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• Goalkeeper replaced in 17th minute of defeat by Atlético

• ‘It was necessary to preserve the guy, preserve the team’

Igor Tudor insisted that giving the 22-year-old Antonin Kinsky just his second start of the season and then taking him off again in the 17th minute of Tottenham’s humiliating 5-2 defeat at Atlético Madrid was the right decision, with the interim head coach saying he did so to protect the goalkeeper.

Kinsky, playing in place of Guglielmo Vicario, was withdrawn after two dreadful errors handed Atlético the first and third goals, with his teammates Connor Gallagher, Dominic Solanke and João Palhinha following up the tunnel to offer their support.

Coach says his club are always favourites as he prepares to cross swords with Manchester City in the Champions League knockout stages for fifth year in a row

This is Real Madrid. We know this because Álvaro Arbeloa keeps saying so. At the start of another press conference, his 25th since being promoted from the B team two months ago and the last before facing Manchester City, the club man who became the club manager was reminded of something he had said after beating Monaco. That night, he was told, you claimed that Madrid are always favourites. So, came the inevitable follow-up, the “even” left unsaid but hanging heavy: “Now are you favourites?”

There was a familiar look, the hint of a smirk, and a familiar answer too. “If I said Madrid are always favourites, that’s what I think,” Arbeloa replied. “We are Real Madrid. We never feel less than anyone, regardless of the circumstances, regardless of who we have in front of us. We’re Real Madrid, we shouldn’t feel inferior. We know our opponents, how good City are – champions two years ago – and how difficult it will be, but we go into it with enthusiasm, looking them in the eyes.”

• Fifa president posts message after meeting with Trump

• Iran due to play all three group matches in the US

Donald Trump has said Iran are “welcome” to play at the upcoming World Cup, despite the ongoing war in the Middle East, according to Gianni Infantino.

Fifa’s president said that during a meeting with Trump to discuss preparations for the competition, “we also spoke about the current situation in Iran”.

Documents filed at Companies House over 2022 deal could complicate row with UK over how money will be used

Jersey authorities may be investigating whether cash raised by Roman Abramovich’s 2022 sale of Chelsea FC amounts to the proceeds of crime, according to documents filed at Companies House on Wednesday, potentially complicating a row with the UK government over how the money will be used.

Accounts for Fordstam Ltd, the company through which the billionaire Russian oligarch owned Chelsea, show that the proceeds of the sale – currently frozen and gathering interest in a Barclays bank account – has risen to £2.4bn.

Team’s path to a quadruple appears manageable – give Mikel Arteta and co serious credit for getting to this position

Cruyff’s Ajax, Messi’s Barcelona, Rice’s Arsenal. Stein, Michels, Ferguson, Arteta. The Dark Side of the Moon, The Very Best of The Beatles, Arsenal 2025-26 highlights DVD. Total Football, tiki-taka, hugging the goalie at corners. Get ready. Make room among the greats. It may just be coming.

And yes, you can laugh at this on the internet. You can pull-quote excerpts with mocking emojis. Throw in some Niles from Frasier has really lost it stuff. You can point, with justification, to the fact these other people, the actual greats, did it for a long time, not just one year.

Plus: privately-educated players, surviving despite away-day woes; and the trophy-less 1909 Scottish Cup

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“Are the 23 red cards shown in the game between Brazilian clubs Cruzeiro and Atlético Mineiro in the Campeonato Mineiro final a record?” asks Tom Reed.

In case you missed it, the Campeonato Mineiro final descended/ascended into a festival of hand-throwing. Cruzeiro won the football match 1-0 and the red card contest 12-11. We had a similar question back in 2002, when the world record was 20 in a Paraguayan league match between Sportivo Ameliano and General Caballero. But modern life is febrile, and that record was obliterated by events in Claypole, Argentina, in February 2011. Don’t take our word for it, read this excerpt from Guinness World Records:

The highest reported number of players sent off in a single football match is 36 in the Argentine Primera D game between Club Atlético Claypole and Victoriano Arenas refereed by Damián Rubino (Argentina) at the Estadio Rodolfo Capocasa, Claypole, Argentina, on 27 February 2011. All 18 players on each side (11 on-field players and seven substitutes) were sent off following what the referee described in his post-match report as a ‘Generalised Brawl’ that seemed to have been the result of a series of confrontations and heavy tackles that had taken place throughout the feisty encounter. The game was the 23rd round of matches in the Primera D, the fifth tier of Argentine football, in what was in theory a regulation league match, there was no historic rivalry between the sides.

