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NWSL newcomers attracted more than 60,000 fans to Mile High Stadium for landmark fixture against Washington

On Saturday in Denver, the NWSL set a new single-game attendance record for the second time in less than a year. This time, it was the league’s 16th franchise, Denver Summit, who did the honors in their first home game, hosting 63,004 fans at Empower Field at Mile High Stadium (home to the Denver Broncos). The league’s new milestone eclipses the previous record by about 23,000 fans.

Denver’s entry into the NWSL has been a fast-paced and ambitious whirlwind. They were officially announced as the league’s 16th team in January 2025. Three days later, they became the fastest expansion franchise to sell 5,000 season tickets, with 5,280 sold in three days. They went on to sell out their 8,500 season-ticket allotment in short order, adding thousands to a waitlist.

Thomas Tuchel played down the significance of latest friendlies and history suggests team lineups can have little bearing on actual tournament

“It’s just March,” Thomas Tuchel said after a winless international break. March doesn’t matter. March is for winding up the Wembley crowd by playing Ben White. For Phil Foden as a false 9. For Dominic Calvert-Lewin agonising over narrow misses. For Jason Steele in the crucial emergency fifth goalkeeper spot.

Will any of this matter when England head to Miami for their World Cup training camp on 1 June? History suggests the answer is yes … but also no. The last camps before a tournament can be odd. For Tuchel, comparisons with the past are awkward. The modern calendar has been squeezed by the club game and it is not surprising that his players are exhausted when the physical demands on Premier League teams are so extreme.

• Fifa has not agreed tax exemption with US government

• Burden will fall disproportionately on smaller nations

More than half the countries that have qualified for the World Cup are facing additional costs and potential losses due to Fifa’s failure to agree a blanket tax exemption with the United States government and significant variance in the host country’s international tax treaties.

As a not-for-profit organisation Fifa has had tax-free status in the US since the 1994 World Cup, but that exemption does not apply to all of the 48 qualifiers, whose national associations must pay a range of federal, state and city taxes on their earnings from the tournament this summer.

Rival fans have raged after 11 of Mikel Arteta’s players withdrew from action with their countries before the season finale

With the benefit of hindsight, Mikel Arteta’s response to a question before Arsenal’s victory over Everton last month about how the forthcoming international break might affect his squad was revealing. “We have really good communication with most of them,” Arteta replied when asked whether he was planning to speak to the various international managers that were expected to call up his players. “We’ll wait and see how everybody is and have those conversations and make the right decisions.”

Considering that Arsenal were still pursuing an unprecedented quadruple at the time, was this the most nervous he had ever felt going into an international break? “It’s a period that I don’t enjoy a lot,” admitted Arteta. “Especially when we have 18, 19 players playing. And especially with what happened in our recent history with very important players. But that is part of the calendar and we have to accept that.”

For examples of how little a team’s form in the World Cup run-in matters in the tournament itself, look no further than the US

The last time the United States men’s national team entered into the final stretch of their preparations for a World Cup on home soil, the results were dire. From January through April of 1994, the Americans, who were mostly sequestered in a full-time training camp, played 12 games and won just twice. They even managed to lose to Iceland, who were a total non-factor in global soccer back then.

Then, that ’94 team went on to survive the group stage and narrowly lose to eventual champions Brazil, 1-0, in the round of 16. They delivered on expectations in spite of their deflating run-in.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Lars Sivertsen and Nicky Bandini as Italy suffer World Cup heartbreak once again, and Spurs call on Roberto De Zerbi to rescue them from relegation

From Algeria to Uzbekistan, our writers and contributors from around the world assess the state of the 48 nations to qualify for the World Cup

“There’s more talent and potential than in 2022,” Kylian Mbappé said ominously this week after France had beaten Brazil 2-1 despite having Dayot Upamecano sent off after 55 minutes. He may well be right. For the second game of this window, against Colombia, Didier Deschamps changed the entire starting XI but was still able to field an attack of Marcus Thuram, Désiré Doué, Rayan Cherki and Maghnes Akliouche. Doué scored two in a comfortable 3-1 victory. “I’m well aware that there are some very good players that I won’t be bringing because, in my opinion, there are even better ones,” Deschamps said. Marcus Christenson

Marc Skinner called for more investment in experienced players from Manchester United in order for his team to push on, after they succumbed to two late Bayern Munich goals and were knocked out in the Women’s Champions League quarter-finals despite a spirited, second-leg performance.

Skinner’s team led on the night for 70 minutes after Melvine Malard’s opener but Bayern built up a heavy spell of pressure in the second half and eventually found a way through United’s dogged resistance. Glódís Viggósdóttir’s header from a corner and Linda Dallmann’s sweetly struck half-volley gave the runaway Bundesliga leaders a 5-3 aggregate victory.

