Find a Football Team

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?

• Premier League clubs wanted 28-man squad

• Atlético Madrid among clubs with reservations

Uefa has rejected requests from English clubs to increase the size of Champions League squads to 28 next season after a backlash led by their counterparts in Spain.

As reported by the Guardian larger squad sizes was discussed at a meeting of Uefa’s club competitions committee last month, but the proposal has not been put forward for the next meeting of Uefa’s executive committee, which will take place before the Europa League final in Istanbul on 20 May.

• Defender has not played for England since 2022

• Scotland were hopeful of picking Newcastle winger

Ben White has been recalled to the England squad by Thomas Tuchel for the Wembley friendlies against Uruguay and Japan, ending his partly self-imposed exile. The Arsenal right-back has not been involved in the setup since he left camp during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar for personal reasons. He made himself unavailable for the remainder of Gareth Southgate’s tenure.

Tuchel said last March, before he named his first England squad, that White “wants to be back”, although he did not pick him then as the player had only just returned after a serious knee injury.

Goal records and late winners caught the eye on a good weekend for both Manchester clubs

A 13-minute Khadija Shaw hat-trick helped Manchester City with an emphatic 5-2 win against Tottenham as they inch closer to the WSL title. Shaw, a strong contender for player of the season, scored her 18th goal in 18 league games. It was her fourth consecutive hat-trick at home against Spurs and the fastest in the league’s history. All three goals were headers as the visitors crumbled under City’s aerial prowess from set pieces. Shaw’s 15-goal total against Spurs is the most goals one player has scored against an opponent in the league. The club and supporters will be desperate to see the Jamaica striker stay ondespite her contract expiring in the summer. City need eight points to secure the title and Shaw said: “Keep going, keep our heads down, keep focused. Don’t watch the noise in the market, watch the sale.” Renuka Odedra

WSL roundup: Shaw’s 13-minute treble edges City closer

WSL roundup: Leicester still rooted to bottom despite leading

• Two-goal hero says City are ready to hunt down Arsenal

• Rodri feels Carabao Cup can be springboard in title race

Nico O’Reilly has stated Manchester City “smell blood” as they hunt down Arsenal’s nine-point Premier League advantage following Sunday’s 2-0 Carabao Cup final triumph.

Two second-half headers by O’Reilly defeated Mikel Arteta’s team at Wembley to give City the season’s first major trophy. Pep Guardiola’s side have a game in hand on the leaders and host them next month at the Etihad Stadium.

The breathless 3-3 draw with Mönchengladbach only highlighted the disarray that has cost head coach his job

Lukas Kwasniok will always be able to say that he led FC Köln in the historic 100th top-flight Rhineland derby against Borussia Mönchengladbach. He will always be able to say that his team fought as hard as the occasion demanded, overcame myriad setbacks and never deserted the cause, or him.

Yet Kwasniok will also have to acknowledge that this was the end; that even a derby as intense as this and everything his team did right in it could not exist in a bubble separately from an increasingly fraught situation in Köln’s season. The writing had felt like it was on the wall for a while and when sporting director Thomas Kessler spoke after the game, it was sprayed in neon capitals. “It was,” Kessler acknowledged after a thrilling 3-3 draw, “a rollercoaster of emotions but ultimately, we have to say that the point isn’t enough today.” As soon as Kessler conceded that final point it wasn’t a case of if but when for Kwasniok.

Inter dropped more points at Fiorentina but young striker showed yet again that he can step up and deliver for club and country

Is Francesco Pio Esposito immune to The Fear? Even as Inter threw away another two points on Sunday night, drawing 1-1 at Fiorentina and giving fresh encouragement to their rivals in a title race that was supposed to have been done and dusted by the end of February, their 20-year-old striker remained untouched by it.

He opened the scoring inside the first minute at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, rewarding Nicolò Barella’s cross with a firm header past David De Gea. When the ball reached him again in the dying seconds of injury time, Esposito once again met the occasion, keeping his feet as Luca Ranieri grabbed at him with both hands, and turning brilliantly to fire towards the bottom corner. This time, however, the goalkeeper was equal to it.

