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Scott McTominay has a long way to go to top his wild 2025. But his double at Inter was a very solid start

Scott McTominay said recently that he hopes to carry on playing top-level football for another decade. And, if he does, will he ever have another year better than the last one? In 2025, he won Serie A and helped deliver Scotland to their first World Cup this century – scoring sensational goals in the games that sealed both achievements. He has described himself as “obsessive” when it comes to self-improvement, but some feats are hard to top.

Still, if he was looking to set some intentions for 2026, there are worse places to do it than San Siro. On Sunday night, Napoli’s title defence would be severely tested away to Inter. But every time they strayed into danger, McTominay led them back out.

• Midfielder unhappy in England and keen on Brazil return

• West Ham would like to keep him until end of season

Lucas Paquetá asked to be left out of West Ham’s FA Cup tie against QPR and is keen to join Flamengo this month.

The midfielder has grown disillusioned with life in England and wants to return to Brazil. Flamengo are willing to pay €40m (£34.7m) for Paquetá, who was last year cleared of alleged breaches of the Football Association’s betting regulations, and it is unclear whether the Brazilian will play for West Ham again. The uncertainty over his future increased when he missed the third-round win over QPR despite being fit.

Earring-gate prevents Estelle Cascarino from making her West Ham debut while City continue to lead the pack

The sight of coaches issuing a tactical team talk while their goalkeeper receives medical treatment has become increasingly common in the WSL but it became particularly controversial after the goalless draw between Arsenal and Manchester United, especially when the visiting defender Dominique Janssen appeared to admit in an interview with Sky Sports that they had orchestrated it on purpose. Janssen said: “Phallon [Tullis-Joyce] went down for us to discuss tactical changes,” when asked about how United adapted to going down to 10 players. Marc Skinner later said that Tullis-Joyce had felt something and needed treatment, but Renée Slegers said perceived time-wasting was “frustrating for the players”, adding: “There’s so many people investing so much to come and watch us, in the stadium, on TV. I think the product needs to be attractive and I think this is probably one of the areas that brings the entertainment down a little bit.” Tom Garry

Match report: Arsenal 0-0 Manchester United

Match report: Chelsea 5-0 West Ham

Crystal Palace’s stars wilt, Manchester City’s youngsters shine, and Liam Rosenior starts in stylish fashion

Playing against lower-league opposition as a top-flight side in the FA Cup is like batting on the first morning of a Test match – you cannot really win and failure can prompt humiliation and reputational damage. To that end, some members of the Crystal Palace side deservedly beaten by Macclesfield perhaps learned a valuable lesson at Moss Rose. Marc Guéhi and Adam Wharton are linked regularly with big moves away from Palace, but part of succeeding at elite clubs – the pair are admired by Manchester City and Manchester United respectively – is coping with being overwhelming favourites. Oliver Glasner, too, may have designs on bigger things, with United again a possible destination, but to see his side schooled by part-timers was a blow to his burgeoning reputation. Glasner slammed his players after the defeat but the Austrian must take a portion of the blame. They must all do better. Dominic Booth

Report: Macclesfield 2-1 Crystal Palace

Report: Manchester City 10-1 Exeter

Report: Manchester United 1-2 Brighton

Report: Derby 1-3 Leeds

David Gowans threw the seat on to the pitch at Dundee United after a match, striking Aberdeen’s Jack MacKenzie

A football fan who left his own player with a “severe injury” after throwing part of a seat during a Scottish Premiership football match has been jailed for 18 months.

David Gowans, 31, threw the projectile on to the pitch after a league match between Dundee United and Aberdeen at Tannadice on 17 May. It struck Aberdeen’s Jack MacKenzie, who had gone to the area of the ground in front of the travelling fans to thank them for their support. The defender, now with Plymouth Argyle, suffered a “deep 2in laceration” to his left eyebrow and a “5cm abrasion” below his left eye, and has been left “permanently disfigured”.

• Qatar has no Fifa women’s ranking after lack of games

• January tournament will disrupt domestic seasons

Qatar is in talks with Fifa about staging the inaugural Women’s Club World Cup, which is in line to cause major disruption to domestic seasons in 2027-28, including in Europe.

