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Former striker answers your questions on Scottish nightlife, his toughest opponent, proudest moment and when football made him cry

I served you many times in The Tally Ho pub in Dundee in the early 1990s. You were always a gent. How did your reputation as a hard man sit with you when, for me, you clearly differ from that in real life? Fionan Lynch

I’m not a hard man. I’ve always tried to be nice to people but sometimes I’ve been backed into a corner and got myself into a wee bit of trouble. I played the game aggressively but I don’t think I was even the toughest in any of the dressing rooms I’ve been in. I don’t see myself as a tough guy. But it’s followed me everywhere. A night to gain a reputation and a lifetime to get rid of it.

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1983: Aberdeen beat Real Madrid in the Cup Winners’ Cup final

1986: Peter Reid goes awol after FA Cup final misery

1996: Eric Cantona wins the FA Cup final against Liverpool’s Spice Boys

1999: Jimmy Floyd-Hasselbaink tilts an epic title race Man Utd’s way

2001: Internazionale 0-6 Milan (NFT)

2003: Jesper Gronkjaer changes the face of football history

2013: Wigan stun Man City in the FA Cup final

Arne Slot is planning to turn Trent Alexander-Arnold’s Anfield departure into a positive for Liverpool, the head coach has said. The right-back will leave Merseyside this summer for Real Madrid on a free transfer, meaning the Dutchman will need to find a way of replacing him.

Memories of a pie and pint at the football seem worlds away as hospitality folk will be charged up to £20,000 for a ‘world-class matchday experience’

The Premier League has become a place where not just the other half reside but the 1%. If money follows money then England’s top tier is a place to be seen, to do business, to entertain, for those who can afford the corporate facilities increasingly important to football’s bottom line.

On Saturday, before Fulham’s loss against Everton, a grand opening of Craven Cottage’s Riverside Stand. Its exoskeleton was a feature of the Thames during pandemic times, the bottom of the stand has been in partial service for the past three seasons. When contractor Buckingham Group in September 2023 collapsed it left the interior fit to be completed, plus much of the exterior; Buckingham’s collapse also delayed Liverpool’s Anfield Road redevelopment. Portview, the fit-out contractor, took control and full rollout comes before Fulham see out the 2024-25 season.

• Forward admits ‘hard times’ during difficult campaign
• ‘We are in a good position now to win a European trophy’

Rasmus Højlund is determined to prove himself “on the biggest stage” with Manchester United, although the centre-forward admits his 21-match scoring drought earlier in the season was a test of character.

Højlund’s goal in Thursday’s 4-1 defeat of Athletic Bilbao was only his 10th in 48 games, a return that has prompted some criticism. But the 22-year-old Dane is clear he can turn his form around. “I know what this football club is all about,” Højlund said. “It’s a lot of pressure, but that’s why I’m here. I want to show myself on the biggest stage.”

• Defender blasts Saints’ time-wasting: ‘It kills the game’
• ‘They can do whatever they want,’ responds City manager

Rúben Dias tore into Southampton for what he felt were anti-football tactics, laying bare his frustration after Manchester City were held to a 0-0 draw here. Southampton had just two shots – both off target – and 28% of the ball as they ground out a result that means City are still not assured of a top-five finish and Champions League qualification.

Dias raged about Southampton’s use of the dark arts, including time-wasting, although his manager, Pep Guardiola, had no complaints, saying it was simply up to City to find a way through. “It’s frustrating,” Dias said. “In a moment like this every point matters. And it is frustrating to play against a team like this.

• Manager has hopes for Bradley and likes finding answers
• ‘I’m very, very, very happy about Virgil and Mo extending’

Arne Slot is planning to turn Trent Alexander-Arnold’s Anfield departure into a positive for Liverpool, the head coach has said. The right-back will leave Merseyside this summer for Real Madrid on a free transfer, meaning the Dutchman will need to find a way of replacing him.