Over the course of a 20-year playing career from 1995 to 2015, Gerardo ‘the Beast’ Bedoya (Colombia) was sent off 46 times. The tough-tackling defender/defensive midfielder earned 49 caps for his national team. On 24 March 2016, Bedoya made his debut as a coach of Colombian side Independiente Santa Fe during their match against Atlético Junior, and was sent off after 21 minutes for berating the officials.

Visitors were underwhelming in the face of Newcastle’s power and pace and Eddie Howe’s men can still hope to reach the last eight

Banners are not always that easy to unfurl. Particularly on the sort of capriciously breezy March nights when sheeting emblazoned with the message “Budapest awaits me” refuses to be pulled taut and simply sags in the middle.

For a while before kick‑off it was easy to interpret the ongoing struggles of that banner’s owners to successfully hoist it in the Gallowgate End as emblematic of the travails awaiting Newcastle.

The good news for Liverpool is that the situation is salvageable, when it really might not have been. The bad news is that they were ­distinctly ­second best for the first ­three-quarters of the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie.

Nobody who saw their second‑half collapse away against Juventus in the playoff round could be confident that Galatasaray are a team ­capable of squeezing the life out of the ­second leg. There is a nervousness about them at the back, a persistent sense of misfortune about to strike, but going forward they are breezy, quick and fun. Their only regret will be that, having taken an early lead through the former Wolves midfielder Mario Lemina, they did not add a second goal to give them more to defend at Anfield.

• Millwall close gap on Middlesbrough to one point

• Leicester out of relegation zone after beating Bristol City

Millwall rode their luck to bolster their bid for promotion with a 1-0 win against Derby. Alex Neil’s side took the lead through Josh Coburn’s goal in the 43rd minute at the Den. Barry Bannan’s free-kick was not cleared and the Millwall defender Tristan Crama hooked the ball back into the six-yard box, where Coburn glanced his header in at the far post.

That was enough to secure a fourth successive Championship victory for third-placed Millwall, as they closed the gap on second-placed Middlesbrough to one point. The Derby striker Patrick Agyemang hit the post in stoppage time after earlier missing another golden opportunity to equalise in a second half dominated by the visitors.

Liam Rosenior has unlocked the forward and must do the same with Cole Palmer for the team to reach their potential

João Pedro had been a Chelsea player for less than two weeks when he faced Paris Saint-Germain in the final of the Club World Cup last summer. The settling-in period was intense. The forward had an impactful substitute appearance when he made his debut in the quarter-final win over Palmeiras, struck a clinical double when Fluminense were downed in the semi-finals and then, on a thrilling, sweaty afternoon in New Jersey, delivered the coup de grace when Chelsea became world champions thanks to a stunning demolition of PSG.

It was 3-0 when João Pedro lifted a clever finish over Gianluigi Donnarumma in the 43rd minute, and the manner of the humiliation was hard for PSG to accept. Heads were scrambled as the newly crowned European champions felt their aura of invincibility ebb away at the end of an epic season. João Neves was shown a red card for a tangle with Marc Cucurella – who else? – and the loss of discipline even involved Luis Enrique, the PSG manager, appearing to slap João Pedro in the face when a mass brawl broke out at full-time.

Our cartoonist reflects on the FA Cup fifth round, including Ben Waine’s commitment to the bit

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• Five players previously granted humanitarian visas

• Team’s departure for Malaysia ends Women’s Asian Cup saga

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Two more members of the Iranian women’s football squad have reportedly sought asylum in Australia after the team competed in the Women’s Asian Cup.

