Glasgow Warriors are a more robust team than the one that has previously "flopped" in big games, says centre Pete Horne.

Warriors came up just short in the Pro14 final, losing 18-15 to Leinster.

But having taken a battering in the semi-finals last season, Horne says there is far more "steel" about the team now.

"We're a different side to where we were 12 months ago, even two months ago," he said.

"In big games we've maybe flopped a wee bit in the past. We got pumped off Scarlets this time last year, we got hosed off Saracens in a big Champions Cup [quarter-final] game this season.

"Even though we weren't playing well, we showed a bit of steel and made it difficult for them."

Glasgow took an early lead thanks to Matt Fagerson's try but immediately conceded a score to Leinster centre Garry Ringrose after Stuart Hogg's kick was charged down.

A further try for the Irish side through Cian Healy and the boot of fly-half Johnny Sexton stretched Leinster's lead, before Grant Stewart set up a tense finish.

"It's gutting, it just feels like another one that got away," Horne added.

"We were right in the game, even at the death, but didn't play quite as well as we have the last month. It's just disappointing.

"Hopefully next year we can come good."

Ireland back row forward Sean O'Brien has been ruled out of the Rugby World Cup as he will be sidelined for up to six months recovering from hip surgery.

A statement released by Leinster on Sunday indicated that O'Brien will have surgery "in the next few weeks".

O'Brien lifted the Pro14 trophy on Saturday after Leinster beat Glasgow 18-15 in the final at Celtic Park.

The 32-year-old British and Irish Lions flanker is joining London Irish later in the year.

O'Brien made his Ireland debut in 2009 and has won 56 caps despite struggling with a string of injuries.

Injury denied O'Brien a place in Leinster's squad for the Pro14 decider but he still collected the silverware after the win.

His future involvement in international rugby is in doubt given Ireland's preference to select players who are contracted to play for the Irish provinces.

Manchester United and Barcelona transfer target Matthijs de Ligt has said he will make a decision on his future after the Netherlands' upcoming UEFA Nations League campaign, but added he does like the Premier League.

The Ajax captain, 19, is one of the most sought-after players in this summer's transfer market after an impressive campaign where he led the Amsterdam side to the Dutch league and cup double -- as well as the semifinals of the Champions League.

- When are the Premier League fixtures published?
- When does the new Premier League season start?
- Who qualifies for Europe from the Premier League?
- When does the transfer window close?

He is certain to leave Ajax this summer for a huge fee and Old Trafford sources have told ESPN FC they believe De Ligt is going to sign for Barca. However, when asked what his next destination is likely to be, De Ligt would not make a decision until after the Nations League finals.

"Where do I see myself? Well, obviously the Premier League is a big competition -- Spain also -- but you have other competitions," he told AP. "It's not [just] about those two.

"I still don't know anything about where my future is, so I see how it goes."

Sources have told ESPN FC that United have offered De Ligt a deal worth £250,000-a-week to move to Old Trafford -- more than the player will receive at Barcelona.

But despite the prospect of playing in the Premier League with United, De Ligt has made it clear to the club that his preference is a move to Barcelona, who have already completed a €75 million deal for his Ajax teammate, Frenkie de Jong.

While United remain huge admirers of De Ligt, who is not expected to leave Ajax until after his involvement with Netherlands at the Nations League in Portugal next month, there is an acceptance within Old Trafford that Barca have all but tied up a deal for the player.

ESPN FC senior reporter Mark Ogden contributed to this report

Cristiano Ronaldo was presented with Serie A's inaugural MVP award last weekend. The decision to create a new set of prizes -- recognising the best goalkeeper, defender, midfielder and attacker -- was officially part of the league's latest rebrand but the timing felt like more than a coincidence: Was it an initiative they'd have launched if Ronaldo hadn't moved to Italy last summer? The new prize helped Ronaldo feel the love and appreciation of his new home while also feeling like a stunt, designed to associate the league -- and not just Juventus -- with the 34-year-old and his huge global profile, which as my colleague Sam Borden wrote, has not escaped scrutiny this season amid the serious allegations brought by Kathryn Mayorga.

Unlike the Gran Gala del Calcio, Italy's main awards ceremony that takes place every winter, the winner was not decided by a players' vote. Accounting firm Ernst & Young crunched the numbers using data from Opta, STATs and Netco Sports to settle on a name, and Ronaldo came out on top.

- Marcotti: Why Allegri, Juve decided to split
- 30 Under 21: The best young players in soccer
- Mr. Indispensable: Which player can your team not live without?

The result ignited little debate in Italy. Ronaldo is the MVP in a literal sense and in absolute terms. No one is more talented than him in Serie A. He's the most expensive signing in the league's history and its highest-paid player, banking more than three times what the guy with the next-biggest salary makes (Gonzalo Higuain). But in terms of his performances over the course of this season, is he a deserving winner of the MVP crown?

This weekend's final game at Marassi throws the question into stark relief. Juventus finish the campaign away at Sampdoria, who have their own Ronaldo -- the England Under-21 midfield player who can speak several languages -- and the player the league named its best attacker, Fabio Quagliarella. Samp fans aren't the only ones to think the veteran had a compelling case for the MVP award, either. Quagliarella matched Gabriel Batistuta's 11-game scoring record, entered his nominee for goal of the season with a volleyed back-heel against Napoli and will win the Capocannoniere title for top scorer unless something crazy happens on Sunday.

Quagliarella is a goal away from equaling the single-season record at Samp (27) and no one in Serie A history has had as prolific a year at his age. The veteran striker combined for a greater share of his team's goals than any other player in Serie A and still prevails over Ronaldo in the scoring charts even when penalty goals are subtracted from both their records: Quagliarella converted nine, the Portuguese put away five.

Rather than expand the MVP debate, which we'll leave for next week's end-of-season review column, it's worth pausing here to consider what we expected of Ronaldo instead.

