Find a Football Team

• Club says the time is right to change leadership

• Luke Turner will take charge in the interim

The Sheffield United head coach, Ash Thompson, has left his role at the Women’s Super League 2 side, with the club saying they have “mutually agreed to part ways”.

The news comes 19 days after the Guardian revealed that Thompson had been suspended from his duties. The team’s assistant head coach, Luke Turner, has been in charge on an interim basis in the meantime and they have picked up one point from their opening four league matches of the WSL 2 campaign and are bottom of the table.

• Defender confirms new five-year deal at club

• ‘My choice is to stay here and win everything’

William Saliba has said he will not consider leaving Arsenal until he wins a major trophy and admitted it was time for the players to back up their talk by delivering tangible success.

It was confirmed on Tuesday that the France defender has signed a new five-year contract, despite strong interest from Real Madrid. Saliba has won only the Community Shield with Arsenal since joining in 2019 from Saint-Étienne, spending two and a half of his first three seasons on loan back in Ligue 1 before establishing himself as first choice under Mikel Arteta.

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!

At the risk of denouncing the family name, football has become a bit of an emotional vampire. At its worst, modern football is a cesspit of bile, hype, nonsense, hot air and yellow tickers. But every time we think enough’s enough and it’s time to change our name to Tiddlywinks Biennially, something happens to remind us why we wanted to be called Football Daily in the first place. Of late, the thing keeping us away from the deed poll office is a team dressed in a red and blue Macron kit. In the English football zodiac, 2025 is the Year of the Eagle. Crystal Palace won the FA Cup, the first major trophy in their history, followed that with the Community Shield and are now, after beating Liverpool thrillingly on Saturday, the only unbeaten team left in the Premier League. On Thursday they will make history when they play Dynamo Kyiv in their first match of Tin Pot’s league stage.

Taking ‘favourite shirt sponsors: go’ (last Tuesday’s Football Daily, full email edition) as an invitation, may I offer Wang Computers who sponsored my team, Oxford United, from 1985-89? For puerility fans like myself, the sponsor of course adorned our players’ shirts for the glorious Milk Cup final of 1986 where, inspired by the defeated QPR’s sponsor, a large banner in the Wembley crowd read something like: ‘I’d rather have a Wang than a Guinness any day.’ Whether any funds reached the club via this arrangement is debatable, but it certainly enabled our then-owner to [Snip – Football Daily Lawyers]” – Richard Prangle.

In response to Paul Clerkin wondering what the Football Weekly merch consists of (yesterday’s letters), that’s a cat that will surely stay firmly in its bag forever; if readers actually knew what they stood a chance of winning, they’d be sending in a daily deluge that would put Taylor Swift’s fan mail to shame. The internet would probably collapse and civilisation, including Football Daily, with it. Restraint, restraint. Please” – Simon Gill.

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

Our cartoonist looks at the visit of another polarising figure … this time in the Champions League

• Buy copies of David’s cartoon in our Print Shop

• David’s new book, Chaos in the Box: get it now

• Liverpool have remoulded team since winning league

• Reds face Galatasaray after Crystal Palace defeat

Arne Slot has said his new full-backs are not to blame for Liverpool’s defensive issues this season but his team must improve at set pieces given their increasing importance in the modern game.

Liverpool have been vulnerable throughout an otherwise impressive start to the campaign and conceded seven goals in six league games so far. Slot’s side conceded two in the first six games of last season’s title-winning season. The introduction of two new full backs, Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez, has been cited as a contributory factor as Liverpool adapt to the end of the Trent Alexander-Arnold/Andy Robertson era. But Slot insists the problem is collective, and identified Liverpool’s set-piece defending as in need of improvement after Crystal Palace scored from two to beat the champions on Saturday.

• Thomas Frank says ‘the right signs are there’

• Manager plays down role of Bodø/Glimt’s artificial pitch

No game is an island; every game is inevitably coloured by what has gone before. It is not quite five months since Tottenham last came north of the Arctic Circle and, for all that Thomas Frank insisted this is a “new situation”, that previous meeting with Bodø/Glimt in the semi-final of the Europa League can not but colour this one in the league phase of the Champions League.

There was an odd echo, too, in the buildup. Back then, the Glimt full-back Fredrik Sjøvold was dismissive of Tottenham’s pressing, which clearly riled Ange Postecoglou.

