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• Bellingham was left out in October after injury return

• March is the only other England camp before World Cup

Thomas Tuchel has decided to give Jude Bellingham an England recall on Friday for the World Cup qualifiers against Serbia and Albania, the Guardian understands. The head coach sparked a major sideshow in October when he did not select Bellingham for the friendly with Wales and the qualifier against Latvia.

Bellingham was not in prime physical condition having returned to the Real Madrid squad after shoulder surgery only a couple of weeks before Tuchel’s announcement. It was nonetheless a bombshell call given Bellingham’s ability and status, with Tuchel doubling down on it when he said he might have excluded him even if he had been 100% fit.

• Premier League’s bottom club to make official approach

• Championship club are reluctant to lose head coach

Wolves are to make an official approach to Middlesbrough to make Rob Edwards their next head coach. The Premier League’s bottom club are long-standing admirers of Edwards, previously a player and coach at Molineux.

Boro are reluctant to lose Edwards, who joined the Riverside club on a three-year contract in the summer. They stand third in the Championship following Tuesday’s draw at Leicester and last Saturday’s defeat by Watford.

This story will update

• Coach made seven changes for Champions League game

• Board support giving younger players more exposure

Chelsea are fully supportive of Enzo Maresca’s recruitment and rotation strategy and had no issue with the head coach making seven changes for Wednesday’s 2-2 Champions League draw with Qarabag.

Although the result left Maresca facing questions over his starting XI, the Italian left Baku knowing he retains the firm backing of Chelsea’s leadership.

Gianni Infantino has a new idea, and like most of his ideas it’s not one many are going to like, except maybe Donald Trump

A perfectly friendly-looking American guy, sharp suit, early 50s is wandering around Miami. He tells me that in the past 10 years the city has turned into a “magnet for dreamers, doers and visionaries, a launchpad where ideas take flight, where connections spark movements, where legacies are born”.

I nod sagely, pretending to know what that means before clicking the X in the top right of the YouTube tab. The man in question is in fact the mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez, encouraging me and other leaders of industry to pay lots of money to attend the America Business Forum. The website tells me “America Business Forum comes to the United States for the first time” – which begs the question where they’ve held it previously. I’m no chief executive, I don’t keep a diary, but I’d have put America right up there as a location to hold a forum on American business.

This week’s action saw Vincent Kompany’s men roll on, surprise results and a brilliant performance from a Liverpool defender

• Vincent Kompany’s Bayern Munich. They rule supreme in Germany and are on a 16-match winning streak. Beating the defending champions, Paris Saint-Germain, on Tuesday was further proof of Bayern’s credentials. Luís Diaz, whose combativeness is sorely missed by Liverpool, scored two, but he took the aggression too far when his challenge on Achraf Hakimi led to a first-half red card. That meant the second half became a test of defensive credentials that Bayern passed. “I also want us to enjoy it when we have to defend,” said Kompany. He was by no means his club’s first-choice as coach in the summer of 2024 – relegation from the Premier League with Burnley had damaged his reputation. But in Bavaria, the noise from the boardroom has been quelled – for now – by the brilliance of his team’s play.

Former Chelsea and England maverick on being portrayed as spoilt at 16, Max Dowman’s future, his admiration for Mikel Arteta, and a big dream of managing England

“Someone who worked a lot with rock stars told me that the age that they become famous is the age they stay for the rest of their life. I thought: ‘That doesn’t bode well for me,’” Joe Cole says ruefully. “I was in the public eye at 16 and thrust in front of the media. You grow up, you become a dad, but you’re still a footballer. And then, all of a sudden, it stops but your whole identity is still wrapped up in it.”

The former West Ham, Chelsea and England footballer, a gifted maverick who always felt a man out of time, playing a game years ahead of most of his contemporaries, smiles when I ask how old he feels now: “Forty‑four. I’m 44 [this Saturday]. My wife will laugh if she reads this, but you emotionally mature quite quickly as a footballer.”