Conor Bradley is set to start Sunday’s Premier League meeting with Arsenal at Anfield as preparations continue for next season with the title secured. Slot might have to look outside the club for someone to challenge the Northern Ireland international for the right-back berth.

City must respond to Chelsea’s dominance and the identity of their next manager will be key

Even as the party anthems blasted out under sunny Manchester skies and the home fans showed their appreciation after a seven-goal thriller, the celebratory mood could not fully mask the undertone of disappointment at the Joie Stadium, for a club wondering what might have been.

On the season’s final day 12 months ago, Manchester City missed out on the title only on goal difference. This time, they finished 17 points off the runaway champions Chelsea. Worse still, City dropped outside the European places.

It was a fraught episode that could yet determine Aston Villa’s season. In the final minute of stoppage time, the big screens showed 94 minutes and 13 seconds when Emiliano Martínez made a magnificent save to thwart Antoine Semenyo and Matty Cash ended up crashing into the Villa net to successfully spook the Bournemouth substitute Daniel Jebbison, who headed over from a couple of yards out. Amadou Onana instantly rushed to Cash, grabbing his cheeks by way of congratulations.

While Martínez embarked on a round of high-fives with his defenders and clenched both fists overhead as if parading a trophy, Cash was still in a heap, clinging to the polypropylene Villa net after the pair combined to eke out a priceless victory in their push to qualify again for the Champions League. The Villa full-back seemed as perplexed as anyone as to how Jebbison contrived to miss.

• Postecoglou unmoved by idea of a new ‘Ossie’s Dream’
• Spurs face Manchester United in Europa League final

Ange Postecoglou has played down the prospect of his Tottenham squad recording a cup final song before their Europa League final with Manchester United.

The record ‘Ossie’s Dream’ by Chas and Dave – in reference to the former midfielder Ossie Ardiles – is synonymous with Spurs’ history after being recorded with the squad to commemorate reaching the 1981 FA Cup final. However, Postecoglou insisted no repeat would occur with the class of ‘25, who secured a place in Bilbao with a 5-1 aggregate victory over Bodø/Glimt.

The 18-year-old schemer has a €70m (£59.5m) release clause but Europe’s top clubs may regard that as money well spent

Rodrigo Mora turned 18 on Monday but plays with the poise of a seasoned professional. Porto’s new wonderkid drifts between the lines, picks passes others do not see and finishes with elegance. His flair for unlocking defences – whether through goals, assists or sheer intelligence – has caught the attention of the super agent Jorge Mendes, who is guiding the midfielder’s career.

“He sees the game like no one I’ve ever coached,” says Nuno Pimentel, the former Porto under-15 manager. Pimentel, who worked with Mora in the 2021–22 season and now coaches in Saudi Arabia with Al-Nassr’s youth teams, vividly recalls what set Mora apart.

Murals of McTominay in Naples? Don’t rule that out with the volatile manager who never stays long despite serial success

There’s always a Tottenham exception. Since leaving Siena in 2011, since he got his first break with a club that had a realistic chance of winning trophies, Antonio Conte has won league titles with Juventus, Chelsea and Inter. Going into Sunday’s matches, with three games remaining, his Napoli lead Inter by three points. In a decade and a half he has won a trophy with every club he has managed, apart from Tottenham.

Maybe Tottenham simply aren’t a club that had a realistic chance of winning trophies. Certainly it’s not as familiar to them as it is to Juventus, Chelsea and Inter. Napoli were Serie A title winners the season before last. Conte led Tottenham for 17 months and although he has the fifth-best win record of any Spurs manager, although he took them to fourth in his first season, having replaced Nuno Espírito Santo in the November, and although they were fourth when he left in March 2023, by the end the situation was so toxic as to be unsustainable.

It was more nervy than it needed to be but Arsenal secured a second-place finish ahead of Manchester United with the win in a seven-goal thriller. A point would have been enough for the home team to earn a place in the third round of qualifying for next season’s Champions League, but a three-goal advantage with 20 minutes remaining was reduced to one in the space of six minutes to keep the jeopardy alive and the atmosphere among the 46,603 tense to the finish.