The Matildas’ legacy was meant to supercharge the domestic game. Instead the league has lost a team, leaving many to wonder if the boom has gone bust

The transformative effects that England’s hosting of the 2022 Women’s European Championship had on its domestic game are well known in Australia. The country got its version of this phenomenon when it co-hosted the 2023 Women’s World Cup and its domestic competition, the A-League Women, basked in the reflected halo’s light as it grew to 12 sides, secured a new collective bargaining agreement increasing spending limits and became the first Australian football code to introduce a full home-and-away women’s season. There were record crowds and TV ratings.

Come the start of 2025-26, however, on the eve of Australia preparing to host its own continental showpiece, the 2026 Women’s Asian Cup, and those heights feel increasingly bygone. Most of the news dominating the buildup for the new year has been less than ideal, the coming campaign seeing the league – a closed competition without promotion and relegation – contract in size for the first time since Central Coast went on hiatus before 2010-11. It will do so after Western United’s teams were placed into a period of “conditional hibernation” amid their embattled attempts to stave off collapse.

This is an extract from our free weekly email, 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 World Cup is in reach for Patrick Kluivert’s side and, though problems persist, things are looking up in one of Asia’s most passionate football nations

Three years ago this Wednesday, 135 football fans died at the Kanjuruhan stadium in Indonesia after security forces deployed teargas and created a stampede for the exits. 1 October 2022 was the nadir of a curve that had been sliding downwards for decades. This is a country that, in this century alone, has seen its FA president run the federation from a prison cell while facing corruption charges, the creation of rebel national leagues, federations and national team Fifa bans and fans being killed by other fans.

In March 2023 there were more negative headlines when the country was stripped of hosting the Under-20 World Cup just months before kick-off after the governor of Bali said that Israel would not be welcome on the island. Erick Thohir, former owner of Inter and DC United and current co-owner of Oxford United, had just become boss of PSSI, as the federation is known, and did his utmost to save the tournament. Football fans braced themselves for Fifa punishment and more chaos to come. Instead, the world governing body was sufficiently impressed with the efforts of Thohir, who has been a cabinet minister for years, to give the country the Under-17 World Cup in November. It was a success and brought some much-needed positivity.

Any questions about how the Gabon international would gel with Son Heung-min have been put to rest after a historic scoring run

When Son Heung-min arrived at Los Angeles Football Club last month, there was a huge sense of excitement: here was South Korea’s most popular athlete and one of the best Asian footballers in history. In a city with the largest South Korean community in the United States, there was also a belief that – just as with Lionel Messi and Miami – the diaspora would create a strong bridge between club and city.

But this was also about LAFC itself. Undoubtedly, there was much Son could offer to Steve Cherundolo and a squad that was already blessed with attacking talent, including Denis Bouanga, the 30-year-old France-born Gabon international. Just before Son’s debut for LAFC on 9 August against Chicago Fire, Bouanga – a three-time All-Star – had 13 goals in the league and had long served as the main goal threat for the club, who at the time were sixth in the Western Conference.

​Michelle Agyemang gets off the mark for Brighton while Liverpool struggle to adapt to Gareth Taylor’s methods

After making herself a household name this summer and being handed the No 9 shirt at Brighton, Michelle Agyemang must have felt a little pressure to build consistent performances across 90 minutes. A series of bright displays have impressed so far but she had little to show for it from the first three games in terms of scoring. Her winner against Everton this weekend, therefore, would have come as a huge relief. It was an eye-catching performance from the 19-year-old who was at the heart of everything Brighton did in the 1-0 victory – a constant threat who was happy to drop deep to impact play, strong in her duels (she won the most) and a presence when Brighton needed to defend their own box. Her goal subjected Everton to a third straight defeat as Brian Sørensen continues to work out the best formula for his team. Sophie Downey

Match report: Arsenal 1-1 Aston Villa

After scoring 100 goals in record time, the striker is open to extending his stay at a club where he is now treasured

As the flight carrying Bayern Munich’s squad and staff glides into the south-western corner of Cyprus in Monday’s early evening, some of their experienced, decorated players might reflect that, until very recently, they never expected to be here as they gaze out of their windows. Their hosts, Pafos, have certainly come a long way to breathe this rarefied air, removing from their path along the way no less a name than Crvena Zvezda, whose vintage team vanquished Bayern in an epic semi-final on their route to becoming European champions in 1991.

