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Full-back opens up on the difficulty of following the war back home from overseas and positive lessons at Arsenal and Manchester City

“To become a professional football player from the place where I was born and raised was almost impossible. It was super, super tough,” Oleksandr Zinchenko says as his eyes widen and we consider how far he has come from his small home town of Radomyshl in northern Ukraine. “We didn’t have many facilities and we trained only twice a week, for one game, and this is not the way to become a professional. It was a pure joy to play and train with my local team but I was always wanting more. My mother said she saw the fire in my eyes to make it.”

We sit in a light and airy room on a beautiful autumn afternoon in Hampstead. In Ukraine, as a devastating war grinds on, winter will be another brutal test. Zinchenko picks up his phone. “This morning my aunt sent me a video,” he says. “She has been working in a nursery for more than 30 years. The video shows where she was hiding in the shelter from 7.30 until 10.30 because there was a siren. Working with kids, she cannot take any risk.”

Oliver Glasner absolved Dean Henderson of blame after the Crystal Palace goalkeeper’s second-half blunder handed Nottingham Forest a hard-fought victory. Henderson allowed Chris Wood’s first-time strike to slip through his despairing dive to extend Palace’s miserable start to the season.

The game was in the balance when Wood tried his luck from 20 yards following Trevoh Chalobah’s weak headed clearance from Àlex Moreno’s hopeful ball. But Henderson was slow to get down and then allowed Wood’s shot to squirm under his right arm, just six days after he returned to England’s starting lineup for their Nations League win in Finland.

It’s not the moments or the music, the joy in how he plays. It’s something simpler with ‘the eternal solution’

Ferenc Puskas played pregnant, teammate Amancio Amaro liked to say. The day he arrived at Real Madrid in 1958, he was 31 years old, 18kg overweight and, banned by Fifa for defecting after the Hungarian uprising, hadn’t played football for two years. He couldn’t possibly go on a pitch like this: signing me is all well and good, he told the club’s president Santiago Bernabéu, but have you seen me? “I was the size of a large balloon,” he recalled and the coach, Luis Carniglia, didn’t know what to do with him either. That, Bernabéu replied, was their problem not his. As it turned out, blessed with a left foot like no other, 242 goals followed, the only problem that he hadn’t come sooner.

Most called him Cañoncito pum! (Little Cannon Bang!), although Alfredo Di Stéfano called him little cannon big belly. That summer Puskas trained wrapped in plastic and woolly jumpers. By the season’s end, he had scored the goal that took Real Madrid to the European Cup final; a year on, he scored four in the final but gave Erwin Stein the match ball. Old when he came, supposedly finished, he helped Madrid reach three more. He scored a hat-trick in 1962 and played in 1964 but when the 1966 final arrived, eight years after he had, it was over. Left behind while they travelled to Brussels, he was in a makeshift cup team facing Betis three days before and 1,000 miles south.

As fans lose control of the sport and clubs they love to mega-rich owners, they turn instead on a familiar enemy: officials

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Another weekend, another slew of wearying arguments about VAR and refereeing. At Bournemouth, Arsenal fans called the referee Robert Jones “a cheat” and chanted that the Premier League was “corrupt”. On social media, the outrage was even greater. Fans have always complained about referees, of course, but traditionally they called them “blind” and dismissed them as “wankers” or “bastards”. Then came the “You’re not fit to referee” song; the cries of systemic corruption, though, are relatively new.

Perhaps this is just the world we live in, one of distortions and paranoia, shaped by a diverse range of populist cynics from José Mourinho to Donald Trump, social media nurturing conspiracy theories which sprout from the fertile ground left as Covid retreated. Or perhaps there is something more complex going on.

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

• State’s de facto leader allegedly approved 2021 takeover
• Premier League believes its rules have not been broken

The Premier League sees no reason to review the legality of Newcastle United’s takeover by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund after reports of crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s extensive involvement in the deal.

Leaked WhatsApp ­messages from the former Newcastle minority co-owner Amanda Staveley obtained by the Telegraph suggest the buyout hinged on the approval of Bin ­Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader. Although the £305m ­takeover led by Saudi’s Public Investment Fund in 2021 was approved only once the Premier League received “legally binding assurances” that the Saudi state would not control Newcastle, it is understood the governing body will not be re-examining its legitimacy.

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With a minimum of 25 matches still to be played before the 2024 winners of the biggest prize in American men’s soccerball are identified, Sunday’s announcement that Inter Miami will be handed the “host nation” spot that is up for grabs at next summer’s all-singing, all-dancing and newly bloated Fifa Club World Cup came as something of a surprise. At least it did until it became apparent that it was a decision made by the tournament organisers. We implore you to fasten your seatbelts, reader, because Gianni Infantino is at it again. While the shiny-domed Fifa chief is invariably up to something when it comes to commercial opportunism and the cause of personal advancement, his declaration that Miami had “qualified” for the tournament via a process for which there were no obvious criteria beyond having Lionel Messi in their squad seemed a little cheeky, even by his snakebelly-low standards.

