TMZ Sports - Page 50

Well ... it's officially official.

After weeks of speculation, Bruce Arena has been named the head coach of the U.S. Men's National Soccer team ... the squad announced Tuesday morning.

Arena replaces recently sacked Jurgen Klinsmann ... who lasted 5 years with the organization.

“Any time you get the opportunity to coach the National Team it’s an honor,” Arena said.

"Working as a team, I’m confident that we’ll take the right steps forward to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.”

Arena is the most accomplished coach in U.S. soccer history, so hopefully he can turn things around.

Byron Scott gon' cry in the car ... 'cause Julius Randle is giving 100% credit to new coach Luke Walton for the team's surprising start ... saying the young coach is pressing all the right buttons.

The Lakers are 7-7 this year -- not exactly World beaters -- but when you consider they only won 21 games ALL OF LAST SEASON ... the start is pretty impressive.

So when we got Randle out in L.A. and asked him what was making the Lake show great again ... he gave props to the new sheriff in town.

It doesn't matter who takes over the USA men's soccer team -- a World Cup victory just ain't in the cards for America ... EVER ... so says Dominic Monaghan.

The German-born, English-raised 'Lord of the Rings' star is a HUGE soccer fan -- so we hit him up for his thoughts on the firing of Jurgen Klinsmann.

And that's when Dom hit us with some straight talk saying Team USA will NEVER win.

A sweaty, grocery-buying Matthew McConaughey may have just made the most compelling argument for the University of Texas to not fire head football coach (and his personal friend) Charlie Strong.

McConaughey was out running errands in Austin when he happened to stroll by a FOX 7 reporter who was doing a man on the street reaction piece to Strong possibly being on the outs at UT.

That's when Matt -- a HUGE Texas fan who's been invited to Longhorns practices -- stopped to defend the embattled football coach and even made a prediction for the upcoming week.

Washington Redkins stars Pierre Garcon and Chris Baker were doing a pretty cool thing Monday night, giving away Thanksgiving turkeys ... when suddenly a HUUUGE Cowboys fan crashed the party!

The woman -- sporting her Dallas Cowboys beanie -- is hilarious ... getting right up in Baker's face and pledging her allegiance to her squad ... adding, "I look forward to seeing you Thursday!"

The video is great -- the woman talks smack, but does it in a playful manner -- while ultimately saying, "For real, thank you baby. Regardless of what team I belong to, I still think you're doing a good thing."

JAMIE FOXX GOT HANDS!!

We've already seen him throw ... but now the "Ray" star is proving he can haul in passes too -- even when the ball is being fired at him at 100 MPH!

Foxx was training at the Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks while shooting his new flick "All-Star Weekend" -- when his buddy, Tony Besson, challenged him to get into the "100 MPH Club."

The ball was shot at him by a JUGS machine -- and the challenge was to catch the ball twice ... while taking a step closer the second time around.

Think Jamie was afraid? Hell no.

Liar, liar, Speedos on fire ...

Ryan Lochte says he just doesn't believe Michael Phelps is done with competitive swimming -- despite the fact he filed official retirement paperwork earlier this week.

The Rock already has a major celebrity supporter if he REALLY decides to run for the White House -- his old WWE buddy Dave Bautista ... who says Rock is a "better candidate than f**king Trump!"

Big news from Caron Butler on his Mark Wahlberg-produced biopic -- a director has been chosen to lead the project and the script-writing process is underway.

We got Caron leaving a meeting with script writers ... and he told us the flick (which is in the early writing stages) is gonna show the REAL story behind his childhood struggles as a drug dealer.

C.B. says Wahlberg (as well as director Jason Lew and writer Steve Springer) is helping him be a part of the whole process to make sure it gets his stamp of approval.

Butler's partner, Tabrez Yousuf, summarized the movie's vision in one sentence:

Kirk Cousins deserves Matt Stafford money ... because he's BETTER than Matt Stafford -- so says Joe Theismann.

Cousins has been tearing it up this year ... and is coming off a 42-24 dismantling of the Green Bay Packers where he once again went H.A.M. ... throwing for over 375 yards and 3 TDs.

Kirk is currently playing under the franchise tag earning $20 mil for this year ... but when we talked to Thiesmann he says it's time for Kirk to get a major upgrade in the coin dept.

"If he can stay healthy, you're talking about a $100 MILLION dollar contract."

Joe's metric? He says there are a lot of other franchise QBs making the century mark ... and he feels Kirk is better than A LOT of them.

"I think he's better than a Matthew Stafford, I think he's better than Joe Flacco, I think he's better than Jay Cutler."