A plane left Sydney airport on Tuesday night local time bound for Malaysia, reports said, with players and staff, ending a dramatic two days in which five players were granted asylum after refusing to return home.

Former footballer accused of assault occasioning grievous bodily harm after incident outside Liverpool golf club

Joey Barton has been remanded in custody charged with attacking the headteacher of a school for children with additional needs.

The former footballer was arrested after an alleged incident outside Huyton and Prescot golf club in Liverpool at 9pm on Sunday.

• Chen Kuei-jen escorted out of stadium by police for referring to Taiwan

• Former national coach was encouraging crowd in Sydney to chant

A former Taiwanese football head coach and delegate of the Taiwan women’s national team was removed from their match at Parramatta Stadium on Tuesday night after leading the crowd in chants containing the word “Taiwan”.

Chen Kuei-jen, who represented Taiwan 11 times as a player in the 1990s and was head coach of the Taiwan men’s national team from 2012-2016, was spotted leading a small but boisterous group of fans in their final Women’s Asian Cup match against India.

• ‘You have to be who you are,’ manager says

• Madrid will be without the injured Mbappé

Pep Guardiola has urged Manchester City to face Real Madrid with their true identity in the Champions League last 16 and “earn the tickets” for the next round.

The opening leg at the Bernabéu on Wednesday will be the 12th occasion the teams have played in Guardiola’s decade in charge and the 16th in total; each side has won five times, with five draws. Guardiola said his team must be true to who they are if they are to progress to the quarter-finals.

• Forward says knee injury was ‘most painful’ of his life

• German expected to start against his former club

Kai Havertz has said the knee injury that forced him to miss the first half of the season was the most painful experience of his life but that it has given him “new hunger” to win trophies with Arsenal.

The Germany forward missed more than 20 games after having surgery on the injury he picked up on the opening day of the season in the victory over Manchester United at Old Trafford.

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Robyn Cowen is joined by Barry Glendenning, John Brewin and Jonathan Liew as Manchester City drop points against Nottingham Forest and Arsenal extend their lead at the top of the table to seven points.

On the podcast today: was this the night Arsenal won the title? An unconvincing victory at Brighton thanks to a deflected goal that should have been saved and dropped points for Manchester City at the Etihad see the Gunners go seven clear at the top.

Elsewhere: Michael Carrick is handed his first defeat as Manchester United coach on his return to Tyneside against 10-man Newcastle to shake up the race for Champions League football.

Plus: the rest of the midweek Premier League football, a look ahead to the FA Cup fifth round and your questions answered.

Club’s former owner leads the polls in spiky mayoral race but is accused of putting forward ‘nothing of substance’

Karim Benzema doesn’t often involve himself in French politics. At the end of January, though, the striker gave a glowing endorsement of Jean-Michel Aulas, the former Lyon president who is leading the city’s mayoral race.

“He has everything it takes to do well,” Benzema said in a video played on the news channel LCI as Aulas was being interviewed. “He’s someone who people listen to, he knows where he wants to go and he has a lot of experience,” the former Real Madrid player added. The Lyon-born striker was later joined by Bafétimbi Gomis in showing support for their former boss.

The furore over not singing their anthem at the Asian Cup was only the start of the drama as players weighed up a chance to seek asylum amid uncertainty about their fate back home

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Rarely has a first touch carried so much consequence.

As the Philippines’ second goal sailed untouched into the back of the net, sealing their victory, the clock started ticking for their opponents: the Iranian women’s team were now out of the Asian Cup tournament.

The leaders haven’t won the title in more than 20 years. Yet very few neutrals are excited about seeing them as new champions

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What was striking after Arsenal’s grim 1-0 win at Brighton on Wednesday was less Brighton manager Fabian Hürzeler’s attack on the Gunners’ style than the way his criticism seemed to resonate. In England, it feels as though almost nobody, other than Arsenal supporters or anyone-but-City fans, wants them to win the title.