Back in August, the anticipation was he would set new standards in Serie A. Breaking Juventus' single-season scoring record (32 goals), a milestone many had tried and failed to overtake over the past 85 years, surely wouldn't be a problem. The same went for the league record (36) established by Higuain in his final season with Napoli, the man unceremoniously "kicked out" to make room for CR7.

Ultimately, Ronaldo came up short. In his defence, the last Scudetto winner to boast a Capocannoniere was Inter (and Zlatan Ibrahimovic 10 years ago) and Juve are a team that tend to spread the goals around and share the workload in order to be competitive across all fronts. Still, it does come as a surprise to see Ronaldo fourth in the scoring charts behind a 36-year-old, a no-name Pole who came out of nowhere (Krzysztof Piatek) and a mercurial Colombian (Duvan Zapata) enjoying a career year.

We should bear in mind it's Ronaldo's first campaign in a new country, even though the same goes for Piatek, who swapped Cracovia for Genoa last summer and moved to Milan in January. Ronaldo was coming off a World Cup summer and short preseason, as were a number of other Juventus players. He needed to get to know the league, a different culture, his new teammates. They needed to understand him and figure out what he wanted from them on the pitch. Massimiliano Allegri had to experiment with systems, partnerships and other combinations in order to help put him in a position to do his best work without upsetting the balance of the team.

After taking more than five hours to score his first goals in a black-and-white shirt, he went on a tear, ending the first half of the season as the league's top scorer and the most prolific Juventus debutante since John Charles in 1957. But he underwhelmed in the Champions League group stages. Sent off on his debut against Valencia, he did set up Paulo Dybala's winner against Man United at Old Trafford and scored a magnificent volley -- probably his best goal for the club -- in the reverse fixture. But that game, Juventus' most fluent performance of the season in Allegri's opinion, ended in shock defeat.

Also, if Ronaldo hadn't tried to head in Dybala's wonder strike against Young Boys a fortnight later, they would have drawn and not lost in Berne. In hindsight, that episode feels curiously symbolic. Ronaldo getting in the Argentine's way has been a theme of the season.

The second half of the year was the exact opposite. After his hat trick in the comeback against Atletico Madrid -- the highlight of Ronaldo's season -- he said "this is what they bought me for" and he was right. He scored in both legs against Ajax and is entitled to think he kept his side of the bargain. After Juve's elimination, Ronaldo's mother claimed he told her "I can't work miracles" and the gesture he made on the pitch, which some interpreted to mean -- let's put this diplomatically -- that his teammates had lost their nerve, spoke volumes.

Meanwhile, in the league, Ronaldo has scored half as many goals in the second half of the season (seven) as in the first (14). A big part of that is down to resting him for the Atleti games in the Champions League or getting him fit enough to play the Ajax ones after the muscle injury he suffered in March. Watch his goals again and what you'll see, but for the ballistic missile he launched against Empoli and the aforementioned blast against United, that they're mostly scrappy tap-ins or Ronaldo being first to a set-piece delivery. Five of his past seven goals in all competitions have been headers: the one in Amsterdam, admittedly, a beauty.

It's an odd year to assess because, on the one hand, few would quibble with the idea of Ronaldo being Juve's Player of the Season. You can argue that they miss Giorgio Chiellini more when he is out. Mario Mandzukic scored bigger goals in grudge matches -- though he was often set up by Ronaldo -- and Wojciech Szczesny distinguished himself in his first full year as the club's No.1. (Recall, though, that the memorable penalty save he made on Higuain against Milan came about in part because Ronaldo instructed him where to dive.)

Ronaldo came to Juve's rescue in Bergamo against Atalanta in the league, as he did in the Champions League against Atleti. He settled the Turin derby and scored the killer goal against Milan at San Siro and in the Super Cup in Saudi Arabia. He was part of a team that went undefeated in the league until mid-March and looked set to break the points record set in Antonio Conte's final year until mid-April.

And yet, there is still a feeling he maybe wasn't as dominant as many people thought he would be in Italy. There was no treble, no Champions League triumph. It was the least successful of Allegri's five years in charge, too, which goes some way to explaining the decision to risk a change of coach.

As Maurizio Crosetti put it in La Repubblica: "If you play worse with Ronaldo than without Ronaldo, if you win less with Ronaldo than without Ronaldo, if you exit the Champions League in a worse way with Ronaldo than without Ronaldo, then you go home. It's as simple as that."

The Champions League is ultimately where Ronaldo should be judged. That was the priority. After all, Juventus didn't sign him to win an eighth consecutive Serie A title. But given that they went out of the cup in January and crashed out of Europe in April, it's understandable that more focus is placed on how he performed in the league.

Still, the song the fans were singing when he arrived was "Portaci la Champions" -- bring us the Champions. Ronaldo has not done that. Not yet, at least.

Wisconsin men's basketball assistant coach Howard Moore is recovering from injuries suffered in a car crash early Saturday that claimed the lives of his wife and daughter.

The school on Sunday released a statement confirming that Moore's wife, Jennifer, and daughter, Jaidyn, both were killed in the collision, which took place around 2 a.m. Saturday near Ann Arbor, Michigan, on State Route 14. Both Howard Moore, 46, and his 13-year-old son, Jerell, were injured but are expected to recover.

Michigan State Police tweeted Sunday that Jaidyn Moore died at the scene while Jennifer Moore was later taken off life support and died. Jaidyn was 9; Jennifer was 46.

Police said Samantha Winchester, of Ann Arbor, was driving west in the eastbound lanes of the highway when she struck the vehicle carrying Moore and his family. Winchester died at the scene. She was 23. Toxicology reports are pending, police said. The Moore family dog also died in the crash. Michigan State Police also tweeted that a third vehicle was involved in the crash.

"There are no words to describe how devastated we are for Howard and his family," Wisconsin coach Greg Gard said in a statement. "Our basketball program is an extremely close family and we are all grieving for the Moore and Barnes families. Howard is so much more than a colleague and coach. He and Jen and their children are dear friends to everyone they met. Their positivity and energy lift up those around them. We will miss Jen and Jaidyn dearly and we will put our arms around Howard and Jerell and the entire family, giving them love and support during this unspeakable time."