Fallout from the goalkeeper’s autobiography a reminder of the danger inherent in sport becoming a disposable human drama

“Why do you write like you’re running out of time?
Write day and night like you’re running out of time
Every day you fight, like you’re running out of time
Keep on fighting in the meantime …”
Hamilton (2015)

But let’s leave Mary Earps to one side for a moment. Let’s leave Hannah Hampton and Sarina Wiegman and Sonia Bompastor, and who did what, who said it when. Let’s talk about you. How do you feel you’ve conducted yourself during the past few days? How would you rate your words and actions? To what extent do they stack up against your own personal morals and values?

Library science graduate who made the Ballon d’Or shortlist has Wafcon title defence and World Cup in his sights

At 61, most top-level head coaches have nostalgic moments as they reflect on the high points of their topsy-turvy careers. But for Justine Madugu, who made the 2025 Ballon d’Or shortlist for women’s team coach of the year after dramatically leading the Super Falcons to a record 10th Women’s Africa Cup of Nations title in Morocco in July, his managerial odyssey is only beginning.

Returning to Morocco to win an 11th Wafcon title for Nigeria is the next feather he desperately wants to add to his cap. It could have been so different for the library science graduate of Bayero University, in the northern Nigerian city of Kano, who looked as if he would never get a crack at international management, after being an assistant coach of the Falcons for 12 years.

• National side used game as form of team bonding

• Marc Guéhi, son of a minister, anguished over lying

Sir Gareth Southgate has revealed the secret key to the strong bond forged by his England team: they spent their downtime playing The Traitors.

As the nation waits to see whether Joe Marler and company can catch the duplicitous Alan Carr and Cat Burns in the final of Celebrity Traitors , Southgate has said his squad would consistently organise their own version of the game at tournaments and claimed it was among the most effective team-building exercises during his eight years in charge of the national side.

The Scottish midfielder on the constant battle to keep his place, the ‘stigma’ of employing a home chef, and why he believes Aston Villa will win a big trophy soon

John McGinn has spent the best part of half an hour reflecting on his journey to this point, his next appearance for Aston Villa his 300th for the club, when he volunteers something of a confession. Asked whether he has lasered in on nutrition to maximise performance, perhaps inspired by Erling Haaland revealing his penchant for raw milk and honey, the Villa captain smiles a little sheepishly. “Yeah, I have, which makes me feel quite uncomfortable because I’m from a very humble part of the world,” he says, referring to his roots in Clydebank, a few miles north-west of Glasgow.

“They will all laugh at me and wind me up for it but I do have a chef at home. I think there is a stigma towards it: ‘Who do you think you are?’ Which I get, because it used to be me thinking that. I was more nervous about telling my siblings and my mum and dad about the idea of having a chef than actually having one. My mum and dad were always running us about to training and if my dad was cooking it was always whatever is left in the fridge.

The Norwegian’s goalscoring feats have become so vast they hardly need chronicling, but at least he’s now doing it with a smile

With 27 minutes gone, and Manchester City 1-0 up, Erling Haaland did an extraordinary and also very funny thing. Strolling with feigned disinterest away from a free‑kick in the centre circle, Haaland turned, took the ball, and decided to run straight at the Borussia Dortmund defence, dragging with him a pair of desperate yellow shirts, grabbing and stumbling and firing their useless harpoons into the great white beast ahead of them.

There was nothing uncontrolled about this. It was an act of targeted violence by Haaland, the application of a superior force (basically, me) to a point of weakness (that would be: all of you). Eventually the ball ran free to Nico O’Reilly, all alone, as the entire Dortmund defence was dragged along in Haaland’s wake, by now, frankly, in need of a bigger boat.

• Governing bodies had formed group to look at tributes

• Authorities criticised over commemoration policies

English football authorities have agreed they will no longer hold minute’s silences or other forms of commemoration for events that do not directly relate to the game.

The decision was made jointly by the EFL, FA and Premier League following the creation of a new committee, the World Events Working Group (WEWG), to assess the sport’s response to global events such as natural disasters and terror incidents.

• Argentinian says he is happy in current role

• Pochettino will lead co-host US at World Cup

United States men’s national team coach Mauricio Pochettino has admitted he misses the Premier League and would like to return there in the future.

“The Premier League is the best league in the world,” he told the BBC in an interview published on Thursday. “Of course I am missing it. I am so happy in America but also thinking one day to come back to the Premier League. It’s the most competitive league.”

