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It was the night when Lee Carsley dropped Harry Kane and came up smelling of roses, this a result not only to avenge the shapeless 2-1 Wembley defeat against Greece in October but to put England on the verge of automatic promotion back into the Nations League’s A section.

It is difficult to remember Kane ever being axed for an England game, let alone a must-win big one – rather than rested or rotated. And it was especially bold from Carsley given he was without a host of big names.

• Brighton striker and Kelleher penalty save see off Finland
• Newcastle’s Tonali hits first Italy goal for 1-0 victory

Evan Ferguson’s fourth senior international goal handed Republic of Ireland a 1-0 Nations League victory over Finland as Caoimhín Kelleher saved a penalty to see them across the line.

The 20-year-old Brighton striker’s header in the final minute of the first half proved sufficient to add three more points in Group B2 to those his side secured in the reverse fixture in Helsinki last month, but only after Liverpool keeper Kelleher had kept out the substitute Joel Pohjanpalo’s second-half spot-kick.

• Referees’ body says it is taking allegations ‘very seriously’
• Coote was suspended over remarks about Jürgen Klopp

The Premier League’s refereeing body has said it is aware of footage allegedly showing David Coote sniffing white powder.

The video emerged after Professional Game Match Officials Ltd (PGMOL) and the Football Association launched investigations into Coote after remarks he made about Jürgen Klopp in a video that surfaced online this week.

Colombia forward on settling in London, learning English fast and relishing the competitiveness of the WSL

Mayra Ramírez makes unpicking defences look effortless. It’s impossible not to watch in awe as she unmasks even the most experienced WSL defenders with a turn, a shrug, a touch or a flick.

Her goal in the fourth minute of Chelsea’s game at Arsenal in October placed the final nail in the coffin of Jonas Eidevall’s tenure, and it would be hammered down by the hosts’ 2-1 defeat. With her back to goal, Ramírez capitalised on poor defending and hooked the ball over her head, beyond Daphne van Domselaar and in.

• Ranieri to take role as adviser to owners at end of season
• He becomes Roma’s fourth head coach of the year

Claudio Ranieri has come out of retirement at the age of 73 to take charge of Roma until the end of the season, the Serie A club have announced, days after sacking the Croatian Ivan Juric.

Ranieri is Roma’s third coach of the season and this is his third time coaching his home town club, having guided the Giallorossi from 2009-11 and in 2019. He began his playing career with Roma.

• Manager says Scotland should seek to emulate Croatia
• Clarke’s side battling against Nations League relegation

Steve Clarke has warned Scottish football it must adopt a drastically different approach to youth development or risk falling further behind the world’s leading nations.

Clarke’s sterling work in charge of the national team – Scotland are in the top tier of the Nations League and have qualified for back-to-back European Championships – masks domestic concerns. Statistics relating to the lack of homegrown players, especially those aged under 21, in the Scottish Premiership are alarming. This contrasts starkly with the situation in Croatia, whom Scotland welcome to Hampden Park on Friday evening.

• Coach believes issue is central to improving inclusion
• ‘When it comes to the girls there are often no facilities’

A coach has sparked a ­grassroots movement to improve inclusivity in football: by demanding that toilets are opened for girls.

A petition calling on the ­Football Association to “Mandate Toilet ­Facilities at All Youth Football ­Venues” has more than 28,000 ­signatures on Change.org, after Natalie Booth became frustrated by the absence of facilities for her local team.

Skirmish quickly quashed by security guards at stadium as riot police is deployed at ‘high-risk’ game

A skirmish involving Israel fans broke out in the stands of the Stade de France during a tense match between Israel and France’s men’s football teams, but a heavy police presence ensured a repeat of the serious violence in Amsterdam was avoided.

The game had been designated as “high risk” after the hooliganism and antisemitism witnessed in the Netherlands before and after a Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv last week.

• Spain great starts first major venture since retirement
• Club are currently seventh in 12-team division

Andrés Iniesta has become co-owner of the Danish third-tier club Helsingør in the Spain legend’s first major off-field venture since retirement.

Helsingør announced that NSN, the sports management and consulting company jointly founded by Iniesta, would take control alongside the Swiss investment group Stoneweg. They are seventh in their 12-team division, to which they were relegated last season. NSN had been working with the club on a consultancy basis to, according to the firm’s website, “consolidate its position and give the opportunity to worldwide talents to come and play in Europe”.