“If I would ask everyone in the room: ‘Did you really enjoy this football game?’ I’m sure maybe one raises his arm because he’s a big Arsenal fan but, besides that, no chance,” Hürzeler said.

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.

With its credibility swaying in the wake of a betting scandal, the very last thing the league needed was to be in business with a prediction platform

The timing of the suspensions was unfortunate. Or perhaps it was karmically inevitable.

Forty-two days after Major League Soccer announced a new partnership with Polymarket – a prediction platform that lets its users bet on just about anything, including whether, when, and where one country will bomb another – a press release went out. A pair of Ghanaian-born former MLS players, Derrick Jones and Yaw Yeboah, had been banned from the league for life for betting on games, including their own.

Leander Schaerlaeckens’ book on the United States men’s national soccer team, The Long Game, is out on 12 May. You can preorder it here. He teaches at Marist University.

Bundesliga survival looks an uphill struggle for Wolfsburg as a lack of leadership off the pitch has led to drift on it

Edin Dzeko, understandably, erred on the side of caution. Dieter Hecking has not. Wolfsburg are indisputably in crisis and have gone back to the future to stop themselves teetering over the ledge into the abyss, with a coach who left – or was invited to leave – nearly 10 years ago returning to the club to prevent the worst coming to pass. It had felt for a while as if change was coming at the Volkswagen Arena. The question to which we will find out the answer in the coming weeks is have they already left it too late?

This was a weekend that was a very bad one for Die Wölfe; pivotally so, potentially. It was not just their own 2-1 tumble at home to Hamburg, who were also in serious need of points, which defined the moment. After all, Wolfsburg began the weekend second-bottom of the Bundesliga and ended it in the same place, but things are not the same. That is largely due to results elsewhere. Even outside Lower Saxony little went right for Wolfsburg, whether it was St Pauli and Mainz clawing points from superior opposition in Eintracht Frankfurt and Stuttgart respectively, or Werder Bremen making the most of Union Berlin going down to 10 men seconds after they took the lead, paving the way to a second successive win of unexpectedly comfortable proportions (4-1, in the end, to Werder).

Monaco are flying but PSG are in bad shape before their Champions League last-16 tie against Chelsea

By Get French Football News

Sébastien Pocognoli doesn’t like to talk about “foundational matches” but there are moments that can shape a season for better or for worse – and they do not necessarily come on the pitch. Sometimes they come in restaurants.

Monaco hit a low at the Bernabéu at the end of January. Their 6-1 defeat to Real Madrid was their heaviest in European competition and followed a run of seven defeats in eight games in Ligue 1, the worst record in the club’s history. After their humbling defeat in Madrid, the squad remained in the city until the afternoon of the following day to come to terms with the deepening crisis. The club’s coaches and staff held a meeting to talk things through. The players also gathered to thrash things out. “We thought it was important to have one as players, to be open, to try to find solutions,” said Folarin Balogun. “It was positive.”

• Pair also bet on Jones to receive yellow card

• Players overlapped for one season at Columbus Crew

Major League Soccer announced on Monday that it has given Derrick Jones and Yaw Yeboah lifetime bans for “extensive” gambling, including on games involving their own teams. In one instance, the pair won a bet that Jones would receive a yellow card.

MLS said it had received “suspicious betting alerts” and retained a law firm to investigate. The players were placed on administrative leave in late October 2025 as the review ran its course. Eventually, the investigation found that both players betted on soccer extensively throughout the 2024 and 2025 seasons, including on their own teams.

The US head coach has built a deep and talented pool of players as next summer’s tournament in Brazil approaches

The US women’s national team won the SheBelieves Cup on Saturday, capping the three-game friendly tournament with a 1-0 win over Colombia. Alyssa Thompson finally broke the deadlock in a game largely dominated by the hosts.

The Chelsea winger sent an inch-perfect shot into the upper corner in the 81st minute to notch her fourth international goal.