• Fans banned from attending match at Aston Villa

• Police granted section 60 stop-and-search powers

The Maccabi Tel Aviv midfielder Issouf Sissokho urged his teammates to make their supporters smile against Aston Villa, after away fans were banned from the politically charged Europa League match on Thursday.

The Israeli club’s fans were prohibited from attending on public safety grounds but, despite the ban, West Midlands police have been granted section 60 stop-and-search powers and plan to deploy more than 700 officers around Villa Park to cope with protests and potential unrest.

• Referee halts game temporarily after Chelsea take lead

• Monkey gestures and noises appear to come from fan

Chelsea have condemned racist abuse aimed at their young players after their under-19 Uefa Youth League fixture against Qarabag in Baku had to be stopped because of an incident allegedly involving one home supporter on Wednesday.

The match was halted temporarily after an opening Chelsea goal from Sol Gordon in the 58th minute was followed by a home fan appearing to make racist gestures towards the Premier League club’s players. Eyewitnesses suggested monkey gestures and noises were made. After the match resumed at the Azersun Arena Chelsea went on to win 5-0.

Champions League history-maker has benefitted from growing emphasis on youth and club’s fast-track approach

If Mikel Arteta had any doubts that Max Dowman is equipped for the big stage they will have been dispelled in a few seconds on Tuesday night. Dowman, having just become the first 15-year-old to play in the Champions League when he replaced Leandro Trossard in the 72nd minute against Slavia Prague, received the ball on the right flank from Declan Rice and immediately drew a foul from his marker, David Zima. A few minutes later he repeated the trick after effortlessly controlling a long diagonal pass, expertly dragging the ball along the touchline despite the attention of another defender.

“That’s personality, that’s courage and you cannot teach that,” Arteta said. “You have it or you don’t. It doesn’t matter what his passport says. You throw him in this context and he’s able to adapt and have a good performance. I’m really happy with that.”

The former England coach could’ve written a great book – instead he’s produced an AI-style word-sludge of generic leadership chat

This is an oddly dull, oddly irresistible football book. Even its title is confusing. Dear England is already the name of a hit Gareth Southgate play, a forthcoming Gareth Southgate TV show and an open letter to the nation authored by Southgate himself in 2021.

This Dear England isn’t formally related to any of those. It is instead an anomaly in the Dear England Multiverse, a book about leadership: a classically dull elite football manager trope that Southgate sticks to doggedly, using the words “leader”, “leading” or “leadership” at least 500 times in 336 pages. “What are leaders? What do leaders do? And what do leaders know?” he asks early on, setting out his stall, but stopping short of Why are leaders, How are leaders, or When are leaders?, questions he will presumably touch on in volume two.

Arne Slot now finds himself tasked with turning his team’s win against Real Madrid into a solid platform for recovery

Arne Slot called for a repeat of Liverpool’s performance against Real Madrid when the Premier League champions visit Manchester City and will no doubt repeat himself in the coming days. For Kylian Mbappé and Vinícius Júnior on Tuesday, read Erling Haaland on Sunday. Nullifying another of the game’s finest strikers, while keeping a third clean sheet in a row, would reinforce Slot’s post-Madrid message that Liverpool remain in the chase for the biggest prizes. They do not include the Carabao Cup.

The Champions League victory over Xabi Alonso’s La Liga leaders, who had 13 wins from 14 games before their arrival at Anfield, was the perfect remedy for a Liverpool team looking to heal the wounds of the worst run of Slot’s reign. It was also perfect preparation for what awaits at the Etihad Stadium: an opponent that wants to play out, that will not sit in a low block and carries an obvious, rampant threat.

Some clubs invite children with terminal illnesses to be mascots, but others charge thousands for the experience

By The Football Mine

It is the stuff that dreams are made of for any football-mad youngster: walking on to the pitch beside and lining up with their heroes before kick-off. Being a mascot provides memories to cherish for the rest of their lives and clubs are keen to capitalise on the fervent wishes of young fans to be mascots. However, it comes at a price and often a very hefty price at that.

While many English clubs charge for the privilege of being a mascot, the majority of Premier League clubs have made the noble gesture of either reducing the cost for mascots or not charging at all. Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham are among the clubs who do not charge.