Sonia Bompastor blasted refereeing in the Champions League as “not good enough” after she was shown two yellow cards and emotions boiled over following Katie McCabe’s hair pull on Alyssa Thompson in a frantic end to their two-legged quarter-final defeat by Arsenal.

The holders, Arsenal, progress despite the controversy, and will play the winner of Thursday night’s quarter-final between Lyon and Wolfsburg, with the German side taking a 1-0 lead into the second leg.

Roberto Baggio proposed an overhaul of talent pathway in 2011 but it was never acted on and the national team’s approach now is just not working

The decline of Italy’s footballing expectations can be read in the headlines that greeted their third consecutive failure to qualify for a men’s World Cup. When the Azzurri lost their playoff against Sweden in November 2017, La Gazzetta dello Sport defined it as “The End” and an “Apocalypse”. After defeat by North Macedonia in 2022, Il Corriere dello Sport saw a country sinking “Into Hell”.

On Wednesday both newspapers led coverage of elimination by Bosnia and Herzegovina with a simpler, perhaps sadder, “Tutti A Casa” – Everybody Go Home. What else is there left to say? Italians understood long ago that 2018 was not some aberration but the continuation of a trend, their team having failed to reach the tournament’s knockout stage in 2010 or 2014.

Only half of the 26 places appear nailed-on and some players benefited from missing the Uruguay and Japan games

Jordan Pickford remains the undisputed No 1. Harry Kane is irreplaceable up front. Declan Rice and Elliot Anderson look certain to start in midfield, nobody has emerged as a realistic challenger to Bukayo Saka on the right and Jude Bellingham’s hopes of grabbing the No 10 spot were done a world of good by other challengers failing to impress against Japan and Uruguay.

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• Slot: ‘Hopefully he can make his legacy more special’

• Liverpool’s record signing Isak ‘in a really good place’

The Liverpool head coach, Arne Slot, believes Mohamed Salah will “leave the club a legend” after announcing his departure at the end of the season. The Egypt international took to social media last week to reveal he had come to an agreement with the club to end the contract he only extended last summer a year early.

It has been a difficult campaign for the 33-year-old, the low point of which came in December when he said Slot had “thrown him under the bus” by benching him when results took a slide.

• Figures surpass Manchester City’s £197.5m loss in 2010-11

• Chelsea spent £65.1m on agents fees in 2025 to 2026 period

Chelsea announced a Premier League-record pre-tax loss of £262.4m on Wednesday for the year ending 30 June 2025 on the same day it was revealed they had spent significantly more on agents’ fees than any other English club this season. The loss was attributed by the club to higher operating costs compared to the 2023-24 season and smashed the previous highest pre-tax loss recorded by Manchester City in the 2010-11 season.

The club had posted a profit of £128.4m in the previous year’s accounts, significantly boosted by the sale of the women’s team to Blueco Midco – a subsidiary company – for almost £200m.

• Police investigate chants heard at Barcelona friendly

• Spain’s coach and justice minister condemn behaviour

Lamine Yamal has criticised chants by Spain fans during a friendly against Egypt in Barcelona that police are investigating for Islamophobia and xenophobia.

Spain supporters chanted “who doesn’t jump is a Muslim”, prompting Yamal to respond on Instagram. He wrote that the chanting “was aimed at the opposing team and was not something personal against me, but as a Muslim it is still a lack of respect and something intolerable. To those who sing these things: using a religion as a form of mockery on a pitch shows you up as ignorant and racist.”

• Sam Kerr and Caitlin Foord named as Mary Fowler rests after Asian Cup

• Australia to play 153rd-ranked Malawi followed by India or Kenya

The Matildas have opted for consistency in building towards the 2027 Women’s World Cup, as Joe Montemurro named a 22-player squad for a pair of international friendlies in Kenya later this month.

But the head coach wants Australia to play against more “high quality, top-ranked” opposition in preparation for the global showpiece, given the side faces world No 153 Malawi in their first match, followed by India (No 67) or hosts Kenya (No 134) in the second.

• Skinner’s side spent £5.88m while Arsenal spent £11.3m

• United face Bayern in Champions League on Wednesday

Manchester United’s wage bill was about half that of their Women’s Super League rivals Arsenal’s last season, their latest financial accounts have revealed, highlighting the stark contrast in spending at some of England’s biggest clubs as they prepare for a decisive night of European action.

United, who finished third in the WSL last season, four points behind second-placed Arsenal, face Bayern Munich in the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final on Wednesday, while Arsenal travel to Chelsea, after they qualified for the competition with hugely different budgets.

With controversy stalking football on the continent, the Caf president has a huge challenge on his hands

It has been a miserable few months for the Confederation of African Football (Caf) and its South African billionaire president, Patrice Motsepe. On Sunday, he had the chance to clarify a few things, to set the record straight. The decision by Caf’s appeal board to strip Senegal of the Afcon trophy and hand it to Morocco has led to Motsepe facing the most treacherous and, without question, the most challenging period in his five-year presidency of the continent’s football governing body.

