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• Club also hit with nine-month academy transfer ban

• Investigation covered period between 2011 and 2018

Chelsea have been fined £10.75m, handed a suspended ban from signing first-team players and given an immediate nine-month academy transfer ban by the Premier League over breaches of financial rules during Roman Abramovich’s ownership.

The club, who still face potential sanctions from the Football Association over 74 charges of breaching agent regulations, were investigated by the league over undisclosed payments to agents, non-licensed intermediaries and other figures, including players, around signings between 2011 and 2018.

Pep Guardiola’s team have ground down other title contenders in the past with their relentless winning streaks. But those days appear to have gone

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This has been a strange season for Manchester City. Every now and then, they’ve threatened to produce the sort of run that used to define them. They won eight games in a row from the end of November to the end of December, then six in a row in February. At which point the tendency has been for a sort of mental muscle memory to kick in and to think that, even if they haven’t been playing that well, even if this doesn’t look like the City sides of old, this is the start of one of those relentless bouts of form that has ground down challengers in the past. After all, some of those past runs began uncertainly.

But this is a very different City. Even Pep Guardiola sounded bemused after Saturday’s draw with West Ham, noting how “in the past always we found the way to win this kind of game … this season, the fact that we didn’t score goals for the amount of chances, it’s punished us”. He seemingly had no explanation for that, muttering about the “unfairness” of the world that his side had not got the results he feels their football has deserved.

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.

Sonia Bompastor ‘a bit sad’ at League Cup changes while Andrée Jeglertz steels Manchester City for season’s climax

Sonia Bompastor said losing the opportunity to play in the League Cup was a “bit sad,” but she understood the reason for excluding teams that qualify for the Champions League next season. With Chelsea rarely outside the European places the Blues’ 2-0 League Cup final victory over Manchester United on Sunday may well be their last foray in the competition for some time. “I think I understand the reason why the decision is made,” she said after goals from Lauren James and Aggie Beever-Jones secured the win. “For a club like Chelsea, we are playing a lot of games, our schedule is busy, so I understand the reason behind the decision. As much as we want to be competing in every competition and going as far as possible and grabbing as many titles and trophies as possible, I understand. Of course, when you have one competition that is probably going away from you it’s a bit sad.” Suzanne Wrack

Rivalry has been Bundesliga’s best in recent years and intense 1-1 draw had ‘everything football has to offer’

Even if Xabi Alonso is no longer at Bayer Leverkusen strong traces of him remain, both at the club and in the Bundesliga. Take the match-up between Die Werkself and Bayern Munich, another of his former clubs. In the last few years it is a meeting that has nudged Der Klassiker gently aside in terms of excellence and what it has meant. Like so many historical domestic faceoffs with Bayern and AN Other it is likely transient but even if Saturday’s latest edition may not have had quite the direct rivalry that recent meetings have, many of the feelings of intensity and adrenaline were still there. It was the perfect pep for the run-in.

There has been another moment in the recent past in which a stalemate in this showpiece has pleased neither team; the goalless draw in the corresponding fixture last season springs to mind, where Bayern were neutered as was/is rarely possible and only got away with a point after a mindboggling miss from Florian Wirtz at the death. If the two clubs’ realistic aims have gone in opposite directions since, there was still plenty of chuntering on both sides at the end.

The club by the lake are far from universally popular but the Como manager’s clever tactics brought a key win over Roma

For once the TV cameras at the Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia had not picked out a Hollywood A-lister in the stands but a celebrity of calcio instead. Gennaro Gattuso, the Italy manager, not to mention a World Cup and Champions League winner, had come to watch Como play Roma.

A crucial game in the race for Europe, the two teams having started the weekend level in fourth place. And still a slightly surprising one for Gattuso to pick. Not because it lacked the history and traditional importance of Lazio’s game against Milan later that evening, but because Como don’t have any Italian players for him to watch.