Real Madrid’s world-leading winger was nullified by Trent Alexander-Arnold’s possible successor on his Anfield return

As a seething, soaking wet Anfield braced itself for one last Real Madrid fling, a narrative that had assumed pantomime quality throughout the evening threatened to turn more consequential. Trent Alexander-Arnold shaped to unfurl one of those dipping deliveries that have more than paid the Kop their due over the years and the thought flickered that, were it executed correctly, he might depart having helped to earn a point his team did not remotely deserve.

Any fears were unfounded. For one thing, in keeping with a pallid display, Real’s attack had neglected to offer Alexander‑Arnold a target. For another, when his cross swung out to no man’s land with Vinícius Júnior in half-hearted pursuit, a familiar obstacle lay in wait. Conor Bradley had thundered through the Brazilian, perfectly cleanly, near the byline in his previous foray and was not about to let anything go now. Seeing the ball out as his opponent went flying in desperation, Liverpool’s current right-back completed a night’s work that rendered sideshows irrelevant.

Plus: domestic duopolies, when kick-ins replaced throw-ins and the last striped team to win the English top flight

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“Marc Guiu became Chelsea’s youngest-ever Champions League goalscorer against Ajax, only to have the record snatched away from him by Estêvão 30 minutes later. What other examples of rapidly lost records are there in the world of football? What’s the record for the shortest-held record?” asks Matt Prior.

Given the predilection of those involved in football to flaunt their wad, transfer records are fertile ground for this kind of question. The first example that comes to mind is in the summer of 1995, when the British transfer record was broken twice. First Arsenal paid £7.5m for Inter’s Dennis Bergkamp; 15 days later, Liverpool bought Stan Collymore from Nottingham Forest for £8.5m.

£515,000 David Mills (Middlesbrough to West Brom, January)

£1m Trevor Francis (Birmingham to Nottm Forest, February)

£1.45m Steve Daley (Wolves to Man City, September)

£1.5m Andy Gray (Aston Villa to Wolves, September)

£900,000 Naomi Girma (San Diego Wave to Chelsea, January)

£1m Olivia Smith (Liverpool to Arsenal, July)

£1.1m Lizbeth Ovalle (Tigres to Orlando Pride, August)

£1.43m Grace Geyoro (PSG to London City Lionesses, September … London City dispute this figure)

A quarter of a century from his starring role in a 4-3 win over Liverpool, the Australian reminisces on playing in Croatia during civil war and opening a coffee shop after retirement

It started how it finished: with a delicate chip. Twenty‑five years ago, Mark Viduka scored all four goals in Leeds’s 4-3 victory against Liverpool at Elland Road. While those around furiously pedalled, Viduka remained Buddha‑esque, bookending his efforts with deft wedges over Sander Westerveld.

“I had to learn it over time,” Viduka says when asked whether his serenity was a superpower. “I played a lot of games where I was very nervous. When I was younger, I might just have belted it and hoped for the best.”

The Borussia Mönchengladbach midfielder returns to the national team for the first time since March as injuries and recoveries rule out regulars

Gio Reyna and Joe Scally will make their US men’s national team returns in the upcoming international window, while Christian Pulisic is among several regulars set to miss out. But while the Milan midfielder has just recovered from an injury suffered during his most recent time with the national team, Weston McKennie’s absence is a bit more surprising.

Reyna and Scally, both of Borussia Mönchengladbach, are among a 25-player squad named by manager Mauricio Pochettino for two friendlies: against Paraguay on 15 November at Subaru Park in Chester, Pennsylvania, and against Uruguay at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida on 18 November.

• Nottingham Forest owner dismisses case as groundless

• Fans charged with causing life-threatening explosions

The trial of the Olympiakos chair, Evangelos Marinakis, and dozens of football fans began in Greece on Wednesday, the biggest case of its kind linked to sports-related violence that authorities have vowed to crack down on.

In total, 142 fans face charges of running a crime organisation and causing life-threatening explosions at sporting events. They have denied wrongdoing.

• Bosnian taken ill during first half of Superliga game

• ‘Zizovic left a mark in the hearts of all who knew him’

The manager of the Serbian top-flight team Radnicki 1923, Mladen Zizovic, has died at the age of 44 after collapsing during a match on Monday.