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Where Big Website goes, other wishy-washy, left-leaning hipster havens naturally follow, so it came as no surprise that following Wednesday’s announcement that we would no longer be posting content on the particular Social Media Abomination that known as TwiXer from official accounts, one of Europe’s most right-on football clubs duly followed suit. A traditionally left-wing outfit that was founded in 1899, St Pauli play their football near Hamburg’s Reeperbahn and are famous for their iconic skull and crossbones logo. They were the first Bundesliga club to sign a black player, the first to officially ban right-wing nationalist activities at their games and almost certainly the first purported socialists to charge an eye-watering €37 for a snow shovel in their official club shop.

With all due respect, isn’t it time for the massively overused phrase ‘door marked Do One’ (Football Daily passim) to, well, do one? I mean it was funny the first few times, was getting trite on about its 100th appearance, but after about 178,357 uses, it really has become tedious” – Ric Arthur (and one other).

If Alanis Morissette is looking for an updated line to add to her biggest hit, may I suggest: ‘It’s like Rick Parry accusing the Premier League of undervaluing the football pyramid.’ Admittedly, it doesn’t scan, but the man who helped to create the English game’s ‘global entertainment product’ saying this seems a tad more ironic than rain on your wedding day” – Joe Stafford.

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

Young England team swagger past Greece under interim manager to make you feel it’s a shame he isn’t getting the job full-time

The moment of the night in Athens came on 82 minutes, with England’s young team romping about the place like cosseted schoolboys, all jinky little twirls and prim one-touch keep-ball. On the right wing Morgan Gibbs-White, once of Lee Carsley’s under-21s, flicked the ball inside towards the white shirts in the centre. The closest of them was Curtis Jones, also once of Lee Carsley’s under-21s, who did something entirely in keeping with his almost laughably unhurried performance all night, letting the ball run past him, then producing a perfectly pinged instep drag-flick into the far corner.

It made the score 3-0, the final significant act of England’s penultimate outing under an interim manager who has, it turns out, something of the avenger about him, the quiet revolutionary, a Martin Luther in overly tight lycra tracksuit bottoms.

Where once British football coaches brought revolution to other countries, they are now playing catch-up

Rúben Amorim is the latest coach to head from Portugal to England on a well-travelled route in recent years but, for a long time, it was popular going the other way. Sporting have had eight Englishmen, a Scot and a Welshman in the dugout over their history but the last of those was Bobby Robson in 1992.

Vic Buckingham, Fred Pentland and John Toshack ticked off most of Spain between them but now British coaches abroad are a rarity. The England men’s national team have recently appointed Thomas Tuchel, causing much consternation among certain factions who wonder why a homegrown solution could not be sought. One of the key issues is that no domestic manager can boast the experience of working and winning in different countries like the German, who has a willingness to travel.

• Bundesliga club move to Bluesky and urge fans to follow
• St Pauli concerned X may influence German election

St Pauli have become the first major football club to leave X, ­describing the social media site as a “hate machine” and expressing concern that it may influence the outcome of the forthcoming German election.

Scrutiny of the role played by X in platforming hate speech, far-right conspiracy theories and racism has intensified since Donald Trump’s victory in last week’s US election. Trump was vociferously supported by the entrepreneur Elon Musk, who bought X – then known as Twitter – in October 2022. Musk was given part-control of a new “department of government efficiency” this week.

• Australia captain ‘coming on well’ but imminent return unlikely
• Interim boss names 36-strong squad for upcoming friendlies

Matildas coach Tom Sermanni says Sam Kerr is unlikely to return to action this year after he named an expanded Australian squad for four home friendly matches starting later this month.

The Chelsea striker injured her knee in January, and there were faint hopes her return was imminent, but as expected she wasn’t one of the 36 players named on Friday.

Footballer who played for the Chelsea team that won the FA Cup and the European Cup Winners’ Cup in the early 1970s

The footballer John Dempsey, who has died aged 78, was an uncompromising central defender with Chelsea when they won the FA Cup in 1970 and the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1971. Although most accustomed to clearing out attackers and winning balls with his aerial power, Dempsey made significant attacking interventions in both those triumphs, in particular during the European Cup Winners’ Cup final replay in Athens against Real Madrid, when on a rare excursion into the opposition penalty box he came up with a crisply struck volley from 12 yards to set Chelsea on the way to a 2-1 victory. He also contributed a headed goal in a fifth round defeat of Crystal Palace during the victorious FA Cup campaign of the previous year.