PSG were given the weekend off to help them in Europe, with little consideration for how it would affect other clubs

By Get French Football News

Paris Saint-Germain do not need a helping hand but they were given it: first by the French football federation, who postponed their match against Nantes at the weekend so they could concentrate on the Champions League, and then by Lens, who lost 2-1 to Lorient and failed to retake top spot in Ligue 1.

The decision to postpone PSG’s game was one agreed upon by all parties, one taken to aid their preparations for their second leg against Chelsea, and one not without precedent. The same Ligue 1 fixture was postponed last season so PSG could focus on their European tie against Aston Villa.

• He says ‘everyone is noticing’ departures before games end

• ‘I understand the frustration, but we need them’

Dominik Szoboszlai has said Liverpool are being affected by fans leaving Anfield early and called on the supporters to “stick with us”. Boos greeted Sunday’s disappointing 1-1 draw at home to Tottenham, but Szoboszlai was more concerned about the number of people who departed before and after Richarlison’s late equaliser.

The result leaves Liverpool fifth, with their home form a concern. They have drawn four and lost three of their 15 Premier League games at Anfield. A crucial night awaits there on Wednesday, as they seek to turn around a one-goal deficit against Galatasaray in the Champions League.

They lost their manager, captain, goalkeeper and two top scorers last summer but are challenging the elite

By WhoScored

Seventh place, just a few points behind Liverpool and Chelsea with nine games to play – not bad for a side that was condemned to relegation in many pre-season predictions. Brentford have not just defied the naysayers; they are on the brink of creating club history too. European qualification beckons for the first time in their 137-year history. Brentford are challenging clubs with wage bills four times larger than their own.

It is easy to forget just how remarkable an achievement this is for a side once mocked as “a bus stop in Hounslow” by their local rivals. They lost four of their best and most experienced players last summer, with Christian Nørgaard joining Arsenal, Yoane Wissa signing for Newcastle, Bryan Mbeumo leaving for Manchester United and Mark Flekken moving to Bayer Leverkusen for a combined £146m. They were all essential to Brentford last season: Nørgaard was the club captain; Wissa and Mbeumo scored 39 league goals between them (59% of the team’s total), and Flekken made 133 saves – 25 more than any other keeper in the league.

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

Tottenham earning a point after successive defeats may not have ended relegation fears but shows all is not lost yet

At last, amid all the gloom, a sliver of positive news for Tottenham. On a day when their injury crisis reached yet greater heights, they met an out-of-sorts Liverpool resting players for Wednesday’s Champions League tie against Galatasaray. The result was a game of very high squad numbers that for long sections had the feel of an early round of the Carabao Cup, both in intensity and quality. And that is not the league, which from a Spurs point of view makes it a much less terrifying prospect.

The point certainly doesn’t suddenly end Tottenham’s relegation fears, but it does end a run of six successive defeats – and that is not nothing. Igor Tudor has his first point as Spurs manager and they are one game closer to the end of the season and still not in the relegation zone. But Spurs will not find many opponents quite so accommodating as Liverpool. This was a weirdly ragged game, somehow littered with chances but lacking much in the way of coherence or ordered creativity, a mess that could have gone either way. And Liverpool will wonder how on earth, having gone ahead against this Tottenham, they failed to win.

West Ham draw shows City trying to create a sense of who they are, but Arsenal know their identity even in adversity

Is it still on? Are we still fighting for this title? Do they have to go to West Ham and get something?

Or perhaps this really was the day the music died, a game where Manchester City had 24 attempts at goal without looking like they seriously believed any of them would go in, always going forward, but without any real sense of edge.

Activists fear the families of players have been placed under pressure by the Tehran regime to make them change their minds

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The captain of the Iranian women’s football squad has left Australia after withdrawing her claim of asylum.

Zahra Ghanbari became the fifth member of the football cohort to change her mind after initially taking up an offer to stay in the country following the Asian Cup.

• Former left-back signs until June with option to stay on

• Cole has been coach at Chelsea, Everton and Derby

Ashley Cole has been appointed as the head coach of the Serie B side Cesena. It is a first management role for the former Arsenal, Chelsea and England full-back, who has been developing as a coach since retiring from playing in 2019.