Manchester United’s captain, Maya Le Tissier, had said Champions League football was “all that matters” , but the visiting team fought with the intensity of a team keen to put in a strong performance before their FA Cup final showdown with the WSL champions Chelsea a week on Sunday.

• Atlético striker completes treble in first 11 minutes
• Kane scores as Bayern lift Bundesliga trophy

Alexander Sørloth scored four goals inside 30 minutes in a 4-0 home win for Atlético Madrid over Real Sociedad.

The Norwegian forward completed his treble in the opening 11 minutes, the earliest ever in the competition, before adding a fourth goal to seal the rout on the half-hour. He opened the scoring in the seventh minute and took just three minutes and 57 seconds to wrap up his hat-trick.

Brighton are a club built on statistics, from owner Tony Bloom’s gambling to the global recruitment and even the permutations that could still see them qualify for Europe. Defeating Wolves allowed for more simple equations being the answer, as Danny Welbeck reached 10 goals in a season for the first time in his almost 17-year career before Brajan Gruda opened his Seagulls account.

At 34, Welbeck has found his best form and showed the confidence to score from the spot after Matheus Cunha gifted Brighton a penalty.

David Moyes lauded Michael Keane’s display after the defender scored what could be his last goal for Everton as they dealt a major blow to Fulham’s European hopes. The visitors recorded a first Premier League victory since 12 April when Vitalii Mykolenko equalised and Keane’s header put them in front after Raúl Jiménez’s opener in the 17th minute.

A rare error by the goalkeeper Bernd Leno allowed Beto to grab a quickfire third for Everton before Fulham were denied the chance of a second as penalty appeals for handball were turned down by VAR in stoppage time.

Celtic came from behind to beat Hibernian 3-1 as the champions extended their lead at the top of the Scottish Premiership to 20 points. Martin Boyle gave the visitors the lead but Celtic turned the game around with two goals in four minutes just before the break from Nicolas Kühn and Adam Idah.

Reo Hatate scored his 11th goal of the season in the second half as Celtic inflicted just a second defeat in 20 league matches on the visitors, who remain three points above Aberdeen in the race for third place.

On 11 May 1985, 56 football supporters lost their lives and hundreds more were injured. The city came together that day and its unity since has been a constant source of pride

Bradford is so often portrayed as a city divided. Sometimes, those descriptions can be correct. It is a place swamped with economic instability and problems that run deep, but over the past week, and again this weekend, the two things that unite its many communities have risen to the fore.

One is its football team. Bradford City, like the West Yorkshire city itself, have had their fair share of inauspicious moments, but their incredible escape from League Two last Saturday, scoring a 96th-minute winner to beat Fleetwood and secure automatic promotion for the first time this century, sparked jubilant scenes over the bank holiday weekend.

They have lost three times to their oldest rivals but a win would give Ancelotti’s men a path to retaining the league

Real Madrid’s players arrived at training on Wednesday morning to find seven teddy bears waiting for them. Lined up on a bush outside Valdebebas, they wore white shirts and a banner had been placed in front of them, alongside a couple of Spain flags with the club badge in the middle where the crown should go. “Grazie, Inter,” it said. The night before, Simone Inzaghi’s side had done for them what they had not been able to do for themselves, at least not yet. Now perhaps it can be their turn, one last chance to salvage something from what has been somebody else’s season.

Barcelona had been beaten: there would be no Champions League and no treble, reason alone to celebrate or at least seek consolation in Madrid, if not the only one. Because if it’s tempting to ask: “Is that all you’ve got?” somehow the answer may still be: “Actually, no.” Four days on from Barcelona’s European exit, Montjuïc hosts the fourth clásico of 2024-25 in a fourth stadium. Madrid have lost the previous three – 4-0, 5-2 and 3-2, seeing their rivals go top of the table, win the Super Cup and the Copa del Rey. Lose a fourth, and they will see them win the league title too, Hansi Flick’s team would be seven points clear with nine in play, a double within reach, while Madrid are left with nothing.

