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This feels like an act of disruption from club’s US investors but there is logic to appointing a super-smart yet low-cost tyro

Welcome, then, to the dicing and slicing of Arne Slot. As ever with the appointment of a new manager at one of the Premier League’s heritage-level clubs, it is necessary to make a prediction; to judge before anything has actually happened whether this will prove to be a successful hire.

The real answer to which is, of course: nobody knows. Football is a field of endless variables. Even the most dominant manager has a diminishing range of influence. Every appointment is a gamble, every managerial hire a playing of the slots.

• Left-back Luke Shaw one of several fitness concerns
• Southgate selects provisional squad for Euro 2024 on Tuesday

Gareth Southgate will give his defensive injury doubts the opportunity to prove their fitness when he names his provisional England squad for Euro 2024 on Tuesday – with Luke Shaw and the left-back position his greatest headache.

The England manager is pleased that Uefa have given the go-ahead to a continuation of 26-man squads for the finals rather than reverting to 23; he offered his backing to the move at a coaches meeting in April largely because of the uncertainty he has over a number of players.

Despite protestations, winning a fourth consecutive Premier League had long been at forefront of Manchester City minds

“No team has ever won four consecutive Premier League titles … Yet.” In the past fortnight Pep Guardiola referenced how the four-peat was the motivation of his post-treble Manchester City, insisting this entered their consciousness only in the spring. But the aforementioned slogan, printed in capitals and large black font, was the de facto motto from October, when first displayed in the first-team meeting room.

So when stating last week before the pivotal trip to Tottenham that “we didn’t think about” making history until recently when this ignited “something in our brain”, Guardiola was using the media to remind his players they were 180 tantalising minutes from becoming, surely, the greatest team in English football history.

• Club face competition from Chelsea and Manchester United
• Robert De Zerbi left Amex Stadium by mutual consent

Brighton are pushing to complete a deal to appoint Kieran ­McKenna as Roberto De Zerbi’s replacement, but they still face competition from Chelsea and Manchester United for the Ipswich manager.

McKenna, who has emerged as one of the brightest young managers in the country after masterminding Ipswich’s promotion to the Premier League, is in line to move to the Amex Stadium if all the pieces fall in place. It is understood that certain obstacles have to be overcome if McKenna is to join Brighton, who have a vacancy to fill after parting company with De Zerbi by mutual consent.

• White tape covered badge supporting LGBTQ community
• French sports minister calls for ‘strongest sanctions’

The French sports minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, called on Monday for “the strongest sanctions” against Monaco’s Mohamed Camara and his Ligue 1 club after the badge on the midfielder’s shirt supporting the LGBTQ community was covered up.

The 24-year-old badge was masked by white tape before Monaco’s final league match of the season on Sunday during which he scored from a penalty in their 4-0 home win against Nantes.

• Barkley spent time on loan at Villa from Chelsea
• Midfielder expected to be available for modest fee

Aston Villa are closing on a deal to re-sign Ross Barkley on a permanent basis, four years after the midfielder joined on loan from Chelsea. Villa want to strengthen their squad for their first season in the Champions League or European Cup since 1982-83.

The 30-year-old, capped by England 33 times, excelled for Luton when joining on a free last summer, after a spell in Ligue 1 with Nice. Luton, who have been relegated, never disclosed the length of Barkley’s contract but it is thought to run into next season. Last month, Barkley said: “I want to play in the Premier League. I want to play in Europe again … I feel like for the next three years maybe I’ll still be in my prime years.”

• Dutchman returned against Everton after long injury layoff
• ‘I had a feeling we deserved this year to win it’

Jurriën Timber expects Arsenal will continue to improve under Mikel Arteta and mount another Premier League title challenge next season after the disappointment of missing out to Manchester City on the final day.

The Dutchman came on against Everton on Sunday for his first appearance since injuring an anterior cruciate ligament in Arsenal’s opening game. Timber, who cost an initial £34m from Ajax last summer, said he had mixed emotions because City’s win over West Ham confirmed them as champions for a fourth successive season.

The sun went silently down on the team from the carnival city to leave everything settled in La Liga with one week still to play

La Liga packed up for the summer a week early, nothing left to do. With seven days still remaining, it’s all decided: the title, second, third and fourth; who goes to the Super Cup and who goes to the Club World Cup; Champions League, Europa League and Conference League; that other league too, the three teams disappearing silently into segunda. Even the Pichichi is probably done after a Sunday evening in which Alexander Sørloth got four of the 31 goals scored, leading Villarreal’s comeback from 4-1 to 4-4 against Real Madrid, and Cádiz got none of them. It was the story of their season, four years in primera coming to a premature and predictable end, curtain closed on 2023-24.

