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It was a night when Arsenal gave everything, battling until the last, even when it looked over. Nobody should fault the spirit of Mikel Arteta’s players. They emerged with honour. But it was a night when they simply could not bend this showpiece occasion to the force of their energy and will.

When it really was over, this raucous venue pounded to a delirious beat. Paris Saint-Germain are going to their second Champions League final, deserved winners across the two legs. They will fancy their chances of a first title when they face Inter Milan in Munich.

Arsenal dominated the start of the match, as they knew they had to, but without a genuine centre-forward it was all in vain

How to lose a game of football part 94: losing while appearing to win, advanced level. It will be tempting to see in the opening 27 minutes of this Champions League semi-final second leg a perfect little miniature, an executive summary of a team and a mini-era, out there under the hard white lights of the Parc des Princes, Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal pinned and wriggling on the wall.

The club’s supporters will feel the pain more keenly because for the first 26 of those 27 minutes this was a slick, luminous, dominant Arsenal away performance. They flooded the midfield, controlled the ball, won it back aggressively. Martin Ødegaard squirrelled about, all malevolent invention. Arsenal had 75% possession, six shots and 10 crosses. They were all over this game, arms on both lapels, pressing PSG back against the edge of things.

Tottenham are without key players for the Europa League semi-final second leg against opponents who have belief

European football has provided Tottenham with a sanctuary during this most confusing of seasons. Their Premier League campaign has been a disaster but they have turned into a different team against continental opposition. They have veered away from the wilder excesses of Angeball during their run to the Europa League semi-finals – their quarter-final win over Eintracht Frankfurt was achieved with a crafty, gritty performance in the second leg – and silverware will be within reach for the first time since 2008 if they can hold their nerve at the Aspmyra Stadium.

Freeze in the Arctic Circle, though, and the ice that Ange Postecoglou has been skating on since January will finally crack. This is the moment to move away from the modern Tottenham’s history to sort of dare, not quite do and fall short when the pressure rises. Postecoglou has railed against the club’s reputation as loveable losers but defeat against Bodø/Glimt could see him out of a job by Friday morning. He must ensure his players are equipped for the unorthodox test posed by Kjetil Knutsen’s team. Injuries have been the theme of Spurs’ season but they have to overcome the blow of two more befalling their two most in-form midfielders, Lucas Bergvall and James Maddison, just when they were needed most.

• Manchester United lead 3-0 in Europa League semi-final
• Athletic missing Williams brothers and top scorer Sancet

Ruben Amorim admits Manchester United “can lose their minds” during games so is unsure how they will perform in Thursday’s Europa League semi-final second leg against Athletic Bilbao, despite holding a 3-0 lead.

United are favourites to reach the final on 21 May at the San Mamés after their victory there last week thanks to Casemiro’s header and two goals from Bruno Fernandes. In the previous round’s return leg at Old Trafford they allowed a 2-0 advantage over Lyon to become a 4-2 deficit before scoring three goals in the final seven minutes of extra time to secure passage to the last four. United also led Lyon 2-1 in the first leg but conceded a 95th-minute Rayan Cherki equaliser.

• David Kogan: ‘There is an 18-month window to do that’
• Labour grandee reveals donations to Starmer and Nandy

The government’s preferred candidate to become the independent regulator of English football has warned the Premier League and EFL they have less than 18 months to agree a deal on financial redistribution.

David Kogan sat before the culture, media and sport select committee in parliament on Wednesday in a pre-appointment hearing to assess his suitability. Across two hours he set out his vision for a job he said had become “more important and more pressing” since it was first proposed and argued the regulator’s job was “to help the pyramid survive”.

• Trump convenes first meeting of World Cup taskforce
• President hails windfall despite questions over readiness

US president Donald Trump convened the first meeting of his administration’s 2026 World Cup taskforce on Tuesday in a public event in which he revealed that he did not know Russia had been banned from Fifa competitions and insisted the tournament would go off without a hitch.

Boasting repeatedly that the 2026 World Cup, due to be co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, will be the “biggest, safest and most extraordinary soccer tournament in history”, Trump went on to claim that the tournament would generate “tens of billions of dollars in economic activities for local businesses” and “thousands and thousands of jobs for American workers”.