The town was ripped apart and the economy decimated. But now the football club will make an emotional return

It was about 7pm when UMF Grindavík’s players finished training in the club’s indoor hall. There had been seismic activity in the area all day but, in this harbour town to the south of Iceland’s famous Blue Lagoon, everybody had become wearily used to that. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions had been a discomfiting, menacing backdrop to the previous three years. Everyday life had continued but now, on 10 November 2023, nature was to have its say. Four hours after its football team had completed their session, the danger had become intolerable and Grindavík was evacuated. Their once-thriving home quickly turned into a ghost town.

Nobody would dream of using the hall for football now. Its pitch is cleaved in two by a fissure up to 25 metres deep; one of the most striking images in a settlement that has been ripped apart. A chasm has destroyed their outdoor practice pitch too. But something remarkable will happen in Grindavík on Saturday: football will lead the way in a recovery few could have foreseen over the past 18 months. Grindavík will play at their Stakkavíkurvöllur home for the first time since the town’s abandonment, hosting Fjölnir in a second-tier fixture whose outcome feels distinctly secondary.

Fans protested against the leveraged takeover but were offered little support and the toxicity has had a lasting impact

The first time the Glazer family visited Old Trafford, in June 2005, they paid a visit to the megastore. Outside, hundreds of furious Manchester United fans turned up with banners and placards, shouted slogans such as “Die Glazer die”, and a few clashed with police. Inside, the Glazers were doing a spot of – and here we must stretch the word to its broadest possible definition – shopping.

For Joel, Avram and Bryan had no intention of doing anything quite as undignified as parting with their own cash. Instead they swarmed the aisles, scooped up armfuls of replica shirts and merchandise, which shop staff dutifully ran through the tills and bagged up. When the time came to leave, the Glazers simply took the bags and left. This was, after all, all their own property, theirs to take and use as they pleased. And as a metaphor for how they intended to run Manchester United over the next 20 years, it is about as good as any.

After Champions League exit and title run that petered out, the Arsenal manager says his team still have much to achieve

For Mikel Arteta, there has been no time to dwell on the pain. “Not now,” said the Arsenal manager when asked if he was emotionally exhausted after a week when his team were eliminated from the Champions League. “Probably because I have so much to achieve and do, and we need to improve and get done. That is what drives me every day,” he said. “But if there is somebody that has raised the standard and the expectation the highest, it has been me. Because I have been demanding and expecting much more, and after that much more.

“For me it is the only way to do it, for everybody to have really high standards and demands. We are very, very close to achieving it. I understand the disappointment, and the criticism. It is all part of it. At the end there is one winner and the rest of them aren’t going to win, so they need to reinvent themselves and do better. That is part of the cycle.”

Tottenham’s riches have underpinned Europa League progress but, win or lose in Bilbao, they need to be decisive about their manager to thrive at home

Take the emotion out of it. It is easier said than done. Tottenham Hotspur are not in the business of hoarding silverware and there will be a temptation to stick with Ange Postecoglou if they beat Manchester United in the Europa League final. The pressure on Daniel Levy to give Postecoglou another chance would be intense. It is not hard to see which way a chair with a history of populist moves would go.

Yet there is rarely much to gain from the impulsiveness of judging a manager on the basis of a one-off game that could be won on penalties or with a lucky late goal. The obvious cautionary tale is provided by United keeping Erik ten Hag after last season’s triumph in the FA Cup, only for the Dutchman to be sacked five months later. Serious clubs are supposed to be clinical. The mistake is often to look for wider meaning in a weird and illogical cup run.

The oldest man on the oldest Champions League team delivered when it mattered to show they can go all the way

What was he even doing there, in the 183rd minute of a two-legged tie, a 37-year-old centre-back attacking the opposition’s six-yard box, the furthest man forward on his team? Francesco Acerbi had not scored a goal in more than a year. Heck, he had not scored one in 65 appearances across Uefa club competitions. This is not his job, not the thing he trains for, not a defining moment anyone had predicted for the most entertaining Champions League semi-final ever to unfold.

