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Manchester City get the ball rolling. A fine Saturday-evening-pints atmosphere!

The teams are out! Pretty bubbles in the air. West Ham in claret and blue, Manchester City in second-choice black. Not sure that’s the best combo for colour-blind fans, but that particular consideration seems to have fallen by the wayside pretty much across the board this season. We’ll be off in a minute.

It was the moment to blow the roof off the Emirates Stadium, the exclamation mark on a victory that felt pivotal to the destination of the Premier League title. Everton had been excellent, an incredible test for Arsenal and their credentials. Mikel Arteta and his players passed it. They found a way.

The goal to tilt it their way, the decisive one with time almost up, was tapped in by the substitute, Viktor Gyökeres. It came when Jordan Pickford brushed the ball into another replacement, Piero Hincapié and, with luck on their side, it broke perfectly for Gyökeres in front of an empty net.

A half-century of Premier League London wins for Newcastle, a first win at Stamford Bridge since 2012, Anthony Gordon their match-winner against the club he was close to joining in 2022. He ran Chelsea ragged. In the stands, Todd Boehly, the co-owner who, when acting as de facto sporting director in the early days of ownership, targeted Gordon.

Four years on, there may be regret that deal never happened, though there are deeper doubts to consider, including the current team’s stall under Liam Rosenior. Newcastle supplied the know-how and organisation, Sven Botman outstanding in leading the defensive effort as Chelsea and their supporters’ belief in them sagged collectively. Full time was followed by fierce barracking of players and manager. A blame game is being played at Stamford Bridge. How much has been spent now? The answer is closing on £1.5bn in the Boehly years and Chelsea are falling short of their objectives.

Wearside will always be a special place for James Milner. On Boxing Day 2002 he scored his first Premier League goal for Leeds here at the age of 16 years and 356 days. Who, back then, could possibly have imagined that the 40-year-old Milner would have been at the Stadium of Light on Saturday as an extremely impressive, deep-sitting part of Brighton’s midfield?

He played the entire game too, helping guide his team to their first win at Sunderland since 1981 as the injury-hit home side found no riposte to Yankuba Minteh’s fortuitous second-half winner. It briefly lifted Brighton to 10th, level on 40 points with their hosts, before Newcastle’s 1-0 win at Chelsea dropped them down a place.

Burnley and Bournemouth played out a tepid goalless draw that does little to help either team’s Premier League ambitions. The Clarets managed just a fourth clean sheet in the league this season, but remain eight points adrift of safety with eight games left, while Bournemouth are now unbeaten in 10 matches but really needed three points to boost their European hopes.

Both teams hit the woodwork while Evanilson had a very early shot cleared off the line but neither did enough to merit victory.

• Celtic recover to defeat 10-man Motherwell 3-1

• Cvancara scores penalty after Longelo red card

Tomas Cvancara converted another crucial penalty as a major intervention by the video assistant referee helped second-placed Celtic come from behind to beat Motherwell 3-1. The Czech striker followed up his Scottish Cup penalty shootout winner at Ibrox with Celtic’s second goal in the 72nd minute after Emmanuel Longelo had been dismissed for a challenge on Daizen Maeda.

The referee, John Beaton, had initially given a goal-kick, but a lengthy look at the VAR monitor at the behest of Kevin Clancy changed the complexion of the game.

This story will be updated

• Harry Kane has goal disallowed on return

• Getafe’s Abqar sent off for grabbing genitals of Atlético’s Sørloth

Bayern Munich came from behind and finished the match with nine players in a 1-1 draw at Bayer Leverkusen on Saturday, allowing Borussia Dortmund to close to within nine points of the Bundesliga leaders. Luis Díaz, who scored the equaliser after Aleix García’s opener, was sent off in the 84th minute for a second yellow card. Nicolas Jackson had received a red card in the 42nd minute.

Leverkusen took the lead in the sixth minute after Montrell Culbreath stole the ball off Díaz and fed it to Patrik Schick, who set up García on the edge of the box. The midfielder slotted home with a deflected shot. The hosts defended well to contain Bayern, and frustration showed when Jackson was sent off before half-time for a late challenge on Martin Terrier.