Quoted before Saturday’s game against Brentford, Erik ten Hag said of Manchester United fans: ‘We are on the same page and in the same boat.’ Presumably that’s the Titanic and, in the meantime, Erik can rearrange the deck chairs so at least some of those fans can avoid the water cascading down from the Old Trafford roof” – Adrian Irving.

Aston Villa having their best start to a season after eight games in 26 years, or ‘not since the 20th century’ as Big Website puts it, sounds an awful lot better than Aston Villa having made their best start to a season since John Gregory was in charge (and said he would have shot Dwight Yorke if he’d had a gun), Julian Joachim was top scorer, Villa won nothing and even finished outside the European places. It depends on the way you look at it and all that” – Noble Francis.

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• Unai Emery wants side to continue to ‘break barriers’
• Villa host Bologna in Champions League on Tuesday

Matty Cash has said Aston Villa “has not got a ceiling” under Unai Emery before the two-year anniversary of the manager’s appointment, as the Spaniard outlined his wish to continue to “break barriers” by becoming Champions League regulars.

Emery will celebrate the milestone on Thursday, in which time he has transformed Villa’s fortunes. The club were above the Premier League relegation zone on goal difference before his first game in charge – an impressive 3-1 victory against Manchester United in November 2022.

• Club 15th in table after 4-1 thrashing at Tottenham
• West Ham keen to give Lopetegui more time in job

Julen Lopetegui is not in imminent danger of the sack despite growing alarm at West Ham about their poor start to the season.

West Ham, who are languishing in 15th after losing 4-1 against Tottenham on Saturday, are not planning to make a managerial change yet and are keen to give Lopetegui time after appointing him as David Moyes’s successor last summer.

The Bavarians’ big win against Stuttgart shows just how much things have changed since Thomas Tuchel’s tenure

Build it and they will come. That had been the message coming out of Bayern Munich’s corridors of power over the international break, from Vincent Kompany, Max Eberl and the higher-ups. If there had been a fortnight’s worth of heel-kicking it was just that; not stewing, not sulking, but a belief that Bayern were ready to unload on an opponent, with the excellence and exhilaration of their play so far this season bound to reach critical mass.

Even for a club constantly walled in by hyperbole and overreaction, the description of the team’s pre-international break run of three games without a win as Kompany’s first “mini-crisis” had felt faintly ludicrous. For starters, they were still unbeaten in the Bundesliga and top of the table. The mood suggested a determination to correct course, rather than recrimination and fury. “For me it isn’t a matter of belief,” Kompany told Bild after Saturday’s 4-0 win over Stuttgart. “It is about what the analysis showed. That we were dominant, that we had many, many, many more chances than the opponents.” Their winless run was hardly against nobodies either, but against champions Leverkusen, then Aston Villa on a Champions League night for the ages and lastly in-form Eintracht Frankfurt.

• Level Playing Field survey paints a damning picture
• Uefa asked to display more of ‘a commitment to inclusion’

Uefa’s communication with disabled supporters has been widely described as “non-existent” in a survey that paints a damning picture of accessibility for fans watching their clubs on European away trips.

The report by Level Playing Field, a body representing disabled sports fans, outlined the barriers that exist when travelling to see games in Uefa club competitions and questioned the governing body’s commitment to providing accessible matchdays.

Rytting Kaneryd keeps Chelsea on top, Parris punishes United while Arsenal move on with life after Eidevall

The issues that plagued Arsenal under Jonas Eidevall will not go away overnight, but two wins from two under interim manager Renée Slegers will do a lot for the confidence of the team. “It is what we wanted, we knew we had these two games ahead of us and we wanted to win them both and we have to be happy with it,” said Slegers. A 2-0 win at West Ham, a team that beat them in the corresponding fixture last season, will feel cathartic for Arsenal. It took until the 71st minute for them to break the deadlock and the goal came via a penalty. That opened the game up enough for the visiting team to grab a late second. The difficulties Arsenal have had breaking down low blocks remains, though. There are positives – the introduction of four substitutes around the hour mark made the difference, a sign that Slegers will not sit and wait for something to happen when things are not working. SW

Match report: West Ham 0-2 Arsenal

Pierre Sage’s men have won five matches in a row with Rayan Cherki and Malick Fofana to the fore

By Eric Devin for Get French Football News

Whisper it, but are Lyon back? If not to the scintillating level of their record run of titles, then are they at least a reasonable facsimile of the team that took Ligue 1 by storm in the second half of last season, going from relegation candidates to a sixth-placed finish?