Blue Tigresses have overcome off-field chaos and crises to make this tournament and can look to their women’s cricketers for hope

The Indian women’s football team’s quest for history got off to a bittersweet start in Perth on Wednesday. The players had put aside the off-field turbulence they faced in the lead-up to put up a strong fight on the field, only to concede an injury time goal and go down 1-2 to Vietnam.

Despite the result, the game was significant as a marker of how far the Blue Tigresses had come and where they could go, but also for the atmosphere they were greeted with at the Perth Rectangular Stadium.

Fewer than 100 days out, host cities haven’t received promised funding, and fears about ICE’s presence are widespread

On Sunday 19 July, the final match of the 2026 Fifa World Cup will be played in East Rutherford, New Jersey. For one day, our community will be the center of the world.

But as that moment approaches, I find myself spending less time thinking about the games at MetLife Stadium, and more time worrying about whether we are ready. Because if Washington doesn’t get its act together, we risk turning a generational opportunity into an international embarrassment.

The Fifa president’s sycophancy towards the US president has left the organisation facing a new nadir, but any reckoning seems a distant prospect

Mr President. Fellow exco members. We’re going to need a bigger Board of Peace. How many mini‑pitches are we up to now? Gaza got 50 of them last month. What will it take to football-fix the global conflict being set in train by Fifa’s own Peace Prize Boy? A hundred mini-pitches? Four billion mini-pitches? All the mini‑pitches in the universe?

In a more sane version of what we must, out of habit, call the real world, it would seem absurd to talk about sports administration in the context of the US, Iran and the airborne conflict being played out across the borders of their allies.

Breaking from European traditions would bring a TV boost and help build a schedule that works both for players and fans

The announcement that Major League Soccer (MLS) is to switch from a summer season to a winter one has reignited the debate about the National Women’s Soccer League’s (NWSL) schedule.

This is not a new conversation: the pros and cons of alignment with the European calendar have been considered for many years by the NWSL.

If every win is going to be painful from here, you may as well just take the painful wins – welcome to Arsenal’s late title stagger

On Thursday night at a swanky London hotel so luxuriously risk‑averse the toilets are equipped with wireless thermostats to control to within half a degree the heat of the seat, the Premier League chief executive, Richard Masters, spoke in detail for the first time about the prospect of “Premflix”, the direct‑to‑consumer model of the future, an app that will sluice this irresistible footballing opiate directly into the eyeballs of 8 billion rapt humans.

In doing so Masters was echoing the words of Todd Boehly on the same stage 12 months earlier, who had talked about the Premier League as a kind of fire stolen from the gods, source of the next great tech platform, an engine of empire, tool of world domination, of lassoing the moon out of the sky.

Our cartoonist on a decade of magic moments in the big job for world football’s leading ‘man of the people’

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Former striker recounts experiences of racism at Atlético Madrid but says he ‘didn’t have it as bad’ as Vinícius Júnior

The sad thing for Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink is that the cycle of racism feels endless. It was prevalent in football before his playing days and throughout his career as a prolific striker, and it has persisted since he retired in 2008.

Football’s racism problem has been thrust back into the spotlight in recent weeks after Vinícius Júnior accused Gianluca Prestianni of racially abusing him in Real Madrid’s Champions League tie with Benfica, and four Premier League players were racially abused on social media across a single weekend, prompting police investigations.

There is no tokenism in Ingolstadt hiring a female manager, and the German club’s pioneer recognises the power of her presence in the game

Home is indeed where the heart is. On Friday Sabrina Wittmann signed a new deal to stay at FC Ingolstadt, continuing a partnership whose roots go back nearly two decades but which became of wider public interest when the third-tier club appointed her as the first female coach of a German professional football team in summer 2024.

There is no tokenism in the club’s choice, underlined not only by the contract extension but by the 34-year-old’s recent completion of her coaching pro licence, awarded to her just over a month ago. “I’ll always be the first woman in Germany coaching a professional men’s team,” Wittmann says, “but I want to be seen as a coach.