• Spurs dropped to 17th after 3-0 loss to Nottingham Forest

• Club confirm Igor Tudor’s father passed away on Sunday

Cristian Romero has promised to put 200% into Tottenham’s seven remaining “finals” to avoid a seismic Premier League exit.

Spurs’ survival hopes took a significant hit after a demoralising 3-0 home loss to Nottingham Forest on Sunday, dropping them to 17th and increasing the possibility of a first relegation since 1977. Tottenham’s winless league run stands at 13 matches and despite fans flooding the streets in N17 to give the team bus a raucous welcome, the pre-match optimism was replaced with a sense of inevitability after another abject defeat.

Former England forward started against Ajax but failed to make an impression and was hooked early on by Robin van Persie

When the moment came, Raheem Sterling ran out of road. At long last a few yards of space had opened up and here, advertised by a spike in the decibel level around De Kuip, was an invitation to attack the Ajax right-back Lucas Rosa. There was no doubting what his mind intended to do: go around the outside, skitter along the byline and execute in the manner that has defined a largely brilliant career. For a split second the muscle memory seemed enough but Rosa’s angles were perfect and the legs had no way of compensating. Just as he had in a tighter spot before half-time, Sterling could only dribble the ball off the pitch.

Four minutes later, he would be exiting it for good. Feyenoord had gone a goal down in De Klassieker to a drab, workmanlike Ajax and the unfortunate truth was that there was only one place to look.

Get our roundup of women’s football for free twice a week, featuring the insights of experts such as Ada Hegerberg and Magdalena Eriksson

Join us as we delve deeper into the wonderful world of women’s football in our weekly newsletter. It is informative, entertaining, global, critical – when needed – and, above all, passionate. Written mainly by Júlia Belas Trindade and Sophie Downey, expect guest appearances from stars such as Anita Asante, Ada Hegerberg and many more.

Try our other sports emails: as well as the occasionally funny football email The Fiver from Monday to Friday, there are weekly catch-ups for cricket in The Spin and rugby union in The Breakdown, and our seven-day roundup of the best of our sports journalism in The Recap.

Living in Australia? Try the Guardian Australia’s daily sports newsletter

Kick off your afternoon with the Guardian’s take on the world of football

Every weekday, we’ll deliver a roundup the football news and gossip in our own belligerent, sometimes intelligent and – very occasionally – funny way. Still not convinced? Find out what you’re missing here.

Try our other sports emails: there’s weekly catch-ups for cricket in The Spin and rugby union in The Breakdown, and our seven-day round-up of the best of our sports journalism in The Recap.

Living in Australia? Try the Guardian Australia’s daily sports newsletter

Our editors’ favourite sporting images from the past week, from the spectacular to the powerful, and with a little bit of fun thrown in

The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend’s action

Subscribe to get our editors’ pick of the Guardian’s award-winning sport coverage. We’ll email you the stand-out features and interviews, insightful analysis and highlights from the archive, plus films, podcasts, galleries and more – all arriving in your inbox at every Friday lunchtime. And we’ll set you up for the weekend and let you know our live coverage plans so you’ll be ahead of the game. Here’s what you can expect from us.

Try our other sports emails: there’s daily football news and gossip in The Fiver, and weekly catch-ups for cricket in The Spin and rugby union in The Breakdown.

Living in Australia? Try the Guardian Australia’s daily sports newsletter

PSG do not run as much as their opponents and they are not as big or powerful, but they keep winning

By Get French Football News

Luis Enrique said his side’s 4-0 win over Nice “showed the kind of team that PSG are”. With Nuno Mendes at left-wing, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia playing as a No 9 and Lucas Beraldo coming on in midfield, it was unlike anything we have seen before. Yet, remarkably, it all felt so familiar.

The dynamics within the game were nothing new. PSG continued to test the limits of positional fluidity, while Nice pushed the limits of their own rigidity by deploying what Nice centre-back Dante called a “team block”. PSG’s waspish front three of Mendes, Kvaratskhelia and Désiré Doué outmanoeuvred a Nice back three who are all over six-feet tall. While the rest of Ligue 1 have trended towards physicality, PSG have trended towards technicality, and there was only one winner at the Allianz Riviera.