Gard and the other Wisconsin coaches traveled to Michigan to be with Moore on Saturday before returning to Madison, Wisconsin. Moore, who played at Wisconsin from 1990 to 1995, is in his second stint as an assistant coach with the team. The Chicago native rejoined Wisconsin in 2016 after serving as head coach at Illinois-Chicago from 2010 to 2015.

"I've known Howard ever since he was a student-athlete at Wisconsin and gotten to know his wonderful family through the years," athletic director Barry Alvarez said in a statement. "He has always been an incredible representative of our athletic department and a positive influence on everyone around him. We are truly heart-broken for his family and will be doing everything possible to help him through this tragic time. Our prayers, love and support go out to the Moore and Barnes family."

Several former Wisconsin players voiced their support for Moore on social media.

Thoughts and prayers are with the Moore family. Can't even imagine the pain they are going through. Please everyone take a moment and pray for Coach Moore and his family.

— Hippo Kaminsky III (@FSKPart3) May 25, 2019

We send our love and support to Coach Moore and his family through this time...

— Sam Dekker (@dekker) May 25, 2019

Playing his first match at Roland Garros since 2015, Roger Federer had no problem reaching the second round of the French Open.

Back on the refurbished Court Philippe Chatrier on the opening day of the clay-court event, the 20-time Grand Slam champion defeated French Open debutant Lorenzo Sonego 6-2, 6-4, 6-4.

Federer missed the French Open in 2016 because of a back injury and then skipped the event in 2017 and 2018 to focus on Wimbledon. He won the title in Paris 10 years ago to complete a career Grand Slam.

"I missed you; thanks very much for the welcome," Federer said to the crowd after concluding his match. "I was quite tense at the start."

In other news, French Open organizers said American player Sam Querrey has withdrawn from the tournament. Querrey, who was set to take on Spanish qualifier Pedro Martinez in the first round, has been replaced in the main draw by lucky loser Henri Laaksonen of Switzerland. A Wimbledon semifinalist in 2017, the 62nd-ranked Querrey cited an abdominal problem as the reason for his withdrawal

Canadian teenager Felix Auger-Aliassime also pulled out of the French Open because of an injury. Organizers said the No. 25-seeded player has pain in his left abductor muscle and will be replaced in the main draw by Spanish lucky loser Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. Auger-Aliassime is ranked a career-high 28th and reached the Lyon Open final this week.

Among other seeded players in action Sunday, No. 11-seeded Marin Cilic of Croatia defeated Thomas Fabbiano of Italy 6-3, 7-5, 6-1.

A year after upsetting Novak Djokovic in a stunning run to the semifinals, Marco Cecchinato is out after the first round.

French wild card Nicolas Mahut came back from two sets down in a 2-6, 6-7 (6), 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 win over the 16th-seeded Italian.

It was the first men's match on the new Court Simonne Mathieu and Mahut seemed to thrive off the support from the home fans.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Bart Starr, a Hall of Fame quarterback who helped build the Green Bay Packers dynasty in the 1960s and was named the Most Valuable Player of the first two Super Bowls, died Sunday in Birmingham, Ala. He was 85.

Starr won an unprecedented five NFL championships as the Packers' starting quarterback, leading the club to titles in 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966 and 1967.

Starr battled a series of health setbacks recently. In September 2014, he suffered two strokes, a heart attack and several seizures. His condition improved after undergoing experimental stem cell treatments. He then overcame a life-threatening bronchial infection in August 2015 and broke his hip in December.

He made one of his final public appearances on Nov. 25 of last year, attending the jersey retirement ceremony for quarterback Brett Favre at Lambeau Field.

"We are saddened to note the passing of our husband, father, grandfather, and friend, Bart Starr," read a statement from Starr's family. "He battled with courage and determination to transcend the serious stroke he suffered in September 2014, but his most recent illness was too much to overcome.

"While he may always be best known for his success as the Packers quarterback for 16 years, his true legacy will always be the respectful manner in which he treated every person he met, his humble demeanor, and his generous spirit."

After losing to the Eagles in the 1960 NFL Championship Game, the Packers never lost another postseason contest with Starr at the helm.

That was certainly true at Lambeau Field on December 31, 1967, the date of the NFL Championship Game, better known as the "Ice Bowl." The game would provide the signature moment of Starr's career. Fighting a wind chill of 48 degrees below zero, the Packers trailed the Dallas Cowboys 17-14 late in the fourth quarter. After advancing the ball to the one-yard line with 16 seconds left on the clock, Starr called "31 Wedge," a running play designed for fullback Chuck Mercein. Telling none of his teammates, he decided to keep the ball himself. Following a block by guard Jerry Kramer, Starr plowed into the end zone, giving the Packers a 21-14 victory and a date with the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl II.

Starr was credited for using his mind as much as his arm. Still, he led the NFL in passing three times and was named the league's MVP in 1966. He played his entire 16-year career with the Packers, finishing with 24,718 passing yards and 152 touchdown passes. His No. 15 jersey number was retired by the Packers in 1973. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977.

After being the University of Alabama's starting quarterback, safety and punter as a sophomore in 1953, Starr suffered a back injury in a hazing incident in the summer of 1954 and scarcely saw the field his final two seasons with the Crimson Tide. The Packers used a 17th-round draft selection on Starr in 1956 after Alabama basketball coach, Johnny Dee, recommended him to Packers personnel director, Jack Vainisi, a personal friend.

Starr did not make much of an impact in Green Bay his first three seasons, winning seven of 23 starts while throwing 19 touchdown passes with 32 interceptions. The course of Starr's life began to change in 1959 with the arrival of head coach Vince Lombardi. The even-mannered Starr was the perfect complement for the fiery Lombardi. From 1961-67, Starr went 69-18-4 as a starter in the regular season and was a perfect 9-0 in the playoffs.