Up on the east coast, Madrid’s top scorer Jude Bellingham sat on the bench rested, little to do but laugh as Sørloth began his escape, moving on to 20, then 21, 22 and 23, four ahead of the Englishman in the scoring charts and two above Girona’s Artem Dovbyk. At the same time, 849km away down on the south-west, Cádiz’s top scorer, Chris Ramos, a fan who grew up next door to the ground and became the first gaditano to score in the first division for 30 years, sat on the bench exhausted, staring into space, broken. Cádiz had two strikers out there, sent in search of a miracle: between them, Sergi Guardiola and Maxi Gómez have scored one this season. Sørloth had just got four times that in 17 minutes, one less than Ramos in 2,694 across 37 games.

Veteran coach gave Serie A a much-needed good news story on a weekend overshadowed by off-field events

The penultimate weekend of the Serie A season was overshadowed by events off the pitch. On Friday, Juventus announced they had fired their manager, Massimiliano Allegri, citing his behaviour at the end of their Coppa Italia final triumph over Atalanta. Two days later, as Inter prepared to mark their league title with a trophy lift at San Siro, fans were wondering who their club would belong to next week.

Monday marked the official deadline for their owners, Suning Capital, to repay debts of close to €395m (approx £337m) to Oaktree Capital, stemming from a loan taken out in 2021. A bank holiday in Luxembourg effectively extended the term until Tuesday, but an official statement from the Inter president, Steven Zhang, on Saturday accused the lender of “a lack of meaningful engagement” toward finding an “amicable resolution”.

Stuttgart share Leverkusen’s growth of having finished this campaign with a barely believable 40 points more than last

From start to finish the afternoon that confirmed Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen as unbeaten Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen was what has come to be typical of them. The voracious feasting on opponents’ mistakes, as Amine Adli did to provide Victor Boniface with the opener.

The evidence that Xabi Alonso has drawn things from these players they never dared believe were there, as when midfield destroyer Robert Andrich tucked in an artful rabona. The false tension, when Augbsurg teenager Mert Kömür scored a goal worthy of the style of Alonso’s team to bring the deficit back to one, but we knew Leverkusen were never going to blow it.

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Match of the Day means different things to different people. For Ian Wright it means a little more than most. The former striker has previously spoken of his childhood and of how his stepdad was “a weed-smoking, gambling, coming-home-late, gambling-his-wages, womanising kind of guy. He was rough with my mum and rough with all of us kids. And I don’t know why, but he didn’t like me in particular. One of the few things my brother and I looked forward to in the house was Match of the Day, and my stepdad used to take that away from us — just because he could. Depending on what mood he was in, he’d come into the bedroom just before it started and he’d say: ‘Turn around to the wall.’ We had to face the wall the whole time Match of the Day was on. And the really cruel thing was that we could still hear everything. It was awful. Whenever I heard the theme music come on, I would feel that pain in my chest. The first time I went on the show as a presenter, Des Lynam walked up and said: ‘Ian Wright, welcome to Match of the Day.’ I nearly broke down crying.”

While it is inevitable that at the busy end of the season Football Daily will be preoccupied with the Premier League and Big Cups along with pre Euros knee-knacks, there are happenings elsewhere in the pyramid where crises for clubs can be existential. Since you reported on 23 February that Torquay United owner Clarke Osborne had pulled the plug and was going to put the club into administration (full email edition): on 13 March … TUFC were docked 10 points for an ‘administrative event’ and plunged into a National League South relegation battle; 23 March … Neil Warnock appears at the first of three home matches with fan Michael Westcott; 28 March … a Torquay United Supporters’ Trust (TUST) consortium (led by Westcott) reveal they are bidding to buy the club; 4 April … TUFC goes into administration; 9 April …. TUST/ Westcott consortium discover they are not the preferred bidder; 12 April … TUFC are docked another point for fielding an illegible player (at which point fans throw up their hands in despair); 15 April … TUFC avoid relegation to the Southern League Premier Division South with a win at Taunton in front of 800-plus travelling fans; 26 April … TUST/Westcott consortium discover the preferred bidder might no longer be preferred; 1 May … Westcott’s consortium (now called ‘Bryn’ after the police dog that bit Jim McNichol and saved Torquay from relegation at the end of 1986-87 become the preferred bidder; 10 May … announcement by club that the Bryn Consortium will be the new owners of TUFC; 11 May … Westcott confirms Neil Warnock is on the board as football advisor; 14 May … much circulated video appears with Warnock revealing that Paul Wotton is the new Torquay manager. And so the story goes on (with a Community Share Issue by TUST soon). Just saying” – Bob Cole.

Our photo editor Jonny Weeks trawled through more than 100,000 pictures to select his favourite images and the most unforgettable moments

The Premier League season started ominously as Erling Haaland took just four minutes to get his goalscoring campaign under way when Manchester City beat Burnley in the opening match. Elsewhere, Luton’s first top-flight game for 31 years ended in defeat at Brighton and Ange Postecoglou claimed manager of the month (as he would do again in September and October) as Tottenham made a fast start to the season.