The south-east London club have promotion to League One within sight in just their second season in the EFL with their manager central to the transformation

With half an hour to go before kick-off, a roar echoes round the ground. MK Dons have levelled with Cambridge United via a penalty deep into injury time, Aaron Collins scoring from the spot to deny the hosts victory.

In the 20-minute interlude between Shayne Lavery’s opener at the Abbey Stadium and the referee’s fateful whistle, Cambridge looked set to go top of the table. Instead Bromley get under way against Accrington Stanley with a one-point lead at the summit of League Two, much to the relief of the home fans.

In tandem with Game Day Vision, the Premier League club are improving the matchday experience for supporters with a variety of conditions

Thomas Clements’ eyes begin dancing as he recalls in vivid detail his first trip to Highbury. It was 1995 and Ian Wright was among the scorers as QPR were defeated. Clements – named after Michael Thomas, scorer of Arsenal’s decisive second goal against Liverpool in their 1989 title decider – points to his dad, Kevin, standing a metre away. “I was sat on his shoulders in the North Bank,” he says.

That is, in itself, not unusual for a child of the 1980s. However, whereas most regular match-goers might take for granted the seemingly small things – travel arrangements, the journey to the stadium, grabbing food and drink, meeting friends and family, entering and exiting the ground – for disabled supporters such as Clements, careful thought and planning go into all arrangements.

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After eight months and 252 games, Bigger Cup has finally reached the bare-knuckle stage of this bizarrely elongated competition. We get the thrilling spectacle of three repeat fixtures from the league phase, thanks to the suits wanting to make this the most thrilling and profitable product possible. The world demands more Galatasaray v Liverpool, extra Kieran Trippier v Lamine Yamal and plenty of Pep Guardiola against whichever former Anfield stalwart is in the Real Madrid dugout this week. It is very much Groundhog Day for the TikTok generation, with Uefa desperately hoping that short attention spans mean everyone has already forgotten these earlier matchups.

Re: the masked fan in Germany who unplugged the ref’s review monitor in a protest at VAR (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs, full email edition). Please tell me it was this guy!” – Antony T.

With respect to Greg Wynn’s missive (yesterday’s Football Daily letters), Oscar Piastri crashed on the reconnaissance lap, which is like a footballer getting knacked while getting off the bus” – Robert Pearce (and others).

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

Players and coaches demand more accountability from Caf after latest decision further disrupts preparation schedule

On 13 February, Patrice Motsepe, the president of the Confederation of African Football (Caf), promised that this year’s Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon), scheduled to be played in Morocco between 17 March and 4 April, would go ahead as planned. One of the reasons he had to make that statement was the 2024 tournament had been postponed for a remarkable 19 months, until July 2025.

That supposedly solemn presidential promise was broken on 5 March, 12 days before the start of the tournament, with many of the teams – including Nigeria, the defending champions, Cameroon and Ghana – playing friendlies across Africa and Asia to prepare for the showpiece, which also determines which teams get to represent the continent at next year’s World Cup.

This is an extract from our free email about women’s football, Moving the Goalposts. To get the full edition, visit this page and follow the instructions. Moving the Goalposts is delivered to your inboxes every Tuesday and Thursday.

The midfielder on her nomadic life, experiencing Nigerian celebrations and the national team’s World Cup prospects

Being an integral figure in the distinguished history of Nigeria’s women’s team is an experience that will never dim in the mind of Jennifer Onyinyechi Echegini. Seven months on from beating the hosts Morocco in a pulsating Women’s Africa Cup of Nations final at Rabat’s Olympic Stadium, in the process winning a record 10th African title, “Joe”, as her Paris Saint-Germain teammates call Echegini – an acronym of her three initials – is yet to come down from her career high.

“Winning the Wafcon is on another level, you know?” the 24-year-old midfielder says from Paris. “The pride and the achievement that I felt … when you’re playing with a group of girls that you love and care for, it makes it even more special.”