The Watford Women manager on being included on the Football Black List, Hope Powell’s importance and the reasons she quit playing at 26

When Renée Hector was getting the football bug as a youngster playing at Stevenage Borough Vixens, she idolised England internationals such as Alex Scott, Rachel Yankey and Anita Asante. But the only black female coach she felt she could relate to was the England manager Hope Powell. From the moment Hector moved to Watford’s centre of excellence, aged 10, managing the club’s women’s team was her ultimate dream, inspired by Powell, and she fulfilled that ambition this season in her first year in charge of the Women’s National League Premier Division side, at the age of 29.

Hector’s playing career was cut short at 26 by an anterior cruciate ligament injury, but she was determined to turn that into something positive and progress her coaching career faster than expected. Last month, she was recognised on 2024’s Football Black List, which honours the most influential black people in the game. Hector is in elite company in a select list of five alongside the England coach Ashley Cole, Nottingham Forest’s Nuno Espírito Santo, Port Vale’s Darren Moore and Arsenal and England youth coach Carly Williams.

Plus: league-leading teams nosediving, more statistically average seasons and final-day survival turnarounds

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“Daniel Farke has won the Championship for the third time,” notes Giacomo. “Who has won the English second tier the most? And are there any second-tier masters around the world?”

Dirk Maas begins by pointing us in the direction of another manager who scooped up three English second-tier titles with two different teams.

• Luigi Simoni: Genoa (1975-76), Pisa (1984-85 and 1986-87)
• Carlos Babington: Banfield (1992-93), Huracán (1989-90 and 1999-00)
• Miguel Ángel Russo: Lanús (1991-92), Estudiantes de la Plata (1994-95), Rosario Central (2012-13)
• Dennis van Wijk: KV Oostende (1997-98), Royal Charleroi (2011-12), KVC Westerlo (2013-14)
• Dan Alexa: Poli Timișoara (2014-15), Rapid București (2015-16), Dunarea Calarasi (2017-18)
• Enderson Moreira: Goiás (2012), América Mineiro (2017), Botafogo (2021)
• Alekos Vosniadis: Apollon Smyrnis (2012-13), Niki Volou (2013-14), Athens Kallithea (2023-24)

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The best Big/Bigger Cup semi-final of all time? That’s the sort of recency bias-based chat that would normally have the Daily rounding up all the young football heads to watch Bayern v Red Star Belgrade on VHS over a cool glass of turnip juice. But Inter 4-3 Barcelona (aet, 7-6 on agg) really might be the one. In recent years, we’ve seen incredible comebacks (Liverpool v Barça), goals galore (Roma v Liverpool), dramatic late plot twists (Spurs v Ajax, Real Madrid v Manchester City). Still, nothing quite like this, a game where even the eye-watering, parenthesised final score doesn’t tell the whole story.

America will welcome the world. Everyone who wants to come here to enjoy, to have fun to celebrate the game, will be able to do that” – Fifa head honcho Gianni Infantino trumpets the warm reception the USA USA USA will give fans during the 2026 World Cup at a White House taskforce gathering.

We want them to come, we want them to celebrate, we want them to watch the game. But when the time is up, they’ll have to go home. Otherwise they’ll have to talk to Secretary Noem” – vice-president JD Vance isn’t quite so genial, while his boss reveals he had no idea Russia were banned from the tournament. Yikes!

OK, with a heavy heart, I’ll do it to save the other 1,056 Football Daily readers the effort but this is the last time I do the ‘Watford have changed manager again, let’s all laugh at them’ schtick, as it’s all very tedious now. But, for old times’ sake, since the Pozzos took over Watford in June 2012, they have had a grand total of 23 managers including interims, but they’re all interims really, aren’t they? In which case, a doff of the cap to Tom Cleverley for lasting more than a year. The more shocking thing from the piece was finding out that Cleverley had played for England. Thirteen times apparently (presumably during the Hodgson debacle)” – Noble Francis (and no others).