Cole’s positions have included working with Frank Lampard at Derby, Chelsea and Everton, with Wayne Rooney at Birmingham, and with England and the Football Association.

Atlanta United ended a long drought, there were dramatic finishes to a batch of games and Carles Gil finally has some support

On 28 May 2025, Atlanta United thrilled their home fans with a stoppage-time winner against Orlando City. Jamal Thiaré’s match-winner pulled the club within five points of the playoff places after 16 games, and the team hoped to harness the momentum for a rosier second half of the season.

• Chelsea 2-0 Man Utd (James 19, Beever-Jones 76)

• Blues retain Women’s League Cup with victory

Death, taxes and Chelsea women winning trophies. Regardless of their form this season, regardless of an all-but relinquished Women’s Super League title, with Manchester City nine points clear at the top of the table, you can never bet against the Blues in a cup final – or Lauren James making an impact.

If there was a time for Manchester United to get the better of Sonia Bompastor’s side, having twice lost to them in the FA Cup final, it was now. Marc Skinner’s side sit one point ahead of Chelsea in the league, and they have looked in better form.

On 71 minutes a classic Manchester United riposte, via Matheus Cunha, to Ross Barkley’s equaliser moments before. From around halfway, the peerless Bruno Fernandes glanced up and steered the ball through an inside left channel for Cunha. United’s No 10 galloped forward and as Emiliano Martínez loomed large the Brazilian’s curled finish was a peach that kissed the far right of the net, Cunha stepping forward before the Stretford End to soak up the ecstatic adoration.

Fernandes’ assist was his 100th in all competitions for United, the contest’s second, and 16th in the Premier League. The last statistic is a club record, this term’s competition high, and a latest argument for winning the player of the season awards.

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Robyn Cowen is joined by Jonathan Wilson, Lucy Ward, and Dan Bardell as Arsenal extend their lead at the top of the Premier League to nine points, Spurs come up with a performance at Anfield, Manchester United win again, and Chelsea get emotional about a huddle On this podcast: limbs of the season at the Emirates as 16-year-old Max Dowman becomes the Premier League’s youngest ever scorer to help Arsenal over the line against Everton, before Manchester City drop more points at West Ham thanks to the face of Konstantinos Mavrapanos. Is this the night Arsenal won the title … part 47? At the bottom Spurs *checks notes* show promise under Igor Tudor, Richarlison netting a last-minute equaliser against Liverpool to prove the old adage that the fifth time’s a charm. Chelsea lose after Paul Tierney infiltrates their pre match huddle. PGMO’s response to Liam Rosenior’s complaints will be interesting. And Manchester United cement third place with victory over Aston Villa as Bruno Fernandes moves closer to a record amount of assists in a single season. We have a hotel boycott, an update from Texas plus your questions and that’s today’s Guardian Football Weekly.

The National League South club have had some strange recent owners – their fans who made the trip to Enfield hope Youtube superstar KSI is the real deal

The Premier League seemed a long way away at the full-time whistle at Enfield Town. There were boos from the few hundred travelling Dagenham & Redbridge supporters who had just watched 90 minutes of drab football at a level in the pyramid they are experiencing for the first time since the very start of this century.

Their club’s new minority owner, the YouTuber KSI, was not there to hear the jeers. He wants to take Dagenham to the top flight. “And I’d like to marry Brad Pitt,” said Suzanne Collier, who has been coming to watch them for 43 years, from the away end.

The US men’s national team hated their 2022 World Cup look. Four years later, they were given control over what they will be wearing this year on home soil

US midfielder Diego Luna rocked back and forth, a wide smile plastered across his face. With even wider eyes, Juventus attacker Weston McKennie looked on like a child on Christmas Day, broke out into applause and shrieked with glee. Timothy Weah rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

The US men’s national team had gathered for a team meeting in a hotel conference room in Austin, Texas, with a friendly against Ecuador days away. The get-together had nothing to do with tactics. Rather, they were about to see the kits they’d be wearing at the 2026 World Cup, the first tournament in three decades to be played on home soil.