Or maybe this is the only way it could be. “Pazza Inter Amala” runs the line from Inter’s club anthem. “Crazy Inter, Love Her”. This is not Real Madrid, where “being successful is part of our DNA”, nor Juventus lecturing you that “winning is the only thing that counts”. Inter make sense when they stop making sense. Acerbi – yes, that Acerbi, who overcame cancer twice and who has won all seven major trophies of his career since turning 30, smashing a striker’s finish into the top corner to make it 6-6 on aggregate and force extra time? Of course. How else did you imagine this could go?

Teenager was a revelation across an incredible semi-final tie and Spanish side have much to be proud of in defeat

On the afternoon before the first leg of the the most extraordinary Champions League semi-final anyone could remember, Lamine Yamal said he had left fear behind in the park in Mataró years ago. Everything else he left behind at Montjuïc and San Siro, a statement stronger than any he had delivered in the press room. If that line was a promise, a demonstration of personality, it was kept, but Barcelona couldn’t reach their first final in a decade so he made another. “We won’t stop until this club is where it deserves to be: at the summit,” he wrote in the dark moments after defeat.

Here Barcelona had been stopped within touching distance. Lamine Yamal departed the pitch in silence holding Marcus Thuram’s shirt, Inter’s players coming to embrace this boy they had survived, a child born every 50 years in the words of their manager, Simone Inzaghi. There has been something revelatory about the 17-year-old’s performance over two astonishing nights and at the end of it all there was almost a kind of reverence, a respect towards him. Inter had reached the final again and will talk of this for ever, their everything; one day, they knew, he may be part of the epic stories they tell.

Riyad Mahrez and Roberto Firmino starred in tournament but unbalanced format reflects political power in continent

It’s been quite a journey for Roberto Firmino, Riyad Mahrez and Al-Ahli, who lifted the AFC Champions League Elite trophy for the first time just before midnight on Saturday in front of 60,000 fans in Jeddah after a 2-0 win over Kawasaki Frontale of Japan.

Firmino has not been registered in the Saudi Pro League (SPL), where teams are allowed only 10 foreign players, this year. The former Liverpool man’s spot was taken by Galeno, his fellow Brazilian signed from Porto in January for around £45m. In Asia, however, there are no such restrictions and “Bobby” has come back into the fold and played so well that he was named tournament’s MVP.

After winning over Bayern’s hardcore support, the prolific Engländer has led the charge to the Bundesliga title

After Harry Kane’s three final heartbreaks with Tottenham and England his first major trophy win, the Bundesliga title we originally thought to be immediately inevitable, was on reflection never going to be straightforward. Last week’s yellow card against Augsburg kept him in the stands for Bayern Munich’s potential title clincher at RB Leipzig (a visibly annoyed Kane suggested referee Bastian Dankert had been “trying to make a name for himself” after the harsh booking, issued when he didn’t return the ball quickly enough after he was whistled for a foul). Then Yusuf Poulsen’s 95th-minute equaliser for the hosts meant Bayern weren’t quite there mathematically, even though Thomas Müller felt comfortable enough to lead the players and a trench-coated Kane through some frolics with the away fans on Saturday. Leverkusen only drawing at Freiburg on Sunday has, at last, finally sealed the deal. Kane’s Bayern destiny has been fulfilled, and no apparent jinx could get in the way this time.

On the day he signed in August 2023 Munich was balmy, in terms of weather and mood. It was the morning of Bayern’s DFL-Supercup game against RB Leipzig and as the thermometers crept above 30C, hot and bothered fans queued outside the multiple Bayern fan shops in the city centre with the aim of getting their hands on one item: the new, white-with-red-trim home jersey with “Kane 9” on the back. The red-on-white, multi-lined font of name and number – a throwback to the figures adorning the backs of Bayern’s 1974 European Cup winners – hinted at a new era of glory.

