- but City's class of 2019 are now in the same bracket as those illustrious greats of yesteryear.

With the club currently being investigated by UEFA and Premier League for alleged financial fair play transgressions, and similar probes being carried out by FIFA and the Football Association due to allegations of wrongdoing in the signing of underage players, City's achievements may yet be tainted depending on the outcome of those investigations. But as Guardiola said last week, the club is "innocent until proven guilty" and their success this season can only be judged by what we know now.

While the domestic treble is the greatest achievements in the club's history (so far), it is by no means a story that only began in the days after last summer's World Cup, when the players returned to the Etihad to be told by Guardiola that they had to meet the challenge of defending the Premier League title.

The reality is that this season's success began as far back as the summer of 2015, 12 months before Guardiola took charge of the club. At that point, he was preparing for the third year of his contract at Bayern Munich, yet sources have told ESPN FC that Raheem Sterling completed his £49 million move from Liverpool to Manchester City that summer after being told how highly he was rated by Guardiola.

Kevin De Bruyne was another who made the move to City in 2015, with the Belgian leaving Wolfsburg for the Etihad because of the prospect of working with Guardiola a year later. In short, the building blocks have been carefully laid over recent years in order to put City in the position that they are now in.

Players were signed and staff were recruited -- Guardiola's assistant coach, Rodolfo Borrell, the man who nurtured Lionel Messi, Cesc Fabregas and Andres Iniesta as a youth team coach at Barcelona, was hired as far back as March 2014 -- as every effort was made by the City hierarchy to make the club ready for Guardiola, whom they'd been attempting to hire since his departure from Barcelona in 2012.

Year 1 at City was turbulent under Guardiola, with the club finishing third in the league and ending the season without silverware. But huge recruitment in the summer of 2017, which saw the key arrivals of Kyle Walker, Benjamin Mendy, Ederson and Bernardo Silva, sparked the incredible run to the 2017-18 Premier League title, which was won by amassing a record 100 points.

All of the above is the backstory to the tale of this season's success. A long-term project, with improvements every year, culminating in a campaign that has seen City sweep the board domestically: they even called themselves the "fourmidables" and counted the Community Shield, won against Chelsea last August, as part of their haul.

The Carabao Cup was won against Chelsea in February after a penalty shoot-out victory at Wembley, while City held off Liverpool's spirited challenge in the Premier League to emerge as champions with 98 points -- the second-highest total in league history behind last year's 100-point mark. On the way to winning the Premier League, City had more goals (95), shots (683), passes (26,581) and touches (33,593) than any of their rivals, and they also won more games. Liverpool pushed them hard, but City were unstoppable in the end.

So how did Guardiola drive his players on to become the first team since Manchester United, in 2009, to retain the title, but also clean up in every other competition in England?

When Sir Alex Ferguson guided United to the club's first title in 26 years back in 1993, he walked into the dressing room at the start of the following season and told his squad he had three envelopes containing the names of those players he believed would let him down by resting on their laurels. Whether those envelope existed or not, it proved to be a motivational masterstroke, with United going on to win a league and FA Cup Double that season, also reaching the EFL Cup final, as his players proved to their manager that they had the hunger and desire to build on their previous success.

There were no envelopes for Guardiola, but there was a key preseason moment when he made it clear that he expected last season to be merely a staging post to greater things rather than a high watermark.

"People say now we have to forget what we did last season," Guardiola said last summer. "No way. I don't want to forget what we have done last season. I know exactly what we did to achieve that, and that is where we start from.

"That's the basic principle. Now, when I say something to them [the players], they know exactly what we have to do. We will have bad moments, but at a club where you win titles, winning another one helps for the future. It is impossible to win titles if you just have quality players -- if they believe their quality is enough, then you cannot win -- not even a friendly game."

And City's players work hard. Driven by Guardiola to train at all times of the day -- City train in the evenings before night games to prepare their minds and bodies, such is the manager's determination to have every detail covered -- their levels of fitness continue to leave opponents stunned. One player who has faced City over the past two season told ESPN FC that Guardiola's players "kill you with the ball, but they also run as hard in the last 10 minutes as the first."

It all stems from Guardiola. When Mendy turned up late for treatment on his injured metatarsal last September, after spending the previous night in London watching a world title boxing fight, the French defender was told to stay away from the training ground for a week by a furious Guardiola, who was determined to deliver a message to both Mendy and the rest of his squad that he expected full focus and commitment from every player. Kyle Walker, the full-back whose power down the right flank has been crucial to City since his arrival from Tottenham two years ago, attributes the team's success to Guardiola's character.

"Intense" is how the England international describes the City manager, while captain Vincent Kompany admitted after the title-clinching win at Brighton last week that Guardiola's demanding personality is why City have become serial winners.