Humbled English clubs must realise that what works against the very good turns out to be inadequate against the best

If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. If the only tool you have is a set play, the solution to everything starts to look like a pre-programmed move based on blocking runs. And perhaps that’s especially true if you’re worn out, knackered by the attrition of a persistent schedule of two games a week against teams who are frustratingly well organised and physically imposing. Think? Dribble? Make a surprising run? Who has the bandwidth for that? Just sling it to the back post and get in the way of the keeper.

Arne Slot had spoken in the buildup to Liverpool’s defeat by Galatasaray on Tuesday of how difficult it is to create chances in modern football, and how set pieces are a way to circumvent the sophisticated defensive setups of most Premier League teams. He is certainly not alone in taking that approach in the Premier League. But the Champions League is not like the Premier League. The crowding of the six-yard box, the full bearhug grappling, the meat wall to block the goalkeeper … it turns out all of those are penalised by European referees, and that is a problem for Premier League teams.

It was a big shock when Keith Burkinshaw’s talented side went down – but will the current team avoid that fate?

Glenn Hoddle was in tears in the dressing room. Others sat in disbelief, wondering what the future held.

Tottenham were the first English club in the 20th century to win the league and FA Cup Double, in 1961, and the first to lift a European trophy when they won the Cup Winners’ Cup two years later. They were renowned for playing attractive football and the goals of Jimmy Greaves.

On fifth anniversary of their takeover, Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac showed off their ‘happy clapper’ credentials

The daily ritual of the modern football fan is well established: check the fixtures and TV listings, then decide which match to half-follow while gawping at social media as a second screen. On most nights in March this year there has been either a Premier League or Champions League game to provide turf-coloured backlight to the doomscroll. Until Friday night.

Clearly the suits at Sky Sports thought Wrexham v Swansea City on a Friday night needed its own sideshow. A clash between two historic Welsh clubs just five points apart in the battle for the Championship playoff places may not appeal to the TikTok generation. If only there were some Hollywood actors on hand to step into the content void, relegating Daniel Mann and Andy Hinchcliffe to second-string commentary choice.

US-Israel war with Iran has implications in the sports world, with a war of words involving Fifa leaving the team’s status unclear

Iran’s participation in this summer’s World Cup appears to change on an almost hourly basis. Donald Trump caused more confusion on Thursday by saying he did not believe it “is appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety”.

The incendiary post on Truth Social came less than 48 hours after Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, said Trump had told him in a meeting at the White House on Tuesday evening that Iran would be “welcome” at the World Cup. Hours later, Iran’s football federation posted its response on Instagram, stating, “No one can exclude Iran’s national team from the World Cup,” and going on to say that the US should be removed as host due to Trump’s implicit threat.

• Participation is in question amid continuing war

• Fifa’s Infantino said Trump assured Iran are welcome

Donald Trump said Thursday that Iran should not participate in the upcoming World Cup in North America, just days after telling Fifa’s chief they would be welcome despite the Middle East war.

“The Iran national soccer team is welcome to the World Cup, but I really don’t believe it is appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety,” the US president said on his Truth Social platform.

The 2026 NWSL season kicks off on Friday. Our writers discuss the teams, players and story lines they’re watching this year

How the High Impact Player (HIP) rule evolves the NWSL’s place in the global transfer market. The league has regained some control of the “is the NWSL still the best league in the world” narrative, keeping Trinity Rodman on a deal via this new mechanism. The next transfer window or two will be a fascinating test of the league’s willingness to ease restrictions and let its teams reach as far as they’d like. JR

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

Sergiño Dest’s World Cup is at risk. The 25-year-old limped off with a hamstring injury during PSV’s Eredivisie win over AZ Alkmaar on Saturday, immediately starting a countdown clock in the minds of US men’s national team supporters who now fear Mauricio Pochettino’s first-choice right back could miss this summer’s tournament. Dest said on social media he hopes to be back by the end of the season, but nobody truly knows when he’ll return.