In the early going, their summer transfer window looked to be full of missteps, with Saïd Benrahma, Georges Mikautadze and Moussa Niakhaté struggling for form, the trio having cost the thick end of €70m.

Brighton and Brentford lead the way as the age of the managerial big beast has been superseded by the dawn of data

It feels as if the days of sacking a manager for a run of defeats then scrolling through the Filofax to find numbers for Big Sam, Big Mick, Massive Moyesy or Huge Harry are coming to an end. There will always be a time and place for managerial heritage but clubs are increasingly mining statistics to help find the best fit for their strategy, players and even brand.

In the Premier League there are no job adverts and applications will not be accepted. Instead the search will start long before the paperwork for the latest P45 begins.

Letter to governing body accuses Saudis of using sports to ‘distract from the regime’s brutal human rights reputation’

More than 100 professional female footballers have signed a letter calling on Fifa to end its sponsorship deal with the state-owned Saudi ­Arabian oil company Aramco, accusing Saudi authorities of “brutal human rights violations”.

In a four-year deal signed in April Aramco, which is 98.5% state-owned, will sponsor major tournaments including the men’s World Cup in 2026 and the Women’s World Cup in 2027. Campaigners have accused Saudi Arabia of “sports­washing” – using its investment in sport to cover up its poor human rights record.

• Club captain’s current contract expires in the summer
• ‘I don’t know what happens in the future. We will see’

Virgil van Dijk has revealed he is in “ongoing” discussions regarding a new contract with Liverpool but admitted he remains unclear about his future at the club.

Alongside Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mohamed Salah, Van Dijk is one of three senior players whose current deal with Liverpool expires in the summer. That has led to a great deal of concern and frustration among supporters, especially given the lack of information regarding attempts being made to keep any or all of them in situ. It will provide fans with some relief, then, that the club captain has backed up his stated desire to extend his stay at Anfield with a positive update in that regard, albeit with a caveat that there remains some uncertainty.

• Stones’ injury-time winner awarded after on-field review
• ‘Is there something that influences decision-making?’

The Wolves manager, Gary O’Neil, questioned whether referees have a subconscious bias in favour of the “big guy” after Manchester City clinched a stoppage-time victory in controversial circumstances.

John Stones scored a ­95th-minute header from Phil Foden’s corner to extend City’s unbeaten run to a club-record 31 matches but ­Bernardo Silva made contact with the Wolves goalkeeper, José Sá, as the ball was en route into the box. Wolves are aggrieved because it was near ­identical to when they had an ­equaliser ruled out against West Ham last season.

A battling defeat of West Ham ensured Arsenal secured back‑to‑back wins in the Champions League and Women’s Super League after the resigna­tion of Jonas Eidevall. It took 71 ­minutes before Arsenal made the breakthrough, Mariona ­Caldentey scoring from the spot before Rosa Kafaji’s smart first-time finish killed off the home team.

It was unlikely that we would see a dramatic change in Arsenal’s fortunes after the exit of Eidevall. After three to four years at the club, the side and the way they play are products of his managerial style and coaching philosophies.

• Striker scores twice in 5-1 win for La Liga leaders
• Napoli squeeze past Empoli 1-0 thanks to penalty

Robert Lewandowski and Pablo Torre each scored twice to help leaders Barcelona thrash visitors Sevilla 5-1 in La Liga on Sunday.

Barça were dominant throughout the encounter at the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium and effectively killed off the game with three goals in 15 first-half minutes starting with a Lewandowski penalty after Raphinha was fouled in the 24th minute. Pedri fired a bullet strike from the edge of the box into the top corner to double their lead and Lewandowski slotted a first-time effort from close range to net the third for the Catalan side.

Philippe Clement refused to reach for excuses after Rangers’ dismal 1-0 defeat at Kilmarnock angered the club’s supporters and left them further behind in the Scottish Premiership title race.

The top two, Celtic and Aberdeen, drew 2-2 on Saturday to offer Rangers encouragement in the title race, but Clement’s team failed miserably in their attempt to take advantage. Marley Watkins’s late strike gave Kilmarnock a shock home win on their artificial pitch and pushed Rangers six points behind both their title rivals.