Those goals – two of only seven he scored in his 207 matches for Chelsea between 1969 and 1978 – gave a clue to Dempsey’s schoolboy exploits as a striker. But his primary concern was to shore up the defence, in combination with the rugged trio of David Webb, Ron “Chopper” Harris and Eddie McCreadie, described by their teammate Peter Osgood as the “four assassins at the back”.

Stalemate might have been worse but for last-gasp offside and return fixture now looks set to be a 2026 World Cup qualification shootout

That the player of the match award at Australia’s World Cup qualifier in Melbourne on Thursday was sponsored by the Saudi Tourism Authority is somehow fitting. This was indeed a never-ending night of contradictions, a match that the Socceroos managed to make a scoreless home draw feel like a victory.

As the clock ticked towards 93 minutes, the brilliant strike by Sultan al-Ghannam billows the net and prompts wild celebrations among the Saudi players and travelling supporters. Just what the Socceroos needed, another home capitulation, think 27,000 fans inside AAMI Park.

The quest for revenue is the defining struggle of modern football, and many fans have correctly come to see higher revenue as the surest route to on-field glory

In the grand churn of the money machine that is modern football, it ranks as a fairly small deal. But when Liverpool recently announced they will earn more than £60m ($76.3m) a year from a new kit deal with Adidas starting next season, the reaction from the club’s supporters across social media said a lot about the nature of modern fandom. Apart from the habitual grumbles about what this might mean for the design of the team’s kit, fans mostly seemed to respond to the announcement in one of two ways: why doesn’t the new deal bring the club into line with the £90m ($114.3m) that Manchester United receives from Adidas for a comparable arrangement? And more pressingly: what kind of squad investment can an extra few million pounds a year secure? “Enough to pay Virgil,” declared one user on Reddit. “Does that mean we will buy a RB and a 10?” asked another.

These are, of course, completely normal reactions; any other club announcing any kind of commercial “win” would face similar responses from its supporters. But they highlight the extent to which we, as fans, have all become psychologically colonized by the grubby extractionism that defines the modern Premier League, applauding from the sidelines as a new content deal or shirt sponsorship or asset sale or fresh suite of unaffordable subscription packages lurches into view on the club balance sheet. That seat upgrade “layer” and points-based VIP fan tier might be part of the commercial drift that’s making football less affordable, carrying it ever further from the communities it claims to represent, but if they nab us a quality back-up keeper to put pressure on that number one chronically fumbling under the high ball? Well, maybe they’re not so bad after all.

• Australia 0-0 Saudi Arabia in 2026 World Cup qualifier
• Disallowed goal denies visitors last-gasp victory

It was a funny game, Australia’s 0-0 World Cup qualifying draw with Saudi Arabia on Thursday evening; a contest in which neither side could be said to have played at their best but, at the same time, both will have left kicking themselves that they didn’t take the three points. For the Socceroos, it was a tale, yet again, of telling moments going begging. And for the Green Falcons, inches, if that, that denied them a dramatic 95th-minute winner.

With just seconds remaining, having not created all that much going forward across the second half, the ball sat up for Sultan Al-Ghannam on the second phase of a free kick. The 27,491 fans in the stadium held their breath and the Al-Nassr wingback seized the moment, driving a low effort beyond Joe Gacui and into the bottom corner of the net. It was a dagger, a late strike that had won the game. Pandemonium broke out on the Saudi bench and the strong contingent of their fans in the stands.

Chelsea’s aspiration of claiming this season’s Women’s Champions League was hardly in danger as Murphy Agnew handed Celtic a shock 22nd-minute lead. It was simply that the potential for an embarrassing evening for one of the luminaries of the Super League became a live one. Briefly, as it transpired.

Chelsea departed Glasgow’s east end with reputation intact. There was only a stoppage-time red card for Aggie Beever-Jones to irritate Sonia Bompastor. Beever-Jones had received two bookings, the first for re-entering the field without permission. Bompastor felt that situation “could have been avoided” by the match officials.

Competition pitting Premier League U21s against fifth-tier reserves fails to inspire a paltry Wealdstone crowd against Southampton

Fifth-tier Wealdstone defeated Premier League Southampton 3-1 on Tuesday night: a remarkable result at first glance but one that came with caveats.

Southampton Under-21s went to north-west London to play Matt Taylor’s heavily rotated Wealdstone in the National League Cup at Grosvenor Vale. The competition was revived last month with a 32-team, four-group format featuring 16 sides from Premier League 2, and 16 from the league’s fifth rung.