Club’s former owner leads the polls in spiky mayoral race but is accused of putting forward ‘nothing of substance’

Karim Benzema doesn’t often involve himself in French politics. At the end of January, though, the striker gave a glowing endorsement of Jean-Michel Aulas, the former Lyon president who is leading the city’s mayoral race.

“He has everything it takes to do well,” Benzema said in a video played on the news channel LCI as Aulas was being interviewed. “He’s someone who people listen to, he knows where he wants to go and he has a lot of experience,” the former Real Madrid player added. The Lyon-born striker was later joined by Bafétimbi Gomis in showing support for their former boss.

All the managers since Pochettino have drained life from the club, which appears interested in anything but football now

Sad news coming out of Tottenham this week: Ryan Norys’s talk at the South by Southwest festival on Friday will no longer take place. The club’s chief revenue officer, who has overseen a 40% rise in commercial revenue over the past three years, was due to speak on “how Tottenham is evolving beyond football to become a global cultural brand”. And given the rich seam of cultural content Spurs have been providing the world over recent weeks, you have to say it’s been a stunningly successful initiative.

Alas, when Norys posted an advertisement for the event on his LinkedIn page this week, Spurs fans exploded with anger, forcing the talk to be cancelled. Fortunately, those still interested to see how Tottenham are evolving beyond football can simply observe their recent performances on the pitch. Igor Tudor’s Tottenham Hotspur: proudly evolving beyond defending. Beyond possession. Beyond goalkeeping. Beyond tactics, beyond teamwork, beyond competence, beyond the basic bipedal human ability to stand up straight. And – who knows? – perhaps even beyond the Premier League.

Hat-trick hero played as an auxiliary right-back before excelling everywhere in midfield in one of the great European displays

Fede Valverde made his way down the tunnel at the Santiago Bernabéu wearing the captain’s armband and the No 8 shirt Toni Kroos had wanted him to have. He carried the pennant commemorating what was going to be the match of his life, touched palms with the kids in the sponsored shirts that lined the route on right and left, and then stepped out into the light.

When he headed back inside again 45 minutes later, the first off the pitch at half-time, he paused briefly and clenched his fist, which was a pretty low‑key reaction considering what he had just done.

Visitors were underwhelming in the face of Newcastle’s power and pace and Eddie Howe’s men can still hope to reach the last eight

Banners are not always that easy to unfurl. Particularly on the sort of capriciously breezy March nights when sheeting emblazoned with the message “Budapest awaits me” refuses to be pulled taut and simply sags in the middle.

For a while before kick‑off it was easy to interpret the ongoing struggles of that banner’s owners to successfully hoist it in the Gallowgate End as emblematic of the travails awaiting Newcastle.

With its credibility swaying in the wake of a betting scandal, the very last thing the league needed was to be in business with a prediction platform

The timing of the suspensions was unfortunate. Or perhaps it was karmically inevitable.

Forty-two days after Major League Soccer announced a new partnership with Polymarket – a prediction platform that lets its users bet on just about anything, including whether, when, and where one country will bomb another – a press release went out. A pair of Ghanaian-born former MLS players, Derrick Jones and Yaw Yeboah, had been banned from the league for life for betting on games, including their own.

Leander Schaerlaeckens’ book on the United States men’s national soccer team, The Long Game, is out on 12 May. You can preorder it here. He teaches at Marist University.

Our cartoonist reflects on the FA Cup fifth round, including Ben Waine’s commitment to the bit

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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.

Former striker recounts experiences of racism at Atlético Madrid but says he ‘didn’t have it as bad’ as Vinícius Júnior

The sad thing for Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink is that the cycle of racism feels endless. It was prevalent in football before his playing days and throughout his career as a prolific striker, and it has persisted since he retired in 2008.

Football’s racism problem has been thrust back into the spotlight in recent weeks after Vinícius Júnior accused Gianluca Prestianni of racially abusing him in Real Madrid’s Champions League tie with Benfica, and four Premier League players were racially abused on social media across a single weekend, prompting police investigations.