Re: JJ Zucal (yesterday’s Football Daily letters), I hail from a part of Sheffield where fights break out if you are offered Worcestershire sauce, and I can assure you that not only all the country, but half of Sheffield and the (evidently not bitter) Noble Francis don’t want Sheffield United in the Premier League. Heck, I bet even United don’t want United in the Premier, and they will soon demonstrate this by the most amusing tank yet in their playoff history. But if we are, à la Inter Miami, just going to decide who plays in a competition, in the same way we can decide what the inhabitants of Arctic land masses actually want, can we have Bristol City? I lately realised my tolerance for Frank Lampard had only increased because I hadn’t heard about him for a while, and Bristol City are way more romantic. I think they can be trusted not to desperately overspend on ageing players in an effort to stay up and destroy their entire financial structure. What? Oh. (Admittedly, only works if you are very, very old, that joke)” – Jon Millard.

Bagging a playoff place by finishing only 21 points behind the Blades is worthy of celebration. Certainly on a par with Leicester who scored an actual goal, for the first time since 8 December at the King Power. Celebrations were so wild, that the 20,000 of us there were credited as north of 31,000 by the Leicester number counters” – Steve Roberts.

On a night of scary news elsewhere, that match (apart from minor sh!thousery) was a reminder of the finer things in life. Such as me, turning over to see my mate making a brief appearance in an ITV medical drama and missing two goals” – Kev McCready.

The oldest man on the oldest Champions League team delivered when it mattered to show they can go all the way

What was he even doing there, in the 183rd minute of a two-legged tie, a 37-year-old centre-back attacking the opposition’s six-yard box, the furthest man forward on his team? Francesco Acerbi had not scored a goal in more than a year. Heck, he had not scored one in 65 appearances across Uefa club competitions. This is not his job, not the thing he trains for, not a defining moment anyone had predicted for the most entertaining Champions League semi-final ever to unfold.

Or maybe this is the only way it could be. “Pazza Inter Amala” runs the line from Inter’s club anthem. “Crazy Inter, Love Her”. This is not Real Madrid, where “being successful is part of our DNA”, nor Juventus lecturing you that “winning is the only thing that counts”. Inter make sense when they stop making sense. Acerbi – yes, that Acerbi, who overcame cancer twice and who has won all seven major trophies of his career since turning 30, smashing a striker’s finish into the top corner to make it 6-6 on aggregate and force extra time? Of course. How else did you imagine this could go?

Teenager was a revelation across an incredible semi-final tie and Spanish side have much to be proud of in defeat

On the afternoon before the first leg of the the most extraordinary Champions League semi-final anyone could remember, Lamine Yamal said he had left fear behind in the park in Mataró years ago. Everything else he left behind at Montjuïc and San Siro, a statement stronger than any he had delivered in the press room. If that line was a promise, a demonstration of personality, it was kept, but Barcelona couldn’t reach their first final in a decade so he made another. “We won’t stop until this club is where it deserves to be: at the summit,” he wrote in the dark moments after defeat.

Here Barcelona had been stopped within touching distance. Lamine Yamal departed the pitch in silence holding Marcus Thuram’s shirt, Inter’s players coming to embrace this boy they had survived, a child born every 50 years in the words of their manager, Simone Inzaghi. There has been something revelatory about the 17-year-old’s performance over two astonishing nights and at the end of it all there was almost a kind of reverence, a respect towards him. Inter had reached the final again and will talk of this for ever, their everything; one day, they knew, he may be part of the epic stories they tell.

Twelve-year-old Tom Stanley supports 1.FC Köln, but is happy to sport a Leverkusen – or even a Brazil – top, while John Williams recalls a chilly reception in Belgrade

Emma John’s article (Is it ever OK to wear another club’s shirt? My life in a Liverpool top this week, 1 May) made me think of conversations with my 53-year-old uncle, who finds it strange that I wear more than one team’s colours. I think his idea is old-fashioned. These days my friends and I wear shirts of the players we like, not just the team we support.

My favourite team in Germany is 1.FC Köln. I’m a member of the club and always wear their shirt when I go to the stadium to watch them. I get nervous when they play, feel happy when they win and frustrated when they drop points. I care as much about their results as any other true fan, and more than my dad. But when I am at school or at home, I sometimes wear a jersey of their rivals, Leverkusen. I am not a fan of Leverkusen, but I like one of their players – Patrik Schick. All of my friends in my team (SpVg Nöthen under-13s) have lots of different jerseys from different teams because we like certain players.