We select some of our favourite strikes of the season – and invite you to nominate your own choices

• More awards … Players | Managers | Matches | Young players | Flops | Signings | Gripes | Broadcasters

“I can’t believe it,” Garnacho told Sky Sports. “I didn’t see how I scored, I just listened to the sound and thought, ‘Oh my God’. It’s the best goal I’ve scored, of course.” Sometimes it is best to leave the scorer to indicate how good the goal was. What the Argentinian winger is missing out is that he leapt a good five feet in the air with his back to goal, performing an acrobatic overhead kick to send Diogo Dalot’s cross into the top corner. Everyone inside Goodison Park was silenced for a moment; few could believe what they had witnessed. After a second or two, the away end went wild, enjoying one of the few positive moments of Manchester United’s season. Few players even have the audacity to try such things but Garnacho has impeccable technique and youth on his side, making him fearless even in an underperforming team.

We make our picks for the season’s poorest performers and invite you to have your say below

• More awards … Players | Managers | Goals | Matches | Young players | Signings | Gripes | Broadcasters

It’s not been a great year for Brand Premier League, the supposed best league in the world, where just about everyone is perpetually angry or miserable. Who’s happy? Manchester City, of course. Villa, sure. But elsewhere? Liverpool rage about kick-off times. Wolves are furious about VAR. Forest are mad about that too but also about their PSR-induced points deduction. Everton see your points deduction and raise you a takeover saga that has rumbled on without resolution. Sheffield United have had a season so dismal that they may never want to get promoted again. On it goes, the whole thing infused with a sense of dissatisfaction, as clubs grasp for direction (Chelsea, Manchester United) or bump their heads against the glass ceiling and wonder what the point of it all is (Brighton, Bournemouth, Fulham). And everyone is paying more (soon to be even more) for a reduced spectacle, dulled by the dread hand of VAR.

We select some contenders for the English top flight’s rising star of the season – and invite you to have your say

• More awards … Players | Managers | Goals | Matches | Flops | Signings | Gripes | Broadcasters

A team would have to be pretty near perfect to deem Palmer surplus to requirements but such is Manchester City’s level they could not find a regular place for him. Still, the attacking midfielder’s £42m move from Manchester City to Chelsea has worked out for all parties – giving City some financial fair play wriggle room while bestowing upon Chelsea a shining light in another muddled season. Palmer is the main reason Mauricio Pochettino’s side managed a top-half place. The City academy graduate has combined crowd-pleasing flicks and tricks with a ruthless, determined streak illustrated by the manner in which he has supplanted Raheem Sterling (and the squabbling Nicolas Jackson and Noni Madueke for that matter) as the club’s penalty taker. His nerveless conversion of the equaliser in Chelsea’s 4-4 rollercoaster against City in November should have settled that argument and beyond that his 22 league goals and 11 assists have made him the most important creative player at Stamford Bridge. His former manager Pep Guardiola described him as “the most decisive player of the season” last month. Now his current one needs to build something cohesive around him next term.

The Dutch coach will take over an elite club with an excellent squad, but faces plenty of big decisions this summer

Managers are seldom hired to take over a well-run, elite-level club not in urgent need of repair or transformation. Liverpool in 2024 represents one of those rare opportunities. Despite a disappointing end to his reign, Jürgen Klopp has bequeathed to his successor a fine squad, of a relatively young age, that developed faster than expected into a contender for the Premier League title, that knows how to win silverware and will be back in the Champions League next season after a one-year hiatus. And, as the Carabao Cup triumph demonstrated, there is a healthy flow of young talent rolling off the academy production line too. The internal structure of the club is also in good shape. There is no need to rip it up and start again, as David Moyes attempted to do when succeeding Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United. Liverpool’s recruitment search led them to Arne Slot because he offers a degree of continuity in playing style, among other attributes, but of course he must make his own modifications. Change is welcome, inevitable, but revolution on the playing side is not required. That being said …

Three players are awarded perfect 10s for their contributions to the club’s record-breaking fourth successive top-flight triumph

The 6ft 2in goalkeeper was Rodri-like in his laser-directed passing and if he coughed up a single goal-costing error it vanished from this observer’s mind. His season ended with the eye-socket injury sustained in last Tuesday’s vital 2-0 win at Tottenham so missed Sunday’s 3-1 championship-clinching victory over West Ham. 9

Once again Chelsea won the league and once again on the final day of the season. That is no accident

There comes a time when you’ve written about the same scenario so many times that you begin to think that, eventually, you will run out of words. Chelsea’s stunning fifth consecutive league title – delivered in some style, via a 6-0 humiliation of Manchester United at Old Trafford to ensure they finished level with Manchester City but with a superior goal difference – is, strangely, not one of those times.

Yes, it is Chelsea’s eighth title of the past 10 (if you include the mini Spring Series of 2017) and the fourth year running that the title has been decided on the final day, but there is still so much to say.