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

While Ollie Watkins gave the most articulate response to his omission from the England squad with the ­second-half goal that consolidated Aston Villa’s place in the Premier League’s top four, the most ­rousing noise around Villa Park arrived when Youri Tielemans replaced John McGinn a minute earlier.

Most of the stadium took to their feet and cheered the Belgian’s name more loudly than anyone else’s as he made his return after two months out with an ankle injury. On a day when McGinn, Villa’s inspirational captain, followed up his goal in Thursday’s Europa League victory over Lille with another nerve-settling strike here, the returning strength and quality of Unai Emery’s squad suggests they can maintain their two-pronged approach for Champions League qualification.

It was left to Everton to impose the only serious sporting sanction of the week on Chelsea. Treated with extreme leniency by the Premier League for cheating over a seven-year period, the Stamford Bridge club were left battered and bruised, and Liam Rosenior in a whole world of trouble, as Hill Dickinson Stadium witnessed the finest act of its eight-month existence.

David Moyes’s team were relentless, creative and clinical – everything their opponents were not – as two goals from Beto and a brilliant finish from Iliman Ndiaye delivered Everton’s biggest win against Chelsea since 1987. The 100th clean sheet of Jordan Pickford’s Everton career was secured with two outstanding saves from Enzo Fernández but, in truth, the threat from the visitors was minimal.

Danny Welbeck has not given up on making England’s World Cup squad and showed exactly what Thomas Tuchel is missing with two goals to dent Liverpool’s Champions League hopes.

The Brighton striker moved past Dominic Calvert-Lewin – selected ahead of him for England’s upcoming friendlies – with his 11th and 12th league goals of the season, making him the Premier League’s highest-scoring Englishman. At 35, this is the most prolific campaign of his career.

The desperation of television executives to get as much football on screens as possible caused this match to be moved to 8pm on a Saturday night, but it was certainly not prime-time viewing. Leeds and Brentford played out a goalless draw so devoid of interest and entertainment that even those who tuned in to Mrs Brown’s Boys on BBC Three will feel smug for avoiding it.

There was barely a chance of note as Leeds went a sixth game without victory, securing a fourth straight blank as they moved four points clear of the relegation zone. Victory would have put Brentford on the same points as sixth-placed Chelsea and they will be happier with the draw, which will be some consolation for the long journey back to the capital in the early hours, thanks to the inconsiderate scheduling.

• Gunners eyeing trophies after Carabao Cup final woes

• Striker ‘even more motivated’ for coming games

Viktor Gyökeres has articulated the hurt and defiance inside the Arsenal dressing-room after Sunday’s 2-0 Carabao Cup final defeat by Manchester City and promised to use it as fuel in the club’s pursuit of other trophies.

Arsenal picked a bad time to produce their worst performance of the season with everybody in the starting XI falling well below their best – apart from maybe William Saliba. No one will want to dwell on the period from the beginning of the second half to the moment when Nico O’Reilly scored his second goal in the 64th minute to put City in an unassailable position. It was one-way traffic, Arsenal pinned back, unable to get out.

• Sunderland’s Lutsharel Geertruida allegedly abused

• Referee stops game per anti-discrimination protocol

Sunderland’s Tyne-Wear derby victory at Newcastle was overshadowed by reports that Lutsharel Geertruida had been the subject of racist abuse from home fans.

The Premier League will now investigate after the referee, Anthony Taylor, stopped the match in line with the league’s on-field anti-discrimination protocol early in the second half.

• Leicester lose 2-1 against Aston Villa having led 1-0

• Liverpool edge towards safety with 0-0 draw at Brighton

The relegation fears of the Women’s Super League’s bottom team, Leicester, worsened as they let a one-goal lead slip and lost 2-1 at home to an Aston Villa side who were inspired by their half-time substitute Ebony Salmon.

Leicester had looked on course to climb out of the relegation spot and above West Ham on goal difference, but Villa’s superb second-half fightback condemned Leicester to a 12th defeat from their 17 league games this season and left them three points from safety with five games remaining.

• Oisin McEntee hits late Hearts winner against Dundee

• Rangers cruise to comfortable 4-1 win over Aberdeen

Slipshod Celtic stumbled in this season’s compelling Scottish Premiership title race with a damaging 2-0 defeat by Dundee United at Tannadice.