"He starts everything off," Kompany said. "He sets the standards. If he is too nice, we don't go and win back-to-back titles, but I knew we could do that, straightaway.

"The first meeting of the season, it was all about trying to get back-to-back [league titles]. He had done it before [at Barcelona and Bayern Munich], and I felt we could do it from the first moment. I felt the desire."

City's domestic record during 2018-19, with the team winning 32 of their 38 league games, suggests a serene run to success, but there have been blips along the way. And while the 9-0 Carabao Cup win against Burton and 7-0 Champions League victory against Schalke point to the ruthlessness of Guardiola and his players, the league defeats against Crystal Palace and Leicester, and the loss at Newcastle in January, say more about their qualities.

After the back-to-back defeats against Palace and Leicester, City steadied the ship and then earned the ultimately decisive 2-1 win at home to Liverpool in January that reduced the gap to Jurgen Klopp's team to four points. A defeat would have left City trailing by 10, but the loss at Newcastle three weeks later was the pivotal moment.

From that moment on, City didn't drop a point in the Premier League, but it was only after Guardiola issued a rallying call in a training session the day after the defeat against Rafael Benitez's team. He was convinced that Liverpool would drop points, but told his players that they couldn't afford more slip-ups if they were to challenge Klopp's side.

"We spoke in the last [few] days," Guardiola said at the time. "We didn't recognise our team. They know it, they felt the same way in the last game against Newcastle." The Newcastle defeat was a line in the sand. From then on, City won every Premier League game -- 14 on the spin -- to beat Liverpool to the title.

The Champions League proved elusive, with Spurs edging an epic quarterfinal on away goals after a 4-4 aggregate draw, but Guardiola refocused his players by calling for one last, winning surge in the league and cup. Sergio Aguero's goal then crossed the line by millimetres in a 1-0 win at Burnley, and Kompany netted a stunner from 35 yards in another tight 1-0 victory against Leicester as City held their nerve in the face of incessant pressure from Liverpool.

Man City just rolled on, fighting back from a goal down to clinch the title with a 4-1 win at Brighton, before ending the season in emphatic fashion against Watford, making more history on the way. It was ruthless and brutal at times, but City have become a winning juggernaut thanks to Guardiola.

The concern for the rest is that he will be back next season, demanding more from his players. Only a fool would dare suggest that he won't manage to take City to even greater heights.

Scotland v Sri Lanka Match abandoned

For the second time in eight days, a rare Scotland home ODI against a Full Member was affected by rain as the series opener against Sri Lanka was abandoned without a ball bowled. After waiting through close to five hours of on and off drizzle, umpire Gregory Brathwaite called both captains together to deliver the news, turning Tuesday's second ODI into a series decider.

It was a major blow to Cricket Scotland, who had hired temporary bleachers to accommodate a sellout crowd of 1500 and will now have to issue refunds as a result of no play taking place. It was also a dent in Sri Lanka's World Cup preparation, leaving the second ODI as their only official action before their World Cup opener against New Zealand on June 1.

While clear skies are forecast for the next two days, rain is scheduled to return on Tuesday, putting the entire series at risk of being washed out.

Rahul Dravid has said the presence of wicket-taking bowlers in India's line-up will greatly benefit them in the middle overs of what is expected to be a high-scoring World Cup.

"I believe, having experienced some of the conditions in England last year with the A-team tour, it would be a high-scoring World Cup," Dravid, the former India captain who now coaches the A team and Under-19s, said. "And in a high-scoring World Cup, having bowlers who can take wickets in the middle will be very important. I think India is lucky in that regard."

He added: "People like (Jasprit) Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal... (India have) got bowlers who can take wickets. Teams that are taking wickets through those middle overs in those high-scoring games have a better better chance of restricting the opposition."

India played their last international on March 13, after which the IPL kicked off. While the loss in that five-match series to Australia at home was unexpected, India have done well in ODIs over the last year, scripting a series win in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Dravid took into considerations these victories while talking about India's prospects at the World Cup. "I think we have had a couple of really good years leading to the World Cup. For right reasons, we are No. 2 in the world (in ODIs) and that actually means that we have consistently produced some successful results in the last two and half years. We can be hopeful.

"I think it's going to be a tough World Cup. Every team comes well prepared and wants to compete. Everyone at the World Cup will be putting their best foot forward.

"So having said that I would say India is definitely one of the favourites in the tournament and all of us can be hopeful. Hopefully we make the semi-final and from there on there are four very good teams.

"Bowling is going to play a very big role in this World Cup and the team that bowls best, probably, will be closer to winning it."

Dravid showered praise on captain Virat Kohli. "Virat, you know he just keeps improving, keeps getting better. He is setting bars and standards that possibly we thought would never be achieved. Sachin (Tendulkar) scored 49-50 [49] hundreds in one-day cricket. People thought that this would take a lot of time to achieve, will it be ever achieved... And now Virat is 10 [eight] away from it or close to it.

