71 articles found
⚽️ WCL updates from the 8pm GMT kick-off at Old Trafford ⚽️ Arsenal 3-1 Chelsea | WSL trophy revamp | And mail Luke Don’t forget you can email me with your thoughts. Preferably on tonight’s match. Continue reading...
Gli Azzurri start favourites in the World Cup playoff on Thursday but Michael O’Neill says his young team will show no fear The shorter wait is the one worthy of considerably more attention. Four decades have passed since Northern Ireland appeared at a World Cup, then for the second time in succession. Any disappointment at finishing third in a group also involving Brazil and Spain was offset by hope of an imminent return. There has been no further seat at international football’s top table. Italy’s World Cup hiatus involves failure to qualify in 2018 and 2022 (their previous two experiences were only marginally less miserable). For four-time winners of the tournament and a nation obsessed with the sport, this constitutes an affront. It brings intense pressure. One of Italy and Northern Ireland will retain the aspiration of 2026 participation when the full-time whistle shrieks in Bergamo on Thursday night. Continue reading...
The team have led a nomadic existence since Russia invaded and face a playoff against Sweden in Valencia on Thursday Around the pitch of the latest stadium Ukraine will call home, a set of banners reels off the venues that have accommodated them in the past four years. The list goes on: Lodz, Prague, Leverkusen, Wroclaw, Warsaw, Krakow, Murcia, Poznan and Trnava, some of those in multiple. If that is an exhausting read then imagine the effect on Serhiy Rebrov’s players, who have been unable to add Kyiv to the roll call since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Now Ukraine will have to navigate a week in Valencia if they are to book a summer at football’s showpiece. They face Sweden at Levante’s neat, modest ground, rather than the fabled Mestalla, and will remain there for next Tuesday’s playoff final if they win. Twenty years have passed since their last appearance at a World Cup, when Rebrov was among the stars of a team that rather slogged its way to the quarter-finals. Now he is the manager and stands on the verge of an achievement that would, given the context, surely surpass those heroics. Continue reading...
Merseyside club to demand formal explanation from Premier League Chelsea docked no points for rule breaches, unlike Everton and Forest Everton are exploring a possible legal challenge against the Premier League for their handling of Chelsea’s undisclosed payments sanction. The club are understood to be preparing to write to the Premier League requesting a formal explanation for its failure to take any sporting sanctions against Chelsea, with their legal options also being considered. Continue reading...
State department to expand program on 2 April Algeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Tunisia, Cape Verde affected No apparent exceptions for athletes or officials A newly expanded policy from the Trump administration could require travelers from five World Cup-qualified countries to front a bond of up to $15,000 in order to enter the United States for the tournament. Visa bonds operate like security deposits: A one-time payment meant to be refunded after a traveler exits the US under the terms of their visa. The amounts generally run between $5,000 and $15,000, and are required for passport holders from certain countries to enter the USs legally under B-1 or B-2 visas, the type required for business travelers or tourists. Continue reading...
Before meeting with Bosnia and Herzegovina, head coach has urged his players to step up and embrace the occasion “Have you ever seen Usain Bolt in the 100m?” Craig Bellamy asks a crowd of journalists in the Wynnstay auditorium at Wales’s hub in Hensol, on the eve of the World Cup playoff semi-final against Bosnia and Herzegovina. “He’s smiling, waving – all right, it does help he knows he can run at 60% to win – but he has discovered the art of being relaxed and calm to be able to run at his best speed. If you’re tense, you’re fighting yourself.” Bellamy has been there as a player but as a head coach, while intense and fiercely driven, he believes cool heads will prevail at the Cardiff City Stadium on Thursday and, if they get the right result, in the playoff final at the same venue five days later. It is a message he has relayed in each session, every conversation, since his squad gathered on Sunday. “We all want something, but the more you want something, it doesn’t mean you’re going to get it,” he says. “In sport, I dislike the word ‘pressure’. It is a privilege to be where we are now. Why wouldn’t you enjoy this? If you can’t enjoy this and you only feel pressure, you ain’t made for elite sport. You put that on your shoulders, it gets you nowhere.” Continue reading...
⚽️ WCL updates from the 8pm GMT kick-off at Old Trafford ⚽️ Arsenal 3-1 Chelsea | WSL trophy revamp | And mail Luke On their debut in the main draw of the Women’s Champions League Manchester United Women now find themselves facing one of the juggernauts of European football. It doesn’t get much tougher than a two-legged quarter-final encounter against Bayern Munich: but the manager Marc Skinner and his players are up for it. “We have to be ready to make history,” Skinner said. “We challenge ourselves every day in training to be the team that competes in quarter-finals – and then hopefully a semi-final after that. We know the respect we have between Bayern Munich and Manchester United as two clubs – but when we go on to the field it’ll be the winner takes all. We have to manage both ties, show our maturity, but the challenge of it is fantastic … the energy around these games just hits differently.” Continue reading...