English football grounds in the late 1980s could be grey and downbeat but that changed thanks to Manchester City fan Frank Newton

Amidst the depressing backdrop of hooliganism and the imminent threat of ID cards, grounds during the 1988–89 campaign could be downbeat, grey and sometimes largely deserted. On the face of it, life could have been especially grim for Manchester City fans, given that this was now the second consecutive campaign they’d competed in the Second Division.

But City still had the sixth-highest average attendance across the four divisions and, in their shiny sky-blue kit, had harvested a rich crop of English talent from their youth team, including lightning-quick winger David White, midfielder Paul Lake – tipped for an England call-up – and forward Paul Moulden, who’d plundered an absurdly high number of goals at youth-team level and was now scoring for the first team too. A year before, they put an eye-catching 10 goals past Malcolm Macdonald’s Huddersfield Town, with Paul Stewart (who was sold to Tottenham at season’s end), Tony Adcock and White each grabbing a hat-trick. But what also caught the eye was the fact that on the terraces, City fans really had gone bananas.

Salento club may not have a storied history but players did not have to stay long to make their mark

By Michele Tossani for The Gentleman Ultra

Picking five players for a rational Lecce side should be easy, on paper. Salentini are a club that first stood in Serie A in 1985-86, which is relatively recent. The first Lecce game I remember was the 2-2 that the newly promoted side imposed on the then Campioni d’Italia of Verona in September 1985.

But Lecce are a club that featured great players. So, in the end, building Lecce’s five-a-side lineup was not as easy as expected to be.

Abdelrahman Kuku is part of a side that cannot play at home but wants to bring joy there

“I am excited, everyone is excited, you have to be excited,” the Sudan international Abdelrahman Kuku says and that’s understandable. Sudan need a point against Niger on Thursday to qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations – for the fourth time in 24 tournaments – and eliminate Ghana. That would be impressive enough given the circumstances but the Jediane Falcons are also soaring at the top of their World Cup qualification group after four games as they seek to qualify for the first time.

The circumstances, though, are as dire as can be. The country of almost 50 million is being torn apart by a fierce civil war that broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces militia. The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, said in October that millions are not able to escape from a “nightmare of violence, hunger, disease and displacement”.

Plus: title winners with multiple clubs, a very southern English top flight, more palindromes and mascots on shirts

• Mail us your questions or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU

“Aberdeen were thrashed 6-0 by Celtic in the Scottish League Cup, ending a 16-match unbeaten run under Jimmy Thelin. What’s the heaviest defeat to end an unbeaten run?” asked Matthew Shore last week.

We added the caveat of an unbeaten run of at least 15 games, and Chris Roe got busy crunching the numbers, for English football at least. “There have been 487 instances of unbeaten runs in league fixtures of at least 15 matches in length,” he tells us. “Of those, 290 were ended by a single-goal defeat, and 133 by a two-goal margin.”

Can you do any better? Mail us your questions or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU

Midfielder enjoyed glittering career around the world and had impact off the field as advocate for LGBTQ+ community

As the final whistle blew in Stockholm on Saturday afternoon, fans of Rosengård and hosts Djurgården rose to their feet. Signs and flags were raised aloft at the Olympic Stadium and a standing ovation ensued as Caroline Seger, a name synonymous with Swedish women’s football for the best part of two decades, walked off a competitive football pitch for the final time.

Every footballer dreams of ending their career on a high but relatively few manage to achieve it, particularly when they have already bid farewell to the international stage. Seger, however, has managed to go out at the very top, a deserved finale for an individual who has transformed the game in Sweden on and off the pitch.

Lee Carsley played down the idea of tension between club and country after nine players pulled out of the England squad. The England interim manager said: 'We’ve got a really good relationship with all the clubs, especially the medical departments.'

Anthony Gordon, who has seven international appearances, added: 'We can only focus on the players who are here.'

• Anthony Gordon heeds England’s call as no-shows undermine Lee Carsley

• Harry Kane set to be left out by Carsley for England’s crunch match with Greece

Gary Lineker is to step down as the presenter of Match of the Day at the end of the season, it has been confirmed. The former England striker, 63, took over in the chair from Des Lynam in 1999 and has been a presence on football fans’ screens on Saturday nights for 25 years. Over that time he has brought plenty of memorable moments to viewers while also speaking out on issues he felt needed addressing.