We select some contenders for the best signings in the English top flight this season – and invite you to have your say

• More awards … Players | Managers | Goals | Matches | Young players | Flops | Gripes | Broadcasters

The easiest way to explain Rice’s contribution to Arsenal is that he has somehow made £105m look cheap. The 25-year-old – who has missed just one game this season in all competitions – has transformed the Gunners’ midfield and his defensive nous, tenacity and tactical intelligence has provided freedom and room for others – particularly Martin Ødegaard – to shine. Only Bukayo Saka and Martin Ødegaard have more assists in the league for Arsenal this season – and part of the reason Arsenal have been so effective from set pieces is because of the quality of Rice’s delivery. He is a complete and elite box-to-box midfielder and a natural leader.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Philippe Auclair and Troy Townsend as Manchester City go top of the Premier League ahead of the final round of fixtures

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On the podcast today; the Premier League finale. Manchester City claim their fourth consecutive title with Phil Foden doing the business again with a goal after just 79 seconds. What does the success mean for a club facing 115 Premier League charges?

• Manager guarded over dinner meeting with co-owner Boehly
• Chelsea hierarchy yet to decide whether to sack Pochettino

Mauricio Pochettino refused to say whether he received assurances on his future from Todd Boehly after going out for “a very nice dinner” with Chelsea’s co-owner last Friday.

Pochettino, who was in a positive mood after securing European qualification thanks to a 2-1 win against Bournemouth on Sunday, remains in the dark on whether he will continue as head coach next season. The Argentinian was unsure if a pivotal end-of-season review with Chelsea’s hierarchy will take place this week.

Anfield said goodbye and thank you to a coach who reinvigorated the club, his impact going way beyond silverware

There was a game of football at Anfield on Sunday, and Liverpool, despite missing countless chances, as they have done consistently over the past couple of months, won it 2-0. But nobody seemed to care too much; even Gary O’Neil was restrained in his reaction to the video assistant referee intervening for Nelson Semedo’s yellow card to be upgraded to a red. It was only last week that Wolves called for the review system to be abolished: if you come at the VAR you’d best not miss.

But beneath a sky of perfect unbroken blue, this was not a day on which the game or the league table mattered; this was a day for saying goodbye, and saying thank you. “Danke Jürgen,” as the tifo running round two sides of the ground read, culminating with a heart on the Kop in the colours of the Germany flag. Liverpool knew that, whatever happened, they would finish third. That’s three places higher and, as it turned out, 20 points more than they had managed in 2014-15, the last full season before he took over, but the improvement he has wrought has been far greater than that, the outpouring of affection for him, expressed in the five-minute rendition of “I’m so glad Jürgen is a red” over the final whistle, entirely appropriate and understandable.

• Matildas and Chelsea forward denies the charges
• Allegations relate to night out with teammates in January 2023

The Matildas and Chelsea forward Sam Kerr’s trial on charges of racially aggravated harassment is set to take place in 2025 after a further hearing on her case was cancelled. Kerr is facing charges of intentionally causing “racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress to a police officer” after a night out with teammates in London in January 2023. Kerr denies the charges.

A preliminary hearing on the case, due to be held on Monday at Kingston Crown Court, was cancelled and the trial is now scheduled to last four days next February.

The final whistle served as a starting gun for Tottenham to head to East Midlands airport and board a special, Melbourne-bound, charter flight.

If Ange Postecoglou’s players were slightly underwhelmed by the prospect of a 25-hour journey to the Australian autumn, where an exhibition match against Newcastle United awaits on Wednesday, they at least travelled having rubber-stamped a fifth-placed finish.

Lyon were bottom of the table in December yet somehow snatched a European place on the last day of the campaign

By Eric Devin for Get French Football News

And just like that, another Ligue 1 season has come to an end. The title had long been decided but the final day served up more than its fair share of drama across nine matches. From Lorient’s heroic attempt to avoid automatic relegation to Brest turning in a bravura performance to secure passage to the Champions League via a top-three finish, this was, despite the absence of Kylian Mbappé, a fine advertisement for the quality of the league.

Nowhere witnessed more drama than Lyon. After sinking to the bottom of the table in early December, five points adrift of safety, they rallied in the second half of the campaign under Pierre Sage. With the help of several well paid January signings, including Saïd Benrahma and Nemanja Matic, they climbed up the table and went into the last day of the campaign knowing they would finish in sixth – and qualify for the Europa League – if they picked up a better result than Lens.

Gunners’ final-day rally may have had hope but real party line lies in how champion team can win while carrying 115 charges

Well, you can still have a lot of fun in 80 seconds. As carnival atmospheres go, this was a micro‑carnival, a highlights snippet. Arsenal’s final‑day Premier League jeopardy: let’s have a look at your best bits.

As the players walked out at the Emirates Stadium there was a starburst of red and white smoke above the lip of the stand and a sense of event glamour and skirling possibilities, like the final rally of a presidential campaign.

A seventh title in 10 years is proof of how incredible wealth has eroded any sense of competitive balance in the Premier League

Once more, without feeling. The sun rose on Sunday morning, the Earth completed one full rotation around its axis, and Manchester City won the Premier League title, just as they did in 2012 and 2014, and 2018 and 2019, and 2021 and 2022 and 2023. One more trophy in the glass case, one more silhouette to add to the mural. The greatest saga in English football has been recast as church liturgy, its rhythms hardened into routine, and here Arsenal were simply the latest team to succumb to the myth that there was ever a race to be won.