Finding yourself somewhere you didn’t necessarily expect to be is a continued theme from Bayern’s weekend. Yes, they certainly expected their routine 4-0 win against Werder Bremen (a name that, like the boys from Belgrade, has known more glorious incarnations in the past) on Friday night, but for once it felt like it was about the individual achievement rather than the collective one.

• Mourinho back at Stamford Bridge with Benfica

• ‘I will always be a blue. I am part of their history’

José Mourinho called himself “the biggest one” as he reflected on his record-breaking Chelsea history before his latest Stamford Bridge return. The self-styled “special one” is back with Benfica for Tuesday night’s Champions League tie and he repeated another famous old line of his to set the scene.

Mourinho anticipates no hostility from Chelsea’s supporters as he seeks to ignite his Benfica tenure, having only joined them 11 days ago after his sacking by Fenerbahce at the end of August.

Only 20 days after his sacking by Nottingham Forest, Nuno Espírito Santo was back in a Premier League dugout and reminding himself why he returned so quickly. A revitalised West Ham earned a point at Everton, but deserved more after a fine second-half performance.

It is a green shoot of hope, which did not look forthcoming before the break when Everton held a lead thanks to Michael Keane’s header. West Ham equalised through Jarrod Bowen’s superb strike and from then on were the most likely winners. It was not to be for Nuno but he knows this point and performance give him a platform to build on.

• Ban would take in Nations League and Europa League

• World Cup, co-hosted in 2026 by US, is a Fifa competition

Uefa is expected to avoid trying to block Israel from World Cup qualifying as the European governing body considers measures against the country’s football association.

Under plans being worked out by Uefa that are expected to be voted on by its executive committee (exco) this week, the Guardian understands Israel would be banned only from competitions that Uefa directly controls. That means the Israel men’s and women’s national teams would be excluded from the Nations League and Maccabi Tel Aviv would be removed from the Europa League this season.

Max Aarons scored a stoppage-time winner as the embattled Rangers manager, Russell Martin, eked out his first Scottish Premiership victory in six attempts with a 2-1 triumph away to Livingston.

James Tavernier had put Rangers in front midway through the first half but the captain blew the chance to extend their lead when he had a penalty saved by the Lions goalkeeper Jerome Prior. The hosts capitalised on this reprieve to equalise through Mo Sylla after the break, leaving Rangers staring at the prospect of a sixth league game without a win.

How Aston Villa needed this, a first league victory of the season easing the increased weight of expectation in these parts. A nervy Europa League win over Bologna on Thursday offered a slim platform on which to build but this week Unai Emery reiterated the Premier League remains Villa’s priority.

The Villa manager informed his players they had to pick up three points and afterwards grinned as he acknowledged that while they are 16th in the Premier League, the table already makes better viewing.

With late goals a major factor, the four major players for the trophy saw their narratives crystalize over the weekend

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

There’s always a danger this early in the Premier League season of reading too much into a single set of games. Titles may be lost in September but they are very rarely won. This past weekend, though, did feel like one where many of the prevailing narratives crystalised as Arsenal dug deep to win the sort of game they’ve become used to losing, Liverpool’s defensive shortcomings were exposed as they lost for the first time this campaign, Manchester City swept aside lesser opposition in the manner of old and Chelsea fell apart again.

Liverpool have looked defensively shaky all season. Having been the team of control in the last campaign, making the unremarkable 2-0 win a trademark, they have become the side of the late winner, clinching games this season in the 88th, 94th, 100th, 83rd, 95th, 92nd and 85th minutes. That was never going to be sustainable, but the question was whether general performances would improve, or whether the late strikes would dry up.

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.

Despite going down to 10 men, Massimiliano Allegri’s side held on and went top of Serie A

The league billed Milan v Napoli as a showdown between two “Masters of Midfield”, Luka Modric and Kevin De Bruyne, defining talents of a world football generation who each chose Serie A this summer. Players who have won a combined 58 trophies in their careers, including Champions League, La Liga and Premier League triumphs.