The 77-year-old’s 21st managerial role could be a final act and even if it is brief he will sprinkle the sixth tier with quintessential quips and well-aimed digs

There is a specific, restless energy to Neil Warnock that defies the traditional laws of ageing and the modern conventions of football management. At 77, he still wakes up in the dead of night to obsess over the overlapping runs of a National League South full-back.

“When I was thinking about the system this morning at four o’clock, [I was like]: ‘What are you doing?’” he said, a smile cutting through the post-match gloom at Ebbsfleet. The setting was hardly Premier League-like – a crowd of 1,467 huddled under a gloomy sky – but for Warnock, the stakes of the dugout remain existential. Even if the reality of his years occasionally intrudes on his tactical scouting. “When you get to my age, you have to go to the toilet a few times [which is why he was awake] … but I’m enjoying every minute of this.”

There is no tokenism in Ingolstadt hiring a female manager, and the German club’s pioneer recognises the power of her presence in the game

Home is indeed where the heart is. On Friday Sabrina Wittmann signed a new deal to stay at FC Ingolstadt, continuing a partnership whose roots go back nearly two decades but which became of wider public interest when the third-tier club appointed her as the first female coach of a German professional football team in summer 2024.

There is no tokenism in the club’s choice, underlined not only by the contract extension but by the 34-year-old’s recent completion of her coaching pro licence, awarded to her just over a month ago. “I’ll always be the first woman in Germany coaching a professional men’s team,” Wittmann says, “but I want to be seen as a coach.

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Someone needed to save face, to halt the crisis (likely to be partially forgotten next week) engulfing Our League™. After six winless games for the English representatives in Bigger Cup, Thursday night did not bring a drastic improvement. Nottingham Forest fell to Midtjylland at home and Crystal Palace settled for a goalless draw against AEK Larnaca in Tin Pot. Step up, Unai Emery. His 100th victory in charge of Aston Villa – nabbing a 1-0 win at Lille – defied his side’s lean league form and continued the Spaniard’s glorious love affair with Bigger Vase.

So Bodø/Glimt’s Kjetil Knutsen has been in charge of the club for as long as Spurs’ last eight managers (yesterday’s Football Daily)? Crikey, imagine how good they’ll be once he’s had time to properly settle in” – Phil Taverner.

With Bodø/Glimt operating at an almost Zen-like level of success, is it any wonder that while messaging, my predictive text honours them as ‘Buddha Glimpse’?” – Jeremy Foxon.

Surprisingly little attention seems to have been paid to USA USA USA’s decision to deny visas to 10 of the Jamaican Mount Pleasant squad prior to their Concacaf round of 16 match at LA Galaxy. A deafening silence from Fifa does not bode well for the upcoming Geopolitics World Cup” – Rob Taylor.

Re: yesterday’s Memory Lane (full email edition). I was there in 1977! As a Bristol City supporter, before the days of all-ticket matches, we paid our farthings and were crammed into the Coventry home end at Highfield Road, with a line of police officers between the opposing fans. It was almost certainly illegally over-filled. The mass of away supporters caused kick-off to be delayed, a crucial aspect to the story … The situation was, for the last match of the season, and a midweek evening kick-off, either team wins and they stay up. Losing team relegated. But Sunderland, promoted from Division Two the previous season along with Bristol City and West Brom, were playing at Everton, and if Sunderland lost, a draw at Highfield Road would see both Citys stay up and Sunderland go down. We went 2-0 behind. It looked all over for us. But somehow we got back to 2-2. Then Coventry decided to display the final score at Goodison Park – 1-0 to Everton. Why? Whatever their reasons it led to the situation you described. Both teams just knocked it about between themselves, no attempts to attack the opposition. Both sets of supporters (including me) and, presumably, players and staff went home happy” – Steve King.

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We look at the 14th regular season before it kicks off on Friday with two expansion sides: Boston Legacy and Denver Summit

The National Women’s Soccer League’s 14th regular season starts on Friday with a rematch of last year’s semi-final between the Portland Thorns and Washington Spirit. From there, 16 teams will compete in a 248-match season, with eight teams qualifying for the playoffs.