For City there is of course a glorious familiarity to these rituals now, a muscle memory in those trophy‑bearing limbs, the arms that lift it and the legs that earn it. Of course there is the full‑scale invasion at full-time, which proceeds in contempt of the multiple big-screen warnings forbidding it, because by now it has become a sort of tradition. There are City fans in the lower North Stand who can boast more appearances on the Etihad Stadium pitch than Kalvin Phillips.

After nine trophy-laden seasons, Jürgen Klopp will bid a fond farewell to Anfield on Sunday. We look back at the many highs (and some lows) of his time on Merseyside

Fans review the season with one game to play: the stars, the flops and the moments that made them smile

• Part two: Liverpool to Wolves

It’s been a privilege. Yes, it looks destined to end in glorious failure, but we’ll keep faith until the fat lady sings. No matter the outcome, there’s so much pride in the unity of spirit that has sustained our campaign to the final day and given us the sort of exhilarating entertainment we last witnessed a couple of decades back. Some might not agree with all of Mikel’s decisions along the way, but there’s certainly no disputing his achievements. 9.5/10.

Fans review the season with one game to play: the stars, the flops and the moments that made them smile

• Part one: Arsenal to Fulham

Back at Wembley winning a trophy, and we’ve made it back to the Champions League, so it’s pretty good. It was a season of two halves really. At New Year we were flying, then came the injuries and then came the dip. The manager has given everything, again, and today will be an outpouring of love and thanks to him. In Germany he is known as a Menschenfanger, a people catcher, someone who has a positive effect on those around him. For us, he’s been a dream catcher, too. He gave us belief and he gave us the best of times. He made us happy. 8/10.

Manchester City have won their seventh Premier League title, and fourth in a row, after a 3-1 victory against West Ham on the final day of the season. The Guardian's Manchester football correspondent, Jamie Jackson, looks at how City won this historic title without hitting their absolute best, and ahead to the next season as City brace themselves for the verdict on the pending 115 Premier League charges

• Manchester City beat West Ham to win fourth Premier League title in a row

Emma Hayes has left her role as Chelsea Women’s manager after 12 years as she gets set to become the head coach of the USWNT. Hayes is widely regarded as one of the most influential managers in the women’s game. Her 12-year tenure at Chelsea has brought unprecedented success. After taking the job in 2012, she can be credited with transforming the club’s fortunes, building a winning structure on and off the pitch. Over more than a decade, she has led her team to six WSL titles, five Women’s FA Cups, two Continental Cups, the Spring Series, a Community Shield victory and a Champions League final. She was awarded an MBE and OBE in 2016 and 2022 respectively, while she was named the Best Fifa women’s football coach in 2021 and the WSL manager of the season on six occasions.

Chelsea women have won their fifth Women’s Super League title in a row on goal difference with a 6-0 victory at Manchester United. This was Emma Hayes' final game before she leaves to take over the US women’s national team. Hayes spoke about how hard it is to keep winning but thanked her team for everything they have done for her and for the club.

• Emma Hayes ‘hasn’t got another drop to give’ after Chelsea WSL title triumph

Jürgen Klopp paid tribute to the city of Liverpool and said he 'couldn't have done more' as he reflected on his time at the club in his final Liverpool pre-match press conference. Klopp leaves Anfield after eight and a half years having won seven major trophies, including one Premier League title and the club's sixth Champions League. 'I know we could have won more but I cannot change that. We could have won less, that's possible as well,' he said. 'Nothing is perfect nowadays, but the majority of people in [Liverpool] are as close as possible.'

• ‘We get punched hard, get up and go again’: Jürgen Klopp on love, leadership and Liverpool

Jürgen Klopp has given the media plenty to work with during his nine years at Liverpool, including poking fun at them during press conferences. From complimenting a translator's "erotic voice" to being unaware of his own player's child being born, here are a few of his most memorable moments.

• For good and bad, Jürgen Klopp gave Liverpool fans the time of their lives

Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou raged over the 'fragile foundations' he said had been revealed at the club over the last 48 hours. Large sections of the fans cheered their 2-0 defeat to Manchester City which dented the title hopes of arch-rivals Arsenal. Postecoglous admitted that 'the last 48 hours revealed a fair bit, and that's all right. That's just means I’ve got to go back to the drawing board with some things'.

• ‘He saves us – otherwise Arsenal are champions’: Guardiola hails Ortega

• Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs project is a magnificent act of misdirection

• Mariners reach second straight title decider with 2-1 (agg) win
• Victory beat Wellington Phoenix 2-1 after extra-time

The Central Coast Mariners have booked a spot in a second straight grand final after edging past Sydney FC in one of the most contentious A-League Men games in recent memory.

The Mariners, who drew 0-0 in Saturday’s semi-final second leg at Industree Group Stadium in Gosford, won the tie 2-1 on aggregate to set a date with Melbourne Victory in next week’s title decider.