Zizovic was taken ill midway through the first half of his team’s SuperLiga fixture at Mladost Lucani, with the game halted in the 22nd minute. The match resumed when he was taken to hospital after receiving emergency medical assistance, but was abandoned 20 minutes later when news was relayed that he had died.

Jon Gorrotxategi’s stoppage-time winner against Athletic Club summed up an epic back-and-forth contest

The goal that won the Basque derby was exactly the way the goal that wins the Basque derby is supposed to be but never had been before. Wet, wild and absolutely wellied. In the rain, the chaos and added time, the fifth of an epic fight perfectly imperfect: a first attempt scuffed, a second smashed in from six yards, sending teammates diving out of the way and supporters into each other’s arms. And scored by the footballer from the frontier, born on the border with Bizkaia, another Gipuzkoan and another academy product playing his first derby. Jon Gorrotxategi hit it with his shin; he also hit it with his “soul”, he said, the day ending with Real Sociedad’s players standing before their fans, singing together.

It had started there too, their big blue bus edging its way towards the Reale Arena, circling round past the velodrome and the mini stadium, thousands of fans lining the route, fireworks going off, scarves and flags swirling. Pulling up before the gates, the brakes went on, the doors opened and Sergio Francisco, their manager, said: “This incredible energy was let in.” The players got out and walked the final stretch to the stadium, feeling their way through the smoke, passing fans with their palms out, all high fives and hope. Stopping in a line, looking over the endless faces, listening to them sing, they joined in, clapping out the beat. And then they disappeared inside and defeated Athletic Club 3-2.

Eddie Howe’s team have the richest owners in the world. But they are still to mount a title challenge since the Public Investment Fund came knocking

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

Eddie Howe is not a manager given to histrionics or grand public pronouncements. So by his standards, his press conference after Sunday’s 3-1 defeat to lowly West Ham counts as a furious tirade. His side took an early lead but West Ham were ahead by half-time, as well as hitting the post and having a penalty overturned by VAR, leading Howe to make a triple change at the break.

“That was the frustrating thing about the first half,” Howe said. “I almost could have taken anyone off and I think that was a reflection of where we were in that moment in the game and it’s very, very rare for me to feel that way. In fact, I don’t think I have since I’ve been manager of Newcastle, so I felt the team needed some shaking up at half-time. That’s why I did what I did.”

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.

Angel City’s Elizabeth Eddy was rebuked by her own teammates for an op-ed on trans players. It’s easy to understand their objections

On 26 October, Angel City FC’s Elizabeth Eddy made her first post on X in nearly two years. In it, Eddy in essence responded to the Guardian’s report that the NWSL had quietly dropped its inclusion policy for trans and intersex athletes, leaving the league’s future stance on the matter undecided.

The New York Post gave Eddy’s writing a signal boost the next day, republishing it in full.

Lesley Ryder is a writer and host covering women’s soccer in Chicagoland.

More than 40 goals in the Premier League have come from corners already this season – is this the new orthodoxy?

A ball played in behind Conor Bradley for Kevin Schade to chase. Giorgi Mamardashvili leaves his goal and sidefoots into touch. The sense of expectation is palpable. Michael Kayode trots over from right-back to the opposite flank to take the throw-in. He dries the ball, measures his run, steps back and then in one languid fluid movement hurls the ball in to the near post. Liverpool clear. Two minutes later, it happens again. This time, Mamardashvili tries to play the ball to Bradley, who miscontrols to concede the throw-in. And this time, Kayode’s throw is flicked on by Kristoffer Ajer and volleyed home by Dango Ouattara. There are still only five minutes of Brentford’s game against Liverpool played. Welcome to the modern Premier League.

Only nine of the 241 goals scored in the Premier League going into this weekend have come from throw-ins, but it feels like far more. Forty-five have come from corners – 18.7%. Were that proportion to be maintained over the season it would present a remarkable leap on the high of 14.2% from 2010-11. The reality is there’s likely to be a regression to the mean: if a glance at the proportion of goals scored from corners shows anything, it’s that there really isn’t much of a pattern at all. The proportion hovered at 11 or 12% most years to 2009, since when it has been at 13-14% – a trend which, if anything, goes against the assumption that everybody stopped taking corners seriously in the peak years of guardiolismo only to rediscover their love of a booming inswinger last season (when, in fact, the proportion of goals from corners fell to its lowest level since 2013-14).