“It is very clear to me Motsepe will have to show leadership to find a solution to a problem I think cannot be solved by legal means alone,” a member told me after the CAF executive committee meeting at the Giza Palace hotel in Cairo.

Manager and team had hit rock bottom, but together they found redemption and are heading to North America

A manager down on his luck after a second failure in quick succession, wondering what the future would hold. A national team struggling at the bottom of their qualifying group given a second chance through the vagaries of the Nations League. That national team happens to be the country where the manager made his name, inspiring a team from a town with a population of 50,000 to win the Swedish Cup.

So the two get together, doubting manager and doubting country, and somehow, less than six months after the nadir, they are going to the World Cup finals.

The former England and Tottenham forward has had to be patient to get his chance but he ‘was never going to give up’

“It’s been a long time coming,” Jermain Defoe says on his first day as Woking’s manager. Dressed in a sharp grey suit that he admits he is wearing on the instructions of his mother, Sandra – “I know she’ll be watching this, and she’ll be like: ‘You’ve got to look smart!’” – the former England striker certainly looks the part as he fields questions in the unassuming surroundings of the Cardinal Bar at the Laithwaite Community Stadium.

From missing the buzz of playing top‑level football since retiring in 2022 to acknowledging why it is crucial to “earn your stripes” as a manager, Defoe is brutally honest about the task that awaits him at the club that has never made it to the Football League in 139 years of existence. He even jokes that he turned down his former team Tottenham to take over at Woking.

Brighton fans have fond memories of the Italian, hailed as a genius by rivals, but his time on the south coast went sour

Things may have ended on a sour note but there is a reason why a giant picture of a beaming Roberto De Zerbi adorns the wall outside the home dressing room at the Amex Stadium. It was taken in 2023 at the end of the Italian’s first season at Brighton after he had led the club to sixth in the Premier League – their highest finish – and taken them into Europe for the first time.

Three years later, memories of De Zerbi remain strong among Brighton supporters. It is a legacy that Fabian Hürzeler has found hard to emulate since succeeding De Zerbi, who fell out with the club’s owner, Tony Bloom, over squad recruitment.

The American star hasn’t scored since 2024 for the US, but he and manager Mauricio Pochettino are taking it in stride

Nobody on the US men’s national team is worried about Christian Pulisic’s severe lack of goalscoring form.

At least, nobody is saying they are.

Japan’s goal wasn’t Palmer’s fault and Mainoo couldn’t track back, but Tuchel will now see the scale of what faces him

To see a world in a grain of meaningless friendly. It has become a habit to say you don’t learn anything from these games. This isn’t strictly true. You just don’t learn anything new. But it’s all still there, ready to be decoded like a set of sporting tea leaves.

On a strangely empty night at Wembley Stadium – also known as “a night at Wembley Stadium” – the opening half-hour of this 1-0 England defeat against Japan was fluffy, formless and free from any real edge. But that half-hour was also hugely telling, packed with echoes, ghosts and patterns. Another March friendly: another note in the never-ending story of England footballdom, an epic poem in 1,080 parts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Group D, which also contains the US and Paraguay, has emerged as arguably the tournament’s most difficult pool

The Socceroos’ challenge at the World Cup in North America has crystallised after a dramatic evening of qualifiers in Europe, and it leaves Australia staring at two of world’s best young footballers in their tournament opener.

The fairytale run of Kosovo came to an end in Pristina after Turkey eked out a 1-0 victory to book their place in North America. That means Australia now know their first-up opponents, alongside the United States and Paraguay in Group D – arguably the most difficult of the 12 pools at the tournament.

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

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

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

Relegation battle has exposed Spurs’ institutional flaws with the stupidity of the interim hire still startling

Probably Tim Sherwood put it best, speaking on Sky Sports about the through-the-looking-glass world of Tottenham Hotspur and magic bean relegation remedies. “They need an arm round the shoulder,” Sherwood said. “I’d tell Xavi Simons he’s the new Luka Modric. Obviously he’s not but I’d tell him he was. I’d tell him: ‘Save us from relegation and you can go to Real Madrid next season.’ Obviously he won’t but I’d tell him that.”