• Brazil gets 119 votes to 78 for Belgium-Netherlands-Germany
• Infantino says legal threats over Club World Cup are ‘futile’

Brazil was declared the host of the 2027 Women’s World Cup at the Fifa congress, beating the joint bid of Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany to become the first South American country to hold the tournament. Brazil’s bid received to host the 10th edition of the competition the backing of 119 member associations, compared with 78 votes for the European bid.

“We knew we would be celebrating a victory for South American women’s soccer and for women,” said the president of the Brazilian Football Confederation, Ednaldo Rodrigues. “You can be sure, with no vanity, we will accomplish the best World Cup for women.”

Manager has brought silverware and Champions League football back to Juve but it may not be enough

At a certain point you started to wonder if Massimiliano Allegri would strip all the way down to his underwear. The Juventus manager had already thrown off his jacket, and then a few moments later, his tie. Now he was furiously undoing the buttons of his shirt and bellowing toward the crowd.

Juventus were moments away from winning the Coppa Italia. They had led Atalanta from the fourth minute, when Dusan Vlahovic ran beyond Isak Hien and swept a right-footed finish past Marco Carnesecchi. The Serb put the ball in the net again in the 73rd, only for this goal to be disallowed for offside.

The managerial merry-go-round has started to spin, there are concerns in Atlanta and the rich keep getting richer in Miami

Welcome back to the Guardian’s MLS Power Rankings, where I have a beef with your specific team and your specific team alone.

Now, as a reminder, these aren’t your standard, run-of-the-mill power rankings. We’re still ranking teams from worst to first. But along with the rankings, we’re diving deep into a handful of teams from around the league who are doing particularly interesting things.

• Miami lead MLS in payroll with $41.7 on salaries
• Argentinian also has estimated endorsements of $70m

Lionel Messi’s annualized pay from his MLS contract with Inter Miami is just over $20.4m in his first full season, exceeding the payrolls of all but four teams in the league.

Messi joined Inter Miami last summer and has a base salary of $10.4m and annualized compensation of $20,446,667, the MLS Players Association said on Thursday in its first salary release of 2024.

Fans started their preparations four days before games and would release pigeons to celebrate goals, this book extract reveals

Football in Albania is a national obsession. Yet between the late 1960s and Stalinism’s slow, lingering death in 1991, it became more than mere fixation. In a country where the 1967 rewriting of the constitution denied people their freedom of faith, football became the new religion, with pilgrims from Gjirokastër to Shkodër, Lezhë to Sarandë, filling stadiums every Sunday afternoon in worship of their new, auxiliary gods.

In those moments of ordered chaos, Albanians appeared free from the trials and injustices of their moribund, regime-subscribed lives, transported – via the vehicles of football and shared human experience – to a higher plain; a vista of harmony and liberty.

• Bruce Mwape accused of touching female worker’s breast
• Incident said to have happened at last year’s World Cup

Zambia’s coach, Bruce Mwape, has been accused of intentionally touching a Fifa contractor on the breast during last year’s Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. A few days before that, similar claims were made against him by a player, the Guardian can reveal.

Fifa is investigating allegations made in August that Mwape – who remains in charge of Zambia and is expected to lead them at this summer’s Olympic Games – rubbed his hands over the chest of a player after a training session before their historic victory over Costa Rica at the end of July in Hamilton. It has been revealed that before the tournament Mwape – who has previously denied the accusations – was the subject of an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by a number of players in the squad that had been referred to world football’s governing body by the Zambian Football Association (FAZ).

Efforts to cut down on time-wasting are laudable. But there are flaws in the new scheme that need to be tweaked before a worldwide rollout

Lionel Messi was not happy. It was a little over 40 minutes into Inter Miami’s trip to Quebec to take on CF Montréal this past Saturday and the star-studded Eastern Conference leaders were 2-0 down. But it was not that Miami were losing that had vexed Messi. He just wanted to be on the pitch.

Miami had won a free kick 30-yards from goal, slightly right of centre – prime Messi territory. Yet he was not allowed to take it. He’d received treatment on the pitch a minute earlier after being fouled by Montréal defender George Campbell. Due to a new set of rules adopted this season to crack down on time-wasting, Messi had to wait on the sideline for two minutes before being allowed to re-enter the game.

• Atalanta 0-1 Juventus
• Serbian’s early goal sets up Turin club to lift trophy for 15th time

Juventus beat Atalanta 1-0 to win a record-extending 15th Coppa Italia as an early strike by Dusan Vlahovic earned Massimiliano Allegri’s side their first trophy in three years.

Juve, who hold both the record for most Italian Cup finals played (22) and won (15), had not lifted any silverware since they won the competition in 2020-21, when they also beat Atalanta in the final. Allegri became the first coach to win the Coppa Italia five times, after Sven-Göran Eriksson and Roberto Mancini lifted the trophy on four occasions.

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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Aitana Bonmatí, Sam Kerr and Salma Paralluelo top the list of female footballers in the world in 2023 according to our judges

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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.