• BBC confirms Gary Lineker’s departure from Match of the Day

• From presenting in pants to political controversy: Gary Lineker’s Match of the Day career

Ruud van Nistelrooy led Manchester United to a 2-0 victory over Greek champions PAOK in the Europa League. Van Nistelrooy, who is standing in as interim manager before the arrival of Rúben Amorim, will manage his last game for Manchester United on Sunday against Leicester. He said: 'For me, it's important now to carry on and build on results of Leicester, of Chelsea and of PAOK.'

Frankie Leonard from Bearsted FC made an incredible save in their game against Fisher FC despite his foot getting stuck in the net, after he ran back to his goal to chase down a lob that hit the bar. Despite Leonard's heroics, Fisher claimed a 1-0 win in their Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division encounter

Rúben Amorim said Sporting’s 4-1 rout of Manchester City was a dream way to sign off in his last home game as head coach but warned that when taking over Manchester United ­he cannot be as 'defensive' as the ­Portuguese champions. 'We cannot transport one reality to another,' he said. 'United cannot play the way we play, they cannot be so defensive. Of course it’s good to beat City. But I’ll be living in a different world, we’ll have to start from a different point'.

• Manchester United cannot play the way Sporting do, warns Rúben Amorim

José Mourinho has slammed the quality of refereeing and the VAR in Turkish football after he watched Fenerbahce defeat Trabzonspor 3-2 in their Super Lig match. Mourinho stated he'd never watched the league before and suggested few people outside of Turkey do, but added that he had been warned about what may happen on the pitch before he arrived to take charge

Giantkillers Auxerre are flying high after a shock 3-1 victory over touted title challengers Marseille at the Vélodrome

By Luke Entwistle for Get French Football News

A football club has the ability to put a town on the map. From a personal standpoint, revealing my Boltonian origins abroad will invariably elicit a reference to Bolton Wanderers; the town and the club are inseparable, indiscernible, especially internationally. Auxerre, a small village south of Paris, comprised of just over 37,000 inhabitants is the French equivalent.

It was Guy Roux, the inexhaustible former manager of L’AJA who put them there, winning a league title, reaching the quarter-finals of the Champions League and winning the Coupe de France on four occasions across his 44-year tenure.

A month ago they were winless and certain for relegation but then in came a charismatic coach for whom every detail matters

Diego Martínez and his players made a pact not to look at the table but this time, as they headed along the cramped passageway, down the stairs, out the little red door and on to the big yellow bus, carrying Telepizzas and turning on phones, they could be forgiven for taking a sneaky peek. They had just beaten Rayo Vallecano 3-1 and, for the first time since August, were not in the relegation zone. It was three minutes after midnight on Friday when they pulled out of Fofo the Clown Street and turned left towards the hotel, another long flight home awaiting the following morning. They were probably still wondering how it had happened, how any of it had, but UD Las Palmas travelled in hope again.

When the bus departed, one player wasn’t on board. Manu Fuster’s mother has been feeding flood victims at her restaurant in Quart de Poblet; now his brother was waiting for him in the car outside, ready to take him home. With a lovely flick of his right foot, he had scored the third, having only been on the pitch two minutes. “It was very special for everything that’s happened, because it’s my first in primera, because it helped us win,” he said before setting off straight for Valencia. “If you’d said we’d be in this position this a month back, we’d have put our heads in our hands. No one bet a duro, five pesetas, on us but things have changed completely.”

Inter midfielder never fails from 12 yards. This weekend he did – and now the top of the table is tighter than ever

Would it be too dramatic to portray a November missed penalty as a sign to let go of everything we thought we knew about the Serie A title race? Well, yes, OK, probably it would. But seeing Hakan Calhanoglu’s spot-kick carom back off a post in the second-half of Inter’s 1-1 draw with Napoli was at the least a shock to the system.

He had converted all his previous 19 attempts since joining the Nerazzurri from Milan in 2021. “It had to happen sooner or later,” said the player. Were the rest of us ready, though, to live in a world shorn of such certainties? As the commentator Patrick Kendrick put it: “With Calhanoglu missing, we’re just left with the misery of death and taxes”.

• Faruk Koca punched the referee Halil Umut Meler
• Court in Ankara sentences him to three-and-a-half years

A Turkish court has sentenced a former top-flight football club executive to more than three-and-a-half years in prison for attacking a referee on the field at the end of a league game last season.

The MKE Ankaragucu president Faruk Koca punched the referee Halil Umut Meler in the face after a 1-1 draw in a Super Lig game against Caykur Rizespor last year.