Lombardi allowed Starr to call his own plays and rarely found reason to second guess his quarterback.

"There's nobody who could put a team in a better position with what Vince wanted to do," Hall of Fame back Paul Hornung, a teammate of Starr's for 10 seasons, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2013. "He gave him control of the team. He gave him authority to do whatever he wanted to do. And that's pretty strong."

Starr retired in July 1972 and was hired as the Packers quarterbacks coach, holding the job for one season. He then spent two years as a broadcaster with CBS before being named Green Bay's head coach and general manager on Christmas Eve 1974. In nine disappointing seasons as the club's head coach, the Packers posted a record of 52-76-3 and made just one playoff appearance.

He was born Bryan Bartlett Starr on January 9, 1934, in Montgomery, Alabama. Football stardom could not shield Starr from personal tragedy. One of his two sons, Bret, died from a drug overdose at the age of 24 in 1988. He is survived by his wife, Cherry, who he married in 1954, and another son, Bart Jr.

IT'S 10 MINUTES before practice in the Chicago Red Stars' training room, and midfielder Julie Ertz is curled up on a massage table, cupping the arches of her feet. She suctions her skin into a small, pressurized globe, a process that calls to mind medieval torture but allegedly relieves tightness. Her toenails are painted periwinkle blue. A small cross tattoo is tucked behind her ear like a flower.

Ertz winces as she pops the seal of skin, then hops off the table and runs the tender pockets of her feet over a golf ball. She has high arches, a foot shape better suited to ballet than soccer and one that causes her intense discomfort every time she hits the pitch.

"I was 23 in the last World Cup," the team captain says matter-of-factly. "Now I need to listen to my body more."

On the floor, various teammates receive their own treatments: icing knees, heating quads, feet submerged in buckets soaking ingrown nails. They chat amiably about the dubious sartorial cred of Uggs, big versus small dogs, new restaurants, Gossip Girl -- the free-flowing, unconcerned conversation found in groups with decades of shared history and unambiguous commonalities. Every few minutes, forward Michele Vasconcelos' toddler, Scarlett, is rolled through the room in a plastic pushcart, a small soccer ball bouncing in the front.

"It was fire," Ertz shares about the foosball tourney she and a few other players got into last night, noting, "I made Gilly [Arin Wright, née Gilliland] switch positions because she wasn't defending well enough." Ertz laughs, says she had no skin in the game beyond "you know, pride."

Soon, the players hit the field and begin running laps. They shift like a flock of geese, repositioning en mass, pivoting to and fro as if nudged by the wind. During drills, Ertz transforms. She yanks her ponytail tight, walks the turf with a purpose, bowlegged, arms bent and floating at her hips like a cowboy ready to draw. Her expression is serious, contemplative, her genial demeanor subsumed by the beast within.

"I'm the kind of person that wants to take advantage of all my opportunities," she explains. And for Ertz, practice is as critical an opportunity as any.

Capitalizing on her prospects is something the seasoned defensive champion has been doing since her teens. After a winning stint at Santa Clara University, the NWSL rookie of the year became the second-youngest player on the victorious 2015 World Cup team, a position she slid into after an injured Crystal Dunn was dropped from the roster. Former alternate Ertz seized her moment by the throat, playing every second of the tournament, emerging as a star.

In 2017, she was named U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year, and she is now viewed by many as the most critical component in the projected success of the 2019 national team -- the strategic linchpin and a player head coach Jill Ellis describes as "a weapon" who "will run through anything."

Like the Kool-Aid Man, Ertz has a reputation for furiously demolishing barriers with a smile. On the outside, she is all warm, sunny blond; on the inside, it's Game of Thrones, mother of dragons. She has etched her place in soccer history as a rare amalgamation of physical and technical threat, the uncommon defender who dissects film and tackles audaciously, her body as ruthless as her brain.

"Julie is incredibly intelligent about the game," Chicago head coach Rory Dames says. "She's like having another coach on the field."

Dames drafted Ertz to the Red Stars five years ago, in large part because of her brute chutzpah. "Julie puts her body on the line. It's unusual to have a player that has all the characteristics that Julie has and still have her willingness to tackle," he marvels, adding, "There is no gray area for her."

Teammates describe Ertz as a player who thrives under pressure, joyfully running headlong into the mouth of every cannon.

"Julie is probably one of the more aggressive players that we have," says keeper Alyssa Naeher, who plays alongside Ertz on the USWNT and the Red Stars. "She's the one that's going to the ground. Which is weird because off the field, you don't see that side."

Out of uniform, Ertz, 27, is chill, open, thoughtful. She makes a lot of deep eye contact. She keeps her indulgences in check. She does not smoke or drink or eat crappy food or sleep late or skip practice. She's like Sandra Dee, if Sandra Dee possessed a secret, bone-deep desire to knock your punk ass into the artificial turf.

"If her goal was just to be a great soccer player, that goal would've already been accomplished," observes her husband, Philadelphia Eagles tight end Zach Ertz. "She could rest on her laurels and be complacent. But she's not."

Julie Ertz is the opposite, consumed by self-scrutiny, poking at what she perceives as her weak spots like a tongue prodding an aching tooth.

"When you fail or you make a mistake, you learn a lot about yourself," she explains. "That wouldn't happen if I just did everything right. You know what I mean?"

IF YOU ASK her, Ertz will tell you she doesn't have nightmares. She dreams nearly every night. But her head is filled instead with happy fantasies and memories. Sometimes she dreams about past vacations or trips to the sea. More often, she dreams of soccer.

"I see moments of a game that could happen," she says, knitting her brow. Premonitions and "visions," not of trophies but of plays, of tackles. Even at rest, she is strategizing.

Ertz sees nothing odd about this. The infinite calculus of soccer has been her abiding preoccupation since she was an eager child in Mesa, Arizona, stumbling into a lifelong passion while trying to beat her two-years-older sister, Melanie, at something, anything. (Ertz's grandmother remembers Julie making up rules to win at Candy Land.)

