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Villa, meantime, will look to keep a low block, I expect, with Chastity Grant and Lucia Kendal breaking quickly and seeking to create for Kirsty Hanson. Villa currently sit eighth in the table, but will see sixth as still within reach.

So where is the game? Chelsea will look to play into Kerr and, if they can, get her turned and running either in behind or with the ball. while James wanders off the left in support. To make that happen, they’ll use Keira Walsh to control the pace of the game, with Kaptein and Nusken in particular bombing on.

Rasmus Højlund is back among the goals at Napoli while Kakub Kiwior has helped make Porto solid in defence and Largie Ramazani has given Valencia a creative spark

The Dane, like many others, struggled under Ruben Amorim at Old Trafford and was packed off to Naples. He scored on his debut, a 3-1 win over Fiorentina, and has been consistent since, netting 10 goals in 26 games for Serie A’s third-placed team. “Now it’s portrayed as if I’m back and just doing really well,” Højlund, who cost United £72m when they signed him from Atalanta in August 2023, said to Denmark’s TV2 last week. “But inside myself my thoughts are in a completely different place. I’m self-critical. I still want to be even better, more involved in the games and score more goals, but it’s fun to observe how the image of me is constantly changing.”

England rotated the squad after draw with Uruguay as they make their final World Cup preparetions

Michael Yokhin has been speaking to those at one of Europe’s biggest surprise packages this season, FC Thun. They are set to win the Swiss league, blowing away more elaborate opponents on their way to glory.

There were a couple of big games in the WSL yesterday.

Players are not covering the distances of old – they are not being lazy but adapting to demands of an arduous campaign

There is nothing English football admires more than honest endeavour, which is perhaps a consequence of the league’s origins in the industrial cities of the north and Midlands. “He put in a shift.” “She did her job.” “He gave his all.” The language of football is the language of the pit or the factory floor.

All top-level players these days are supremely skilled, but still we demand that they be exhausted by the final whistle, legs leaden with effort, hair soaked with sweat. Which was why it seemed to cause such consternation when Alan Shearer mentioned on Match of the Day last Saturday that Chelsea have run less than their opponents in every Premier League game they have played this season.

England’s head coach still rates injury-prone Manchester City defender and seems likely to be a fundamental part of his squad this summer – if fit

Every manager reserves the right to make an exception to the rules. For Thomas Tuchel, it is John Stones. The England head coach has watched Stones endure a lost season at Manchester City; another one, really, because things were similar for him last time out – certainly in terms of appearances.

Once again, there have been injury problems, the sense that Stones cannot get himself fully right compounded over this past week with England. The 31-year-old struggled in training and when he felt something in a calf muscle on Thursday, Tuchel was forced to leave him out of the Wembley friendly against Uruguay on Friday night. He started Fikayo Tomori alongside Harry Maguire in central defence in a drab game that ended 1-1, while Stones has gone back to his club and will play no part against Japan on Tuesday.

Jérémy Doku tore the US to shreds on Saturday, with a defense counting on help that never came

Two years can feel like an eternity – just not in international football.

The USMNT hit restart on their 2026 World Cup cycle at its midpoint, changing coach after exiting the 2024 Copa América at the group stage. Mauricio Pochettino admitted as he arrived that he had scant familiarity with his inherited player pool, then embarked on an experimental year-plus of trying fresh faces and combinations in search of a winning formula.

Minnows have all but sewn up the Swiss Super League title with seven games to go having been favourites to go down

The FC Thun heroes do not hide their amusement and amazement when speaking about what has been an incredible season. They giggle when asked if they could possibly have expected such a scenario. They know that the situation is surreal and illogical. The words “incredible” and “unbelievable” are used frequently.

When Thun were promoted to the Swiss Super League in May, they were predicted to struggle. “A lot of pundits identified them as No 1 relegation candidates. Expectations were very low, and fans thought that avoiding relegation would be a major success,” Berner Zeitung journalist Adrian Horn says.

Arsenal secured their 11th consecutive victory in all competitions with a confident win against Tottenham at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday evening. Alessia Russo scored a 22-minute hat-trick to put her side in firm control while Caitlin Foord and Stina Blackstenius added more in the second half.