"One of the things about Virat is that even if he has a bad tour - it is not that he hasn't had bad tours, he had a disappointing tour of England in 2014, he wasn't as successful in Australia first time around, but every time he goes back, he goes back as a better player. He sort of reinvents his game to a point where he is constantly improving."

Dravid also had words of praise for World-Cup winning captain MS Dhoni. "The beauty about MS is that he plays these big tournaments and these big matches... he plays them and they mean a lot (but) - I tell the Under-19 boys - he is able to find a way to play it like it doesn't mean a lot.

"Obviously it means a lot (but) he is able to see a bigger picture in it and say I'm not defined by this particular game. It is a hard thing to do."

There is a World Cup at stake, but if South Africa are under any extra pressure, it won't be coming from inside their camp. As his team departs for a tournament where - for once - they won't start as one of the favourites, captain Faf du Plessis is not demanding anything extraordinary from them.

Rather, he believes that a focus on enjoyment and on sticking to what has worked for them after a home summer during which they won 11 out of 13 one-day internationals and beat Australia 2-1 away, will provide a formula for success.

ALSO READ: South Africa prepare to feel the heat ... with one eye on England's heavens

"In previous World Cups, we wanted to do Superman things," du Plessis said on the eve of South Africa's departure for England and Wales. "We thought we had to be more special, we had to do something more than we usually do, and we did not do what was good enough. We haven't always got that right in the past, to play our best cricket at the World Cup, because we put so much pressure on ourselves. We want to just focus on enjoying our cricket."

Seven members of South Africa's squad, including du Plessis, were part of the 2015 World Cup campaign, when the side crashed out with a four-wicket defeat to New Zealand in the semi-finals. Du Plessis, Hashim Amla, Imran Tahir, JP Duminy and Dale Steyn were also part of South Africa's team at the 2011 tournament, when they came off second best in another high-pressure encounter with New Zealand.

"We believed you had to be really special to win the World Cup, that you had to do something more than you usually do, which is not true," du Plessis said of previous campaigns. "Whatever we've been doing consistently, the way we've played while beating teams that will work. We have to do the basics as well as possible, teams don't win the World Cup by someone scoring a century off 50 balls or taking 7 for 20."

Du Plessis is a thinking captain, but he is also a feeling one. Rather than shying away from the pressures that come with international competition, he has urged his team to grapple with them in positive ways - and he hasn't been afraid to talk openly about the mental aspect of South Africa's game in the media either.

"We started a year or two ago with a real focus on mental preparation and, as a captain, I probably speak more about that than previous captains, but I really believe it's an area we can get better in," du Plessis said. "I've been there and I know the pressures, I understand how to deal with them. There's a reason why we want the guys to play freely - because we don't want them to have a fear of failure, which is what the World Cup is for some of them. Our success in England over the next couple of months depends on how well we release that aspect of our play - we need that for the team to be at our best. Each player needs to find out his own strengths.

"The players relate better to fellow players and I'm on the same level as the coach when it comes to the importance of the mental side. I'm a big believer in positive visualisation, how to remain calm, and I feel it has had value for my own game. So I can relate that to the players, how important it is to be present in the moment; for instance when there's been a dropped catch, there's nothing you can do about it and it's about how you change your mindset to make sure you are still strong mentally."

Du Plessis' pragmatic approach will also be seen in South Africa's selections during the tournament. He suggested that playing XIs would be picked on primarily on form, though he was also quick to point out that a player such as Amla, whose form - or lack thereof - has a been a major talking point in the lead-up to the World Cup, brings invaluable experience to the squad whether or not he is making runs.

"In terms of team selection, that's a call we will make when we get to that first game," du Plessis said. "We have two warm-up games. Generally, we want to pick on form. If we believe Hash is the guy with the best form for the first game then he will be picked. But if we feel there are other guys that are more in form [we will pick them]. Form does play a huge role in a long competition like this - so hopefully Hash can go into those warm-ups, and bang, bang two centuries in a row and then we can smile from there."

At 36, and with 174 ODIs under his belt, Amla is one of the most experienced members of South Africa's squad. He has played 18 of those ODIs in England, averaging 56.73, and has been part of two previous World Cup campaigns.

"As an experienced player, he is important in our squad and that was one of the key reasons he was picked," du Plessis said. "You cannot substitute experience. When I speak about the experience, I speak about experience having played in tournaments like the World Cup before. He understands what it means to play in a big tournament.

"Whether that means runs or not, no one can give us that guarantee. But it's just the calm composure Hashim has. Even if he doesn't play a game, just the knowledge and experience that he can share with someone like an Aiden Markram is something you can only get from a guy like Hashim. He can talk him through those first 10 overs, he has a lot of experience playing county cricket, so his experience is vital to the group."