Now the subject of a documentary, the former striker opens up on his strict upbringing in Argentina, the heart troubles that ended his career and that Manchester City goal

During a visit to Madrid in 2007, Anatoliy Byshovets, the then head coach of Lokomotiv Moscow, said watching Sergio Agüero was like visiting the Prado. Pep Guardiola said he was a legend. Jorge Valdano said he could invent anything, anywhere, a unique footballer who had lost all fear, although he was wrong on that. Lionel Messi said he did the impossible. Diego Maradona said Agüero reminded him of himself, phoning one day to apologise for not playing him more. “I was a dickhead,” Maradona said.

Sometimes it can feel like the one person who never said Agüero was good was the one person he really wanted to. When the former Manchester City striker announced he was retiring at the age of 33, forced to stop by a heart problem, all the stress accumulated beneath the surface since his debut at 15, his dad called and said he had never seen a better footballer. He had played 786 games and scored 427 goals by then. “You waited until I retired to tell me that?!” Agüero replied. “I was happy and sad at the same time,” he says. “At last, he said something good.”

Americans who bought foreign teams will soon be competing with domestic MLS owners in battle for fans’ wallets

In 1986, the former Buffalo Bills quarterback and future Republican vice-presidential nominee Jack Kemp spoke on the floor of the US House of Representatives and said a silly thing. “Football,” he said, referring to the gridiron variety, “is democratic capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist sport.”

Kemp was trying, apparently, to underpin his opposition to the US potentially hosting the 1994 Fifa World Cup. Later on, by which time his comments had been tucked away into the filing cabinet of infamy, he contended that he was only kidding. Kemp attended said World Cup himself and admitted that half his grandchildren were soccer players. Sure. Fine.

First chair’s background in football finance and his Labour links helped land historic job he did not initially apply for

The impending appointment of David Kogan as the chair of the new Independent Football Regulator has surprised many in the sport, given that the media rights specialist was not on the three-person shortlist, but in retrospect he may have been hiding in plain sight.

In a House of Lords debate on the football governance bill last November David Triesman, a Labour peer and former Football Association chair, effectively recommended Kogan for the job, namechecking Kogan’s former company Reel Enterprises, which for 13 years sold media rights on behalf of the Premier League.

Full-back did it all for his boyhood club and is off to a new reality where his game will face increased scrutiny

Before basking in the acclaim and adulation of the Kop when No 20 was sealed two Sundays ago, Trent Alexander-Arnold headed for the suits. There was a warm embrace between the Liverpool star and Michael Edwards, chief executive of football at Fenway Sports Group, and another with Richard Hughes, the man who initiated contract talks with Alexander-Arnold’s brother and agent prior to starting as the club’s new sporting director last summer and has faced a losing battle on that score ever since.

They all knew it was ending but there were evidently no hard feelings. Liverpool feel they did everything they could to persuade Alexander-Arnold to stay. They offered a new deal that reflected his status as the finest full-back in the Premier League and one of the best in the world. They not only offered success, Arne Slot’s team delivered it. But they could not offer a new experience to a player whose stated aim is to win the Ballon d’Or and wants “that legacy of being the greatest right-back to have played football. I have got to reach for the stars”.

Riyad Mahrez and Roberto Firmino starred in tournament but unbalanced format reflects political power in continent

It’s been quite a journey for Roberto Firmino, Riyad Mahrez and Al-Ahli, who lifted the AFC Champions League Elite trophy for the first time just before midnight on Saturday in front of 60,000 fans in Jeddah after a 2-0 win over Kawasaki Frontale of Japan.

Firmino has not been registered in the Saudi Pro League (SPL), where teams are allowed only 10 foreign players, this year. The former Liverpool man’s spot was taken by Galeno, his fellow Brazilian signed from Porto in January for around £45m. In Asia, however, there are no such restrictions and “Bobby” has come back into the fold and played so well that he was named tournament’s MVP.

• Spanish club want to bring forward right-back’s transfer
• Madrid play at tournament before his contract ends

Real Madrid have approached Liverpool in an attempt to bring forward the signing of Trent Alexander-Arnold so that he is available to play in the Club World Cup, which starts on 14 June in the United States. The right-back is set to join the Spanish side when his contract expires at the end of June, but Real are eager to take him earlier.