World champion hosts ‘Three Lions darts championship’ Littler: ‘It was a dream as a football fan to come here’ Luke Littler was happy to teach the England squad how to hit the target as he hosted a darts tournament at St George’s Park. The double world champion visited Thomas Tuchel’s group as they build up towards upcoming pre-World Cup friendlies with Uruguay and Japan. Continue reading...
Nigel Dewale, 60, given suspended prison sentence Offensive messages were sent during Euro 2025 A 60-year-old man has received a suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to sending offensive messages about the England international Jess Carter during the European Championship last summer. Nigel Dewale, of Great Harwood in Lancashire, was sentenced to six weeks, suspended for 12 months, after a hearing at Blackburn magistrates court. He also received a four-year football banning order, and a requirement to engage in a 10-day rehabilitation programme. Continue reading...
Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now! With ratings declining, it was inevitable ties needed to be severed without commissioning a new season of a cherished Liverpudlian mainstay. This is what happens when things get tired, they can never replicate what they were in their prime. It is no great shame to have such a long run, collect plenty of awards on the way and finally realise the industry has moved on and there is nothing fresh you can bring to compete with the elite rivals. Plenty of drama and joy was provided, testing the boundaries of what was possible and changing a nation in the process by challenging the establishment. But in the end, time caught up with Brookside and it had to go. Continue reading...
Ireland face Czech Republic in playoff semi-final ‘We are just riding the wave of confidence’ Séamus Coleman believes the Republic of Ireland have “a duty” to lift the country by completing the job of qualifying for a World Cup for the first time since 2002. The Republic visit the Czech Republic on Thursday in a World Cup playoff semi-final that few would have imagined possible after collecting one point from their opening three qualifiers. Having reignited their campaign with two Troy Parrott-inspired wins over Portugal and Hungary in November, however, Heimir Hallgrímsson’s side will take confidence and momentum into their bid to end a 24-year absence from the World Cup. Continue reading...
Home nations frontrunners to host Women’s World Cup United’s New Stadium Development wants showpiece The FA is resisting lobbying from Manchester United to nominate a rebuilt Old Trafford as the venue for the 2035 Women’s World Cup final. The chief executive of United’s New Stadium Development, Collette Roche, went public with the club’s aspirations to host the 2035 final for the first time on Tuesday, but the FA is committed to staging the showpiece occasion at Wembley. Continue reading...
Ireland face Czech Republic in playoff semi-final ‘We are just riding the wave of confidence’ Seamus Coleman believes the Republic of Ireland have “a duty” to lift the country by completing the job of qualifying for a World Cup for the first time since 2002. The Republic visit the Czech Republic on Thursday in a World Cup playoff semi-final that few would have imagined possible after collecting one point from their opening three qualifiers. Having reignited their campaign with two Troy Parrott-inspired wins over Portugal and Hungary in November, however, Heimir Hallgrímsson’s side will take confidence and momentum into their bid to end a 24-year absence from the World Cup. Continue reading...
Son Cameron confirms 77-year-old has the disease Toshack managed Swansea and Real Madrid among many The Liverpool and Wales great John Toshack has been diagnosed with dementia, according to his son Cameron. Toshack had a celebrated playing career with the Merseyside club, scoring more than 100 goals and winning nine trophies between 1970 and 1978, and earning 40 caps for Wales before turning to management, including roles with Real Sociedad, Real Madrid and his national team. Continue reading...
From World Cup preparations to Champions League complications, the issues facing football in the region It has been a little over three weeks since the United States and Israel attacked Iran and plunged the Middle East into war. Football there is struggling to deal with the fallout from the conflict. Here are the issues. Continue reading...
Sadness over the Egyptian King’s departure from Liverpool is matched by gratitude for the goals and glory he gave supporters The first time I saw Mohamed Salah play was in August 2017. Arsenal were the visitors to Anfield. Liverpool were sensational on that sunny Sunday afternoon. Bobby Firmino and Sadio Mané had fashioned a 2-0 first-half lead, before the third member of Jürgen Klopp’s new attacking trio added his name to the record. Arsenal’s corner was cleared to Héctor Bellerín, some 30 yards out. Salah was on him instantly, robbing the hapless Spaniard easily. His whirring legs blurred like the Road Runner’s as he raced into the Arsenal half and towards Petr Cech. I’d never seen a player bear down on the Kop goal so rapidly. Continue reading...
The world of soccer throws up no shortage of questions. Today, Graham Ruthven endeavors to answer three of them. Twenty-six minutes. That’s all the game time Gio Reyna has played in 2026. He hasn’t played at all for Borussia Mönchengladbach in the last two months. For any other player, this surely would’ve kept them off the US roster for the upcoming friendlies against Belgium and Portugal. US manager Pochettino has consistently repeated the point that club form matters when building these squads. Reyna, however, isn’t any other player. Continue reading...
The Egyptian is leaving Anfield in the summer. How much do you know about the forward’s time on Merseyside? Continue reading...