The pressure was on Martin O’Neill’s side after the leaders, Hearts, and title-challenging Rangers both won on Saturday, but they meekly failed to meet the challenge. On a poor Tannadice pitch, the Hoops were shaken by a Will Ferry goal in the 51st minute before Emmanuel Agyei drove in a second in the 63rd minute.

• Brazil international scores winner in 3-2 victory

• Barça four points clear at top after beating Vallecano

Vinícius Júnior scored twice as Real Madrid fought back to beat Atlético Madrid 3-2 in a breathless Spanish capital derby on Sunday, keeping Alvaro Arbeloa’s side within four points of the La Liga leaders, Barcelona.

Atlético’s Ademola Lookman opened the scoring in the 33rd minute, finishing a slick counterattack involving Matteo Ruggeri and a delightful backheel from Giuliano Simeone. Vinícius equalised from the penalty spot in the 52nd minute after David Hancko clumsily tripped Brahim Díaz, and Federico Valverde capitalised on a José María Giménez error three minutes later to make it 2-1 to Real.

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?

Tottenham Hotspur fans took to the streets in their thousands to try and motivate Igor Tudor’s men on Sunday. This would be the turning point … Narrator: 'It wasn’t the turning point.' It was a massive win for Nottingham Forest. Fortunately for Spurs, West Ham got battered by Aston Villa and Leeds drew a blank at home to Brentford.

In the race for the top five … should we include include Everton, who dispatched Chelsea 3-0? Arne Slot is under more pressure after defeat at Brighton, and Manchester United’s progress was halted at Bournemouth.

And where will Sunderland put Brian Brobbey Brobbey Brobbey’s statue? A last-minute winner at Newcastle helped the Black Cats do the double over their neighbours.

Sam Surridge’s excellent form could attract interest from the Premier League, while Marc Dos Santos’s excellent start at LAFC continues

If St Louis had built Energizer Park as an indoor venue, then Marcel Hartel’s worldie would have surely blown the roof right off.

After shocking MLS in their 2023 debut by winning the West, St Louis have struggled for consistency. 2025 was a necessary transition year; the club parted with initial chief soccer officer Lutz Pfannenstiel after his most recent coaching appointment, Olof Mellberg, was sacked after just 15 games. Corey Wray was named as Pfannenstiel replacement in early November to top the sporting department, with the Thunder Bay native installing Yoann Damet as head coach soon afterwards.

It seems that no matter what Tottenham do, they are unable to stop themselves plummeting towards the Championship

Crises do strange things to people. Some ignore the danger as though they can make it go away by pretending it doesn’t exist, which is how teams sleepwalk into danger as Tottenham appeared for much of this season to be doing. Once the cliff edge is acknowledged, there are those who find themselves drawn inexorably towards it in a vertigo of irresponsibility, clear thought rendered impossible, basic functions undermined. But there are others who, in extremis, find the brain clears and sinews stiffened, petty irritations melting away as focus sharpens.

In certain cases, that may not be enough. Sometimes, almost whatever you do, the pull of the abyss is too strong to be resisted. Tottenham had seemed to be dragging themselves together. The last week has been broadly positive. They began extremely well against Nottingham Forest.

The players’ bizarre huddle and Rosenior’s odd responses should not distract attention from a light punishment that diminishes the Premier League

You might feel enough has already been said about the Chelsea huddle. You would be wrong, of course. It is impossible to say enough about the Chelsea huddle. A week on, that moment when the Chelsea players formed a scrum on the centre circle around what appeared at first glance to be a depressed hatstand, but turned out to be the immovable figure of referee Paul Tierney, is still the most moreishly haunting image of the season.

What did it mean? Even the basic geometry is fascinating, with its fractal-like symmetries. Here we have the Chelsea players making a circle inside a circle around a sphere on top of a smaller circle, above which a single bald head protrudes like an orbital moon.

Arsenal hope to win the trophy for a third time against Manchester City on Sunday. This is how they won their first

By That 1980s Sports Blog

“He’s the Bonnie Prince this afternoon.” The words of Barry Davies at the conclusion of the 1987 League Cup final were typically well chosen. For on that glorious, sunny Sunday afternoon at Wembley, Charlie Nicholas delivered on the biggest stage and ended Arsenal’s eight-year wait for a trophy.