Any agreement would lead to Liverpool receiving a fee. Fifa has implemented a two-window summer to benefit those playing at the Club World Cup, with the first lasting from 1 to 10 June and the second opening on 16 June. Real’s first fixture is on 18 June against Al-Hilal at the Hard Rock Cafe Stadium in Miami.

• Move to aid Spurs before potential Europa League final
• ‘Honestly, not happy,’ says Villa’s director of football

Aston Villa officials have made clear the club’s unhappiness with the Premier League for agreeing to bring forward Tottenham’s trip to Villa Park by 48 hours in order to help them prepare for a Europa League final they have not reached yet.

Spurs were originally scheduled to play Villa on 18 May but the encounter will now take place on 16 May after a rescheduling request based on the club’s European commitments was accepted by the League. The Europa League final takes place in Bilbao on 21 May. Spurs lead Norwegian side Bodø/Glimt 3-1 after the first leg of their semi-final last Thursday and are perhaps right to feel confident about progressing to what would be their first major European final in six years before Thursday’s return at the Aspmyra Stadion, located in the Arctic Circle.

• Cleverley first took job on interim basis in March 2024
• ‘Time has come for a change,’ says sporting director

Watford have sacked Tom Cleverley as their head coach after the club finished 14th in the Championship in his first full season. Cleverley took over on an interim basis in March 2024 and was given the job permanently last April. After five wins since the turn of the year, and one point from the final five games, the 35-year-old has lost his job.

The sporting director, Gian Luca Nani, said: “We thank Tom for his service – not just in his role as head coach but for everything he has given Watford as a player and member of staff.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected appeals from Grupo Pachuca and potential replacement club Alajuelense

Mexican soccer club León finally lost their legal match against Fifa on Tuesday and are officially out of the Club World Cup. Major League Soccer side Los Angeles FC or another Mexican team, Club América, will likely be the late replacement in the United States next month after a yet-to-be-scheduled one-game playoff.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport said its judges rejected León’s attempt to overturn being removed by Fifa from the 32-team tournament for being in the same ownership group as another Club World Cup qualifier, Pachuca.

Gérald Darmanin, now justice minister, called night of 2022 Champions League final ‘biggest failure’ of his career

The former French interior minister has apologised to Liverpool fans for using them as a “scapegoat” for the chaos surrounding the 2022 Champions League final in Paris, where supporters of the club, including children, were teargassed by police amid false claims they had caused a riot.

Gérald Darmanin, who is now France’s justice minister, called the night “the biggest failure” of his career. On 28 May 2022, Liverpool supporters said they feared for their lives as they were forced to enter Stade de France via a narrow subway and boxed-in lanes that could not accommodate the thousands of people that had arrived.

From flop in Manchester to prince of Seville, flying winger is rivalling his new best friend for title of La Liga’s finest player

Antony Matheus dos Santos has played football with some bad men. Raised in Inferninho (Little Hell), a favela outside São Paulo, the way the Real Betis winger tells it, he grew up without shoes to play in or a bed of his own to sleep in, surrounded by drugs and guns. Some days he wouldn’t eat and one day, when he was six or seven, he had to jump over a dead body to get to school. Life was just the way it was, even on the rough concrete courts where his bleeding feet moved faster than the rest. “I played against traffickers and all sorts,” he said. “If you ask if I was scared, of course I was. But I always had a strong personality and the harder it was, the more I wanted to be there.”

So when someone threatened to kidnap him a week ago, Antony just laughed – and so did everyone else. This wasn’t São Paulo, this was Seville. And, like a lot of what is said there, it was just a joke, even if there were true words said in jest, born of fondness and admiration, a kind of desperation too, a disbelief that he is here with them and a determination to keep it that way. There was no anonymous letter this time, no ransom note cut from newspaper letters; instead, there was a message on Isco’s Instagram. “Antonio of Triana,” it read, “we’re going to kidnap you: this is your first warning.” A few days later, the second came. “If I have to provide the car to kidnap him, I will,” said former Betis player Joaquín. “However it happens, he has to stay.”