Past their prime? Certainly. But over the hill? Hardly. Modric, at 40 years old, had started Milan’s first four league games, taking more touches (329) and creating more shooting opportunities (19, per fbref.com) than any teammate. De Bruyne, at 34, was the only Napoli player with more than one goal so far this season, having struck in wins over Sassuolo and Fiorentina.

A pattern familiar to Manchester United fans is emerging at Nice: every time the owners intervene, results start to tank

By Get French Football News

What if correlation did imply causation? The “best season” of Ineos’s ownership of Nice correlated with Sir Jim Ratcliffe and co being forcibly distanced from the club due to Uefa regulations. “They have been so much better without our interference,” Ratcliffe admitted last season, as Nice achieved their highest league finish since 2017. With Nice and Manchester United no longer competing in the same European competition, Ineos regained operational control of the French club at the start of the summer and have only corroborated Ratcliffe’s previous assertion.

Already out of the Champions League at the first hurdle having been outplayed by Benfica in the qualifiers at the start of August, Nice have lost three of their first six games in Ligue 1 as well as losing their Europa League opener against Roma last Wednesday. “We can’t say that we’re swimming in joy and confidence,” the club’s manager, Franck Haise, said before their 1-1 draw against the newly promoted Paris FC on Sunday.

Mikel Arteta proves he may have changed his ways while Eddie Nketiah shows off his worth for Crystal Palace

St James’ Park has done strange things to Arsenal. It had become Mikel Arteta’s bogey ground, defeats the last three visits, his team unable to score. Each time, bright beginnings had given way to becoming bogged down by refereeing controversy, Arsenal pulled into the rolling maul football that better suits Newcastle’s muscle. Sunday’s attacking team selection and Arteta throwing the kitchen sink in chasing a win when a point had already been rescued hinted at a change in mentality. Arteta’s team eventually wrested control of the physical battle to push for three. If the dimensions that Eberechi Eze and Viktor Gyökeres have added failed to pay off, the Premier League’s deepest squad found the aerial power within itself, via Arteta’s attacking substitutions. An early overturned penalty and missed chances felt all too familiar. Arsenal’s response to those reverses, overturning their St James’ mental block, suggested a fresh determination that will serve them well in the title hunt. John Brewin

Match report: Newcastle 1-2 Arsenal

Match report: Aston Villa 3-1 Fulham

Match report: Brentford 3-1 Manchester United

Match report: Crystal Palace 2-1 Liverpool

The comparison with Mourinho’s glory days will be clear as he returns with Benfica, but Stamford Bridge hierarchy is firmly behind their current man

Only league champions get their picture on the wall in the Drake Suite at Stamford Bridge. The room is named after Ted Drake, the author of Chelsea’s first title, and features images of a host of club legends: a beaming Carlo Ancelotti, one of Antonio Conte kissing the Premier League trophy and, as Enzo Maresca no doubt noted as he arrived to preview his young side’s Champions League tie with Benfica, three photographs of the manager whose latest return to west London conjures wistful memories of the days when Chelsea were the most feared team in England.

Here comes the Special One. José Mourinho, who won three league titles across two spells at Chelsea, is in town with Benfica and will surely enjoy a wonderful reception. Maresca, meanwhile, inspires less warmth. He has taken Chelsea back into the Champions League, along with winning the Conference League and the Club World Cup, but does not have his name sung by fans and was booed after losing 3-1 to Brighton on Saturday.

Graham Potter’s great mistake was to think that he could build while the fire was raging around him

The timing of the news left a sour taste in the mouth. Graham Potter has been in trouble for more than a month. There was no decision after West Ham continued their dreadful start to the season last Saturday nine days ago, losing 2-1 to Crystal Palace at a deflated London Stadium, and it seemed Potter had been given one last chance to save his job given that he conducted his usual media duties. Instead Nuno Espirito Santo, immediately installed after Potter’s unceremonious sacking on Friday, will manage the team against Everton on Monday .

There was defiance from the 50-year-old on Friday. Blame the coach all you like, Potter said, but it is worth looking at the wider context. “You have to look at where the club was at,” he said. “Because then you can make an assessment of how long it needs to turn results around. What was the environment like? What was the culture like? What was the team like?”