In truth, Nicholas’s time at Arsenal had not lived up to the excitement and hype that surrounded his move from Celtic in 1983. There were occasional glimpses of magic – happily for Arsenal fans he often saved his best for Tottenham – but his performances were as inconsistent as the team were during the Terry Neill and Don Howe reigns.

Paul Robinson, who at 20 was picked by Ruud Gullit ahead of the England captain for a critical 1999 derby, looks back

It was the final shot in a brutal civil war that left Newcastle reeling for a year. For Paul Robinson, though, Ruud Gullit’s decision to start him over Alan Shearer in the Tyne-Wear derby felt like a natural progression.

Tensions between Gullit and Shearer had been brewing since the Dutchman replaced Kenny Dalglish on 27 August 1998. Two days short of the first anniversary, everything came to a head when Newcastle’s talisman was not selected to start against Sunderland for the biggest game in the club’s calendar.

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.

There was talk of this being a last hurrah at home for a golden generation of Matildas. But their performance showed a glimmer of something else

Two steps to the left. That’s probably all the space Alanna Kennedy needed to poke the ball away from the edge of her own penalty area and back into the field of possibility.

But these are the gaps where football lives, in the inches that open and close like a hand, and by the time the veteran midfielder had spun in surprise, the ball was thwacking the back of the net as Maika Hamano wheeled off into the night.

Nellie Pou’s bill follows refusal of ICE chief Todd Lyons to rule out enforcement near stadiums and fan festivals

A New Jersey congresswoman introduced legislation on Thursday to block immigration enforcement from conducting raids within a mile of a Fifa World Cup soccer match or fan festival in the US this summer.

The Save the World Cup bill, introduced by Nellie Pou, a Democrat, is meant to assure visitors that they will not be detained and to remove the chilling effect of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations on the events, she said in a release. The World Cup’s first US match begins on 12 June.

Adrian Segečić’s switch of allegiance has left Socceroos fans wondering what might have been – and reopened a great Australian football debate

There have been many to choose other nations over Australia, but for Socceroos fans this one hurts. One of the country’s best young players formally changed his footballing allegiance to Croatia at the weekend, reopening the debate about how the Socceroos can keep hold of the country’s brightest talents.

Adrian Segečić, a talented attacking midfielder with an eye for goal, has impressed in England for Championship side Portsmouth this season, after winning the A-League Men’s golden boot last year. He had played for junior Australian national teams at under-17, under-20 and under-23 levels, and had been called up to Socceroos camp by Tony Popovic but was yet to make his full international debut.

Spaniard had backing of the players and Johan Cruyff’s widow, celebrating with a cigar in his favourite nightclub

Joan Laporta accompanied his players from the football pitch to the polling station, singing and winning all the way. From his seat high in tribuna, Barcelona’s outgoing president – who was about to become their incoming president – watched them beat Sevilla 5-2 and then headed back down to his place in the 995-capacity marquee outside the new Camp Nou. There, surrounded by cameras and positioned by table 11, he watched them help him defeat Victor Font even more comprehensively: 68.18% to 29.78%. It was a little before 7.30pm on election Sunday, still early, still not quite time to crack open the champagne or light up the cigar, but it was done. It had been from the start.

“We’re 100% focused on the game,” Hansi Flick had said before playing Sevilla this weekend, a line which seemed to set him and his players apart a little from everyone else in Catalonia, but once their primary duty had been fulfilled, his team victorious and four points clear again, they could complete another. Standing there with his passport in hand and Laporta helping ensure he was passed the correct slip, the coach slotted a little white envelope into the box. And then, his vote cast in Barcelona’s 2026 presidential elections, another new experience embraced here, Laporta took his arm, raised it like a prizefighter, the identification complete, and began a chant: “Hansi Flick! Hansi Flick!”

The Egypt forward led Galatasaray a merry dance for 17 second-half minutes to Anfield’s delight

Welcome back, Mo. The old place has missed you. How many more of these are we going to get?