After winning over Bayern’s hardcore support, the prolific Engländer has led the charge to the Bundesliga title

After Harry Kane’s three final heartbreaks with Tottenham and England his first major trophy win, the Bundesliga title we originally thought to be immediately inevitable, was on reflection never going to be straightforward. Last week’s yellow card against Augsburg kept him in the stands for Bayern Munich’s potential title clincher at RB Leipzig (a visibly annoyed Kane suggested referee Bastian Dankert had been “trying to make a name for himself” after the harsh booking, issued when he didn’t return the ball quickly enough after he was whistled for a foul). Then Yusuf Poulsen’s 95th-minute equaliser for the hosts meant Bayern weren’t quite there mathematically, even though Thomas Müller felt comfortable enough to lead the players and a trench-coated Kane through some frolics with the away fans on Saturday. Leverkusen only drawing at Freiburg on Sunday has, at last, finally sealed the deal. Kane’s Bayern destiny has been fulfilled, and no apparent jinx could get in the way this time.

On the day he signed in August 2023 Munich was balmy, in terms of weather and mood. It was the morning of Bayern’s DFL-Supercup game against RB Leipzig and as the thermometers crept above 30C, hot and bothered fans queued outside the multiple Bayern fan shops in the city centre with the aim of getting their hands on one item: the new, white-with-red-trim home jersey with “Kane 9” on the back. The red-on-white, multi-lined font of name and number – a throwback to the figures adorning the backs of Bayern’s 1974 European Cup winners – hinted at a new era of glory.

In her Hall of Fame induction speech, the World Cup winner opened up about the new perspective she has gained from retirement and motherhood

It’s been almost four years since Carli Lloyd announced her retirement as a player, and it appears to have been a transformative time for the two-time World Cup champion.

In a speech at her induction to the US Soccer Hall of Fame on Sunday, Lloyd struck a different tone than the one she used so often throughout her playing career, apologizing to her teammates for not being fully present as she single-mindedly pursued her goals as a player. Saying she “wasn’t there to make friends” and that she “avoided unnecessary drama,” Lloyd was well known by the end of her career for her steely demeanor that ran counter to some of her era’s more outgoing personalities like Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan.

Goalkeeper has been PSG’s most important player in knockout games against Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal

By Get French Football News

If man-of-the-match trophies were chosen by the PSG squad, Gianluigi Donnarumma would have picked up three of them from his past three performances in England. The Italian goalkeeper has had the biggest hand – or glove – in almost taking the club to the Champions League final and his contributions against Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal have not gone unnoticed by his teammates.

His saves in the penalty shootout at Anfield helped PSG overcome Liverpool, earning him the man-of-the-match award. He did not receive the trophy for his performance at Villa Park, despite big saves from Marcus Rashford and Marco Asensio.

Super League patron Florentino Pérez sets the tone with his destructive acts of pettiness, dragging down a once noble club

Referees have never been so disdained and despised as they are now. Those who do not think they are corrupt, think they are incompetent. Standards, apparently, have never been lower. Clubs and their fans rage about conspiracies. But even in the present context, the scenes at the end of last Saturday’s Copa del Rey final were unprecedented as Antonio Rüdiger threw an ice-pack at the referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea.

And to think this is a club that used to pride itself on its sense of its señorio, its gentlemanliness, to the extent that in Steve McManaman’s day players were given a code of conduct; the familiar line used to be whingeing about referees was for the cry-babies of Barcelona.

Barcelona’s 17-year-old forward is a once-every-20-years talent who is causing the internet to spasm with man-worship

There’s always that guy. Never be that guy. Fight the urge to become that guy, to yearn always for the old, good, safe things, to feel headphone-panic and selfie-disgust, to see moral decay in haircuts. Except, sometimes it turns out you just are that guy, propped up in your easy chair, eyes blazing, smelling slightly of damp laundry, and holding forth on a theme as old as all human life.

That theme is always the same. You know that thing you like? Well, it’s actually bad. And in a way that I will now explain at great length. So here he comes again, that guy. And this time he’s talking about Lamine Yamal. Enjoyed that, did you?

I am not a Liverpool fan but this week I have crossed a sacred line – and I’m struggling to feel sorry

This column begins with a confession. One I am afraid and not a little ashamed to make. One that my instincts tell me I should be taking to a priest who is bound to silence, or at the very least an understanding therapist. Certainly not to a forum of sports fans with strong opinions and keyboards full of potential swears.