It was a devastating first-half performance from Russo. Her three in the latest edition of the north London derby took her tally to five in the last eight days, a week in which Arsenal extended their unbeaten run in all competitions.

Scotland’s followers have discovered there is a drawback to World Cup qualification after all. Nobody who paid – and handsomely – to sit through the sheer tedium of this fixture could reasonably deny that. Yes, Scotland, you can come to the party; but only after a clutch of international friendlies. It is just about worth the trade-off.

Officially, this marked the start of the tournament buildup for the Scots and Japan. It was a game that involved the going through of motions rather than one from which to draw strong conclusions. Japan were the slicker team, as should be expected for a nation which has aspirations of making a proper impact in the summer. Junya Ito ensured the visitors headed towards Wembley in fine fettle, his goal fitting reward for Japan’s enterprising approach.

With their non-league sides in effect serving as national teams for the crown dependencies they have dreams of climbing higher in the football pyramid

Clad top-to-toe in Jersey Bulls paraphernalia, Andy Lane takes a brief step away from drum-banging duties on the Springfield Stadium touchline and rolls up a sleeve to reveal the tattooed badge of a football team in only their seventh year of competition. The bull rearing up Lane’s right forearm matches that on his wife Jojo’s left calf, encapsulating the impact the club has made on the local community. “It’s about pride,” Lane says.

Bulls’ latest visitors are Hassocks, a club hailing from a village just north of Brighton. Like every other team in the eighth-tier Isthmian League South East Division, this away day was the first they sought out when the fixture list was unveiled last summer, and more than 50 supporters have flown over for the occasion. “It’s a great novelty fixture,” says the Hassocks chair, Patrick Harding.

Portugal head coach, who describes the country as a ‘football school’, explains why he is ready to take risks in pursuit of World Cup glory

‘You get there and the mountain is so big, you have no objective other than survive.” It was summer 1995, Roberto Martínez was 21, he had made one brief appearance for Real Zaragoza and just completed military service while playing regional football back in his home town of Balaguer. A complete unknown, he was heading to Wigan, wherever that was, and didn’t speak a word of English. He was also heading to the Third Division, where whatever they played it wasn’t football, not as he knew it. “There is fear: ‘No,’” he says. “But my attitude was always: ‘Why not?’”.

Martínez now stands in the hallway at the Portuguese federations’s base in Oeiras near Lisbon, arms out in a warm welcome. Trophies sit in cases, the Nations League the latest addition. Only one cup is not there, which is why Martínez is. Seventy-five days until the World Cup starts, he takes Portugal into their final pre-tournament international break with matches against two of the co-hosts, Mexico and the United States. The man whose favourite goal was against Scunthorpe at Springfield Park leads a team who are among the favourites to triumph this summer, willing to dream precisely because he never dreamed any of this.

As a player, Mauricio Pochettino suffered under World Cup pressure. As a manager, he hopes to help the USMNT’s belief in the face of it

US men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino probably understands the pressure of playing for your national team in a way few of his players can.

Pochettino was not involved in Argentina’s World Cup plans in 1994 and 1998. He finally made the squad as a veteran in 2002, part of a stacked team favored by many to win the entire tournament. The country itself was in the midst of an unprecedented economic crisis and an entire nation turned to La Albiceleste for a bit of hope.

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• Summit set NWSL record with 63,004 spectators

• Expansion side draw 0-0 with Washington Spirit

The expansion Denver Summit’s match against the Washington Spirit on Saturday broke the National Women’s Soccer League record for attendance with its announced crowd of 63,004.

Fans at the Denver Broncos’ home stadium broke the previous NWSL record of 40,091 who attended Bay FC’s match against the Spirit last season at Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.

• Aggrieved side make stand before Peru match in Paris

• ‘We know we’re African champions,’ says head coach

Senegal, who won the Africa Cup of Nations title in a controversial final against Morocco in January only to be stripped of their victory this month, paraded the trophy before going on to beat Peru 2-0 in their World Cup warm-up game at the Stade de France.