Aston Villa are grateful for their No 1, West Ham have problems and Eddie Howe is under the pump

Curtis Jones’s all-action display against Chelsea was all the more impressive, given that the Liverpool midfielder and his partner have a newborn daughter at home – and he slept in the spare room before Sunday’s game. Called in to cover for Alexis Mac Allister, who picked up a knock on Argentina duty, Jones brought energy to Arne Slot’s midfield in an outstanding box-to-box display. He kept Cole Palmer quiet, might have won two penalties with runs into the box (the second was overturned by VAR) – and was in the right place again to poke home a second-half winner. Jones’s form will be a big boost for Slot with a brutal run of fixtures set to test the depth of his squad. The 23-year-old is surely overdue an England senior debut, having been part of the recent Nations League squad. Jones is the kind of dynamic midfielder Thomas Tuchel may be looking for, and more game time for Liverpool could convince the interim manager, Lee Carsley, to bed in a player he called “one of the most talented I’ve worked with”. Niall McVeigh

Match report: Liverpool 2-1 Chelsea

Match report: Wolves 1-2 Manchester City

Match report: Liverpool 2-1 Chelsea

Match report: Bournemouth 2-0 Arsenal

Match report: Fulham 1-3 Aston Villa

Match report: Manchester United 2-1 Brentford

Team may claim moral victory after latest near miss but they have forgotten how to manage games under pressure

Perhaps we should have known Wolves were in trouble the moment they got the dreaded Pep Guardiola vote of confidence. “I think they have less points than they deserve,” the Manchester City manager observed on Friday. Guardiola does this a lot to teams he’s about to demolish. Coaches, too. It’s his way of saying: trust me, this 5-0 humbling is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts you.

In the event, the pain was divided on familiar lines. For Wolves, moral victories everywhere you looked. A fine battling performance; a great Molineux atmosphere; a reassuring sense of injustice. Meanwhile, actual Premier League points: zero. Current Premier League position: last. Still, Guardiola magnanimously name-checked every member of the Wolves starting XI in his press conference, so that’s something.

Mohamed Salah and Curtis Jones rose above the frenetic atmosphere during an entertaining afternoon at Anfield

Everything had been relatively serene for Chelsea at Anfield until the 25th minute when Levi Colwill flapped in a gale. Mohamed Salah thought he had been fouled on the edge of the area but John Brooks made the wrong decision, leaving Liverpool irritated and began a new case study in chaos theory.

Enzo Maresca’s side had dominated possession with Jadon Sancho and Noni Madueke causing the hosts plenty of problems but football can change in a moment. Colwill morphing into a morpho caused him to trip Curtis Jones for a penalty seconds after getting away with another indiscretion, which was still infiltrating his thoughts when he caught the Liverpool midfielder. The tone had been set in the space of a few minutes.

Fans may feel aggrieved over perceived injustices, but reality is that title hopefuls make too many shoddy errors

This was not, for all that Arsenal fans will whine about conspiracies, about the refereeing decisions. It was not about the red card to William Saliba in the first half or about the penalty awarded in the second, profound though the impact of those decisions was. Rather it was about the extraordinary self-destructiveness that led to those decisions, the poor passes, the lack of discipline, the woolly-mindedness that so often afflicts Arsenal at key moments.

Perhaps the standards expected are unrealistic. This, after all, is a team that accrued 89 points last season – in historical terms, a huge number. In the old days, teams were allowed their slips. But that is not the modern world. When 90 points is effectively the minimum required to win the title, points cannot be given away like this if a team is to be regarded as a serious contender.

The current existential threat to some of the biggest clubs in the country shows who holds the cards in French football

This is how a senior Ligue 1 club executive put it: “Without PSG, we can’t survive. But we can’t live with them either.” Few of his colleagues at other French clubs would disagree. For “PSG” read “Qatar”.

On one hand, Paris Saint-Germain have been transformed by the hundreds of millions spent on acquiring star players after Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) rescued the club from bankruptcy in 2011, and have dominated French football to such a degree that of the 33 major trophies on offer since the 2012-13 season, only 10 have escaped the Parisian juggernaut.

Junior-level success cannot mask the fact that the Premier League stifles the development of home-grown coaches

The good news for the battered pride of English coaching is that, even leaving Lee Carsley and his complicated status aside, England still provides the manager for 11 national teams. Although France and Italy also supply 11, only Spain, with 14, offer more. The less positive news is that, according to the Fifa world rankings, the best of those sides are Jamaica (61st), New Zealand (95th) and Puerto Rico (154th).

It’s not to demean the work of Steve McClaren, Darren Bazeley or Charlie Trout to suggest that that does not sound like the record of a major football nation. It’s true that Spain’s tally includes the coaches of Brunei and Belize, but Spaniards also manage Portugal and, crucially, Spain. France’s list includes South Sudan and New Caledonia, but also Georgia and France. Italians manage Nepal and San Marino, but also Turkey and Italy. You don’t have to be a raging xenophobe to regard the FA’s decision to appoint Thomas Tuchel as manager of England as an admission of failure.