Fifa announced last month that its latest new club competition would take place from 5 to 30 January 2028, but the governing body has not said where it will be held or whether it will run a formal bidding process.

We can relate to the struggles their club has experienced in recent years so can only wish them well in the FA Cup

By The Football Mine

“And that is the last kick of the match. One of the greatest FA Cup giantkillings has happened here in the sunshine at the Moss Rose. The holders, Crystal Palace, have been knocked out. What a turnaround of fortunes for Crystal Palace: winners at Wembley in May, losers in Macclesfield in January.” John Murray, speaking on BBC radio, provided the epitaph to Palace’s dismal, desperate defeat by a mid-table team from the National League North.

As everyone now knows, the gap of 117 places in the football pyramid is the largest ever to be overcome by a lower-placed club in 155 years of the oldest competition in the football world. The fact that the last kick was propelled into the sky by the Silkmen’s captain Paul Dawson was apposite. Dawson had set the tone from the outset. Within 10 seconds of kick-off he had put in the first of countless robust challenges, which ended up with him and Palace centre-back Jaydee Canvot requiring treatment after an accidental clash of heads.

Today’s rumours need a bit of a stir

Most footballers become famous for playing the game but others attract renown for not liking it – foremost among the latter category is Arsenal’s Ben White. Accordingly, it would make sense were he to join David Moyes’s Everton, who are seeking to resolve a problematic right-back situation. The chance to follow in the footsteps of Tony Hibbert, typically a huge pull factor, is nullified because White presumably has no idea who he is.

Elsewhere on Merseyside, it appears Liverpool have finally discovered the best way to improve a dodgy defence is not to buss hundreds of millions on attackers, but to have decent defenders. Consequently, they are looking at Como’s Jacobo Ramón – and so too are Chelsea, should the romance of being stockpiled with a 68-year contract prove too alluring to turn down.

• Former midfielder ahead of Solskjær after interviews

• Darren Fletcher admits he is in the dark over his position

Michael Carrick has emerged as the favourite candidate to be Manchester United’s interim manager for the rest of the season ahead of Ole Gunnar Solskjær after the interview process, with the club’s executive expected to finalise the decision on Monday.

While Omar Berrada, the chief executive, and Jason Wilcox, the director of football, are understood to have not made a formal offer, they are leaning towards Carrick, sources have informed the Guardian. This follows both Carrick and Solskjær having face-to-face discussions with the hierarchy. Berrada and Wilcox met Carrick on Thursday and Solskjær on Saturday at the club’s Carrington training ground.

Plenty of prospective candidates for Germany’s World Cup squad caught the eye in a 4-1 cruise at the BayArena

If ever there was a weekend to show up on your best form, then this was it. Stuttgart travelled to Bayer Leverkusen for Saturday night’s Topspiel not just facing a team with whom they have had a healthy sporting rivalry with over recent years, but with an audience to perform to. Starting with an XI containing seven current national team players they were – of course – under the gaze of Rudi Völler, who served Leverkusen as player and sporting director over two spells amounting to almost 25 years and, though now the sporting director of the DFB, still lives locally and is a frequent visitor to the BayArena.

So if he enjoyed this early-year shockwave to the Bundesliga’s established order, it would have been in a professional rather than a personal capacity. Games between these two have tended to be among the highlights of recent Bundesliga seasons; intriguing, edge-of-the-seat, push-pull affairs between a team that took the express elevator to the very top under Xabi Alonso and one which never blinked for a second when faced by them, emboldened by an inspiring coach of their own in Sebastian Hoeness. “Even in their top year two years ago when Leverkusen dominated everyone, Stuttgart were the only team that played on equal terms in both games,” noted Völler as a Sunday guest on Sport1’s celebrated Doppelpass,

Celtic’s firing of the Frenchman brings back memories for two US coaches who faced similar struggles

Bob Bradley has never seen Ted Lasso, the TV show set around an American college football coach who finds himself leading a soccer team in England.