• Coventry 1-2 Southampton

• Bristol City equalise in sixth minute of added time at Boro

In-form Southampton ended Coventry’s six-match winning run with a 2-1 victory at the CBS Arena. Flynn Downes pounced on a rebound to open the scoring shortly after half-time before Kuryu Matsuki doubled Southampton’s lead with five minutes remaining.

Victor Torp’s stoppage-time penalty gave the leaders hope but they fell to their second home defeat of the season and Southampton extended their unbeaten run in all competitions to 12.

Natalia Arroyo, Marisa Ewers and Maggie Murphy are savouring their autonomy in the club’s major roles and are aiming high amid tough challenges

“After you,” Marisa Ewers says, as we walk through a doorway on the ground floor of Aston Villa Women’s fresh-looking dedicated women’s facilities at the club’s Bodymoor Heath training ground. It soon becomes clear that Ewers is hoping to open doors figuratively as well as literally by inspiring other female players to follow her and embark on a career in the boardroom.

The former midfielder ended her career at Villa in 2022 and has progressed to become the club’s director of women’s football. As they prepare to dedicate Sunday’s home league game against Manchester City to International Women’s Day, it is noticeable that Ewers is alongside several other women in senior leadership roles at Villa. The club welcomed Maggie Murphy as managing director earlier this season and in Ewers, Murphy and the head coach, Natalia Arroyo, Villa are a rarity in having those three specific roles all filled by women, even before mentioning executive board members such as the chief people officer, Lisa Bailey, the head of football administration, Sharon Barnhurst, and the general counsel, Victoria Wilkes.

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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.

• Manager speaks at length after defeat at Real Madrid

• Players must use ‘guts and nose’ to score, he adds

Pep Guardiola launched a four-and-a-half-minute defence of his team selection in the 3-0 Champions League defeat by Real Madrid. Guardiola chose to play an attacking 4-2-2-2 formation at the Bernabéu stadium on Wednesday and the visitors were ultimately humbled by a Federico Valverde hat-trick to leave them on the brink of a European exit.

“I had to explain it [team selection] before and after? After 10 years? I would not convince you one second, any one of you, anyone,” Guardiola said before City’s visit to West Ham on Saturday. “Why? Because we lost 3-0, destroyed, yeah it’s normal. It’s not personal, believe me, it’s all the managers.

Carrick says Harry Maguire is ready for England return, while Rosenior is happy with Chelsea’s keeper dilemma

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

• Australia win 2-1 over Korea DPR in nervous tussle in Perth

• Goals from Kennedy and Kerr secure 2027 World Cup qualification

The Matildas have avoided an early exit from their home Women’s Asian Cup and qualified for their ninth straight Women’s World Cup after a nervous 2-1 win over North Korea at Perth Rectangular Stadium on Friday night.

An early goal to midfielder Alanna Kennedy was doubled by a Sam Kerr screamer early in the second half, though a relentless North Korea side – who clawed a goal back in the 64th minute and registered almost five times as many shots over the course of the game – did not make it easy.

Given what had gone before, Unai Emery stressed afterwards, this was a significant victory and a deeply satisfying takeaway for Aston Villa.

In meetings with his squad, he referenced how none of the six Premier League teams in the Champions League last 16 had triumphed this week and as many as four of them may have suffered irrecoverable damage. Then there were the memories of Villa coming here two years ago, when they almost came unstuck in the Conference League quarter-finals, when Emiliano Martínez reannounced himself as public enemy No 1 and made two penalty shootout saves.

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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

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.

Elsewhere, in Paris, Chelsea were good until Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s introduction and an unfortunate Filip Jörgensen mistake meant they left the Parc de Princes 5-2 down. Arsenal scraped a draw in Leverkusen … but Bodø did it again!

Plus, a Premier League preview, the pod discuss Iran, the World Cup and the Iranian women’s team in Australia. We’ll answer your questions and wish Barry a very happy birthday.