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The last time the USA hosted the World Cup, drinks breaks – or the lack thereof – became a scorching bone of contention. Upset at having to stand on the touchline listening to the pasty skin of Tommy Coyne, Steve Staunton and assorted other Irish players audibly crackle in 40-degree heat, Big Jack Charlton went to war with Fifa over their refusal to sanction official breaks in play so that his famously thirsty footballers could take on liquids. The rules from on high decreed that players near the dugout could adjourn to the sideline for refreshments while play continued. However, since bottles were not allowed on the pitch, those further away had to try catching flimsy funfair-style plastic bags of water – sans goldfish – thrown from the touchline. Anyone who happened to be out of chucking range just had to flirt with heat stroke for the good of the tournament.

Spurs, and in particular, Thursday’s first half ‘performance’, if that’s the right word, are going to single-handedly put Football Daily and every single professional comedian (and Jack Whitehall) out of business, for good. There’s no competing with that” – Noble Francis.

In the early days of my career I had many brilliant ideas at the workplace but hardly any progress or improvement to the bottom line. My boss told me: ‘You are on the right track but the train is not moving.’ Same with Igor Tudor” – Krishnamoorthy V.

If Tudor thinks his ‘boat’ is heading in the right direction, then presumably he is a big Titanic fan. Looking ahead, some real challenges will be thrown up should the Good Ship Spurs go down. Are, for example, Stoke fans really going to be up for a visit to the cheese room on a cold, rainy Tuesday night?” – Paul Taverner.

Robyn Cowen is joined by Barry Glendenning, John Brewin and Jonathan Liew as Manchester City drop points against Nottingham Forest and Arsenal extend their lead at the top of the table to seven points

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On the podcast today: was this the night Arsenal won the title? An unconvincing victory at Brighton thanks to a deflected goal that should have been saved and dropped points for Manchester City at the Etihad see the Gunners go seven clear at the top.

Plus: hat-trick heroes who were not named player of the match, managers sacked after big wins, and more

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“A few weeks ago, Sandra Jessen started for FC Köln against Essen,” notes James Vortkamp-Tong. “Is this the first time a player has contained the opposing side’s name in their own?”

It’s not actually the first time Sandra Jessen has played against Essen, as Alicia Butteriss points out. “From what I can tell she first started against Essen, for Bayer Leverkusen, on the last day of the 2018-19 Frauen Bundesliga,” writes Alicia. “It would be remiss of me not to add that she scored both of Köln’s goals when they beat Essen 2-1 near the start of this season.”

Robyn Cowen is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jordan Jarrett-Bryan and Seb Hutchinson to review the first batch of midweek Premier League action, including another win for Wolves at home

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On the podcast today: Wolves beat Liverpool in injury time thanks to a deflected André goal, his first in 60 games for Wolves. The great escape surely couldn’t be on … could it?

Ousmane Dembélé becomes our seventh winner as he beats Lamine Yamal into second and Vitinha into third on our list of the best players on the planet

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The Frenchman, who has been named the best male footballer in the world by the Guardian, has benefitted from PSG’s focus on the team rather than individuals

What makes a good player great, and a great player the best? This question has been occupying me since 2014, when the Guardian first asked me to contribute to its inaugural Next Generation feature. My job was to look for a France-based talent born in 1997 who could go on to have a stellar career.

After a great deal of research, I narrowed it down from my shortlist of five by asking questions not about the players’ football ability, but about other attributes: resilience, adaptability, decision-making, creativity, work ethic, response to feedback and willingness to learn. Qualities we cannot see, and are harder to measure.

Aitana Bonmatí has been voted the best female player on the planet by our panel of 127 experts ahead of Mariona Caldentey and Alessia Russo

• 2024 list | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018

• Meet the judges | See how every judge voted

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The margin may have got smaller but the brilliant Spanish midfielder makes it a hat-trick of No 1 finishes

They say the best things come in threes, and Aitana Bonmatí has written herself into the Guardian’s top 100 history as the first player to finish at the top of the tree for a third consecutive year.

Last year the majestic midfielder emulated her Barcelona and Spain teammate Alexia Putellas by winning for a second year running, but the 27-year-old has now gone one better, establishing herself once again at the top of the women’s game.

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