“Everybody tells me that I should watch it but I have not,” Bradley said from his home in New Jersey, almost nine years on from his experience. “I lived that a little bit, so I’m not ready to watch it yet.”

All the latest Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and Serie A deals and a club-by-club guide

• Women’s transfer interactive – all the January deals

Every deal in the WSL, NWSL, Liga F, Frauen-Bundesliga, Première Ligue and Serie A Femminile as well as a club-by-club guide

• Men’s transfer interactive – all the January deals

Bournemouth will find it hard to replace a player at the peak of his powers, an attacker polished up perfectly for the elite

Antoine Semenyo’s rise is a reminder the big clubs’ scouting systems are not infallible, that not all players will flower at the same time. Fulham, Arsenal, Crystal Palace, Millwall, Reading and Tottenham rejected the schoolboy Semenyo. At 15, he took a year’s absence from the game.

A decade on, a circuitous route to the top alights at Manchester City, who beat a queue of big hitters to his signature. Bournemouth’s ability to find talent the elite passed over continues to prove profitable. Pep Guardiola’s squad has another player who pairs physical power with a high skill level. It also adds a long-throw specialist to the armoury; City are towards the bottom of the metrics in that voguish category.

• Paris FC, Fenerbahce and Galatasaray keen on forward

• Spurs poised to land Santos left-back Souza in £13m deal

Mathys Tel has informed Tottenham he is open to leaving on loan, having grown frustrated at his lack of game time under Thomas Frank since a £30m move from Bayern Munich.

Paris FC and the Turkish clubs Fenerbahce and Galatasaray are understood to have registered interest in taking the 20-year-old forward on loan until the end of the season. Clubs in Italy and Spain are also believed to have sounded out Spurs, who are thought to be reluctant to let Tel leave after selling Brennan Johnson to Crystal Palace for £35m.

• Supercopa de España: Barcelona 3-2 Real Madrid

• Raphinha 36 73, Lewandowski 45+4; Vinícius 45+2, García 45+7

Football is wild sometimes, and this was one of those times. A night that didn’t always make sense but was a lot of fun ended with every player on the pitch inside the Barcelona penalty area and the ball dropping through the crowd to Raúl Asencio, standing there on the edge of the six yard box. The board had gone up with six minutes on it, those six minutes had passed and now here it was, his moment and another twist: the chance to somehow take the Super Cup final to a penalty shootout.

Instead, with the clock on 96.43 Asencio headed at Joan García. On his line, the goalkeeper grabbed the shot and held on hard; his team had done the same, two goals from Raphinha and another from Robert Lewandowski enough to take the trophy, goals from Vinícius Júnior and Gonzalo García not enough to take it from them. Whether they will be enough to keep Xabi Alonso in his job remains to be seem; Jeddah was supposed to be the final judgment but there may be those that judge Madrid’s reaction here reason for him to remain.

Chelsea secured a statement 5-0 victory against struggling West Ham to breathe life back into their Women’s Super League title defence. Sandy Baltimore scored twice and Lauren James and Alyssa Thompson once each in an impressive demolition of their London rivals.

Rita Guarino endured a nightmare start to her West Ham tenure as her team conceded four first-half goals to put them firmly on the back foot in an already difficult encounter. A combination of defensive errors and careless work in possession ­contributed and left West Ham’s new head coach with problems to solve as the ­Hammers remain locked in a battle with Liverpool at the bottom.

• Scotland midfielder scores two equalisers in 2-2 draw

• Bayern Munich crush Wolfsburg to go 11 points clear

Scott McTominay scored a double as the defending champions Napoli twice came from behind to secure a 2-2 draw with the Serie A leaders Inter at San Siro.

Inter came close to gaining revenge for their 3-1 defeat in Naples earlier this season and a win would have opened up a commanding gap at the top, but Napoli’s never-say-die attitude keeps them very much in the title race.

• 34-year-old led Minnesota United to MLS semi-finals

• Ramsay arrives in wake of Ryan Mason’s sacking

West Brom have named the former Manchester United assistant Eric Ramsay as their new head coach after the 34-year-old guided Minnesota United to the semi-finals of the Major League Soccer playoffs.