• Wellington Phoenix skipper Annalie Longo’s dog makes surprise cameo
• Game disrupted as ‘Tiger’ runs rings around players from both sides

Wellington Phoenix captain Annalie Longo’s own dog has gone to great lengths to try to lift the A-League Women side to a stirring comeback victory over Canberra United with a canine cameo on Sunday.

Longo’s best friend “Tiger” scampered onto the pitch with the Phoenix trailing by a goal after Michelle Heyman’s 11th-minute strike had put United in front at Porirua Park in New Zealand.

• Roma sack coach Ivan Juric after just 12 games in charge
• Scott McTominay scores as Napoli hold Inter 1-1

Barcelona suffered a shock 1-0 La Liga defeat at Real Sociedad on Sunday that ended their seven-match winning streak in all competitions as Sheraldo Becker scored for the Basque side in the first half. It was also notable as it was the first time since September 2014 that Barça had failed to get a shot on target in a league game.

The league leaders got their first taste of defeat in over a month and only their second in their domestic season after they were dominated throughout the match by the home side, who wasted several chances. Becker’s strike in the 33rd minute was enough to secure Real Sociedad the win as he beat the offside trap to race on to a Luka Sucic header before slotting a tidy finish just inside the post.

The St Pauli captain and Australia midfielder believes he is only getting better at the age of 31 while leading a club closely aligned with his values

The streets surrounding the Millerntor-Stadion, deep in the heart of the St Pauli district of Hamburg, are blanketed with stickers. There are posters and other decorations too, but it is the sheer volume of brown, white, red and black decals dotting the walk from the Reeperbahn that catches the eye. They’re celebrating FC St Pauli, as well as the numerous fan and ultra groups that pledge their allegiance to the Bundesliga club and the values that have helped it gain a level of global standing that far outweighs its accomplishments on the pitch. Rainbow flags and anti-fascist messaging also stand out on the walk to the ground, as do warnings that Nazis have no place here.

On a roller door next to a coffee shop is a sticker featuring captain Jackson Irvine alongside four teammates, their heads drawn on a mountainside to create a version of Mount Rushmore. The caption is a rallying cry “geht nicht zu bruch!” which roughly translates to “this won’t be broken!”. It’s one of several decorations to be found bearing the Socceroo’s likeness in the vicinity, but given that he’s a regular at this cafe – some of the staff even wearing his wife’s Ur So Cool brand of clothing – it seems an apt place for the homage to be found.

Games in the region were called off but elsewhere, players and coaches with ties to the area had to push grief aside

Thousands of people were at Mestalla this weekend, huge queues all along Avenida de Aragón where Valencia’s players arrived, but there was no game on, not here. They came instead with water, food and clothes for victims of the greatest natural catastrophe the country has seen: floods that have killed more than 210 people and destroyed towns and lives in the Horta Sud, just inland and south of the city, where a year’s worth of rain fell in eight hours. Hundreds of cars and vans turned up and unloaded, and many more made their way by foot. More than a million tonnes of aid filled the space under the stand, silent above them.

Three-and-a-half kilometres away at the Ciutat de València, home of second-division Levante, the scene was much the same. Across the bridges that connect the city to the areas hit hardest, more came, carrying shovels and buckets. On the morning that Valencia had been due to play Real Madrid, 10,000 volunteers gathered at the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, taken by bus to the areas affected, when they could get there at all. In the mud with them were some of the footballers they should have been watching at Mestalla.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Former Tottenham and France captain discusses ups and downs at Spurs, Ange Postecoglou and his new life in LA

• Read exclusive extracts from Hugo Lloris’s autobiography

Hugo Lloris lived in the intense pressure cooker of international football and the Premier League for so long that there is lightness and even relief as he describes how his day began for him in Los Angeles. “I woke up this morning and had breakfast with my kids,” he says with a grin as he chats away happily at home. “I then took them to school and obviously the weather is amazing. Just before our interview I went for a walk and I was still in shorts and a T-shirt … in November.”

Lloris laughs in mild disbelief. We speak on Monday, the day before America goes to the polls, and the 37-year-old goalkeeper says: “What’s really surprising when I am walking around the neighbourhood is seeing that people are not afraid to show who they’re voting for. You see the signs outside their houses. We are more private in Europe.”

The league has made the Argentinian star the crux of its push for growth. But now that his season is over will neutral fans bother to watch?

Everyone loves an underdog story, although an iPad may have been angrily thrown across the room in the Garber household as Atlanta United shocked Inter Miami on Saturday evening. Tim Cook might have reacted in a similar way after posting how “excited” he was to watch Lionel Messi and Co in the MLS playoffs. He won’t be watching any more of him this year.