With nine games to go, we assess the Premier League teams behind Arsenal and Manchester City who are most likely to fill the remaining berths

Reasons for optimism: Michael Carrick recently professed himself as “definitely a glass half-full” manager so the interim surely looks at the final nine games and sees a huge opportunity. Particularly positive here are the fixtures with Aston Villa (Sunday), Chelsea (18 April) and Liverpool (2 May): three chances for Manchester United to seriously damage the Champions League qualification prospects of the three teams currently directly below them and enhance their own. Carrick’s men are third but only three points above Liverpool in sixth and, with fifth probably enough for a Champions League berth, beating even one of the three would be a big boost to hopes – provided results are rosy in United’s other fixtures.

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.

Sweden winger was a serial winner at Barcelona and hopes her experience can help Manchester United claim their first Women’s League Cup trophy on Sunday against Chelsea

When a club is preparing for its fourth major cup final, it helps to have somebody in the squad whose tally of Champions League final appearances alone surpasses that. Enter the serial winner Fridolina Rolfö, who has helped Manchester United reach a final at the first attempt in her first season in England. What else did we expect? It is just what she does.

The Sweden winger, who arrived from Barcelona last summer, is speaking to the Guardian about Sunday’s Women’s League Cup final against Chelsea, the holders, and her winning mentality quickly reveals itself when she says of reaching the final: “Yes, we should be proud, but of course we’re not happy – we want to win the final as well.

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.

A narrow win over North Korea shows the Matildas aren’t done yet. Even if the balance of play suggests they should be

In the aftermath of the Matildas’ lightning-in-a-bottle 2023 Women’s World Cup, Football Australia adopted a new tagline, one to capture and retain the newly enraptured believers: ‘Til It’s Done. It was meant to convey momentum, to signify that 2023 didn’t represent the final destination, but just one step on a larger story. And while 2024’s calamitous Paris Olympics campaign meant that the footballing mortality of the group has increasingly hung over them like a growing black cloud, and their failure to top the group in their home Women’s Asian Cup rang more alarm bells, Friday evening’s 2-1 win over North Korea in the quarter-finals of the latter tournament ensured that, somehow, by the skin of their teeth and the mercy of the footballing gods, this group of Matildas aren’t done yet. Even if the balance of play suggests they should be.

Simply put, the North Koreans dominated at Perth Oval. On another night, their 62% possession with 23 shots to four (10 on target to two) would see them score a flood of goals and move on instead. On a different evening, their suffocating press and complete and utter control of the midfield born from neat passing and technical nous would force Mackenzie Arnold and the Matildas’ warrior-like defence to crack under the sheer weight of possession and territory. On an alternative eve, Alanna Kennedy and Sam Kerr wouldn’t smuggle howitzers in their left boots, allowing Yu Son-Gum to deny them and keep the game even. But as it turns out, this day was, instead, the one time in 50 that the Matildas won this game.

Best left Bermuda at 17 and joined West Ham, with Bobby Moore among his teammates, but he also faced horrendous abuse

‘I did what I had to do,” Clyde Best says as he recalls leaving Bermuda at the age of 17 and travelling to England for a trial at West Ham. There was no fear, no thought of homesickness. Best saw opportunity. It was 1968 and, before setting off on his journey, the boy who would go on to be hailed as English football’s first black superstar received some unforgettable advice from his father, a naval officer who later worked as a deputy commissioner in Bermuda’s prison service.

“My dad told me: ‘When you go to England, you’re not playing for yourself, you’re playing for those coming after you,’” Best says. “I always knew that I had some responsibility, and I had to carry myself in a certain way and behave myself in a certain way. I’m not going to do anything stupid and mess it up. If you listen to what your parents tell you, nine times out of 10 you’re not going to have problems.”

The rule made famous by Trinity Rodman’s offseason transfer saga had actually been in the works for years.

Sometimes, a rule’s official name is superseded by the player who seemingly inspired it. But sometimes, the origin story is a bit more nuanced.

Contrary to its initial prevailing narrative, the NWSL says it didn’t rush to create the High Impact Player rule (HIP) in reaction to the Washington Spirit’s efforts to sign Trinity Rodman. Stephanie Lee, the league’s vice-president of player affairs, said the NWSL began looking at how it could keep pace with the growing women’s soccer market in the summer of 2023.

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.