Nicolas Jackson scored four minutes before half-time and Ismaïla Sarr added a second in the 54th as Senegal won their first game since January’s Cup of Nations final.

• Former Burnley and Forest manager linked with Spurs

• Igor Tudor under pressure after dismal run of results

Sean Dyche has quashed rumours he is in talks with Tottenham but described the relegation-threatened Premier League team as a “brilliant club” amid speculation over Igor Tudor’s position.

Spurs are without a fixture until 12 April but a run of five defeats in seven matches under the interim head coach Tudor has placed his job at threat, with their league position a precarious one.

• Chair says ‘staff are hurting’ after ‘difficult week’

• Reform UK leader visited club on Monday

The Ipswich Town chair and chief executive, Mark Ashton, has apologised for “any hurt, pain or distress” caused by Nigel Farage’s visit to Portman Road this week.

Farage visited the club on Monday, and footage of his trip – including images of the Reform UK leader holding up an Ipswich No 10 shirt with his name on the back – was used by the political party on social media.

Viewers at home and in the stands had some trouble telling the US and Belgium apart – some players had the same issue

Saturday’s friendly between the US men’s national team and Belgium at Mercedes-Benz Stadium was played indoors, in a climate-controlled environment, on natural grass, even.

Inside the cavernous, 70,000-seat venue, the air was a perfect 72F (22C), as it always is. The stadium’s massive, 8,400-ton HVAC system is designed to cut Atlanta’s stifling summer humidity. On Saturday, they probably could’ve turned the thermostat off entirely: outside, it was a picture-perfect, comfortable spring day.

Max Rushden is joined by Jonathan Wilson, Nedum Onuoha and Will Unwin, featuring very sad voice notes from Barry Glendenning and Elis James, looking back on disappointments for the Republic of Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland

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On the podcast today: Wales and the Republic of Ireland took penalties at exactly the same time, both going ahead but missing at crucial moments … and with it having their World Cup dreams dashed.

Northern Ireland looked good against Italy, but there was just no cutting edge. In the end, two bits of real quality from Sandro Tonali and Moise Kean took the Azzurri one win away from their first World Cup in 12 years.

The panel run through the other qualifiers and discuss Mo Salah’s Liverpool legacy. Plus, there’s the vasectomy to end all vasectomies, and your questions are answered.

Chapters:

00:00 - Coming up...

00:43 - Ireland and Wales out on pens

25:54 - Italy knock NI out

32:38 - Play-offs round up

47:38 - Mo Salah to leave Liverpool

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Norwich winger on ‘perfect setup’ of Toronto and Vancouver games as co-hosts look to punch above their weight this summer

Ali Ahmed watched the last World Cup at home with friends and family. “It was goose bumps seeing Canada walking out,” the winger says. “I haven’t seen that in my lifetime. It was surreal.” This time around he will again be at home but also very much at the heart of the action in two cities that are dear to him.

Jesse Marsch’s side face Qatar and Switzerland in Vancouver after an opener against a European playoff winner (possibly Italy) in Toronto. Italy in Toronto, Ahmed’s home town, would be special, not only because of the city’s vast Italian population – “the stadium might be more blue than red,” Ahmed jokes – but also because his parents, who are from Ethiopia but lived for two years in Italy, are big calcio fans. “Football was ingrained in all of us in our family,” he says.

Head coach constantly looks to the future but defeat by Bosnia and Herzegovina is not without consequences

Craig Bellamy predicted a sleepless night and he will not have been the only one. Most of Wales, population a little more than three million, will have pulled the curtains, struggling to shift the pervading sense of an opportunity missed. “My heart hurts,” he said approaching midnight in Cardiff and the gravity of it all may only fully sink in when Bosnia and Herzegovina, after prevailing in a World Cup playoff in the capital, host Italy on Tuesday for a place at this summer’s showpiece.

Wales fell at the penultimate hurdle, chalking up another near-miss after the anguish of another penalty shootout defeat, two years on from their last against Poland. Bellamy has breathed life into the team, renewing optimism and arming his players with naked belief, but this is unmistakably a blow. The easy thing to do at this juncture is preach about the green shoots but at this point nobody wants to think too hard about the merits of being promoted to the top tier of the Nations League or the home nations Euro 2028.