Ramsay, 34, took charge of Minnesota in February 2024, his first senior managerial role, after working alongside Erik ten Hag at Old Trafford. He has also worked as an assistant coach for Wales and had spells with Swansea, Shrewsbury and Chelsea, though his playing experience extends only to a short spell with Welshpool Town and international futsal for Wales.

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

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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.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, John Brewin and Sam Dalling as sixth-tier Macclesfield beat the holders Palace.

On the podcast today: what a moment for Macclesfield. The club were out of existence six years ago and have now beaten Crystal Palace, the holders, to book their place in the fourth round.

Elsewhere, Manchester City put 10 past Exeter City, Brighton win at Old Trafford and the Thomas Frank nightmare continues as they lose at home to Aston Villa.

Plus, the rest of the big results from the FA Cup third round and your questions answered

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After Macclesfield defeat, club must invest wisely to bolster a weak squad and convince their manager to stay

Oliver Glasner’s face told the story. The Crystal Palace manager watched in exasperation as the FA Cup holders headed towards ignominy on Macclesfield’s artificial surface and was still in shock when he conducted his post-match interview. “Honestly, I have no explanation for what I have seen today,” said Glasner.

A mere 238 days since the greatest day in Palace’s history, when he and the club stalwart Joel Ward paraded their first major trophy at Wembley, Marc Guéhi’s first thought after the final whistle at the weekend was to face the music from the diehards who had made the trip to Cheshire from south London. Accompanied by the assistant manager, Paddy McCarthy, the Palace captain held intense discussions with several supporters as Macclesfield celebrated their historic victory with a pitch invasion.

Part-time team’s victory over Crystal Palace caps phoenix-like revival after club was wound up and sold on Rightmove

When Macclesfield FC players return to their day jobs on Monday, the part-time squad of PE teachers, podcasters and property developers will add one more title: giant-killers.

The Cheshire market town club pulled off the greatest shock in FA Cup history, knocking out the Premier League team Crystal Palace and becoming the first non-league opposition to beat the cupholders since 1909.

Australia have sent scouts across the US, Canada and Mexico to see which cities have the best facilities, hotels and general vibes to suit the team

Home is where the heart is, or at least where there is a good brew and a comfy bed. And with the 2026 World Cup six months away, key Socceroo figures have spent several weeks deep in a process that often flies under the radar but could be a secret ingredient in their quest to do something special: finding their home away from home for the global footballing showpiece.

Alongside the rest of the qualified nations, Australia submitted their preferred options for a North American base to Fifa earlier this week, with the governing body expected to assign base camps using a criterion of geography and world rankings by the end of January. Drawn to play games on the west coast, this means that Australia has 16 regionalised camps in the official Fifa brochure to consider. But they’ll also sit behind host nations the United States and Canada, as well as higher-ranked Switzerland, Belgium and Iran in the pecking order.

As Netflix and Paramount Skydance clash over WBD, football rights once considered peripheral could become central to the future of UK streaming

Netflix has spent years politely rebuffing Premier League and Uefa entreaties to bid for their TV rights, so it would be ironic if it picked them up by default. That intriguing outcome is a possibility as a result of the $100bn-plus takeover battle for Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) between Netflix and its streaming rival Paramount Skydance which will shape the future not only of Hollywood but global news.

Much-hyped sports rights are a footnote in a deal of such magnitude that it will require signoff from the US government, but the implications for football will be profound, even if Donald Trump is more concerned about who owns (and presents on) CNN than which platform shows Bournemouth v Brighton at Saturday lunchtime next season.

News from Friday’s press conferences, including updates on Fabian Schär, Emiliano Martínez and Sunderland striker Wilson Isidor

Football has to be held to account: we cannot have another generation of qualified black coaches being ignored

Football’s start to 2026 has been seismic, with the festive season soon replaced by sacking season. At times this week it has been hard to keep up. The lifetime of a head coach or a manager seems to be getting shorter, with pressure for positive results apparently never greater.