Scourging rods at the ready, then: this week I have been wearing a Liverpool top. And I am not a Liverpool fan.

Parachute payments system benefits the elite when teams such as Burnley and Leeds rejoin top tier within three years

For the second year running, all three clubs promoted from the Championship to the Premier League will make an immediate return to the second tier. It would be tempting to say this is the natural order of things given the financial challenges faced by clubs suddenly thrown into the world’s richest domestic football competition.

Even when they do spend huge amounts in order to give themselves a chance of survival, as Southampton and Ipswich did, respectively spending £62.8m and £106m net in the summer of 2024, the gap appears too big to close. Yet what has happened to them used to be an exceptional occurrence.

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Our cartoonist on intense motivational techniques and banter in north London before European semi-finals

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Most fans who visit Buenos Aires want to watch Boca or River. I plumped for reigning champions Vélez Sarsfield

By The Football Mine

When imagining a football match in Buenos Aires many fans visualise La Bombonera shuddering to its foundations by the jumping mass of blue and yellow Boca Juniors supporters or the majestic Estadio Monumental bedecked in streams of ticker tape when hosting Argentina’s victory in the World Cup final in 1978. Last Sunday, the Monumental was at full capacity as 85,000 fans watched River Plate beat Boca 2-1 in a tense Superclásico. However, a few weeks ago my experience of going to a football match in Buenos Aires was very different indeed.

As I discovered when planning my trip to Buenos Aires, gaining admission to one of the Argentinian capital’s largest clubs, such as Boca or River Plate, is by no means straightforward. Both clubs have significant numbers of members, with more than 340,000 each (only Real Madrid have more). These socios have priority when it comes to buying tickets so there is limited availability. One of the only ways to buy tickets in advance is through a third party, who charge $150 upwards. Kick-off times are only announced a week or so in advance, which makes life even more complicated.

As a new ‘Liguilla’ gets underway, we’ll answer five of the biggest questions about the competition, from least specific to most

The Liga MX playoffs, better known as the Liguilla, kick off on Wednesday, running until a champion is crowned on 25 May. Whether this is your first time with the tournament or you’re a diehard fan, there’s reason to be excited. Here’s everything you need to know about this year’s version, starting with the most basic question there is.

Clubs’ tussle for supremacy in Germany may be at its end as the futures of Alonso and Wirtz remain uncertain

Early on Sunday evening Bayern Munich’s players arrived a few at a time in a swish restaurant that had been opened just for them, as they prepared to commemorate a 33rd Bundesliga title (34 if you include the pre-Bundesliga crown of 1932) not quite as they had hoped, in their street clothes rather than their football strips. Bild even claimed that as Freiburg took the lead late in the first half against Bayer Leverkusen on the big screen in front of the Bayern squad (a game the 2024 champions needed to win to mathematically prolong the race) there was a loud exclamation of “Scheiße!” from at least one player who had wanted Bayern to officially finish the job themselves at home to Borussia Mönchengladbach next Saturday.

It had not quite been the titanic end that anybody had hoped for, with Bayern letting in a 95th-minute Yussuf Poulsen equaliser that stopped them officially sealing it on Saturday, Harry Kane suspended so he couldn’t take part at all and Leverkusen getting a leveller in the fourth minute of stoppage time at Freiburg on Sunday which ended up meaning little to anyone apart from the hosts and their rivals for Champions League qualification.

Southampton, Leicester and Ipswich are returning to the Championship. Which of their players deserve to stay up?

By WhoScored

Leicester were relegated at the weekend and will join Southampton in the Championship next season. Ipswich are 15 points from safety with five games to play, so it’s only a matter of time before they too are consigned to the second tier. The three sides have been extremely disappointing this season, picking up just 10 wins between them, but they have some talented players who will be targets for Premier League sides in the summer transfer window.

Union captain Lisa Heiseler, who has been at the club since she was 13, talks about promotion to the Frauen-Bundesliga

“I can’t describe how I feel,” Lisa Heiseler says as she reflects on a momentous weekend for Union Berlin Women. Just three days after her side secured a historic promotion to the Frauen-Bundesliga, the captain is clearly still processing everything that has happened to her and her teammates.