A number of free, week-long football camps are taking place in Scotland throughout the 2024-25 season, with children from all socio-economic backgrounds invited during the school holidays. A free lunch is also provided as the initiative aims to help tackle the rising issue of holiday hunger and ease the pressure on parents while their children are not in school. The programme is projected to reach more than 850 participants at 33 regional locations during the October half-term period. Motherwell captain Paul McGinn, who took part in a coaching session with Motherwell Community Trust, said: 'This week might be a catalyst for these kids to go on to play football for the rest of their lives or pick it up as a hobby, which will make a massive difference to their physical and mental health'

Mario Engels scored an incredible goal from beyond the halfway line for Heracles, making it 2-1 in their home game to Ajax in the Dutch Eredivisie. Goals from a trio of former Premier League stars – Davy Klaassen, Bertrand Traoré and Wout Weghorst – would seal a dramatic comeback win for Ajax

After Thomas Tuchel's appointment as England men's manager, Pep Guardiola said the German's nationality is irrelevant. "I don't like to criticise for just the fact you were born in a place," said the Manchester City manager. "He is recognised for his talent and I wish him the very best," Guardiola added of Tuchel. "I would like to support him unconditionally."

Arsenal's Mikel Arteta says he understands "it can feel sad for some people not to have an English manager" after Thomas Tuchel's appointment by the Football Association. "But I think I would take a lot of pride that a lot of people, a lot of managers, would do anything to become the England manager," Arteta added. "As a foreigner that's related to how we are treated in this country. How much we love the passion, the respect, the history and how things are done in this country."

• Mikel Arteta suggests he would be open to managing England in the future

The Guardian's chief sports writer, Barney Ronay, explains why it does – and doesn't – matter that England's new head coach, Thomas Tuchel, is not English. On one hand, international football should be a demonstration of a country's use of systems and resources, including coaching. On the other, the appointment of a highly competent foreign manager like Tuchel is in fact very in keeping with the English system – just look at the Premier League, where the best talent is brought in to deliver the best spectacle. Tuchel has managed at Chelsea, PSG and Bayern Munich but has often fallen out with his superiors – his England reign is guaranteed to be entertaining.

• ‘A huge privilege’: Thomas Tuchel confirmed as new England manager

Thomas Tuchel said he was 'very excited and honoured' to have the opportunity to manage England after being announced as Gareth Southgate's successor as head coach. The former Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich manager becomes the third non-Englishman to hold the post after Sven-Göran Eriksson and Fabio Capello.

The 51 year-old German, who will be assisted by English coach Anthony Barry, said 'I understood very quickly that is it is a big job, I think always the job you are in is the biggest job and it makes no sense to compare, but it feels big and feels like a privilege.' Tuchel added that he will be 'a national coach every day' and that he 'loves to live and work' in England following his experience at Chelsea.

• ‘A huge privilege’: Thomas Tuchel confirmed as new England manager

A 1-0 defeat by Kyrgyzstan rocked North Korea while South Korea are on course for their 11th successive qualification

In June 2009, South Korea had qualified for the World Cup by the time Iran came to Seoul (and produced that protest) but Park Ji-sung’s late strike secured a 1-1 draw. It was a goal more celebrated by the North Korea players watching in their hotel in Riyadh before their game with Saudi Arabia.

“Park Ji-sung gave us the best-ever assist,” the DPRK striker Jong Tae-se told me in an interview with the Guardian a few months later. “He gave us a great chance. It was so exciting. We knew that we only needed a draw and I had faith that we could do the job in Saudi Arabia.” It ended 0-0 and North Korea made it to South Africa and as well as the delight in Pyongyang, there was happiness in Seoul.

The former Liverpool assistant on a tricky start to life at Red Bull Salzburg, his coaching methods and Arne Slot

After four months as Red Bull Salzburg’s head coach Pepijn Lijnders has experienced a wide range of emotions. Jürgen Klopp’s former Liverpool assistant won six and drew two of his first eight games but has since overseen a challenging period that has included three heavy defeats. Not that it has lessened his determination. This job has, after all, been a long time in the making.

From the moment it was announced in January that Klopp and Lijnders would leave Anfield at the end of the season, the Dutchman was open to offers and a few clubs were invited to his house in Formby to explain their ideas. Salzburg were among them and it was not their first attempt to lure him.

Can the Inter Miami talisman win the league’s top individual honor despite missing much of the campaign? It depends on your definition of valuable

In a development that will only come as a shock to newborns and extraterrestrials, Lionel Messi’s MLS performances have been absolutely stellar this season. He has been a key part of the Inter Miami team at the top of the standings, has produced all manner of goals and assists, and has generally lived up to the hype every time he has stepped on the field.

It’s slightly more surprising that if his spectacular run ends with winning MLS’s Most Valuable Player award (MVP), it would be unprecedented in North American men’s sports and nearly unheard of in the most famous domestic men’s leagues in Europe – with one very notable exception.

• France captain links ‘fake news’ to PSG wages dispute
• Swedish prosecutors have not named Real Madrid star

Swedish prosecutors say a rape investigation had been opened in ­Stockholm without mentioning Kylian Mbappé, following media reports that the France captain and Real Madrid player was the suspect.