In among the churn came a landmark moment, with Liam Rosenior taking on the head coach role at Chelsea, making him the first permanent black English manager at a big-six club.

League One club offered behind-the-scenes access for FA Cup tie and manager Gary Caldwell will not let crushing loss at Manchester City define them

“The team to win today, lads” begins Gary Caldwell. Exeter City are two hours from kicking off against Manchester City in the FA Cup third round, and their manager is addressing his players at a hotel shortly before they travel to the Etihad.

“You know why I said that?” he continues, his thick Scottish accent filling the room. No one knows. He explains the phrase is borrowed from Roberto Martínez, under whom Caldwell won the competition with Wigan in 2013. It was used to bring humour and break tension when his team were inevitably written off.

Liverpool forward will face his former teammate Sadio Mané in Afcon semi against Senegal after arguably the Pharaohs’ best performance since 2008

It is a long time since Egypt had a night this good. There have been two World Cup qualifications since their golden age of three successive Cups of Nations came to an end in 2010, and they’ve got to the finals of two Cups of Nations since, but this had a different feel to the knockout phases in 2017 or 2021 (played in 2022). This wasn’t grinding through, doing just enough (across the knockouts in 2017 and 2021, Egypt won one game without needing extra time or penalties; a grim 1-0 against Morocco in the 2017 quarter-final). It was taking on one of the giants of African football and beating them well. A 3-2 victory over Côte d’Ivoire was probably Egypt’s best single performance since they beat the same opposition 4-1 in the semi-finals of Ghana 2008.

That game in Kumasi was always going to cast its shadow over this quarter-final. Saturday’s coaches were on opposite sides when Egypt beat Côte d’Ivoire on penalties in the 2006 final in Cairo – Hossam Hassan as a 39-year-old squad captain and unused sub and Émerse Faé in the centre of midfield – but it was the semi-final two years later this game most resembled. The 4-1 hurt Côte d’Ivoire far more than the final had, the image of a bewildered Kolo Touré running away from Amr Zaki as he scored Egypt’s third a symbol of the Pharaohs’ superiority that night. Within four minutes on Saturday, Odilon Kossounou had got in a similar mess, legs tangled as Omar Marmoush sped by him to put Egypt ahead.

CFG have ditched Mumbai City and losing the glamour will hurt the game in the world’s most populated nation

The world’s biggest multiclub network shrank from 13 to 12 in the last week of 2025 but few blame the City Football Group for walking away from Mumbai City and India after six years. The reason for divesting their shares which gave them 65% ownership was addressed, not that anyone needed enlightening in a statement. “CFG has made this decision after a comprehensive commercial review and in light of the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the future of the Indian Super League (ISL).”

Uncertainty is an underestimation. The 2025-26 ISL season was supposed to kick off in September. However, with a 15-year Masters Right Agreement between the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and its commercial partner ending in December and no new agreement or partner in place, it never started. Most assumed that it would be a short-lived delay but here we are, in 2026, and there is still no football. A meeting took place in Delhi on Tuesday and produced a start date of 14 February, just six weeks short of a year since Mumbai’s last ISL game. How it works, if it works, remains to be seen.

Why is the film of Ireland’s 2002 World Cup falling-out not a documentary but a drama that takes liberties with events?

All history is to some extent narrative. You cannot tell a story without in some way editing it, reducing it, compressing it. Which means that anybody telling a story about a historical event, particularly one from the relatively recent past, risks outraging those who have studied it or who remember it. Often those complaints are pedantic, trivial, but sometimes they are not. It’s one thing to elide two minor characters or to tweak the timeline to simplify a story, quite another to imply misleading motivations.

Saipan, Glenn Leyburn’s and Lisa Barros D’Sa’s film about the cataclysmic row between Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy shortly before the 2002 World Cup, came out in Ireland on Boxing Day and will be released in the UK on 23 January. It is obsessed by detail: the tracksuits, the sweatshirts, the kits are all right. It’s startling when the film cuts between reproductions of interviews and press conferences and actual footage to realise just how accurately these scenes have been recreated. Which raises two questions. What is the point? And how can such care have been taken over the look of the film when there are such grotesque inventions and inaccuracies in the plotting and motivation?