Emotions abound at the Metropolitano as Atleti’s five goals left the coach crying on the touchline and his team revitalised

In the final few minutes before the derby day that was destined to be the best they ever had, Diego Simeone gathered his players and asked if they were OK. The pressure was intense, their need desperate, but of all the things that are truly important in your lives, he wanted to know, is there anything that’s not right? Does anyone have any problems?

“All of them said ‘no’,” Atlético Madrid’s manager admitted later, when the Metropolitano had finally fallen silent, the singing drifting in from down Avenida de Luis Aragonés instead. “So I said: ‘then play, have fun. You’re good. Enjoy yourselves. A footballer’s life passes quickly, make the most of it; these games don’t come back.’”

• National team and club sides may face suspension

• Next Uefa international break begins on 6 October

Uefa could decide as early as next week whether to suspend Israel from its competitions, with the governing body facing growing pressure from inside and outside the game.

Reports on Thursday, initially in the Times, suggested a vote that would determine Israel’s participation in World Cup qualifying and that of Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Europa League could be held by Uefa’s executive committee before the international break begins on 6 October.

• AFF president recorded talking to Australia-based player’s brother

• Mohammad Yousef Kargar denies accuracy of leaked recordings

The president of the Afghanistan football federation (AFF) has been accused of demanding a $10,000 (£7,400) bribe to secure a spot for a player on the national team. In leaked recordings, Mohammad Yousef Kargar is heard discussing how to transfer the payment with the brother of Nesar Ahmad Mohmand, who was being considered for a spot in the team’s training camp in Thailand.

Kargar has denied the allegations and claimed the recordings were “nothing but conspiracies and fabrications”.

• Kewsong Lee ran Carlyle from 2018-2022

• Lee’s firm invested in Rhode Island stadium developers

The United Soccer League (USL), an organization that services most of lower-league soccer in the United States, has added a new investor with a big-money background.

BellTower Partners, an firm run by former Carlyle Group CEO Kewsong Lee, has made what the league has termed a “strategic investment,” with the view to strengthen the organization as it prepares to take on Major League Soccer directly in the coming years.

Obdurate manager’s Ruben-ball could arguably take the blame for Fernandes’s penalty fluff in another utterly bloodless performance

You’ve got to hand it to the reliably prolific pain-content generator that is Manchester United. Even at the end of a performance that was, if nothing else, a perfect example of empty and bloodless systems football, 90 minutes that felt like watching a robot with a cold go for a walk, this thing can still offer you stories, mini-arcs, narrative Easter eggs.

The only shame is we will have to wait another six months, April at Stamford Bridge, to see if Bruno Fernandes can complete the perfect hat-trick of weirdly missed west London penalties.

Sport should not be used to normalise abnormal conduct and it’s no longer possible to dispute the idea that Israel shouldn’t currently be participating

One big thing about deals with the devil. Faustian pacts. Soul exchanges. The get-you-in-front-of-me-Satan dynamic. The key thing here, an element that often gets overlooked, is that consideration must also flow the other way. This is in the end an exchange, and one you don’t get to default on. When Pauly buys a share in the restaurant, well, Pauly buys you too.

Watching Gianni Infantino on stage this week at the Atlantic Council Global Citizen Awards you wondered about this. There he is, our dear leader, alongside an iconic squad of fellow global rain-makers. To his left is a generic square-jawed galactic commander mail-order wellness powder type. On the edge of the group is a US politician who just looks like money made flesh, face as hard and blank as a government bond.

In alarming Women in Football survey, four in five report sexism and only 29% from underrepresented ethnic origins feel they can excel in the sport

The latest Women in Football survey into the experiences of women working in the sport is full of alarming statistics again, with four in five women reporting that they have experienced sexism in the workplace.

Included for the first time in the survey, which had 867 members take part, is distressing but unsurprising data on the experience of ethnic minority women.

Some stories can’t be proved wrong, but Karel Prince’s HMRC of Football podcast is exposing those who have embellished a little too much

Those of you who follow my content with even the faintest interest will know I have been squeezing every last drop out of perhaps five anecdotes for more than two decades.

So with no apology, presuming that Stockholm syndrome has set in and you have been trained to enjoy their retelling, here is the day I almost won a header against Jaap Stam.