Sherwood has had a good Tottenham crisis period. “The Premier League has smacked him in the mouth,” was his verdict on Igor Tudor, pre-sacking. While every proper football man will like the sound of this, of the Premier League being large and unassailable, Tudor deserves a little sympathy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our cartoonist on the 78-year-old’s shock move to Bristol and his attempts to connect with the young ‘uns

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

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

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

Gabriel Zakuani played over 400 EFL games and captained the Democratic Republic of the Congo – now he helps his country recruit talent like Aaron Wan-Bissaka

A Costa Coffee in Purley was the unlikely venue for Gabriel Zakuani’s meeting in 2022 with Sébastien Desabre, the newly appointed manager of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), but they were there on a secret mission. Aaron Wan-Bissaka was at Manchester Unitedand holding out for an England call-up after representing the under-21s. But Zakuani, who was raised in London but born in the Congolese capital Kinshasa and played for the DRC at three Africa Cup of Nations tournaments, had different plans.

“The manager contacted me out of the blue and he was in London,” the former Peterborough defender says. “It was a very random trip – he just wanted to watch players that potentially could play for Congo. We met at Costa and less than an hour into the conversation I had rung up Aaron’s family and we were at Aaron’s house. We were having a conversation with his mum and dad about potentially getting him to change his nationality. It snowballed from there.”

Dutchman who succeeded Dick Advocaat was once offered assistant’s role to Ten Hag at Manchester United

Soon after the news broke last month that Fred Rutten would lead Curaçao at the World Cup, he received a text from one of the players. “Hey boss, welcome to the family,” read the message from the goalkeeper Eloy Room. It was a warm greeting for the coach called in to replace Dick Advocaat, who had led the small island to that historic qualification but stepped down to be with his ill daughter.

Rutten’s appointment may have been a surprise to the outside world – he has not held a coaching role for almost three years and has never led a national team – but his appointment did not come out of the blue.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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?

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Like a Christmas day can of John West tuna chunks for one with an accompanying bottle of champagne and war movie triple-bill chez Richard Keys, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club is the gift that keeps on giving. Like Gregory Peck’s crack commando unit attempting to silence the eponymous guns of Navarone, Spurs currently find themselves in an extremely high-stakes race against time only to be repeatedly thwarted at every turn by a mixture of internal sabotage, the at times unbearable burden of leadership and immense dissatisfaction among the rank and file. The mission? To escape an ignominious, financially ruinous slide into the Championship. The plan? A chaotic improvisation that suggests the club hierarchy are just making things up as they go along, one ill-judged managerial appointment at a time.

I’m delighted to hear of Mr Roy’s return to the touchline but it raises a question for me. As a philistine who only learned of his TBOF (two banks or four) in Friday’s Football Daily, I’m compelled to ask how it differs from fellow England alumnus Mike Bassett’s FFFR (four, four, flippin’ two)“ – Simon Riley.

A double doff of the cap to Big Paper’s Jonathan Wilson this weekend. Firstly, for pointing out that ‘in the 2018 World Cup semi-final, the clearest signal England were done for was Jordan Henderson gamely running shuttles as Luka Modric, Marcelo Brozovic and Ivan Rakitic knocked the ball round him’ a whole eight years before Tommy Tuchel picked him for the game against Uruguay. And, secondly, for hoping that most readers would know, or could be bothered to Google, what the ‘Gaia hypothesis’ is, in the very same piece. Never change, Wilson, never change” – Noble Francis.

So Tudor lasted 44 days at Spurs (with some compassionate extension). Bloody hell, that was shorter than Liz Truss’s tenure in charge of the government. At least he didn’t spaff £65bn in the process, so the experiment might be deemed a success if one sets the bar very very low” – Nigel Sanders.

I was playing Football Manager earlier today when I got offered the Tottenham job. I thanked them but declined the offer, hung up the phone and then returned to playing my game” – James Vortkamp-Tong.

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

Plus: qualifying for the World Cup with no more than two wins, a 20-0 victory and scratching a 34-year itch

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“The Bundesliga table shows Bayern Munich on 70 points with an eye-popping goal difference of +72,” pops Chris Fryer. “Has any club won the league with a greater goal difference than points tally?”

Bayern Munich have won 22 and lost one in the Bundesliga this season. That was a 2-1 defeat against Augsburg, which means their 22 victories have produced a goal difference of +73. In other words, their average margin of victory is an absurd 3.32 goals.

0.388 Rangers 1898-99 (Scottish First Division)

0.353 Hearts 1957-58 (Scottish First Division)

0.200 Liverpool 1895-96 (Second Division)

0.176 Ajax 1966-67 (Eredivisie)

0.09 Birmingham 1892-93 (Second Division)

The defender, a sole link between the past and present, is focused on nurturing young talent to help her country realise its 50-year plan

“Ranking!?” Saki Kumagai says with a laugh. In the afterglow of her team’s Asian Cup triumph in Australia, the veteran Japan defender is asked about where this trophy sits among the many other titles she has won throughout her staggering 17-year career.

But she just smiles and shakes her head. “I never compare my titles,” she says. “Yes, I won some trophies in my career. But this team is from a different generation, so [winning] a trophy in this tournament, that was the really impressive thing for me.

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

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

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

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

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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