The club are in a decent position but there is dissatisfaction with the ownership and the new head coach must not get caught in the crossfire

The way Chelsea are run will come as no surprise to Liam Rosenior. He has longstanding relationships with three of the five sporting directors and will know from his time at Strasbourg, who are part of the same ownership, that the head coach’s best chance of surviving is not to make the mistake of rebelling against the structure.

Rosenior will have to show more political savvy than Enzo Maresca, who talked himself out of the job last week. Yet given the 41‑year‑old is familiar with the working conditions at BlueCo, the investment vehicle that owns Chelsea and Strasbourg, his biggest challenge is unlikely to be managing upwards. Rosenior will know where to train his focus and not to rock the boat. Crucially, he does not inherit a team in crisis. Chelsea are fifth and earned a creditable draw at Manchester City on Sunday; despite the rancour of Maresca’s final days, this is not a situation that calls for a major rebuild.

Even the return of Martin O’Neill is unlikely to placate supporters frustrated by poor performances, a lack of investment, and chaos in the boardroom

Any club confirming the end of an error after eight games owes an apology to their supporters. In Celtic’s case, even the admission of an all-time blunder in hiring Wilfried Nancy would be unlikely to placate the masses. Remorse has not been forthcoming anyway. As Martin O’Neill’s return as manager was confirmed, office bearers took it in turn to express disappointment at the Nancy affair. Which was very good of them.

Celtic do not have a monopoly on bad decision-making. It just currently feels as if that is the case. A club who have dominated in Scotland for more than a decade, who have vast resources and more scope to plan than others of much lower stature, should never have been seeking a fourth manager in one season. That they are points firmly towards a lack of strategy and direction. It is a preposterous situation. Celtic are lucky that O’Neill, 73, retains an appetite to work. He also ticks another box, that of being idolised in the stands.

Price tag for winger’s move to Manchester City would make headlines in any other country but not in England

Antoine Semenyo, it seems likely, will soon join Manchester City from Bournemouth for a fee of £65m. Given how well Rayan Cherki and Phil Foden have played from the right this season, it is not immediately obvious why City need him, but the modern game is the modern game, the rammed calendar makes large and flexible squads essential and Pep Guardiola may have some esoteric plan for the Ghanaian anyway. But perhaps what is most striking about the deal is the fee – or, more precisely, how little attention it has drawn.

English football has become inured to big transfers. The fee feels about right. Semenyo is 25. He has four and a half years left on his contract. He is quick, skilful, intelligent and works hard. He is disciplined, but has the capacity to do the unexpected. Of course a player of his ability costs that much. Yet £65m would make him the third-most expensive player in Bundesliga history. He would be the seventh-most expensive in Serie A history, the 14th-most expensive in La Liga history. Only nine non-English clubs have paid a fee higher than that. Even in Premier League terms, Semenyo sneaks into the top 25.

Our cartoonist on a typically sedate start to 2026 at two of the Premier League’s biggest football ‘projects’

• But this cartoon | David’s favourite work of 2025

• And his latest book, Chaos in the Box: get it now

The man widely expected to be the next Chelsea head coach once opined on a wide variety of topics in his Guardian column

Coaching may be Liam Rosenior’s forte but, during his days as a Brighton defender, the man widely expected to be Chelsea’s new manager was also a pretty useful Guardian columnist. His eagerly awaited dispatches were invariably packed with thought‑provoking opinions on an assortment of topics, ranging from dead balls to Donald Trump. Below are excerpts from a cross-section of Rosenior’s thoughts during his three years with us, alongside a sense of what they tell us about the 41‑year‑old and how he could carry out his duties at Stamford Bridge. It is important to remember, of course, that Rosenior’s views may have changed in the intervening period.