As Australia commenced their Men's World Cup preparations on English soil, coach Justin Langer admitted the personal welfare of Steven Smith and David Warner would require sensitive monitoring and handling over the coming months.

The two players joined in the centre wicket practice at Whitgift School, in the suburbs of south London, with a small media contingent and a few dozen fans, mainly children in whites, sat on the grassy banks. It was a quiet and even genteel start to a gruelling four-month tour that will incorporate World Cup and Ashes campaigns and Langer knows more hostile crowds and greater scrutiny will greet Smith and Warner now they have served the bans handed to them in the wake of last year's Cape Town ball tampering affair.

"Well we can't control the crowd," Langer said. "What I do know? It may ramp up, it may heat up, but it won't be any hotter than it was 12 months ago. I've never seen anything like it so the boys are very well prepared. They've paid a heavy price and we're expecting always to come here and to face the fire and we're ready for that.

"What we've got to understand is that they're human beings as well. There's not too many I've met in my life who like being booed or heckled or disliked so… they're human beings. We're going to have to care for them, we're going to have to put an arm around them and make sure they're going okay. But what people say, whether it's in the crowd or social media or wherever, there's nothing they can do about that, they can't control it but what we can do is keep an eye on them and make sure they're going okay as people as much as cricketers."

ALSO READ: Finch ponders tactics to counter run-fests

Aside from the expected questions from the media there was little evidence of any lasting effects of a turbulent 12-month period, punctuated by severe recriminations and introspection throughout Australian professional cricket. But Langer suggested both players have shown an understandable eagerness to finally put their exile behind them, from their return to the squad for warm-ups against New Zealand to the squad's visit to the World War One battlefields of Gallipoli, where they broke their journey to England.

"Dave's got that look on his eye, he's really hungry, he's a great player as we all know, he's so dynamic, he brings so much energy, and that's what we ask from our players, Langer said. "You watch Glenn Maxwell field or bowl or bat - he brings the energy. Dave Warner always brings energy to the contest. It's really nice to have him back."

"I watched Steve Smith batting against new Zealand in those three practice games, he's literally a master of the game, so it's nice to have him back. It's been hilarious for me because whether on the ANZAC cove or in the lunch room or we're in the bus playing cards, he's just shadow batting the whole time. He's literally - he loves batting, he's shadow batting on the sand, he's shadow batting in the shower - I'm not joking. You should see him, he just loves batting. From that point it's great to have him back.

"From a broader perspective, it's nice to have them back as well, they've had 12 months to have a good think about a mistake they and the team made. I'm sure they'll be better people for that."

Aside from his surprising knowledge of Smith's daily ablutions, Langer believes both players are physically ready as they continue to progress from elbow surgeries earlier this year, although he admitted they are still at partially restricted in the field.

"They both fielded in the three [World Cup warm-up] games against New Zealand. Steve's in literally career best shape. I mean you just saw a 2K time trial, he's in great shape and Dave Warner is always elite fit. So in terms of their throwing, they're building it up. Where they've come from, from surgery, I'm really proud of them and they're up and running. Are they going to throw like Andrew Symonds or Ricky Ponting? Probably not at the moment but they're certainly working towards that.

"Last week in Brisbane, [Smith] batted beautifully, he played an unbelievable shot off Nathan Coulter-Nile there - it was like watching Sachin [Tendulkar] bat. He's in pretty good shape I think."

Of greater concern to Langer is the task of getting his side prepared for their first World Cup match against Afghanistan in Bristol, the reason for their match scenario practice, which saw bowlers asked to simulate specific stages of an innings. After a difficult home summer, Australia embarked on an eight-match winning streak in India and Pakistan and they now have two warm-up games in England to settle on a starting side. The main selection questions centre on how to fit Aaron Finch, Usman Khawaja and Warner into the top three while Coulter-Nile appears to be favoured as the third seamer in an attack also featuring Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins.

The coaching staff will be bolstered by World Cup winners Ponting and Brad Haddin and, while England's batting has dominated the local cricket headlines, Langer is adamant that Australia won't be drawn in to changing their tactics.

"We've been hearing it for 12 months. We've shown if we stick to the formula then we'll have some success. It's as simple as that. And when it comes to playing India and England it's just like match play, we're just going to have to compete harder and be ready for them. In terms of scores, a lot will have to do with the grounds we play on, the conditions, whether we're chasing or setting, all those sorts of things but we're really clear on the game plan. We showed in India and Dubai that, if we stick to it, we'll score big enough scores to win games of cricket.

"We love our cricket and we've been good at it. When everyone says we've got to start playing like England or start playing like New Zealand or start playing like India, no - we'll keep playing like Australia because we've won four of the past five World Cups and that's something to be proud of.

"The boys are aware of it and we know if we stick to the Australian way of playing great cricket… history has shown we'll be pretty good."