Netherlands striker opens up on the condition that temporarily derailed her career and left her in so much pain she was in bed for three days

When the sharp, stabbing pain in her abdomen became so severe she had to be substituted at half-time during a match last season, Katja Snoeijs knew what she was experiencing was not “normal period pains”.

The 29-year-old Everton and Netherlands striker has since been diagnosed with endometriosis, which affects roughly one in 10 women of reproductive age. She says she counts herself lucky because she received her diagnosis within 12 months and was shocked to learn the average wait in the UK is nine years.

Countdown to tournament begins in earnest with friendly against Uruguay so it’s time to forget other countries are good at football

Is it too early to start plotting England’s inevitable route to World Cup glory? If nothing else it’ll stop me refreshing the internet to find out if Tim Sherwood is going to manage Spurs for the next three games before Dave from Chas & Dave comes in for the final Hail Mary.

Perhaps you’re focused on Arsenal coming second in everything, Everton finishing above Liverpool or the wild York/Rochdale title race in the National League. Take a weekend off and start dreaming of Gianni and Trump handing Harry Kane the trophy as the world burns.

Lewis Hall, Luke Shaw and Nico O’Reilly are the three leading contenders for a position that remains up for grabs

By WhoScored

A year ago, when England began their World Cup qualifying campaign with a 2-0 win over Albania, the prospect of Nico O’Reilly making the squad seemed very distant. He was yet to earn a cap and had played just 23 minutes of Premier League football. But he is now close to indispensable for Manchester City, having started 23 league games this season and earned two England caps in the process.

The minnows just need to win a playoff against Turkey at home to complete a qualification campaign that has become a rallying cry for national pride

They are a World Cup fairytale, a footballing nation barely a decade old with fewer people than the state of South Australia. A Balkan West Virginia, but with a fraction of the area, and a chequered past.

Minnows Kosovo are one game away from their first appearance at a World Cup, and a place beckons in Group D alongside Australia, Paraguay and co-hosts the United States.

The toughest cuts for the World Cup roster will likely come at the position the US manager considers to be the most important on the field

Throughout his tenure as US men’s national team manager, Mauricio Pochettino has needed to be experimental in the heart of the park. The player pool he inherited had a first-choice midfield trio – Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie and Yunus Musah – with few adequately tested alternatives. There has since been ample rotation, testing partnerships and combinations.

With 11 weeks to go until the World Cup, one thing has become clear: the tournament squad’s harshest cuts will come in midfield.

Head coach has been preparing for playoff against Turkey in hospital and sees job as ‘duty to Romanian football’

Mircea Lucescu is fighting for one last World Cup while at the same time battling his own body. He has lived through thousands of games as a player and manager but these could be the hardest of them all: two playoff games to take Romania to their first World Cup in 28 years.

Lucescu is 80 years old now and has not been well – but he has lost none of his energy, nor love for the game. Since December he has been admitted to hospital on three occasions but here he is, with an espresso in front of him, discussing his long career, the playoff semi‑final against Turkey on Thursday and Ukraine, a place he used to call home. He does not, however, want to disclose the exact nature of his illness for fear that it will become the focus over the next few weeks.

The world of soccer throws up no shortage of questions. Today, Graham Ruthven endeavors to answer three of them.

Twenty-six minutes. That’s all the game time Gio Reyna has played in 2026. He hasn’t played at all for Borussia Mönchengladbach in the last two months. For any other player, this surely would’ve kept them off the US roster for the upcoming friendlies against Belgium and Portugal. US manager Pochettino has consistently repeated the point that club form matters when building these squads. Reyna, however, isn’t any other player.

The Parma Women's second team player Claudia Morelli deliberately missed a penalty that was wrongly awarded, while their match against Hic Sunt Leones was still level at 0-0.

The referee awarded the penalty after the Hic Sunt Leones goalkeeper made a save, mistakenly thinking a defender had handled the ball instead, and therefore Morelli sportingly decided to simply pass her spot-kick tamely towards the keeper.