With ticket sales phases under way and prices reaching eye-watering levels, my experience raised a crucial question: who is this World Cup for?

For months, people in my life had been asking me when and where to get World Cup tickets. In the absence of any actionable information from Fifa before the first round of the pre-sale opened up, they hoped, I guess, that I had inside knowledge.

In truth, I only knew that Fifa would be using the universally despised dynamic pricing model, and that the bid book for the 2026 World Cup had promised an average group stage ticket price of $305. Mind you, that was seven and a half years ago and an awful lot of inflation has happened since then. In the bid, Category 4 tickets for the group stage – the cheapest seats available – were priced at $21. (As we would soon learn, the actual price would start at $60, and category 4 tickets are almost non-existent.)

Our cartoonist dons his best threads to check out which aesthetics are back to dominate the football fashion world

• Buy a copy of this cartoon in our Print Shop

• David’s latest book, Chaos in the Box: get it now

Former England manager was engaging with selfies and sharing his sense of purpose on the York stop of a promotional book tour

Gareth Southgate has a good story about cockapoo vomit. Alone, exhausted and about to leave England’s impossible job, it was the first thing that greeted him on returning home from defeat in last year’s European Championship final. Obviously, he immediately set about clearing it up and consoling the pup suspected of overeating. Another moment of pathos in a life that has experienced the extremes of the public eye, another hurdle cleared.

Southgate is on a promotional tour but you wouldn’t guess at first glance. He has a book coming out this week and has only just started talking about it. After a swift round of interviews with the BBC on Monday morning, in the evening he moved to the Barbican in York; a perfectly commodious venue with decent acoustics, but not a customary place for launching a nationwide media blitz.

In an exclusive extract from her autobiography, goalkeeper reveals the painful road to her shock England exit

England felt like such a safe space for me. It was usual to have a team review after a big tournament and after the Euros in 2022 we came together in the Club England meeting room at St George’s Park, the team’s headquarters.

The emotional security that I felt within England was bolstered by the culture and values that had underpinned and contributed to our success. Non-collegiate behaviour was not tolerated. We came back together to the news that Hannah Hampton had been dropped from the squad: her behaviour behind the scenes at the Euros had frequently risked derailing training sessions and team resources.

Former England goalkeeper reveals full story behind her international retirement, her problems with eating and alcohol, and why she’d struggle on The Traitors

• Read an exclusive extract from Mary Earps’ book

“I’ve learned a lot about what truly matters in life,” Mary Earps says on a quiet and cloudy afternoon as, at Paris Saint-Germain’s training centre on the outskirts of the French capital, the former England goalkeeper reflects on the achievements and drama of her last five years. “My life has accidentally come into the court of public opinion. People talking about your performance comes with the territory but when it starts to become about your character, and assumptions people make about you, that can be really, really challenging.”

Between 2020 and 2023 Earps overcame depression, a drinking problem, eating issues, won the Euros with England, forced Nike to change their attitude to female goalkeepers, saved a penalty in a World Cup final and won the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year.

A new documentary shows community unity helping a football club rise against a backdrop of a tragedy-hit building that is only now coming down

Every weekend they arrive with their boots and their grief, their studs and their memories of the Grenfell Tower fire which changed their lives for ever and killed 72 people. But the Grenfell Athletic football players, in two men’s teams and a women’s side, also bring hope, pride and even joy as they climb up their Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning amateur league tables with growing conviction that their club is a rising force.

Grenfell Athletic were founded by Rupert Taylor, a community leader and local inspiration, and Paul Menacer, who was asleep in the tower on the night of 14 June 2017 when the building turned into a blazing inferno. Together, they started a football club to help their community cope with the devastating loss.