Natural athletes, the sisters were encouraged to battle. Their father, David Johnston, a starting kicker for LSU, designed makeshift physical challenges to entertain them whenever he could. Chores became races. An idle jump on the trampoline transformed into a contest to see which daughter could jump higher over a swinging pipe.

David worked in the cold room at Shamrock Foods, lifting heavy stock 65 hours a week. Mom Kristi was a nurse. The family bedrock was hard work and the belief in its ability to cement character.

"It was tough love," Ertz recalls.

"My dad wanted us to find that drive at a young age," Melanie says. "The mentality was, 'No one is stopping you but yourself.'"

The two girls shared a room, an enforced closeness that Melanie says brought benefits -- "We were partners in crime" -- and annoyances -- "Julie borrowing my Hollister T-shirt, not hanging it up, it's on the floor types of things."

The sisters excelled in every sport but showed particular promise in soccer, a game "my parents didn't know anything about," Ertz recalls. By age 9, Ertz thought of little else. Local leagues were joined. A net was erected in the backyard. Self-motivated practice was expected. If this was where the family time and money was going to be spent, the girls were called upon to take their commitment seriously. Ertz says the early accountability was a blessing.

"It made us super independent. Our parents made it known, we're going to treat you like an adult."

David and Kristi logged extra shifts to pay for team expenses. The girls' heavy sporting schedule meant cheap pizza dinners in the car, hours commuting to matches every weekend. There were no vacations that didn't revolve around soccer.

"That's why Julie and I are so hard on ourselves to perform at a higher level," Melanie says. Neither child wanted the sacrifices their parents made to be for nothing.

Whenever Melanie joined a league, Julie followed. After a growth spurt in middle school, Julie began eclipsing her sister on the pitch. "Julie was so advanced. She played above her age," Melanie recalls.

At 13, Ertz switched to a more hard-core club with European coaches, and the die of her career was cast. "I loved how seriously everyone there took it," she says -- her most of all. It was a fevered dedication that's only grown over the ensuing dozen years, Ertz sewing up a heady college run before dropping out to go pro in 2013, a decision that haunts her slightly.

"I wanted to finish, and I really, really tried," she says. "It was hard to balance classes while I was getting called in with the national team. My parents still ask me when I'm going to finish my education, and I tell them, 'Soon.'"

When asked why she would bother at this point, Ertz says flatly, "To say I did it."

She is a completionist. "I want to win more games," Ertz says of her immediate goals. "I will never be satisfied," she says of her competitive mentality. "It's such an honor to be able to represent your country that I just don't ever want to let it down."

"Julie is a sore loser," Zach confides with a chuckle. "If I beat her at something, I try to keep it mellow because I know the repercussions if I go all out."

Julie does not disagree.

"I want to be a good, moral person and have good values," she says earnestly. "But I don't think I'll ever mature about how to act about losing. I hate losing so much."

Ertz is happiest with her husband. (The soccer field, she says, is a close second.) Her call log reads like a skipping record. Hubby, hubby, hubby, hubby, hubby FaceTime, hubby FaceTime, hubby.

The two famously met at a Stanford baseball game, him quiet, her chatty. They shared sunflower seeds. A friendship developed. Six months later, they were an item, bonding over their willingness to forgo late nights on the quad for a pursuit of athletic excellence, a commitment unusual among their peers. Zach also reminded Julie of her father: reserved, with a well of sweetness beneath the surface. She knew it was serious when the two of them could drive in silence and not feel awkward.

Julie took Zach home, the first boyfriend to meet her parents. It was July in Arizona. Sweltering. "He was absolutely miserable," Julie remembers, laughing.

Adding to the discomfort, the family Johnston is a "more the merrier" extended dance remix crew, the sort that gathers every aunt, uncle and second cousin together any chance they get; boisterous, voluble -- at least on the maternal side. When Zach was introduced to the cheerful chaos, "he was like, 'This is insane!'" Julie recalls. "He was really nervous."

Since then, "Julie has pulled a lot of stuff out of me," Zach says. When they are together, the pair put fun first. They play games of gin or Bananagrams, tease each other good-naturedly. "More her making fun of me. We rarely have a bad day."

The couple did marriage counseling before they wed, approaching their partnership like they do their sport -- giving it their all, in all ways.

"Zach knows me better than anyone else in the world," Julie says. "He's that person I'm vulnerable with. We grew up together. In the soccer world, it's really hard to root yourself."

For Julie, Zach is home. And that home is sacred. The couple decided long ago that their marriage would come first, before football, before soccer, before the World Cup and the Super Bowl and the raining down of international acclaim.

"Our relationship wasn't built on Julie's ability to play soccer and my ability to play football," Zach explains.

"Don't get me wrong," Julie clarifies. "We want to give sports everything we have. But this career isn't something you can do forever."

IT IS LATE afternoon, and Alyssa Naeher is driving Julie to their midtown Chicago gym for their second workout of the day. Naeher's side mirror is knocked off, so she wrenches her head hard left.

"You look like me on the field," Ertz jokes, dramatically swiveling her body, thick ponytail snapping. The women laugh, talk about Mike Trout's record-breaking contract for $36.8 million a year.

"Where's our multimillion-dollar payday?" Naeher asks.

"Right?" Ertz chimes in, noting that she and Trout are nearly the same age. (Ertz says she has no comment on the current USWNT lawsuit seeking equitable pay and treatment, preferring to "keep a one-track mind toward France.")

Ertz reminds Naeher that she knows Trout personally, that he's a great guy. She and Zach have couples dinners with him and his wife. She says her second wedding anniversary is coming up, and she and Zach are going to buy each other surprise outfits to wear to dinner. She's worried about what Zach will pick. She usually dresses him.

"Hips Don't Lie" comes on the radio, and Ertz breaks into song. She makes an inspirational playlist every December, adding songs "over the year whenever I hear one that speaks to me in the moment." The last tune she added was "Sunshine," by Maoli, a breezy island bop celebrating true love. She says it reminds her of a trip to Turks and Caicos with Zach.