Aitana Bonmatí the clear winner of the Guardian’s best 100 female footballers in the world with 15 Spaniards on the list

• The 100 best female footballers in the world 2023

After Alexia Putellas reigned in 2021 and 2022, her Barcelona and Spain teammate Aitana Bonmatí has been crowned the top female footballer of 2023 by the Guardian’s panel of 112 experts. The World Cup winner triumphed by a clear margin, finishing more than 500 points ahead of second-placed Sam Kerr.

Injuries and a World Cup meant there was a definite changing of the guard feel to this year’s list, sadly emphasised by the fact last year’s top two – Putellas and Beth Mead – missed a large chunk of our 12-month voting period with ACL injuries.

Unusual storylines are growing ever rarer due to the influence of the super-rich and nation states in our national game

Admit it, when Erik ten Hag walked out holding a microphone after Manchester United’s final home game on Wednesday night you also thought he was going to start saying things like “Your job now is to support the new manager”, before marching off to write books containing anecdotes about Richard Branson.

In the event the most notable part of Ten Hag’s speech was how convincing he is when he frowns into a mic and says things. Ten Hag could stab himself in the eye with a kebab skewer and stand there in the centre circle, kebab skewer pyoing-ing up and down, explaining why this is actually a really good thing and a sign of genuine progress and you’d think, yeah, kebab-skewer-eye-guy really is on to something. He just needs time. Maybe with patience and a proper process he can stab himself in the other eye too.

Former La Liga winners have been languishing in Spain’s third tier but, led by their devoted captain, hope is returning

There was a moment late in Deportivo de La Coruña’s win over Barcelona on Sunday in which they got a corner and Lucas Pérez went to take it, gazing up at Riazor en route. When he got there, bouncing the ball before laying it down by the flag, he held out his arm for the linesman to inspect and leant in to whisper something. The linesman leant back, looked at the evidence presented and nodded. Then he smiled. It was true what Depor’s captain said: the hairs on his arm really were standing on end.

You and everyone else, Lucas.

German’s tenure has been littered with big lows but supporters will always cherish the big highs and a unique connection

It was a lovely spring afternoon in Liverpool. The sun was out, the temperature was high and, around Anfield, so were spirits. There were smiles and laughter among the thousands in the nearby streets, cafes and pubs that they carried into the stadium, where soon there were also chants and songs from the masses, rising to a pitch during an enthralling encounter with Tottenham the hosts ultimately won. All in all a great day and, being among it, the very real sense that this, then, is what the fifth stage of grief looks like.

Because acceptance is very much the mood among most Liverpool supporters when it comes to Jürgen Klopp’s impending departure. All were shocked when, in January, he announced he was going at the end of the season and each, in their own way, has gone through the various phases of losing a loved one in the following four months. It has been tough but it’s safe to say that collective emotions have centred on recognising that Klopp wasn’t kidding when he said he was running out of energy. The big German with the big grin is, quite clearly, not the man he once was.

What makes the situation most striking is Arsenal’s apparent willingness to allow the Dutch star’s contract to run out

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“Miedema … still Miedema … magnificent Miedema.” A line of commentary that could be used to sum up most of Vivianne Miedema’s 125 goals in an Arsenal shirt. In her seven-year career in north London in which she appeared 172 times, the Dutch international has broken records left, right and centre, unstoppable on the pitch and a quiet, determined force off it.

In this instance, the commentator was describing a strike against Everton in 2022. Having turned Karen Holmgaard inside out, she instinctively unleashed her wand of a right foot to send the ball nestling into the back of the net. It was not the first time, nor the last, a defender would be undone in this fashion.

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Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Nedum Onuoha and John Brewin as Manchester United and Chelsea get important wins in their hunt for European football next season

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On the podcast today: the race for fifth/sixth and Europa League football next season is still alive – Chelsea could still catch Spurs and only Manchester United winning the FA Cup would earn Newcastle a spot.

Plus: serial runners-up, long gaps between winning the same competition, terrible penalty shootouts and more

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“Granit Xhaka is unbeaten in his first 47 games for Bayer Leverkusen,” notes Scott Campbell. “Have any players attained a longer unbeaten streak upon joining a new club?”

At first Bayer Leverkusen’s success was one of the stories of the season. It’s fast becoming one of the stories of the century: they are 50 not out, three games away from completing an unbeaten season in all competitions. Granit Xhaka, their summer signing from Arsenal, has played in 47 of those 50 matches. The last time he lost at club level was last May, when Nottingham Forest officially ended Arsenal’s title challenge.

I have been forced to adjust to a reality where I can no longer be an elite athlete but I have tried to find something positive in it

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Everyone goes through change in life. It is just about how you respond. They can be big changes; they can be small, but it is about how you handle it yourself.

Over the last few months, I have been through the biggest change of all. Since being diagnosed with a heart condition – arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy or ARVC, a disease that causes irregular heartbeats – last year at just 27, I have had to learn to navigate a world where I can no longer be a professional footballer. I have been forced to adjust to a reality where I can no longer be an elite athlete and where I can’t play a sport I have been a part of since I was three. I have had to accept the reality of my condition and everything that comes with it.