While Fifa’s chief of global development focuses on offside toes and noses, VAR needs a helping hand somewhere else

Five years ago, Fifa’s chief of global development, Arsène Wenger, outlined his bold plans to change the offside law.

“The most difficult [issue] that people have [with VAR] is the offside rule,” he said. “You have had offsides by a fraction of a centimetre, literally by a nose. It is the time to do this quickly.

Super League patron Florentino Pérez sets the tone with his destructive acts of pettiness, dragging down a once noble club

Referees have never been so disdained and despised as they are now. Those who do not think they are corrupt, think they are incompetent. Standards, apparently, have never been lower. Clubs and their fans rage about conspiracies. But even in the present context, the scenes at the end of last Saturday’s Copa del Rey final were unprecedented as Antonio Rüdiger threw an ice-pack at the referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea.

And to think this is a club that used to pride itself on its sense of its señorio, its gentlemanliness, to the extent that in Steve McManaman’s day players were given a code of conduct; the familiar line used to be whingeing about referees was for the cry-babies of Barcelona.

Barcelona’s 17-year-old forward is a once-every-20-years talent who is causing the internet to spasm with man-worship

There’s always that guy. Never be that guy. Fight the urge to become that guy, to yearn always for the old, good, safe things, to feel headphone-panic and selfie-disgust, to see moral decay in haircuts. Except, sometimes it turns out you just are that guy, propped up in your easy chair, eyes blazing, smelling slightly of damp laundry, and holding forth on a theme as old as all human life.

That theme is always the same. You know that thing you like? Well, it’s actually bad. And in a way that I will now explain at great length. So here he comes again, that guy. And this time he’s talking about Lamine Yamal. Enjoyed that, did you?

I am not a Liverpool fan but this week I have crossed a sacred line – and I’m struggling to feel sorry

This column begins with a confession. One I am afraid and not a little ashamed to make. One that my instincts tell me I should be taking to a priest who is bound to silence, or at the very least an understanding therapist. Certainly not to a forum of sports fans with strong opinions and keyboards full of potential swears.

Scourging rods at the ready, then: this week I have been wearing a Liverpool top. And I am not a Liverpool fan.

Our cartoonist on intense motivational techniques and banter in north London before European semi-finals

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Most fans who visit Buenos Aires want to watch Boca or River. I plumped for reigning champions Vélez Sarsfield

By The Football Mine

When imagining a football match in Buenos Aires many fans visualise La Bombonera shuddering to its foundations by the jumping mass of blue and yellow Boca Juniors supporters or the majestic Estadio Monumental bedecked in streams of ticker tape when hosting Argentina’s victory in the World Cup final in 1978. Last Sunday, the Monumental was at full capacity as 85,000 fans watched River Plate beat Boca 2-1 in a tense Superclásico. However, a few weeks ago my experience of going to a football match in Buenos Aires was very different indeed.

As I discovered when planning my trip to Buenos Aires, gaining admission to one of the Argentinian capital’s largest clubs, such as Boca or River Plate, is by no means straightforward. Both clubs have significant numbers of members, with more than 340,000 each (only Real Madrid have more). These socios have priority when it comes to buying tickets so there is limited availability. One of the only ways to buy tickets in advance is through a third party, who charge $150 upwards. Kick-off times are only announced a week or so in advance, which makes life even more complicated.

As a new ‘Liguilla’ gets underway, we’ll answer five of the biggest questions about the competition, from least specific to most

The Liga MX playoffs, better known as the Liguilla, kick off on Wednesday, running until a champion is crowned on 25 May. Whether this is your first time with the tournament or you’re a diehard fan, there’s reason to be excited. Here’s everything you need to know about this year’s version, starting with the most basic question there is.