Earlier in the week, Ertz was interrupted by a soccer dad during dinner out. He said his 13-year-old daughter was holding herself back on the field and that he'd advised her to act like Ertz, told her, "It's OK to be a savage on the field. I guarantee Julie would destroy someone."

Ertz nodded along, pleased.

"My teammates all know not to go into a tackle when I go for it," she told the man.

Ertz is not ashamed of her rep for aggression. Or how observers interpret her game. "No matter what we do, somebody will have something to say about it." She shrugs. "That's just how it is if you're a woman athlete."

Ertz knows all too well the cruel vagaries of pro sports, especially for women, where scarcity of opportunity casts every high and low in crushing relief.

During the 2016 Olympics in Rio, Ertz was hitting her stride at center back. "The game against New Zealand was one of the best games I've played." Later came Sweden: the first time Team USA didn't win gold in 16 years and the first defeat for Ertz.

"I'd never lost with the team when I was on the field until that game," she says. "It didn't feel real."

After the loss, Ertz was the one U.S. player randomly pulled for drug testing. She was driven to the doctor with a member of the Swedish team. They both waited for hours to pee in a cup, Ertz biting her cheeks in silence as her opponent gleefully celebrated into her cellphone, the scene something out of a goofy European farce.

"I didn't get to see my teammates, give them hugs," Ertz says. "I didn't hear what the coaches had to say."

When she made it back home to Philadelphia, Zach was already with the Eagles in OTAs, and Julie found herself alone in an empty house. Zach flew in her parents to nudge her out of her funk. "And I didn't talk to them," she says. "I literally sat in silence for two weeks."

On her phone, she kept a photo of her near-miss block in the fatal game as her screen saver. "It was not a great time in my life," Ertz says, sighing.

When you are a defender, your job is basically proving a negative, your triumphs largely invisible while your mistakes scream loud as sirens.

"You could play a great game for 89 minutes, and then if you don't do one thing ..." Ertz quiets, shakes her head. "A forward can suck for 90 minutes, but if you score in overtime, no one remembers the rest of the game."

Ertz was benched from the national team after the Olympics. For nearly a year she didn't start, an abrupt and gutting life change.

"It was a really hard time for me. I never asked why. Probably never will. I don't want to know."

Ertz is not one for self-pity. She can do the USWNT math. The bench is deep with exceptional players. Rejection is in the DNA of the cutthroat selection process. Still, it was hard to reconcile.

"It's weird to talk about," she says. "I was pissed: 'I'll show you the mistake you're making by not using me.' I said that every day at practice in my head. Then as it went on and I wasn't playing, I started thinking, 'Maybe your life is going in a different direction than you think.'"

She considered retirement. Sitting out game days was almost too painful to bear. But "I realized my career has been started in those moments. I could either choose to sit there and be mad or be prepared and prove my point. I still had that pride."

"When you're dealing with adversity as an athlete, you can pout and point the finger at someone else, or you can reflect and ask yourself, 'How can I get better?'" Zach says. "That's what she did. She ramped up to another level."

Ertz leaned in to the inescapable grind of professional sport. The monotony behind moments of elation, trudging through muddy parking lots to dimly lit practice fields to do the same drills she'd done almost every day for 20 years. She also doubled down on overall fitness.

"To be elite, my fitness had to go way up. And I had to accept that mentally it's going to be very, very hard and push past it."

Playing in the NWSL was a balm.

"Feeling wanted, at least somewhere," Ertz says, allowed her "to figure out where I belonged."

As it turns out, it was in the midfield. Asked by Ellis to sub as a midfielder for the Brazil game in the 2017 Tournament of Nations, Ertz didn't hesitate. She did what she has always done. She said yes and worried about the details later.

"I was told, 'Don't expect to be a midfielder.' And I kind of just stayed there. I was working my ass off. I was thinking, 'If this is the way that it's going to go, at least I'm going to leave knowing that I did everything that I could.'"

Observes Dames, "A lot of people would not mentally be able to overcome those obstacles. Her ability to reinvent herself in the midfield and become arguably the most vital piece of the U.S. team's success, it's special."

"This is not a normal thing what we do," adds Naeher. "It's hard to understand the psychological side of it unless you're in it."

Ertz still wants her passing completion to be higher. She wants more goals outside of the 18 she has. She wants to be fit enough to play seven games "at my top, because that's what it's going to take to win the World Cup." But she is #grateful for her hardships.

In the best case, failure begets knowledge, and Ertz has learned plenty. About her fortitude. About the limited value of what others believe are your limits. About going to the mattresses. She knows who she is now.

"Days after the World Cup, I couldn't wait until we could win the Olympics. And then days after we lost the Olympics, I couldn't wait for another World Cup. I thought, 'If I just won this, it would be everything.' And then you get there and you always want something else."

Ertz sensed there had to be more than leapfrogging from medal to medal, goal to goal. "All I had was soccer. That was my identity. If soccer didn't go well, nothing else was great." So she shifted her perspective. Less end game, more journey. Ertz started asking herself, "What else is there?" And her answer was faith, family and deep friendship.

"Everyone feels alone in this world," she says. "I felt alone in college, and I lived in a room with five girls."

Ertz pauses, takes a beat to ponder her spiritual growth.

"Sometimes it's hard. I want to be a really good role model, but at the same time, look, I'm still trying to grow up."

ERTZ LIVES OUT of a single suitcase. On the left side are her undergarments. On the right side, her toiletries. She packs only four outfits, two big old coats, leggings, sweatpants, tank tops. She's an expert at simplifying in the service of excellence, at winnowing life to the crux of what matters.

In third grade, Ertz's teacher asked the class to draw a dream board of what the children wanted their futures to be when they grew up. Her classmates drew pictures of houses and dogs and firemen and doctors and flowers and princesses. Young Julie drew a soccer player. It was the only image on her board.