Our pick of the best rants, musings and carefully worded statements from the Premier League and beyond this term

Our cartoonist on the Premier League doing strange things to mascots (and people) as it nears its finale

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Manchester United’s Aoife Mannion joins Faye Carruthers and Suzanne Wrack to discuss her team’s 4-0 FA Cup final win over Spurs and more

A big weekend of football calls for a star guest. This week, Faye Carruthers and Suzanne Wrack are joined by Manchester United’s Aoife Mannion to discuss her team’s 4-0 Wembley win over Tottenham. Then Chris Pauros joins Faye and Suzy to preview the final weekend in the WSL and the league’s record scorer, Vivianne Miedema, saying goodbye to Arsenal. They also look at the England squad announced by Sarina Weigman.

To sign up for our bi-weekly women’s football newsletter – all you need to do is search ‘Moving the Goalposts sign up’ or follow that link. Here’s an extract from the latest edition.

With facilities destroyed and lives cut short, the conflict has brought destruction to a previously thriving sporting scene

Mohammed Abu-Hujair was booked on a flight to Spain last October. A scout from Real Madrid had visited Gaza in August and invited Mohammed, a 17-year-old who plays on the left wing, to join a football academy with the hope that, if he did well, he would stay in Spain. Mohammed also had the promise of a contract with Gaza Sport Club, making him one of the youngest players to sign with the team.

Then came the 7 October attacks on Israel, and the war in Gaza. Mohammed didn’t make that flight. “My life has turned upside down in a blink of an eye,” he says.

Manager, who is leaving Chelsea after 12 years, remains a fearless advocate of the women’s game but never lost her human touch

It was a rainy Saturday evening a few weeks ago and Chelsea were playing Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final. I made the journey from east to west London and emerged out of Fulham Broadway station to join my friends outside the Kona Kai cocktail bar opposite a busy Stamford Bridge.

Once we had squeezed past some punters and climbed up to assume our position in the Matthew Harding Stand, it hit me: I was sitting in a sold-out stadium. All around me fans were chanting and waving blue flags in support of Emma Hayes and the Chelsea team she had built brick by brick. If ever there was a moment when I fully appreciated her impact, it was then.

There is no shame in losing to the champions and Tottenham manager has made the same failure taste much better

The open-top bus parade begins at Monday lunchtime. Thousands of fans are expected to line the streets to pay tribute to Ange Postecoglou and his team as they wind their way down the High Road, before a civic reception at Tottenham town hall. There, captain Son Heung-min will end 16 long years of silverware famine by hoisting aloft the Denying Arsenal The League Trophy, and frankly few men have done more to earn it.

Of course Spurs have never made things easy for themselves and there were plenty of heart-stopping moments during that crucial defeat by Manchester City on Tuesday when it looked like they might salvage a draw, or even a disastrous win. To come through in the end was a genuine team effort, key players standing down when it mattered most: that reliably unreliable defence, Pierre-Emile Højbjerg failing to plug the gaps in midfield, Son gloriously fluffing that one-on-one chance in the closing stages.

League of Ireland club welcome women’s national team over for their first match in Europe which carries great significance

“We have a reason to tell the people that we are human beings,” says Mira Natour, a defender for the Palestine women’s national team, as she reflects on their friendly against Bohemians in Dublin on Wednesday night. “We have rights the same as you, to play, we have the right to express our feelings, we have the right to be recognised by the world. With this event, we’re telling them we exist.”

It will be the first time the Palestine team have played in Europe and their League of Ireland hosts have sold out, with a 4,500 crowd expected at Dalymount Park. Bohemians are fan-owned and their membership’s strong allegiance with the Palestinian cause mirrors a sentiment shared by many in Irish football and the country as a whole.

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

We pick the best youngsters at each club born between 1 September 2006 and 31 August 2007, an age band known as first-year scholars. Check the progress of our classes of 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 … and look at the editions from further back

• Next Generation 2023: 60 of the best talents around the world

Five years ago we picked 80 of the most talented players in the world to follow their progress in a cut-throat business

It is the time of year when we check in on the Next Generation players we picked in 2018 to follow for five years, to assess their progress amid success, setbacks, injuries, trophies won and transfers made.

Next Generation started in 2014 with the aim of showing the difficulties that even the best prospects in the Premier League (we pick one from each club at first-year scholar age) and the rest of the world (we choose 60 born in a specific calendar year) face on their way towards the top.

A defensively minded midfielder who is incredibly strong (he used to be a wrestler) but with an excellent touch to go with his physicality. Made his debut in the Swedish top flight as a 16-year-old last year and captained Sweden as they reached the quarter-finals of the Euro Under-17 tournament in England this summer. Has taken an unusual path to the top. He left the top-flight side IFK Göteborg for sixth division Angered MBIK as a 14-year-old as he felt that he was not getting the right support for his football education. Another Gothenburg club, Häcken, snapped him up in 2017 and he made his senior debut that season. Has signed a new contract with the club from Hisingen until 2021 despite interest from Real Madrid and Benfica and trials at both Manchester clubs.