These were the Messi playoffs. The league’s entire postseason marketing focused on the GOAT, pre-empting a predicted march to MLS Cup glory after Miami had set a regular-season points record. Messi was everywhere: on billboards, in social media promos and TV ads. They even aired Inter Miami’s first playoff game in Times Square. MLS had been building to this moment ever since Messi arrived in Florida.

Musician’s reported interest in League Two club has made headlines but rap is full of smart, soulful references to the game

There has been a worrying silence this week around A$AP Rocky’s plans to buy Tranmere Rovers. A co-investor has dropped out. Further finance is being urgently sought. Given the Tranmere consortium also currently features Matthew Bevilaqua from The Sopranos – a bit random, but, hey, it’s just good to see the Bevilaqua kid doing OK – it seems fair to say the field is pretty open here. What’s Badger from Breaking Bad up to these days?

For those who don’t know, A$AP Rocky is a musical superstar, retailer of four million albums, famous for his association with Rihanna. For those who don’t know from the other side, Tranmere are the 1990 Football League Trophy winners, famous for their association with Elton Welsby.

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The turnout for Lee Carsley’s leaving drinks isn’t looking all that great. With a viral case of knack spreading through the England squad, eight players have shown this season’s third international break the door marked Do One. It’s allowed the departing interim manager to dish out some resignation honours, with Aston Villa’s Morgan Rogers among a handful of uncapped players plucked out of the under-21s and told by HR, repeatedly, to chuck in a tenner for Carsley’s farewell gift. Don’t forget to sign the card.

I will enjoy it. It’s going to be in my club with so many people, good weather. Having the opportunity to be, I don’t know if I’m the first, a professional football player and professional tennis player, just for one game, it’s a privilege” – Diego Forlán is not the first to change his boots for a professional tennis racket, but his appearance this week at the Uruguay Open, an ATP Challenger tournament, will still be notable. The former Manchester United striker chats to our tennis correspondent, Tumaini Carayol.

Hang on! Re Martin Ødegaard saying he’s ‘listened to my body’ like a 90s pop sensation? No idea what you may be on about regarding the 90s, but isn’t that reference more appropriate for the Prince Classic 1999? Or did you just get slightly confused by the song title? That’s not like you … oh wait” – Lochlan MacDonald.

Sport in [the USA USA USA], isolationist as it is (World Series, really?), does deliver one huge advantage over the increasingly persecuted fans of European and British football. No international breaks” – Lindsay Williams.

I have the perfect solution for three soon-to-be-vacant jobs: send David Coote to the Match of the Day sofa/chair. Send Gary Lineker to Fenerbahce. Appoint José Mourinho as a referee to replace Coote” – Krishna Moorthy.

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

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Paul MacInnes, and Lars Sivertson to discuss David Coote and Gary Lineker and the Nations League

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On the podcast today, the panel discusses the tale of Premier League referee David Coote and asks what, if anything, this says about referees, the PGMOL, managers' behaviour towards officials, and the internet’s thirst to ruin an individual.

Our cartoonist on champions’ new habit of losing and that video of a Premier League referee slagging off Liverpool

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Ipswich’s young English duo catch the eye, Liverpool march on and the brilliance of Brighton’s Carlos Baleba

It took them an hour of huffing and puffing, but Arsenal did something at Stamford Bridge they hadn’t managed since September – they scored an away goal in the Premier League. After toothless performances at Newcastle and Inter in the past week – and last month at Bournemouth – Gabriel Martinelli’s cute finish was itself a moment of relief, but Mikel Arteta was frustrated that his team didn’t find a winner. Their expected goals figure was lower than Chelsea’s (1.27 to 1.69) but that does not account for Leandro Trossard’s costly miskick at the death nor Kai Havertz’s would-be opener, which was just offside. The Gunners will almost always control games, especially now Martin Ødegaard is fit and firing again, but that age-old itch has not been scratched. They are not ruthless enough and they still lack a penalty box killer. Dominic Booth

Match report: Chelsea 1-1 Arsenal

Match report: Liverpool 2-0 Aston Villa

Match report: Brighton 2-1 Manchester City

Match report: Manchester United 3-0 Leicester

Match report: Nottingham Forest 1-3 Newcastle

Match report: Tottenham 1-2 Ipswich

Match report: Brentford 3-2 Bournemouth

Arsenal deliver at last, Lauren Hemp’s treble sees her top the WSL assist chart and Chelsea have ‘two No 1s’