27 April 2025 will be a date for ever etched in the memories of Union Berlin’s women’s team and their supporters. A 6-1 victory over Borussia Mönchengladbach in front of more than 14,000 jubilant fans at the Stadion An der Alte Försterei saw Ailien Poese’s side secure promotion with three games to spare, one that will see them play in the top echelon of German football for the first time and at the first time of asking.

In a freakish season at the top and bottom of the league, competing incentives for the rest are unusually fractured

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As Eddie Howe delivered his post-match press conference after Newcastle’s draw against Brighton on Sunday, Chelsea, his club’s rivals for Champions League qualification, took an early lead against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge. Howe gave a wry smile and was immediately asked whether it annoyed him that Liverpool had made six changes to their lineup from the side that had sealed the league title against Tottenham last week. Being Howe, and therefore both unflappable and impossibly earnest, he replied that team selection was their business: “Liverpool have got to do what Liverpool have got to do for them. I’m not involved in their football club, so I’ve got no opinion on that.”

And of course he was right to say so, partly because it’s true and partly because criticising other managers’ team selections is a slippery slope. All clubs have their own priorities and their job is to do what is right for them, with all due nods to the integrity of the league and satisfying those who have paid for tickets or broadcast rights. Liverpool have won the title early: giving fringe players a run out is a prerogative they have earned, and it’s not their concern how that affects other sides. But at the same time, Chelsea were given an easier game than they probably would have been had they met Liverpool a week or two earlier before the league title was wrapped up.

A wholly disappointing episode has drawn attention away from a legitimate conversation about media coverage

The former England international Eni Aluko’s appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour prompted lines to be drawn between her and fellow pundit Ian Wright. “There’s a finite amount of opportunities and I think that men need to be aware of that,” said Aluko, when asked whether it was wrong that Wright was covering women’s football. The affair has been messy, with Aluko, a trailblazer in many areas, publicly apologising and Wright, a passionate champion of the women’s game beloved by players and fans for that support, rejecting the apology.

It has been a wholly disappointing episode that has, in focusing on Wright, drawn attention away from a legitimate conversation on whether the number of women pundits, commentators and presenters in football is improving.

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Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Fadugba and Mark Langdon as Inter beat Barcelona 7-6 on aggregate after an absolutely thrilling two legged tie in the Champions League

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On the podcast today; Inter are through to the Champions League final after an extraordinary game at the San Siro. The panel debate where it ranks among the great Champions League nights (spoiler, it’s top).

Faye Carruthers is joined by Suzy Wrack, Emily Keogh and Jamie Spangher to reflect on Chelsea’s WSL triumph, a dramatic final day in the Championship

On this week’s Guardian Women’s Football Weekly: Chelsea are crowned WSL champions for a record sixth season in a row. With games to spare, can Sonia Bompastor’s side complete an unbeaten domestic campaign?

Elsewhere, Arsenal’s back-to-back defeats against Aston Villa and Brighton raise questions about their defensive frailties, while Manchester United and Manchester City play out a dramatic derby with European football on the line. Meanwhile, Everton shine in the Merseyside derby, and Crystal Palace leave it late to deny Leicester.

Jamie Vardy targets double century, Jérémy Doku makes his mark and Arsenal rue the absence of Gabriel Magalhães

There is rarely an opportunity for champions to show a sentimental side. It is such hard work to win a title over a 38-game season, with the race often going down to the wire. Arne Slot had four matches to spare and used the trip to Stamford Bridge to give first league starts of the season to Wataru Endo and Harvey Elliott. The former has been used frequently as a late sub while the latter is often brought on to make an attacking impact, but the form of their teammates and Elliott’s long-term injury have limited chances under Slot. Jarell Quansah was given a rare start and Federico Chiesa was permitted a fifth league game which qualifies him for a medal. The four have rarely let Liverpool down; no one can blame Quansah for the own goal but he looked understandably rusty and tired when he gave away the penalty. They will have to decide if they want to be bit-part players at a title-winning club or drop down to be key men elsewhere. Will Unwin

Match report: Chelsea 3-1 Liverpool

Match report: Brentford 4-3 Manchester United

Match report: Leicester 2-0 Southampton

Match report: Manchester City 1-0 Wolves

Match report: Aston Villa 1-0 Fulham