Clubs’ tussle for supremacy in Germany may be at its end as the futures of Alonso and Wirtz remain uncertain

Early on Sunday evening Bayern Munich’s players arrived a few at a time in a swish restaurant that had been opened just for them, as they prepared to commemorate a 33rd Bundesliga title (34 if you include the pre-Bundesliga crown of 1932) not quite as they had hoped, in their street clothes rather than their football strips. Bild even claimed that as Freiburg took the lead late in the first half against Bayer Leverkusen on the big screen in front of the Bayern squad (a game the 2024 champions needed to win to mathematically prolong the race) there was a loud exclamation of “Scheiße!” from at least one player who had wanted Bayern to officially finish the job themselves at home to Borussia Mönchengladbach next Saturday.

It had not quite been the titanic end that anybody had hoped for, with Bayern letting in a 95th-minute Yussuf Poulsen equaliser that stopped them officially sealing it on Saturday, Harry Kane suspended so he couldn’t take part at all and Leverkusen getting a leveller in the fourth minute of stoppage time at Freiburg on Sunday which ended up meaning little to anyone apart from the hosts and their rivals for Champions League qualification.

Southampton, Leicester and Ipswich are returning to the Championship. Which of their players deserve to stay up?

By WhoScored

Leicester were relegated at the weekend and will join Southampton in the Championship next season. Ipswich are 15 points from safety with five games to play, so it’s only a matter of time before they too are consigned to the second tier. The three sides have been extremely disappointing this season, picking up just 10 wins between them, but they have some talented players who will be targets for Premier League sides in the summer transfer window.

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Having had time to reflect on Arsenal’s semi-final defeat at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain in Bigger Cup, Football Daily has arrived at the conclusion that there are a couple of ways to frame the exit of Mikel Arteta’s side. The first is to say that, despite being plagued by long-term knack to key personnel and endlessly persecuted by referees at home and abroad, they played extremely well for long periods across both legs and were perhaps unlucky to come up against a mighty state-owned behemoth. A mighty state-owned behemoth that is backed by limitless financial resources and is able to field a goalkeeper who is in the form of his life, and who had his task made a little easier by the fact that Arsenal were forced to field a side with no recognised centre-forward in both matches. Yes, that sounds fair.

I know Atlético Madrid were supposed to be looking to sign him, but after Wednesday night’s performance in Paris, will anybody want to fight for the right to Partey?” – Declan Hackett.

Following another barren season for Mikel Arteta’s team, may I suggest they have a nickname similar to the Neverkusen epithet foisted upon Bayer at the start of this century? ‘Nahrsenal’ perhaps” – Duncan Roberts.

Re: yesterday’s Memory Lane (full email edition) and Ron Springett being unveiled as the new Sheffield Wednesday goalkeeper. Is this the first (and potentially only) example of a new signing being unveiled before the press pack and performing keepy-outies? Admittedly he does appear to be nowhere near his goal or even in the 18-yard box but anyway …” – Derek McGee.

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

The Copa do Brasil is back after a nine-year break but there are concerns about Brazil’s top flight before a first World Cup in South America

After a nine-year hiatus, fans of Brazilian women’s football will once again be able to support their clubs in the Copa do Brasil. The cup will bring together 65 clubs from the three divisions of the national women’s football league, starting with a preliminary round on 21 May and concluding with the final in November. It is a return that has long been requested by the women’s football community in Brazil in order to expand the calendar for lower-division clubs and gives high-profile teams such as Flamengo, Corinthians and Santos another opportunity to compete for silverware.

However, all is not rosy on the Brazilian club scene only two years before Brazil are to host the Women’s World Cup for the first time. There have been a few years of growing sponsorship and visibility in the top tier, the Brasileirão A1, but this season has exposed the challenges facing the game.

This is an extract from our free weekly email, Moving the Goalposts. To get the full edition, visit this page and follow the instructions. Moving the Goalposts is back in to its twice-weekly format, delivered to your inboxes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Union captain Lisa Heiseler, who has been at the club since she was 13, talks about promotion to the Frauen-Bundesliga

“I can’t describe how I feel,” Lisa Heiseler says as she reflects on a momentous weekend for Union Berlin Women. Just three days after her side secured a historic promotion to the Frauen-Bundesliga, the captain is clearly still processing everything that has happened to her and her teammates.