We look at four themes that may define the year.

Players and coaches demand more accountability from Caf after latest decision further disrupts preparation schedule

On 13 February, Patrice Motsepe, the president of the Confederation of African Football (Caf), promised that this year’s Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon), scheduled to be played in Morocco between 17 March and 4 April, would go ahead as planned. One of the reasons he had to make that statement was the 2024 tournament had been postponed for a remarkable 19 months, until July 2025.

That supposedly solemn presidential promise was broken on 5 March, 12 days before the start of the tournament, with many of the teams – including Nigeria, the defending champions, Cameroon and Ghana – playing friendlies across Africa and Asia to prepare for the showpiece, which also determines which teams get to represent the continent at next year’s World Cup.

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

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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.

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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.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Nicky Bandini and Archie Rhind-Tutt as Premier League sides fail to win any of their games in this week’s Champions League last-16 first legs

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On the podcast today: another disappointing night for the Premier League clubs in the Champions League. Federico Valverde with one of the touches of the season, cushioning it over Marc Guéhi before hammering home a first-half hat-trick.

Plus: privately-educated players, surviving despite away-day woes; and the trophy-less 1909 Scottish Cup

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“Are the 23 red cards shown in the game between Brazilian clubs Cruzeiro and Atlético Mineiro in the Campeonato Mineiro final a record?” asks Tom Reed.

In case you missed it, the Campeonato Mineiro final descended/ascended into a festival of hand-throwing. Cruzeiro won the football match 1-0 and the red card contest 12-11. We had a similar question back in 2002, when the world record was 20 in a Paraguayan league match between Sportivo Ameliano and General Caballero. But modern life is febrile, and that record was obliterated by events in Claypole, Argentina, in February 2011. Don’t take our word for it, read this excerpt from Guinness World Records:

The highest reported number of players sent off in a single football match is 36 in the Argentine Primera D game between Club Atlético Claypole and Victoriano Arenas refereed by Damián Rubino (Argentina) at the Estadio Rodolfo Capocasa, Claypole, Argentina, on 27 February 2011. All 18 players on each side (11 on-field players and seven substitutes) were sent off following what the referee described in his post-match report as a ‘Generalised Brawl’ that seemed to have been the result of a series of confrontations and heavy tackles that had taken place throughout the feisty encounter. The game was the 23rd round of matches in the Primera D, the fifth tier of Argentine football, in what was in theory a regulation league match, there was no historic rivalry between the sides.

Over the course of a 20-year playing career from 1995 to 2015, Gerardo ‘the Beast’ Bedoya (Colombia) was sent off 46 times. The tough-tackling defender/defensive midfielder earned 49 caps for his national team. On 24 March 2016, Bedoya made his debut as a coach of Colombian side Independiente Santa Fe during their match against Atlético Junior, and was sent off after 21 minutes for berating the officials.

Faye Carruthers is joined by Suzy Wrack, Tom Garry and Anton Toloui as England beat Iceland 2-0 to maintain their 100% start to their World Cup qualifying campaign

On today’s pod: the Lionesses are two from two in their World Cup qualifiers, a goal and an assist from Lucy Bronze putting England top of the table before their intriguing clash with Spain in April.

Elsewhere, there are wins for Scotland and Wales, while Northern Ireland finally name their new permanent manager.

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

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The margin may have got smaller but the brilliant Spanish midfielder makes it a hat-trick of No 1 finishes

They say the best things come in threes, and Aitana Bonmatí has written herself into the Guardian’s top 100 history as the first player to finish at the top of the tree for a third consecutive year.

Last year the majestic midfielder emulated her Barcelona and Spain teammate Alexia Putellas by winning for a second year running, but the 27-year-old has now gone one better, establishing herself once again at the top of the women’s game.

From PSG’s Ibrahim Mbaye to Brazil’s next hope, we select some of the most talented players born in 2008. Check the progress of our classes of 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 … and go even further back. Here’s our Premier League class of 2025