Over coffee at a hipster café in the West Loop, Ertz contemplates her résumé: "I played soccer and I baby-sat. It would literally be that."

Ertz has already begun considering the end of her game. She is at her peak. And peaks do not last. That reckoning has not gone down easy. She does the mental prep, tries to focus on the joy that still awaits -- children, her foundation, paying it forward, her faith. But the verdict remains heavy.

"If I retire when I'm 55 or 28, it will never be the right moment. There is nothing that makes me as excited and joyful as soccer does."

Dames recently repositioned Ertz into the Red Stars' back line, even though she's ramping up for the World Cup at midfield.

"The soccer IQ needed for juggling those two positions at this level is huge," Naeher says.

"It wasn't best for her," Dames acknowledges. "But she said, 'Let's do it!' No hesitation. Not, 'Well, I need to get into the six and my spot might be in jeopardy.' Just a very simple, 'Yep, I agree. It's best for the team.'"

To compensate for the demands of dual positions, Ertz adds extra running to her workout, concentrates on specialized ballhandling. She rarely takes a day off; she is still, as her parents imparted decades ago, accountable. The exigent complexity drives her.

"When I'm called upon, I'm going to be ready."

After Red Stars practice, as her teammates trot off to showers and lunches, Ertz remains on the field. She does drills, gets in extra touches, examines her weaknesses, systematically dismantles them.

In the far corner of the field, she launches the ball repeatedly into a wooden kickboard, maneuvering and adjusting her footwork centimeter by centimeter.

Boom. Thump. Boom. Thump. Again and again she kicks.

It sounds like a heartbeat.

TORONTO -- Eight months after NBA teams opened training camp ahead of the 2018-19 season, we know which two will be competing for the Larry O'Brien Trophy.

With the Toronto Raptors coming back from an 0-2 series deficit to take down the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday night, Toronto will face the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals. Game 1 tips off back here at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday night (9 p.m. ET, ABC).

Here's everything you need to know about the NBA's championship round, which will determine whether the Warriors claim their fourth title in five years or the Raptors grab the first championship in franchise history.

Golden State Warriors

1. How did the Warriors get here?

When the season began, it was universally expected that the Warriors would make it back to the NBA Finals for a fifth consecutive season -- something that hasn't happened since Bill Russell's Boston Celtics in the 1960s. Though Golden State made it, the trip had some hiccups along the way.

There was the much-discussed blowup between Kevin Durant and Draymond Green in November. There was the typical malaise the team is now used to going through during the dog days of the regular season. There were the blown leads at home in Games 2 and 5 against the LA Clippers in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs. And then there was Durant going down in Game 5 of the conference semifinals against the Houston Rockets with the series tied 2-2.

Through all of those things, the Warriors survived -- and usually thrived -- as they have for virtually every moment of head coach Steve Kerr's five-year run with the franchise. If the Warriors can get four more wins, Golden State will both complete a three-peat and solidify its status as one of the great dynasties in the sport's history.

2. What's up with Durant and DeMarcus Cousins?

After both were evaluated Wednesday, Durant (calf strain) was still not cleared for on-court activities, though Cousins (torn quadriceps) was. By those diagnoses, it seems likely Cousins will return to the court before Durant -- particularly since neither is supposed to get a status update until Wednesday, the day before Game 1.

Cousins could be an interesting option off the bench for Golden State in this series, as he is probably too big for Raptors' backup big man Serge Ibaka to handle by himself (similar to how Joel Embiid had success against Ibaka earlier in these playoffs). He isn't likely to play a huge role, though, given how much time he has missed already.

Durant's timetable to return is easily the biggest subplot heading into this series. At this point, it seems the earliest he could return is Game 3 in Oakland on June 5, given he has yet to practice. And whenever he does begin to practice, there will be plenty of talk about his role and minutes load once he's back on the court. Those discussions will be magnified if Golden State falls behind early after starting the series on the road.

3. Do the Warriors need KD in this series?

Yes. The idea the Warriors are better without Durant is nonsensical. That being said, it would be equally foolish to think the Warriors are unable to win this series without his services. The Raptors were one of the three best teams in the league this season (along with the Bucks), and they have a deep, talented roster led by one of the game's best players in Kawhi Leonard.

This will not be a repeat of the Western Conference finals, when a depleted Portland Trail Blazers team was simply overpowered by Golden State. This will be at least as difficult a test as the Rockets series was, and probably moreso.

So while the core four of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Green and Andre Iguodala is good enough to get the job done if Durant doesn't play, getting him back would significantly increase Golden State's chances.

4. Durant and Thompson are free agents. Is this the last Finals run for this version of the Warriors dynasty?

Most likely. No one can be too sure of anything that's going to happen this summer, but the odds are against the Warriors looking like this again.

Few in the league expect Durant to return. Thompson is widely expected to re-sign with a max deal on July 1, but there's always the chance those plans could be derailed. Green will be looking for an extension -- what happens if one doesn't come his way? Iguodala and Shaun Livingston will be in the final years of their deals, making their futures tenuous.

All of those variables could break Golden State's way and this same group could be back again for a sixth straight Finals run next season. But the chances aren't too high.

5. Will this be the Warriors' toughest playoff opponent since they got KD?

Yes. This probably will be a controversial opinion, so bear with me for a moment. Though Leonard would come in second behind LeBron James on the list of toughest players the Warriors have faced in a playoff series since Durant arrived in the Bay (yes, he'd be ahead of James Harden), the Raptors have surrounded him with a far deeper team than the ones James had in his past two Finals runs.

Toronto's starting lineup features five all-defense-level players (Leonard, Kyle Lowry, Danny Green, Pascal Siakam and Marc Gasol), and the bench pieces finally rounded into form against the Bucks. This is a deep, versatile roster that can play any style it needs. Leonard is the kind of cold-blooded star required to take on a team as talented as Golden State.

The Warriors have lost one game combined in their past two Finals trips. They will lose at least two this time around.