Parma went on to win the match 9-1 and clinch their respective league title with an unbeaten season

As well as being one of the team’s best performers, midfielder has become a talisman who is aware of the club’s spirit and traditions

The video of Bruno Fernandes kicking in the door is very good, if you haven’t already seen it. In a way, it explains a lot. His Sporting team are drawing 1‑1 at Boavista in 2019 and Fernandes has just been sent off for a fully deserved second yellow. As he stalks down the tunnel he takes furious aim at the two doors, the sheer force of the kick knocking him off his feet.

The doors make a magnificent shotgun sound, but do not yield. “Fuck you!” Fernandes shouts as Boavista security guards try to intervene. “I’ll pay for the fucking doors! Go fuck yourselves!”

Sadness over the Egyptian King’s departure from Liverpool is matched by gratitude for the goals and glory he gave supporters

The first time I saw Mohamed Salah play was in August 2017. Arsenal were the visitors to Anfield. Liverpool were sensational on that sunny Sunday afternoon. Bobby Firmino and Sadio Mané had fashioned a 2-0 first-half lead, before the third member of Jürgen Klopp’s new attacking trio added his name to the scoresheet.

Arsenal’s corner was cleared to Héctor Bellerín, about 30 yards out. Salah was on him instantly, robbing the hapless Spaniard easily. His whirring legs blurred like the Road Runner’s as he raced into the Arsenal half and towards Petr Cech. I’d never seen a player bear down on the Kop goal so rapidly.

The Herons are out of the Champions Cup after defeat to Nashville. Now it’s back to the same old hits for the club

Concacaf may not have the world’s most hallowed Champions League. The confederation is so aware of that fact that it rebranded the competition as a Champions Cup two years ago.

Nonetheless, winning the continental competition is the ultimate aim for MLS’s most ambitious clubs, even though (or perhaps because) only one of its last 25 installments has seen an MLS team crowned as Concacaf’s best. Liga MX continues to dominate the competition, boasting 21 winners since 2001, even as MLS improves. Even Costa Rica’s Liga Promerica has more titles since the turn of the century thanks to back-to-back victories for Alajuelense and Saprissa in the mid-2000s.

The head coach is not responsible for many of the problems at Anfield but he is the most obvious target for those seeking reasons for the team’s decline

It was the coffee bar at the training ground, installed by the Fenway Sports Group’s chief executive, Michael Edwards, after he got the idea from visiting Roma. It was Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits, added to the post-match playlist by Alisson and which could be heard booming out of the Liverpool dressing room after victories. It was the video analysis. It was the data. It was the pre-season fitness tests. It was the close collaboration between the football and sports science departments. It was everything that changed from the Jürgen Klopp era. It was everything that stayed the same from the Jürgen Klopp era.

Victory brings a dazzling clarity. Particularly a victory as resounding as Liverpool’s unexpected 10-point romp to the Premier League title last season. It turns the cogs, powers the houses, confers a sunlit aura of genius on everyone involved. So with a certain uncharitable hindsight, it is instructive to go back to late April 2025 and read about how everyone thought Liverpool had done it. And why everyone – wrongly – thought they were going to do it again.

Our cartoonist steps into the mind of Gianni Infantino as Australia prepare to host the tantalising new global event

Transformative 999-year deal is a massive moment in the history of the club and the violent cultural push-pull of London

I have in my hand several hundred pieces of paper. Dog-eared, scribbled with rewrites, and stained with sweat and ancient Bermondsey vinegar. But a wodge of paper that may just guarantee, finally, what passes for peace around here.

There was a moment at the Den on Saturday afternoon that carried its own strictly localised sense of history. An hour before kick-off in Millwall’s Premier League playoff-push game against Portsmouth, the key personnel gathered in a wedding-style lineup around the centre circle.

Former Norwich defender lived for years in an LA motel, cut ties with his family for more than three decades and is now the subject of a documentary

“I hated it,” Tony Powell says on a spring afternoon in Los Angeles of his past as a secretly gay professional footballer for Bournemouth and Norwich in the 1970s. Powell is 78 and now lives in a very different world compared with when he was a husband, the father of two young daughters and Norwich’s player of the season in 1979.