From PSG’s Ibrahim Mbaye to Brazil’s next hope, we select some of the most talented players born in 2008. Check the progress of our classes of 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 … and go even further back. Here’s our Premier League class of 2025

We pick the best youngsters at each club born between 1 September 2008 and 31 August 2009, an age band known as first-year scholars. Check the progress of our classes of 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 … and go even further back. Here’s our 2025 world picks

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When María Corina Machado won this year’s Nobel peace prize for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights”, Donald Trump took the news as Maga-nanimously as you might expect. Having tirelessly run a campaign of self-promotion to ensure he won it himself, the president of the USA USA USA immediately claimed the credit for the Venezuelan opposition leader’s triumph, listed his own self-proclaimed and often dubious achievements in the field of global peacemaking and attacked the credibility of the committee who made the decision not to award the medal, cash prize and diploma to him. While security concerns mean it remains to be seen if the newly crowned Nobel laureate will emerge from hiding to pick up her accolade in person at the Oslo ceremony in December, a certain obsequious Fifa president appears hell-bent on stealing her thunder anyway. Yup, Gianni Infantino has decided to award a peace prize of his own creation in front of a global TV audience of hundreds of millions of international football fans the previous week in Washington.

Right-back discusses Emma Hayes’s tactical messages, new blood in the national team and how Champions League win changed her

Emily Fox made her 68th appearance for the United States in the first of two recent friendlies against Portugal and the Arsenal right-back has been a steady hand for Emma Hayes.

Hayes has her eye on the 2027 World Cup after winning Olympic gold 15 months ago, and has used 2025 to evolve and evaluate the pool of players. Over the course of 10 wins and three defeats in that timeframe, Fox has been a dynamic force difficult to dislodge from the right flank of a new project. Her speed and skill are essential to the team’s defence and intrinsic to their attack.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Liew and Nicky Bandini as Liverpool earn a huge win over Real Madrid and Spurs run riot against Copenhagen

Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.

On the podcast today: Liverpool beat Real Madrid 1-0 in the Champions League. But for Thibaut Courtois it would have been much, much more – this was Arne Slot’s side’s best performance of the season.

Faye Carruthers is joined by Suzy Wrack, Sophie Downey and Emma Sanders to discuss all the reaction to former England goalkeeper Mary Earps’s new book, All In. Plus, the panel discuss the talking points as the WSL returned after the international break

On today’s pod: Mary Earps’s new book hasn’t been short of headlines. From personal admissions of past struggles to her strained relationship with the current England No 1, Hannah Hampton. People in the game have shared their opinions on the content, but Faye, Suzy and the panel look as well at some of the decisions that went into publishing such a tell-all book now.

Elsewhere, the WSL returned from the international break with the top five all winning and a six-goal fun-fest between Aston Villa and Everton.

Arsenal’s run without conceding goes on, Thomas Frank plays down tensions, and Eddie Howe’s gamble backfires

First the P45, then the pints. Vítor Pereira could be excused for having a drink on Sunday after his departure from Wolves, with the silver lining for the Portuguese being a decent payout. It is the fourth mid-season dismissal this campaign – there have never been more permanent sackings in Premier League history at this stage of the year (3 November). And while Evangelos Marinakis might have something to answer for, trigger-happy owners and directors are becoming increasingly erratic: that Pereira lasted just 45 days into a new three-year contract reflects as badly on the Wolves board as on the manager, just as Erik ten Hag’s sacking this time last year, coming less than three months after his own contract extension, reflected badly on the Manchester United hierarchy. Backing a manager and then pulling the rug so quickly is baffling, while a board’s desire for a “new manager bounce” so early in the season stinks of desperation and should be seen as an admission of guilt. Michael Butler

Match report: Fulham 3-0 Wolves

Match report: Burnley 0-2 Arsenal

Match report: Nottingham Forest 2-2 Manchester United

Brighton still find goals despite Agyemang blow, West Ham eye an upturn and Everton leave it late to level

If Jocelyn Prêcheur needed an example of how far his London City Lionesses team have come in a few weeks, it was Saturday’s encounter against Chelsea. It ended in a 2-0 defeat to the champions but his side impressed at Stamford Bridge and asked several questions of their opponents. London City controlled 43% of possession – perhaps more than expected – and managed the same number of shots on target (three), with Isobel Goodwin providing a particular threat running in behind. “When we compare it to September when we played other top-four opposition, it was really good,” Prêcheur said. “What I like is that we start to see a team – [that] was my biggest challenge. We saw a team that defended and attacked together. We still need to improve.” SD

Match report: Chelsea 2-0 London City Lionesses

Spurs’ rally against Liverpool reveals Ho’s and Taylor’s tasks

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