Toronto Raptors

1. How did the Raptors get here?

This is the culmination of a plan the Raptors put into place last summer. By firing coach Dwane Casey and replacing him with Nick Nurse, trading DeMar DeRozan and Jakob Poeltl for Leonard and Danny Green, and dealing Jonas Valanciunas for Gasol, the Raptors proved, time and again, they were not satisfied with having a merely good team.

Instead, the Raptors wanted to make it to the Finals for the first time and truly compete for a championship. Mission accomplished.

It wasn't easy. It took everything Toronto had -- including a miraculous series of bounces on the rim after the buzzer sounded in Game 7 -- to beat the Philadelphia 76ers. Then the Raptors proceeded to lose the first two games of the Bucks series, leading many to write them off. Four consecutive victories later, Toronto finds itself here, becoming the first non-U.S.-based team to reach the league's championship round.

2. Leonard is the best player in the playoffs. How is he doing this after missing most of last season?

The Raptors didn't bow to the pressures of public opinion or derision toward the words "load management" as Leonard missed 22 regular-season games. They allowed Leonard -- in coordination with director of sports science Alex McKechnie -- to chart a course that helped him make it through the regular season healthy, arriving in the postseason ready to perform at peak level.

He certainly has done that repeatedly over the past six weeks. Leonard has put up one sublime game after another since the playoffs began, clearly playing better than anyone else in this postseason and making everyone remember just how good he was with the San Antonio Spurs before losing all but nine games of the 2017-18 season to tendinopathy in his left quad.

Now he has as many as seven games remaining to try to lift the Raptors yet another rung higher. If he's able to do that, this will go down as one of the greatest individual postseason runs in NBA history.

3. How well does Toronto match up against Golden State?

About as well as a team can. This roster has as many players capable of guarding Durant (Green, Leonard and Siakam) as any NBA team. Leonard is the kind of talent good enough to go toe-to-toe with anyone, and the Raptors are capable of creating lots of open looks from 3-point range.

Golden State presents a singular matchup challenge for anyone -- with or without Durant. The Warriors have reminded the world of just how dangerous they are over the past couple of weeks while Durant has been sidelined. They'll need to stay at the focus and intensity level to take down Toronto.

4. How likely are the Raptors to be back here next season?

That entirely depends on what happens with Leonard, who is a free agent this summer. If he re-signs with Toronto, the Raptors will have every chance to get back to the Finals. The only other free agent in Toronto's rotation is Green, and the Raptors probably will be able to bring him back if Leonard returns. Siakam should take another step forward, and Toronto can expect to get more from OG Anunoby, who has sat out the playoffs after an emergency appendectomy. With the same group, the Raptors could easily repeat as East champions.

If Leonard leaves, though, this team could look very different. Lowry, Gasol, Ibaka and Fred VanVleet will all be on expiring contracts, making them trade bait. Toronto probably would avoid spending big money on Green if Leonard doesn't return. The team would instead be retooled in the coming years around Siakam and (maybe) Anunoby. Masai Ujiri, Raptors president of basketball operations, got creative to build this championship contender, and if Leonard leaves he'll have to get creative to build Toronto's next one.

5. What does it mean for the NBA to have Toronto in the Finals?

Quite a bit. Over the past 25 years, the sport has exploded in popularity in Canada, and specifically in Toronto, which has become a hotbed of basketball activity and talent. There were 11 players on NBA rosters from Canada at the start of this season, with several more -- led by RJ Barrett, a projected top-three pick -- on the way next season. The Canadian national team is also expected to contend for a medal at this year's World Championships and at next year's Olympics.

All of that can be tied back to the Raptors coming into existence in 1995 and slowly becoming a consistent playoff threat over the past several years. Toronto reaching the NBA Finals -- and possibly winning a championship -- would only increase the interest in the sport in the country. Remember, Toronto is one of the five largest cities in North America. And this kind of success by a team outside the U.S. will only help if the league pushes to expand further in the future.

British heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson enjoys big win at combined events festival in Austria

With a heptathlon score of 6813, Katarina Johnson-Thompson set a world lead and a PB by 54 points as she took victory in emphatic fashion in Gotzis.

The Briton finished 337 points ahead of runner-up Laura Ikauniece of Latvia as Xénia Krizsán of Hungary was third and Carolin Shafer of Germany fourth in the premier combined events contest outside of major championships.

Johnson-Thompson’s performances moved her to No.18 on the world all-time rankings and will send a message to Olympic and world champion Nafi Thiam of Belgium, who was not at the Austrian meeting after starting her season late due to an injury earlier this year.

Johnson-Thompson began her weekend with a 13.29 for 100m hurdles, 1.95m high jump, 12.95m shot put and 23.21 for 200m on the first day before following up on Sunday with a 6.68m long jump, 42.92m javelin and 2:08.28 for 800m.

The long jump caused her fans a few jitters after she fouled her first (and third) attempts but her second round leap was superbly solid and she showed her confidence by blasting through the first lap of the 800m in 59.4 before fading in the last lap to finish a fraction behind the fast-finishing American Erica Bougard.

“I wanted to come out and put solid performances out,” she told the organisers moments after finishing.

“I was just trying to relax. I didn’t overthink things,” the French-based athlete added. “I stuck to my key things and the 800m was a great learning experience too.”

Was she surprised with her score? “Definitely,” she said. “To get over 6800 points is great. The crowd were really good. They follow you around from event to event and it’s my favourite place to compete in in the world.”

Johnson-Thompson’s score still places her on the UK all-time rankings but she is now just 18 points behind Sydney Olympic champion Denise Lewis, although Jess Ennis-Hill’s best of 6955 from London 2012 comfortably remains the No.1 British mark.

GB team-mate Niamh Emerson was also competing in the heptathlon Gotzis but withdrew during the first day after aggravating her long-standing knee problem. The youngster has been managing the niggle since 2017 and has altered her high jump technique to take pressure off her take-off leg.

News from the decathlon in Gotzis to follow.