Citing documents it has seen, the Swedish public broadcaster SVT reported that the French footballer is “reasonably suspected” of rape – the lower level of suspicion under Swedish law.

We head to Italy’s capital for the latest instalment of a series where writers delve into their banks of calcio nostalgia

By Martin Dunlop for The Gentleman Ultra

Here we go; the almost impossible task of picking a Roma five-a-side team and keeping most people happy. Roma, like many Italian sides, are a club with a rich history of top-class players who have each brought their own unique skills and styles of play to an adoring public.

I would argue, reasonably confidently, that three of my five selections will not spark much debate. I have chosen only one midfielder, which means legends such as Agostino Di Bartolomei, Giuseppe Giannini and Daniele De Rossi miss out. However, my midfield choice brings energy, dynamism, and a creative spark that I feel would flourish on a five-a-side pitch. I’m confident that if my attacking duo rediscover their old spark, this team would be competitive against any side put in front of them.

From revelling in the FA’s supposed desperation to poking fun at angry fans, the German media is having a field day

Germans don’t really do irony, it is often said. But reactions to the news that Thomas Tuchel has been appointed England manager have been so steeped in caustic ribaldry to suggest they understand it very well.

“No other football nation has caused England more pain in recent decades than Germany,” Sven Haist, the London-based sports correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, pointed out. Now the nation’s longing for the ultimate crown of the sport “is supposed to be fulfilled by – of all people – a German coach”.

• Jiménez and Huerta fire El Tri to 2-0 win over rivals
• Mexico beat US for first time since September 2019

Raúl Jiménez scored on a 22nd-minute free kick and set up César Huerta’s goal in the 49th as Mexico stopped a seven-match winless streak against the United States with a 2-0 victory on Tuesday night in Mauricio Pochettino’s second game as the American coach.

Mexico had five losses and two draws against the US dating to September 2019.

Australia have regrouped under coach Tony Popovic to claim four points against China and Japan and kickstart their Asian qualification campaign

If you had offered the Socceroos four points from the October international window and second place in their World Cup 2026 qualification group three months ago, they’d likely have had your arm off with the speed they’d try to shake on it. That’s at least once they’d gone through the motions of talking about how they go into every game trying to win.

If you’d asked them much the same three weeks ago, though advancing the prospect of securing a 3-1 win over China in Adelaide before emerging from Saitama with a 1-1 draw against a previously perfect Japan – results that would see them take hold of an automatic Asian qualification place in Group C – they’d probably have dropped the niceties.

• Team protesting after 16-hour diversion from Benghazi
• Libyan Football Federation insists it was not deliberate

Nigeria have pulled out of their Africa Cup of Nations qualifier in Libya and were heading home on Monday, their captain William Troost-Ekong said, in protest at being diverted and abandoned for hours in an airport far from the match venue.

The Super Eagles were due to play the hosts Libya in the city of Benghazi, where they hoped to seal a qualification berth for the finals in Morocco next year. But after being stranded for more than 16 hours at an airport 250km (155 miles) away from their intended destination, the Nigeria players said they would not fulfil the fixture.

From Franco Mastantuono to Estêvão, we select some of the most talented players born in 2007. Check the progress of our classes of 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 … and look at the editions from further back

We pick the best youngsters at each club born between 1 September 2007 and 31 August 2008, an age band known as first-year scholars. Check the progress of our classes of 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 … and look at the editions from further back

From Warren Zaïre-Emery to Endrick, we select some of the best players born in 2006. Check the progress of our classes of 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018

• Next Generation 2023: 20 of the best Premier League talents

The two Americans were on our list five years ago but their paths show the professional game is rarely straightforward

Career paths are rarely straightforward, whether in football or any other area of life. Circumstances often change. Injuries and illnesses happen, there are often changes in leadership which have an impact on the individual while personal lives also play a part.

Career paths are therefore very difficult to predict. Looking down the list of our 2019 Next Generation, which we have now followed for five years, there were no guarantees any of the players would become household names. OK, Alex Holiga, who covers the Balkans for us, was confident that Josko Gvardiol would make it big – which he has – but apart from him, and perhaps Ansu Fati, Eduardo Camavinga and Jérémy Doku, there were no certainties.

A remarkable year for the youngster. Made his Bundesliga debut on 18 January and has not looked back since. He now has 23 first-team appearances and has established himself as a starter and one of the most talented young players in Europe. “I’m still learning a lot tactically,” he said in August. “There is a very big difference between youth and professional football. Making the right movements and creating space for myself and others is what I still need to learn the most.