Sean Ruiz and his team reveal the kit preparations and dressing room routines that make the players tick

Sean Ruiz always leaves his training-ground office door wide open. He is no fan of enclosed spaces, but there is much more to it. The passing Wolves defender Yerson Mosquera spots Ruiz and pops in for a brief chat with a fellow Colombian. Minutes later an under-21s player seeks Ruiz’s counsel on a non-footballing matter.

“It’s a blessing to have these relationships,” Ruiz says. “To see them not just for what everybody else sees: a centre-back, a striker for Wolves. These guys are like family to me. I’m lucky to get to see this side of them, to be there when things are good, when things are bad. We’re not just players and staff here. It’s something more.”

Football provided direction, belonging, purpose and validation. Letting go of that has meant confronting the void left behind

Accepting retirement from professional football has felt like stepping into a landscape shaped by loss and uncertainty. Even when the decision is rational, even when the body is signalling that it’s time, there is something profoundly emotional about acknowledging that an era of your life has ended.

To me, it felt very much like grief. The shock, sadness, anger, confusion and numbness mirror the emotional responses that accompany any major loss I’ve experienced. But instead of mourning the loss of a loved one, you are mourning the loss of a part of you – a big part. For years football provided direction, belonging, inspiration, purpose and validation. A sense of being part of something bigger.

England defender publicly confronted racist abuse at the Euros and ended 2025 a title winner with club and country

The Guardian Footballer of the Year is an award given to a player who has done something remarkable, whether by overcoming adversity, helping others or setting a sporting example by acting with exceptional honesty.

Jess Carter has spent her life grappling with when to hold back and when to speak up; wrestling with being naturally herself, embodying the characteristics her parents instilled in her of being open, honest, vocal and confident, and subduing herself because, while society values those traits, in a black woman they can be viewed negatively.

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Some British managers who have chanced their arm on the continent have won trophies and the adoration of supporters. Others have at least provided the Daily with plenty of content. For every Bobby Robson, there’s a Tony Adams, or to meet somewhere in the middle, Steve McClaren – who can deliver you a league title while still making an arsche of himself in TV interviews. What fate awaits Gary O’Neil, quietly ushered into the vacant hot seat at Ligue 1 Strasbourg after Todd Boehly called up Liam Rosenior for the real job? Like Rosenior, he starts his tenure with a tricky away day in the cup; hours before Chelsea play Charlton, O’Neil will take the reins for a Coupe de France tie at fourth-tier Avranches.

Back on a cold December day in 2001, I sat at Hillsborough and watched in despair as Sheffield Wednesday got absolutely shellacked by Norwich City, losing 5-0 at home. A couple of days after the game I sat down and wrote a letter (ask your parents, kids!) to our manager, Terry Yorath. I wasn’t rude, just desperate: I said I thought he ought to know that I’d been watching Wednesday for 17 years and that was the worst I’d ever seen us play. And you know what: he wrote me an actual letter back. He said he was sorry, that the club valued my support, and that he was trying hard to change things. He didn’t really change things (though we escaped relegation to League One by a point), but he did care enough to write to me, and I’ve never forgotten that. A gentleman” – Adam Gutteridge.

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There’s been much talk in recent years about moving Premier League games to various parts of the world that do not boast Premier League teams – Sheffield, Miami and so on – with the stated aim of spreading the gospel, had the gospel been stolen from Jesus and the Four Evangelists, to be bastardised and defiled, to be converted into folding green and then into geopolitical power and influence. By way of total non-sequitur, this year’s Geopolitics World Cup will be held in Donald Trump’s America. There was, of course, much anger at this ludicrous plan for many righteous reasons, then we all got back to enjoying the football as the ignoramiti knew we would, the game too chaotically, joyously puerile and affirming for its own and our own good. How can we possibly excise it from our souls when it bestows upon us the unbridled wildness of Wednesday’s behaviour, as it also did during the last round of midweek fixtures? The campaign for a fully night-time Premier League begins here.