Dennis Rodman has just been charged with 4 misdemeanor criminal charges -- including hit-and-run -- stemming from a late-night wrong way freeway crash in July ... TMZ Sports has learned.

The Orange County District Attorney has charged Rodman with ... hit-and-run with property damage, driving a car across the divider, giving false info to a cop and driving a car without a valid license.

If convicted on all counts, Rodman faces up to 2 years in county jail.

TMZ Sports broke the story ... Rodman was driving an SUV on the 5 Freeway around 12:30 AM on July 20th ... after partying at a karaoke bar.

We're told Rodman was driving northbound in the southbound carpool lane.

A car driving the RIGHT way was forced to swerve to avoid a head-on collision and crashed into the center divider. That person called 911.

Dennis allegedly fled the scene before cops arrived and never exchanged info with the other driver.

Cops investigated the incident -- and officials say Rodman lied to investigators.

A rep for Rodman said, "We agree that if anything, this is a misdemeanor traffic matter, and certainly not a felony. We appreciate the district attorney evaluation and know that it should resolve successfully when all facts are considered."

The bizarre saga of Steve Francis has taken another crazy twist -- turns out, there's a warrant out for his arrest for allegedly BURGLARIZING a BMW outside of a clam restaurant in Florida.

Here's the deal ... officials in Florida caught wind of the fact Francis was arrested in Houston for DWI over the weekend and are now trying to extradite him for an alleged burglary that went down in June.

We obtained the police report from that incident which says the ex-NBA star cased a 2003 BMW parked outside of the Cortez Clam Factory on the evening of June 15th.

Francis allegedly asked the bartender at the restaurant to give him a flashlight -- and then he went to the car and ransacked it ... taking the following items:

-- makeup pouch, wallet, gold wedding ring, gold diamond band, earrings, press credentials and $100 in cash.

Total amount -- $7,252 in goods and cash.

Two days later, cops say Francis went to the police department with a clear plastic bag of goods and said, "I just robbed somebody, take me to jail. I'm turning myself in."

Despite what appeared to be a confession, Francis left the police station without being charged with a crime.

Conor McGregor's got TWO Mayweathers threatening to beat his ass -- with Floyd's famous father vowing to knock out the UFC superstar himself ... for a fraction of the price!

64-year-old Floyd Mayweather Sr. -- who was a pretty good pro fighter himself -- put it very bluntly, "I'LL PUT HIS ASS TO SLEEP!"

Steve Francis was BALLIN' OUT during his drunk driving arrest -- claiming he was wearing a $1 MILLION chain when cops took him into custody ... this according to the police report obtained by TMZ Sports.

As we previously reported, the ex-NBA star was popped for DWI in Houston on Saturday night -- and allegedly threatened revenge on the arresting officers.

He was taken to a nearby police station where he was booked -- and while there, cops noted the "property" he had on him at the time ... which included a bunch of weed.

According to the police report, Francis' chain was a "yellow metallic necklace with 'M'" ... valued at $1,000,000. We're told the value was provided to the police by Francis himself.

Cops say he also had 21.92 grams of weed with paper rolls ... which seems a lot to most people but as one stoner in our office put it, "It wouldn't get Snoop out of bed in the morning."

The police report also lists Francis as 6'3", 220 lbs ... about 25 pounds heavier than his playing weight.

It's over for Jurgen Klinsmann ... he's just been fired as the head coach of the U.S. Men's National Soccer Team.

U.S. Soccer Prez Sunil Gulati just issued a statement ...

"Today we made the difficult decision of parting ways with Jurgen Klinsmann, our head coach of the U.S. Men’s National Team and Technical Director."

"We want to thank Jurgen for his hard work and commitment during these last five years. He took pride in having the responsibility of steering the program, and there were considerable achievements along the way."

"While we remain confident that we have quality players to help us advance to Russia 2018, the form and growth of the team up to this point left us convinced that we need to go in a different direction."

It's not just NBA stars who can brick a shot ... because a woman just admitted to firing one through a window at Metta World Peace's home!!

The Lakers star appeared in an L.A. courtroom on Monday to get a permanent restraining order against Miesha Shakes -- who Metta claims has been harassing him and his family since 2015.

In a heated courtroom exchange, Miesha admitted to throwing the brick though Metta's window and bothering his family ... and claims it's all over a dispute with her baby daddy. We'll explain ...

Miesha says she has a kid with Metta's nephew -- and Metta sometimes watches the kid. Miesha's upset with her baby daddy so she decided to take out her anger on Metta.

The judge, as you can imagine, was not happy with Miesha's explanation -- and hit her with a restraining order to stay 100 yards from Metta and his family for the next 3 years.