It would be incorrect to say this was Mohamed Salah’s night at Anfield. It was instead Mohamed Salah’s 17 second‑half minutes, although these were the decisive 17 minutes in this Champions League tie, and one of those interludes at this ground where a kind of voodoo descends, the night goes a little wonky and ghosts flicker at the edge of things.

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.

Ruling of the Caf appeals committee is against the laws of the game and casts another shadow over Motsepe’s stewardship as president

In more than three decades of reporting on African football, I have gone through the entire gamut of emotions: exhilaration over some of the continent’s great moments at the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) and World Cup; frustration over the errors its governors make; and deep despair, wondering whether its custodians will ever live up to their responsibilities and do their jobs diligently.

The decision on Tuesday, by the appeals committee of the Confederation of African Football (Caf), to strip Senegal of the 2025 Afcon title and hand it to Morocco, leaves me gobsmacked, as it did a former member of the appeals committee. “As a person who was on the appeals board for six years I know it does not have the power to change the on-field decision of a referee. I cannot understand how they came to this disgraceful decision,” he said.

Our cartoonist on the Gunners’ teenage saviour and a new springtime ritual at Stamford Bridge

• Buy a cartoon | David’s favourite works of 2025

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

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.”

Supporters of national side struggle to come to terms with decision to declare Morocco the winner of Africa Cup of Nations

Two days after the Confederation of African Football (CAF) stripped Senegal of its 2025 Africa Cup of Nations title and instead declared the host nation, Morocco, champions, Alhassan Hann remains in shock.

“We didn’t expect this at all,” the 23-year-old Dakar university student said. “This decision is unjust. Personally, I find it ridiculous. I think it doesn’t give a very good image of African football.”

Experts believe club would be lucky to escape with fine and suspended transfer ban but further penalties may follow

The Premier League’s judgment against Chelsea for breaking football’s rules – during an eight-year trophy spree under Roman Abramovich – concludes that the club engaged in “deception and concealment”.

The breaches, more than 30 of them, relate to at least £47m in off-book payments linked to landmark deals for star players, including Eden Hazard, Willian, David Luiz and Nemanja Matic.

After Antonin Kinsky’s Spurs woes at Atlético, we recall five more matches the keeper in question would sooner forget

The score at the City Ground was goalless as Manchester City’s Andy Dibble captured an aerial cross and assessed his options. Little did he know that the Nottingham Forest midfielder Gary Crosby had spotted that he had rested the ball, casually, on one hand. “All I thought was: ‘He’s got to have it in two hands,’” said Crosby, who would steal up behind Dibble before stooping to head the ball out of his grasp and tap into the net. Despite concerted visiting protestations, the referee, Roger Gifford, remained unmoved and the goal stood. “I can never escape it,” admitted Dibble in an interview 14 years later. Crosby, meanwhile, has said: “It’s the one thing I get remembered for.” Dibble, now 60, retired from professional football in October when knee replacement surgery prompted his departure from his role as Accrington Stanley’s goalkeeping coach. He played for 18 clubs in a 24-year career that earned him three Wales caps.

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!

There has long been a notion that the League Cup, in its many sponsorship guises, can be a “springboard” for future success. No other trophy has ever achieved springboard status, not even the Emirates Cup. It seems the idea was born around the time José Mourinho’s Chelsea were on the rise, fuelled by Roman Abramovich’s totally legitimate takeover, winning the Carling Cup in 2005 and then rocketing to back-to-back Premier League titles. Many of that Blues squad have since spoken about the three-handled Georgian silver cup as if it were some gateway drug to glory. And that Chelsea team went on some trips. You wouldn’t understand, man. We saw five trophies in two years, man.

Am I alone or are there 1,056 others who see the irony in Xavi Simons declaring that, for Spurs, ‘every game is a cup final for us’ having just exited their third and final cup competition of the season?” – Glyn Berrington.

The way Barry deadpanned ‘Of the six teams that advanced to this season’s Round of Arsenal, only two (including Arsenal) made it into the quarter-finals’ puts me in mind of the old joke about 2010-11 Manchester City having ‘all the best players in the league (and Craig Bellamy)’. Fabulous stuff” – Rowan Sweeney.