Powell is not a demonstrative man and, having been forced to bury his true self for decades, does not make a fuss about the pain he endured. But there is an ache in his English accent, which remains intact after 45 years in America. “I just wanted to be who I am, but at that time it was not a good idea to come out.”

Max Rushden and Barry Glendenning went to the SXSW festival in Austin Texas last week. With only a few months to go before the World Cup, the pair are joined live on stage by The Guardian’s senior US soccer editor, Alexander Abnos, and star of the hit TV show Ted Lasso, Brendan Hunt.

Max Rushden and Barry Glendenning went to the SXSW festival in Austin Texas last week. With only a few months to go before the World Cup, the pair are joined live on stage by The Guardian’s senior US soccer editor, Alexander Abnos, and star of the hit TV show Ted Lasso, Brendan Hunt.

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Only two of the Premier League’s last-16 teams made it to the quarter-finals while European giants are coming into form when it matters

Another traumatic week for the self-worth of the Premier League, one in which Europe’s big beasts got into their stride. The defending champions, Paris Saint-Germain, put on a devastating display at Chelsea. Bradley Barcola’s goal, their second, was the highlight of a 3-0 win. Barcelona ran out 7-2 winners over Newcastle, having been level at half-time at 2-2, 3-3 on aggregate. Real Madrid continue to be Pep Guardiola’s great tormentors, with Vinícius Júnior getting both goals at Manchester City. His crybaby celebration was aimed at those City supporters who mocked him after Rodri pipped the Brazilian to the Ballon d’Or in 2024. Bayern Munich continue to look irresistible. Harry Kane scored twice, and Lennart Karl’s strike continued his trajectory as German football’s next big thing in a 4-1 win over Atalanta, a mighty 10-2 on aggregate.

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Pass the paracetamol because Football Daily’s neck is in absolute bits. Two penalty shootouts at the same time will do that to you, eyes bouncing from Wales’s heartbreak in Cardiff to the Republic of Ireland’s agony in Prague. Alas, neither will feature at the Geopolitics World Cup after their playoff semi-final defeats. For Ireland, it’ll be a minimum of 28 years between appearances at the big show. At least they’ll always have Troy Parrott’s glorious week in November. For Wales, it’s … ah, the long wait ended at the Human Rights World Cup in 2022. Never mind.

We spend a day with the surprise package of the Première Ligue to find out how they have taken the top flight by storm

There is one video that is on repeat on the Nantes players’ phones: Lucie Calba’s goal in last weekend’s 3-0 win against Strasbourg, an exceptional passage of play in which eight players touched the ball to move it up the entire pitch in only 18 seconds.

“It’s very satisfying because we’re able to reproduce everything we work on in training in matches,” says Camille Robillard, the team’s No 10 and a product of the club’s academy, clearly fascinated by the goal getting so much attention. A goal “in the Nantes style”, referring to the men’s team of the 1990s, known for their attacking, fluid play and constant movement.

Only existing since 2024, the team, who came fourth at the world championship, has changed its players’ lives

“We are the first, but we will not be the last.” The rallying cry came from Eliane Gonçalves, a 39-year-old midfielder of the Brazilian women’s blind football national team during one of their training camps. The team’s psychologist had suggested the team come up with something to shout before matches. Gonçalves offered that line – and it stuck.

The team had existed for less than a year when they landed in Kochi, India, in October 2025. In their opening game of the world championship, Brazil beat the host nation 1-0 – and Gonçalves scored the goal. She had started playing only two years earlier after gradually losing her sight to a hereditary condition called retinitis pigmentosa. Sport had pulled her through the hardest period. “When I started losing my vision, I was very lost. Everything was completely different,” she says. “Sport took me out of depression. It gave me a better perspective on life, new dreams.”