A tumultuous year for the young American who was caught in the crossfire of a feud between his own family and the USMNT coach, Gregg Berhalter, after the World Cup, during which he played a mere 52 minutes of the US’s four games. Injuries have once again hampered him but he is back to full fitness now and a US return seems likely too after talks with Berhalter.

The fury of the newspaper’s star sports writer about a German managing England means a central point gets lost in translation

Well, that kicked off a bit didn’t it? By now it seems fairly clear we all need a break from people having feelings about The Germans, and specifically about the morality or otherwise of a German being employed as manager of the England men’s football team.

Except, perhaps not quite yet. How about it? Once more, this time with feeling? At the very least, as the tide retreats on all that free-floating anxiety, it is probably worth taking a look at the reaction itself, which is, as ever, the part that seems to stick.

Manager’s resignation suggests the decision came from him as bad results and a toxic atmosphere took its toll

It is sad to see a journey that started with such promise end in a whimper. That is the reality of Jonas Eidevall’s Arsenal tenure, which was bookended by matches against Chelsea – his opening game a thrilling 3-2 victory and his final one a blunt 2-1 defeat that epitomised problems that just would not go away.

The announcement on Tuesday that Eidevall had resigned as head coach was not surprising, but it was unexpected. With only one win from three Women’s Super League games and a bruising 5-2 defeat against Bayern Munich in the Champions League before the game against Chelsea, the feeling was that the writing was on the wall for the 41-year-old. Win or lose and Eidevall’s future looked uncertain. However, with an international break two games away and a winter break further ahead, Arsenal pulling the trigger immediately felt unlikely.

Legal battle between Manchester City and the Premier League highlights the game’s existential crisis – is it too late to save it?

Don’t look up! As the families of Westeros squabble, the undead gather beyond the Wall. As senior monks jockey to be the new abbot, viking longboats mass on the horizon. As the left bicker interminably over infinitesimal doctrinal differences, right-leaning billionaire tech-bros fund the march of quasi-fascistic populism.

The problem with existential threats, from the climate crisis to Conquistadors to Covid, is that they always seem distant, somehow unreal. People are always predicting the end of the world, which makes it easy to dismiss the doom-mongers. When we’ve had so many warnings of the apocalypse, why should anybody listen now? But some day one of those prophets is going to be right. Nothing is eternal.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Sam Dalling as Liverpool beat Chelsea 2-1 to stay ahead of Manchester City at the top of the table

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On the podcast today: Liverpool’s first big test of the season and they pass it with a relatively scare-free 2-1 win over a much-improving Chelsea.

Match the footballers and coaches to the shiny silverware

Below, we’ve listed the trophy hauls of players and managers – with players first. The lists do not include losing final appearances (except Olympics), individual prizes, or trophies a selected player won as a manager (and vice versa) …

Plus: the biggest age difference between scorers, swift strikes, more tattoos and generational international talent

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“When Celtic and Aberdeen meet on Saturday, both will have 100% records going into the match, with seven wins from seven. Has there been a later meeting between two teams with perfect records?” tweets Mike Slattery.

Saturday’s game at Celtic Park has a simple sales pitch: The Irresistible Force v The Irresistible Force. There are few precedents for opponents both having a perfect record after seven games apiece, and in fact we couldn’t find any in the men’s game.

ARSENAL P16 W16 D0 L0 F80 A10 PTS 48
EVERTON P13 W13 D0 L0 F46 A9 PTS 39

Game may be in rude health at the top level, but cases of Solihull Moors and Liverpool Feds offer a stark contrast

In harsh contrast to the upcoming England vGermany fixture at Wembley, the ever-nearer possibility of the first million-pound transfer fee, and the six-figure salaries some players enjoy at the top of the Women’s Super League, the news earlier this month that the entire coaching staff and several players of the women’s team at fourth-tier Solihull Moors had resigned over alleged neglect of the team’s entire programme served as an important reminder that all is not as rosy as it may seem in the English women’s football pyramid.

Last weekend’s headline WSL fixture between Arsenal and Chelsea attracted a crowd of 45,860 and was broadcast live on BBC One, but that will have felt a world away for a club such as Liverpool Feds, who are positioned just outside the top-30 women’s clubs in the country within the pyramid. As a third-tier club, currently sixth in the Women’s National League Northern Premier Division and competing with men’s Premier League-backed brands such as Nottingham Forest and Wolves, Liverpool Feds are run entirely by volunteers. The club was formed in 1990 and currently have close to 200 players, of ages ranging from six to 60, including a walking football section. But their women’s first team is unable to pay players’ expenses, let alone pay players or staff wages.

Faye Carruthers, Suzanne Wrack, Tanya Oxtoby and Sophie Downey discuss the weekend’s WSL action and last week’s WCL games. Plus, Tom Garry reports from St George’s Park as England’s squad is announced

On today’s pod: the panel dives into the big news out of north London as Arsenal manager Jonas departs following a tough start to the season at the Emirates. Emma Hayes was on hand to witness her successor, Sonia Bompastor, lead Chelsea to a decisive 2-1 victory over the Gunners on their turf.