‘She has everything to be a world-class striker – fast, two great feet, good with the head and strong,’ says the coach who set the forward’s career rolling

Since they were promoted to the Women’s Super League in 2019, no Manchester United player has managed to score more than 10 league goals in a single season. In Lea Schüller they have signed someone who has surpassed that mark seven seasons in a row in Germany’s Frauen Bundesliga, so it is easy to understand why United are so enamoured with their new striker.

With a formidable 54 goals in 82 internationals, the Germany forward arrives at Carrington with a prolific record and the match-winner profile the club have been craving. At 28 years old she could spend the best years of her career at United, where she has signed a contract until June 2029.

Once they seemed an unstoppable force but a huge gap between the Nordic leagues and Europe’s elite has emerged in the past 20 years

For a brief period in the early 2000s, Scandinavian clubs seemed unstoppable in European women’s football. Umeå lifted the Uefa Women’s Cup in 2003 and again in 2004, using a blend of technical skill and tactical intelligence. The Swedish side were a powerhouse and attracted top talent from around the world, including Marta, widely regarded as the greatest ever female player.

That dominance feels very distant. In 2025, a Norwegian, Swedish or Danish club winning the Women’s Champions League is almost unthinkable. Vålerenga were the only Scandinavian team to reach the Champions League league stage this season and they did not qualify for the knockout phase.

Today’s rumours are riding the District line

Antoine Semenyo’s farewell goal for Bournemouth, before his move to Manchester City, sets off a chain reaction over who succeeds him. Ethan Nwaneri, who has struggled for game time at Arsenal, is wanted by a few suitors.

Bournemouth are very interested in a loan move for someone who was the next big thing not too long ago. And still can be, though the word is he still wishes to stay a Gunner and play his part in a title-winning team.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Lars Sivertsen and Jonathan Liew as Manchester City draw their third game in a row and Manchester United slip up at Burnley too

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On the podcast today: a seven-goal thriller at St James’ Park. Heading into injury time, Leeds led 3-2 and the opening question on today’s podcast looked like it would have been about Eddie Howe’s future.

Plus: goals (not) on film and was Liverpool’s substitution chain at Spurs the longest in football?

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“After St Mirren beat Celtic in the Scottish League Cup, I wondered where it actually is,” writes Dan J. “The answer is (as everyone bar me knew) Paisley, right next to Glasgow airport. Which got me wondering, which team is closest to an airport? I reckon Glentoran, next to Belfast City, and Eastleigh, virtually in Southampton airport, are in with a shout. And Charlton if you are happy to swim part of the way. Any closer ones?”

We had so many answers to this question, so thank you to one and all. Let’s start with a ground that is but a thunderclap away from the nearest airport. “The Icelandic football club Valur is near Rekjavík airport, which is mostly a domestic airport, but also has some international flights,” writes Kári Tulinius. “The distance from the fence around the airport to Valur’s fence is about 150 metres. From training pitch to the nearest piece of airport tarmac is 230m, and from corner flag to the end of the runway is 380m. All of these distances were measured with Google Maps.”

Highs and lows for Alexander Isak, Wolves’ sobering survival chances and were Chelsea lucky at Newcastle?

• Premier League scoring charts

Can results be misleading? That is the question. Aston Villa’s winning streak continued against Manchester United, but so did the nagging doubts. They were the lesser team by several measures – fewer shots (12-15), less possession (43-57), fewer big chances (2-3). As usual, the victory was a slender one. But games are not won by stats. They are won by solid teamwork, shrewd management and individual talent – and Villa have all three. Morgan Rogers may be their only star, but he’s delivering like Father Christmas. Unai Emery is wily, battle-hardened, five years ahead of Ruben Amorim. If Rogers profited from Leny Yoro’s naivety, that was probably because Emery had spotted that Yoro is not a right-back, and told Rogers to start wide, cut in and torment him. Talent and management, working together. Tim de Lisle

Match report: Aston Villa 2-1 Manchester United

Match report: Everton 0-1 Arsenal

Match report: Manchester City 3-0 West Ham

Match report: Tottenham 1-2 Liverpool

Match report: Newcastle 2-2 Chelsea

Match report: Wolves 0-2 Brentford

Match report: Leeds 4-1 Crystal Palace

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