The Gunners have a nine-point lead in the Premier League. But recent run-ins, and their loss to City on Sunday, will keep them wary

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

Some day, probably quite soon, Arsenal will win something again. Quite probably something much bigger than the Carabao Cup. But until then, there is only going to be anxiety, and it is going to get worse after Sunday’s second-half freeze against Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final, which City won 2-0. Wembley could have seen the start of the Arsenal era, perhaps even the first leg of an unprecedented Quadruple; instead it was City celebrating, and with a gusto that suggested the past couple of years of dearth have served as a useful reminder that these occasions can never be taken for granted.

Claims that victory in this final could be a huge psychological blow in the title race are perhaps a little fanciful. One game is one game. Professional athletes, robust self-belief integral to their existence, recover from defeats. But still, that flatness in the second half, the way Arsenal were pinned back and unable to break forward, has to be a concern. City were able to use the way Arsenal like to control the pace of the game against them, the short passes out from the goalkeeper used as a way of penning them in as they closed down passing lanes, allowing their defenders to have the ball and denying them options. What was that? A tactical triumph for Pep Guardiola? Exhaustion from Arsenal? Or the familiar mental fragility returning?

Max Rushden is joined by Jonathan Wilson, Nedum Onuoha and Will Unwin, featuring very sad voice notes from Barry Glendenning and Elis James, looking back on disappointments for the Republic of Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland

On the podcast today: Wales and the Republic of Ireland took penalties at exactly the same time, both going ahead but missing at crucial moments … and with it having their World Cup dreams dashed.

Northern Ireland looked good against Italy, but there was just no cutting edge. In the end, two bits of real quality from Sandro Tonali and Moise Kean took the Azzurri one win away from their first World Cup in 12 years.

Plus: swift ascents up the pyramid, Steve Palmer’s maverick set of shirts and an infamous 2004 Olympic penalty

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“During a rather animated discussion at the pub recently, the topic of footballers ‘retiring from international football’ came up,” says Edd Crick. “We were reminiscing about the days when footballers simply stopped being picked for international games, so who was the first to come out and declare their retirement this way?”

We assumed this was a fairly modern development, but it goes back at least as far as the 1950s. Let’s look at the leading answers in reverse chronological order, starting with one of the stars of Italia 90. “Roger Milla is arguably responsible for popularising the concept of international retirement (not to mention elaborate goal celebrations) by famously unretiring at the request of the Cameroon president Paul Biya to play in the 1990 World Cup,” writes Tom Reed. “Milla had formally retired from playing for Cameroon at a jubilee event following victory in the 1988 Africa Cup of Nations.”

Max Rushden is joined by Seb Hutchinson, Dan Bardell and John Brewin to review Manchester City’s 2-0 win over Arsenal at Wembley, ending hopes of Arteta’s side winning the quadruple

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Manchester City won the Carabao Cup. Two goals for Nico O’Reilly as Pep Guardiola danced with anyone and everyone. He played a reserve keeper who was good. Mikel Arteta played a reserve keeper who wasn’t, but the rest of the team also didn’t really turn up. What does that mean for the rest of the season? Could Arsenal really come second in everything?

Kobbie Mainoo needs a power boost, Everton revel in home comforts but Brentford must rediscover their buzz

• Premier League top scorers: check the latest standings

One theory behind Manchester City’s subpar 18 months is that the end is sliding into view on Pep Guardiola’s glorious reign, and the fact that he may be considering life after City is transmitting itself to his players. Sunday’s Carabao Cup win goes some way to refuting that. Not only did he see off the challenge of his former apprentice Mikel Arteta, but it was vintage Guardiola on the touchline. He looked gobsmacked when decisions didn’t go his side’s way, produced a Chuck Norris tribute kick to an advertising hoarding when City took the lead then sprinted down the touchline, fists pumping, when Nico O’Reilly scored his second of a fairytale final for the club’s local lad. If Guardiola’s intense level of care has dropped, he’s disguising it well. Anybody writing off him – and City’s league title ambitions – would do well to remember just what level of manager we are dealing with here. Alex Reid

Match report: Arsenal 0-2 Manchester City

Player ratings: Arsenal 0-2 Manchester City

Match report: Tottenham 0-3 Nottingham Forest

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

• Premier League dominates list | How every judge voted | Our methodology | The top 100 female players for 2025

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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

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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