Meanwhile, Manchester City moved to the top of the table with a gritty comeback win over Liverpool. Is Bunny Shaw the best striker in the world? And Manchester United dominated Spurs with a commanding performance. Have they had a good start to the season, after all?

Our resident cartoonist pays homage to the tribunal defence teams that make football what it is today

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Journalist Javier Cáceres asked many of the game’s biggest names – from Guardiola to Pelé and Bobby Charlton – to draw their favourite goals: the results are revealing

Like the best stories, the biggest adventures and football itself, this begins in a pub. In 2005 the journalist Javier Cáceres flew from Berlin to Santiago to interview Leonel Sánchez in a bar called Munich where the former international had his own stein with his name on. Sánchez, the son of a boxer, joint-top scorer at the 1962 World Cup, was one of Chile’s greatest players and among the hardest too. Once leader of the team they named the Blue Ballet, what he did that day over a beer would, two decades on and purely by chance, bring together footballers from around the world in a unique collection of art.

In the Battle of Santiago, between Chile and Italy – memorably introduced by David Coleman as “the most stupid, appalling, disgusting and disgraceful exhibition of football, possibly in the history of the game” – it was Sánchez who broke Humberto Maschio’s nose and hit Mario David. But he then scored in Chile’s quarter-final against the Soviet Union, the radio commentator Julio Martínez embedding it in the collective conscience with shouts of “Divine justice!” Of Sánchez’s 260 goals, beating Lev Yashin meant the most. Yet as he described that moment, Cáceres couldn’t picture it. So he handed Sánchez a pen and asked him to draw it.

Champions League conqueror is a fiery tactical zealot but narrative has always been that England need a winner

Well, at least we know now why Lee Carsley spent last week addressing the nation’s media in the style of a low-comedy adulterous 1950s sales executive explaining in flustered detail exactly why or indeed why not he might or might not be on the verge of finally leaving his wife.

The news that the Football Association has been engaged in advanced discussion with Thomas Tuchel over the vacant England head coach role does explain the riddle-me-this tone of the interim choice while discussing the immediate future.

The former England and Manchester United defender’s foundation is now having an impact far beyond the south London estate where he grew up

Whenever Rio Ferdinand needs inspiration, he remembers his mother. Growing up on the Friary Estate in Peckham, south London, Janice St Fort “was always known for helping other people”. “If one of the mums on the estate was in trouble, she would come down and say: ‘What’s going on?’” says the former Manchester United and England defender. “She was a doer – someone that people could lean on.”

Ferdinand is proudly reflecting on the achievements of his foundation, which his mother helped to establish in 2012 and has been taken to new heights since her death seven years ago. Working with disadvantaged communities and aiming to provide opportunities and pathways to employment in a number of fields, the Rio Ferdinand Foundation is estimated to have provided support to more than 10,000 young people from the UK, Ireland and beyond.

Spain’s cult hero on the injury layoff that revived his career, not taking football too seriously and Chelsea’s resurgence

“Before it was Ronaldinho and now it’s people like … well, me,” Marc Cucurella says, and then there is laughter. With him there is a lot of laughter. All of a sudden the Chelsea defender is a European champion and cult hero, and you can see why. There’s the hair: massive, as the song says, and in the right light still a bit red, celebratory dye not entirely washed out three months after Spain won Euro 2024. There’s the playing style that helped take them there, “one people empathise with”. And there’s the personality. What was it Erling Haaland said? “He’s a funny man.”

A very funny man.

Erling Haaland has been voted the best player in the world for 2023 by our 218-strong panel, with Jude Bellingham finishing second

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The Norwegian is only 23 but his devastating goal record has seen him voted as the No 1 player in the world by the Guardian’s expert panel

When Pep Guardiola tearfully claimed Manchester City could not replace the departing Sergio Agüero in May 2021, he didn’t just create a meme. Guardiola was soft-launching a global audition for his team’s new attacking talisman. An unsuccessful pursuit of Harry Kane in the summer of 2021 came between two title-winning seasons where Ilkay Gündogan (13) and Kevin De Bruyne (15) were the club’s top league goalscorers. Guardiola’s slick creative machine needed a new front man, and they found him in Erling Haaland.

Like Agüero before him – and in contrast to many of City’s most successful Pep-era signings – Haaland arrived as a bona fide superstar, a plug-and-play addition to an already stellar lineup. Whether he was a bargain is another question. The release clause paid was €60m (£51.2m), but some reports suggest Haaland’s five-year deal could cost the club in the region of £300m. And while there was an ominous logic to the move for City’s rivals, questions remained.