Five goals, five different goalscorers and a clean sheet – Arsenal’s performance against Brighton felt like it was a long time coming. So often this season they have created chances but not been clinical. On Friday night, however, they were in the mood, producing a high-intensity first half that left Brighton shell-shocked. Beth Mead and Emily Fox combined brilliantly down the right, Katie McCabe and Caitlin Foord equally so down the left to exploit the weakness of the visitors’ full-backs and fallible defensive structure. A trademark Mead goal reminded fans of more fruitful times, a spectacular finish from Frida Maanum the same. The special moment of the night, however, belonged to Lina Hurtig. Her 76th-minute header was her first goal in 362 days, a perfect return after the Sweden winger had spent the best part of the last year on the sidelines. SD

There were boosts for Liverpool and Manchester United (by proxy). We hand out honours and dishonours from the latest round of action

Liverpool

The new Netflix programme shows how a controlling environment created factions in the team and how the problems predated Jorge Vilda

They still bear the scars. All of them. Scars from being infantilised, torn down, belittled, mocked, abused and divided.

Despite having confronted a status quo and a system built to protect and extend the stranglehold of those in power, with the odds against them, and having come out the other side, the scars are visible in the tears, the emotive retellings, and the stoic faces of the members of Spanish women’s national team.

Plus: who first used the phrase ‘game’s gone’; palindromes: an apology; are the Big Six the top six; and even more

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“As an inveterate text reader, I cannot help absorbing the fragments of black-on-red text in the [background on the] Missing Words round on Have I Got News For You,” writes Tom Whiteley. “Can anyone name the West Brom match that is mentioned?”

We think we know the answer, so please allow us to indulge our inner Poirot and take it clue by clue.

West Brom went ahead just after half-time when keeper Mark Beeney felled Micky Mellon and Bob Taylor scored the perfect penalty.

The president-elect could spark tension between the culturally open cities staging events and a national government promoting insularity

Very soon after the outcome of the US presidential election was clear, Fifa’s president issued an old photograph of himself shaking hands with a beaming, football-clasping, Donald Trump.

“Congratulations Mr President! We will have a great Fifa World Cup and a great Fifa Club World Cup in the United States of America!” Gianni Infantino wrote on social media. It was the latest example of Infantino’s oleaginous flattery of Trump, whom in 2018 Infantino called “part of the Fifa team”. And vice versa, it seems.

Sporting forward is scoring freely for club and country, and will surely be a target for Rúben Amorim at United

After a particularly tempestuous week or two in the life of Sporting Clube de Portugal, the forthcoming international window should have heralded calmer waters for a moment or two at least as the post-Rúben Amorim era moves into view. The emotional outpouring of the Manchester United-bound coach’s final game at the Estádio José Alvalade, the debagging of Manchester City, will seem like a few months ago by the middle of next week.

Recent internationals suggest, however, the opposite may be true. If clubs fret over the possibility of star players speaking a little too frankly in their native tongues surrounded by a few home comforts, it is the forthcoming on-pitch deeds of Viktor Gyökeres that threaten to prop up European football’s next salvo of gossip.

Decay had set in this season but the manager helped a fanbase fall back in love with the club – he deserved more loyalty

Really? After almost eight years, two promotions, an agonising Championship playoff final defeat on penalties and a toenail offside which cost them a place in last year’s FA Cup final, Mark Robins has been sacked as Coventry City’s manager.

In English football’s top two divisions, only Pep Guardiola has been in his job longer – and let’s be honest, he’s had it easy in comparison.

The former England captain on the quest for parity, struggling under Sarina Wiegman, and her husband’s battle with MND

“There were times when I thought: ‘I don’t want to do this any more,’” Steph Houghton says as she remembers the hard years when she led the struggle to gain some parity for women in the unequal world of English football. Houghton won 121 caps for England, and captained her country from 2014 to 2021, but her most significant achievements happened far from the pitch. She worked closely with a small group of fellow players and went into battle with male executives, managers, administrators and sponsors who showed an often demeaning attitude towards women’s football.

The 36-year-old Houghton looks up, her gaze full of the fire and frustration she felt when it was difficult to make a lasting breakthrough. “I’d come in from training, having sacrificed time with my husband for a meeting, and take a call and feel deflated. You’d be like: ‘What is the point in this?’ But that’s why you need a group around you because, when you do get pissed off, that’s when someone else steps up and fights. So I’m very grateful it wasn’t just me. There were a number of people who had such a big influence on the changes we eventually made.”

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

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

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

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