27 April 2025 will be a date for ever etched in the memories of Union Berlin’s women’s team and their supporters. A 6-1 victory over Borussia Mönchengladbach in front of more than 14,000 jubilant fans at the Stadion An der Alte Försterei saw Ailien Poese’s side secure promotion with three games to spare, one that will see them play in the top echelon of German football for the first time and at the first time of asking.

In a freakish season at the top and bottom of the league, competing incentives for the rest are unusually fractured

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As Eddie Howe delivered his post-match press conference after Newcastle’s draw against Brighton on Sunday, Chelsea, his club’s rivals for Champions League qualification, took an early lead against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge. Howe gave a wry smile and was immediately asked whether it annoyed him that Liverpool had made six changes to their lineup from the side that had sealed the league title against Tottenham last week. Being Howe, and therefore both unflappable and impossibly earnest, he replied that team selection was their business: “Liverpool have got to do what Liverpool have got to do for them. I’m not involved in their football club, so I’ve got no opinion on that.”

And of course he was right to say so, partly because it’s true and partly because criticising other managers’ team selections is a slippery slope. All clubs have their own priorities and their job is to do what is right for them, with all due nods to the integrity of the league and satisfying those who have paid for tickets or broadcast rights. Liverpool have won the title early: giving fringe players a run out is a prerogative they have earned, and it’s not their concern how that affects other sides. But at the same time, Chelsea were given an easier game than they probably would have been had they met Liverpool a week or two earlier before the league title was wrapped up.

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Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur have given Football Daily plenty of ammunition over the years, but with both sealing their place in a European final on Thursday with comfortable victories in their respective semi-finals, this is not meant to be a snide missive about their latest achievements. Sure, Athletic Club can only recruit players from an area the size of Wales, were missing their first-choice centre-back Dani Vivian through suspension, their best three attacking players through injury (Iñaki and Nico Williams, plus Oihan Sancet), were 3-0 down from the first leg and still gave United’s band of global internationals a frightful scare by taking a first-half lead at Old Trafford. But fair play to United, they roared back in the second half, and ended as comfortable winners, 4-1 on the night and 7-1 on aggregate. In reaching the final, Ruben Amorim has a real and tangible reason to be proud of his team, and it’s also nice to see Mason Mount being good at football again.

Re: yesterday’s Football Daily. Can I suggest that after Arsenal provide a guard of honour on Sunday, Liverpool repay the compliment twice to acknowledge the titles Arsenal would have won in the last two seasons if it wasn’t for the pesky ‘team with the greatest number of points is first’ nonsense?” – Dominic Hodgson.

One point that yesterday’s Football Daily omitted – Arsenal got further in Bigger Cup than rivals Liverpool, Aston Villa, and Manchester City. I rather suspect that Mikel Arteta would be mildly pleased if you now referred to the semi-finals as the new ‘Round of Arsenal’” – Mike Wilner.

Apologies to anyone who watched Salford (yesterday’s Class of 25, full email edition) in the Northern Premier back in the day, but Salford City? Salford City? The answer to the problems with football in that area of Manchester is Salford City? I’m no fan of FC United, to be honest (the angst is wearing), but if jaded millionaires really wanted to make a statement and pose an existential crisis to the club that made them and yet is tanking under a leveraged buyout, there was one obvious choice. But no, they went for the vanity-stroking path of high fives with Tom Brady and Ryan Reynolds in a dull Netflix documentary about the Championship playoff struggle. Tell me, one Salford fan, that you view United as an actual rival, and don’t just check your phone for updates about Josuha Zirkzee” – Jon Millard.

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

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Lars Sivertsen and Paul Watson as Spurs and Manchester United progress to the Europa League final

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On the podcast today: there’s very little jeopardy for either Spurs or Manchester United, who both deservedly progress to the Europa League final with comfortable two-legged wins over Bodø/Glimt and Athletic Club, respectively.

PSG and Inter will play for the crown at the end of the month but there were plenty of twists and turns before the finalists were decided

Inter