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

Today’s newsletter looks at the women who grew up in the 1970s, 80s and 90s loving football but had little or no opportunity to play. I was one of them

I screamed so loudly when Chloe Kelly scored the winning goal in the 2022 European Championship that our children ran from the room. They were too young to understand what it meant. Since then they’ve watched the Lionesses reach the final of the 2023 World Cup and seen them victorious at Euro 2025. They are growing up with women playing football on TV.

I cried at that win four years ago. I watched the Lionesses in awe, but also with a sense of loss for what I never had the chance to become. According to Fifa’s 2023 Member Association survey report, the number of women and girls playing organised football has grown by 24% since 2019, to more than 16.6 million, with 3.9 million registered female players. Fifa’s Women’s Football Strategy 2024-27 aims to achieve 60 million registered players by next year.

Independent team now called Les Marseillaises want to become an iconic club and have the history-making Corinne Diacre at the helm

“Here in Marseille your blood is not red, it’s blue,” says Les Marseillaises’ manager, Corinne Diacre. “Even today it can be hard for some parents to see their girls wanting to play football, but here they don’t play football: they play for Marseille. It’s seen as completely different.”

Diacre is happy and relaxed. The rebranded and independent Marseille women’s team, still owned by the American businessman Frank McCourt, through the investment arm McCourt Global, after his purchase of the wider Marseille club in 2016, are being given an injection of resource and energy while maintaining strategic ties.

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

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

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

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

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

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

Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts and join the conversation on email

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?

Plus: which team has played the most weekday league matches and more snubbed hat-trick heroes

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“What’s the earliest an uninjured goalkeeper has been substituted?” asks Sam Roberts.

Unless you’ve been at a digital retreat in the Kerguelen Islands for the past eight days, you’ll know the context of this question. With Spurs 3-0 down at Atlético Madrid last week, their goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky, who was at fault for two of the goals, was substituted after only 17 minutes.

He was one of the worst players I have ever seen. He’s another player like the others, why can’t we change the goalkeeper? Because the goalkeeper has a different coloured shirt?

Out there he behaved as the worst professional, arrogant, ignorant athlete I have ever seen.

Max Dowman’s magic, Konstantinos Mavropanos shows heart and Chelsea go all LinkedIn but fail to link up

It is easy to say that Tottenham have a goalkeeping problem. Antonin Kinsky was brought in against Atlético Madrid precisely because Igor Tudor was having doubts about Guglielmo Vicario. Back in the lineup at Anfield, Vicario didn’t cover himself in glory for Liverpool’s opener. Dominik Szoboszlai is good at free-kicks – a quarter of the 16 scored in the Premier League this season have been his – but he’s had to come up with extraordinary strikes to beat goalkeepers such as David Raya and Gianluigi Donnarumma. His effort on Sunday wasn’t too far off centre and Vicario should have saved it, a weak wrist letting him down. But the Italian rallied, producing an exceptional save down low to tip a Cody Gakpo shot on to a post. He and the rest of a sturdy, if makeshift, Spurs defence provided them with a platform to get back into the game. Tottenham can delve into the transfer market in the summer to sign a goalkeeper but, until then, they need Vicario to make vital interventions in big moments in their fight for survival – Kinsky is unlikely to get another opportunity. Billy Munday

Match report: Liverpool 1-1 Tottenham

Match report: Manchester United 3-1 Aston Villa

Match report: Arsenal 2-0 Everton

Match report: Chelsea 0-1 Newcastle

All six of the Premier League’s last-16 teams have plenty of work to do in their second legs. Bodø/Glimt, meanwhile, have eyes on a fairytale quarter-final

A rude awakening for the English Premier League, a week when European football reasserted itself; financial dominance need not mean dominance on the field. Real Madrid’s first-half destruction of Manchester City was chastening. This was a Madrid team shorn of Kylian Mbappé, Rodrygo and Jude Bellingham and yet City were soundly beaten 3-0. Arsenal’s drab 1-1 draw with Bayer Leverkusen showed Mikel Arteta’s team will require more than set pieces to prevail in the competition.

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

• 2024 edition | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012

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

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

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

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

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

• Meet the judges | See how every judge voted

• Subscribe to Moving the Goalposts, our free newsletter

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