Full-back has struggled since his move but fierce strike took his side seven points off neighbours who could wobble

Pervis Estupiñán called it “the most important goal of my career”. He does, admittedly, have only 12 to choose from, but to score the winner in a Milan derby is something few players ever experience. It could only feel better for having done it towards the end of a difficult first season in Italian football.

The Ecuadorian was billed as a replacement for Theo Hernández when he joined Milan from Brighton last summer, lumbered with unreasonable comparison from the start. Hernández, at his best, was one of the most effective attacking full-backs in the world. Estupiñán, at 28, is yet to put himself in that conversation, but the hope was that he could offer some of the same directness and ability to get up and down the left flank.

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.

The Fifa president’s sycophancy towards the US president has left the organisation facing a new nadir, but any reckoning seems a distant prospect

Mr President. Fellow exco members. We’re going to need a bigger Board of Peace. How many mini‑pitches are we up to now? Gaza got 50 of them last month. What will it take to football-fix the global conflict being set in train by Fifa’s own Peace Prize Boy? A hundred mini-pitches? Four billion mini-pitches? All the mini‑pitches in the universe?

In a more sane version of what we must, out of habit, call the real world, it would seem absurd to talk about sports administration in the context of the US, Iran and the airborne conflict being played out across the borders of their allies.

Breaking from European traditions would bring a TV boost and help build a schedule that works both for players and fans

The announcement that Major League Soccer (MLS) is to switch from a summer season to a winter one has reignited the debate about the National Women’s Soccer League’s (NWSL) schedule.

This is not a new conversation: the pros and cons of alignment with the European calendar have been considered for many years by the NWSL.

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

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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.”

A win at Bristol City tightened leaders’ grip at top of the Championship and boosted hopes of top-flight return

After securing a fifth straight victory, Coventry City’s players, staff and supporters savoured the moment as one. “We are top of the league,” was the chorus stuck on loop. As Frank Lampard left the pitch with a sold-out away end at Ashton Gate serenading him, the fans invariably obliged when he asked them to turn up the volume. Josh Eccles, who joined the club aged seven, was the last to head in. To lean into an analogy parroted by the Coventry owner, Doug King, who refers to squads as decks, Lampard’s hand is akin to a royal flush.

No wonder Lampard was nonplussed this week when asked about clubs voting to extend the Championship playoffs to six teams next season. With 10 games to play, Coventry are nine points clear of third-placed Millwall and it seems increasingly likely that they won’t be in the division to live the change. They may require only a handful of wins to return to the top flight for the first time since relegation in 2000-01. “I left Ipswich last summer and in many ways you can compare what the two clubs have been through,” says the Coventry defender Luke Woolfenden. “Both were relegated to League One and when you get that promotion, you can feel something special happening. It is a good feeling and it can take you a long way; now we’re into the final straight.”

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.

This is an extract from our free email about women’s football, Moving the Goalposts. To get the full edition, visit this page and follow the instructions. Moving the Goalposts is delivered to your inboxes every Tuesday and Thursday.

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.

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

Max Rushden is joined by 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.

Max Dowman and Rio Ngumoha staked their claim for more game time while Fulham paid for a lack of ambition

Port Vale have reached the last eight of the FA Cup once before in their entire history, in 1953-54, when they went one stage further, losing their semi-final at Villa Park 2-1 to West Brom thanks to a much-disputed winning goal. If only a video assistant referee had been present then, you might say. In their fifth-round victory over Sunderland this weekend, they were also unfortunate despite the presence of technology. Why was Anthony Taylor not asked to check the TV monitor when George Hall was cynically taken out by the Sunderland goalkeeper Melkor Ellberg, just outside the penalty area with the match on a knife-edge? Even if the striker’s run was going away from goal, he surely had the pace to have got a shot away. Let’s hope VAR give the remaining lower-division teams fair shrift when it comes to the rest of the competition. Peter Lansley

Match report: Port Vale 1-0 Sunderland

Match report: Mansfield Town 1-2 Arsenal

Match report: Newcastle 1-3 Manchester City

Match report: Wrexham 2-4 Chelsea (aet)

Match report: Wolves 1-3 Liverpool

Match report: Fulham 0-1 Southampton

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

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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