Only three footballers have won three straight Ballon d’Or awards: Lionel Messi, Michel Platini and Bonmatí

By WhoScored

Winning one Ballon d’Or is the mark of footballing greatness, winning two puts you in a very exclusive group of greats, but winning three in a row? That gives the 27-year-old Aitana Bonmatí footballing immortality. The Barcelona and Spain midfielder has become the first woman, and only the third player overall, alongside Lionel Messi and Michel Platini, to have achieved this feat. What exactly sets her apart?

Born and raised in Catalonia, Bonmatí joined Barcelona’s famed La Masia academy at 13, soaking up a philosophy of technical excellence and football intelligence that would shape her career. By 16, she was already in the senior side, modelling her game on legends such as Xavi and Andrés Iniesta.

Mercury13’s purchase of WSL 2 club is not traditional and aims to attract ‘hundreds of millions’ from investors

Figures from Mercury13 have said they want their purchase of Bristol City Women to allow “hundreds of millions of pounds to flow in” to the women’s game from other investors. They believe their deal will provide a blueprint for how to separate a women’s team from a men’s club.

Mercury13, which also owns Italian side Como Women, completed its acquisition of a majority stake in Bristol City on 18 September, subject to league approval. The WSL 2 side’s new era began with a 1-0 victory at Southampton on Sunday.

Brazilian scored twice at Betis but Anderson was again the star in Seville, where dozens of away fans were treated to free drinks

These are still early days but Igor Jesus’s first goal in the Europa League draw with Real Betis was another tick in the box for so-called Ange-ball, a brisk team move culminating in the Brazil striker converting from close range. The first half was particularly encouraging from Ange Postecoglou’s perspective, Forest peppering the Betis goal, a series of cutting moves proof his methods are working. But Forest have squandered leads in three of their four matches under Postecoglou. Why are they struggling to get over the line? They toiled against Betis with Nikola Milenkovic cramping up approaching the final whistle, while Douglas Luiz, influential for both goals, was withdrawn at half-time owing to hamstring soreness. Worryingly, Forest again seemed to lose momentum after making substitutions. “We’ve got to manage games, see them out – we’ll be in a better position if we start doing that,” said Forest’s captain, Morgan Gibbs-White.

Charges tribunal is still to report on rule breaches, but does the league want to discredit its eight-time champions anyway?

Happy one-year anniversary! How has it been? How do you feel? More, or less, in love? Have you counted down the days? Are you happier, wiser, more centred, like a man in a porridge advert going for a soulful morning run in a sunlit cul-de-sac?

Perhaps, to offer another perspective, you feel so viscerally nauseated at the prospect of leafing through the pre-planned partisan responses to a highly complex piece of legal wrangling there’s a danger your own intestines will liquefy and snort out of your nostrils straight into the toaster. Who knows? Maybe that was the point all along.

Grounds have traditionally been designed for men but growth of women’s game is rapidly changing the landscape

“It was a pitch in the middle of a park, basically,” Peter McFarlane, secretary of the Everton Women Official Supporters’ Club, says in describing Walton Hall Park, the 500-seat stadium that eventually held a further 1500 spectators before the team moved to Goodison Park.

Walton Hall Park was the smallest stadium in the Women’s Super League, charming and nostalgic with its railed-off standing space, somewhat isolated outside of the city, and otherwise simply lacking food options and a bar. “It’s worlds apart compared to what Goodison offers us,” McFarlane says. “I mean, it helps we have a roof for the fans.”

The Green Shirts went up in the rankings after the 2026 Asian Cup qualifiers with the side ushered along by players who had yet to visit the country

Due to international bans, political infighting, corruption and plenty more besides, there has been genuine equality in Pakistan for much of the past decade. Neither the male or female national teams have played much. Indeed, from 2014 to 2022 the women had no fixtures at all. However, the female Green Shirts are making up for lost time, helped by a bunch of British-born players.

An 8-0 defeat would not usually be the start of something special but that is what happened in qualification for the 2026 Asian Cup in June and July. That thrashing came against Chinese Taipei, who are ranked 42 in the world, 119 places above Pakistan. Next up were Indonesia, then ranked 95 and the tournament hosts, and Pakistan won 2-0. Qualifying ended with a 2-1 victory against Kyrgyzstan, then ranked 136 in the word, and a second-place finish. In the end only the top team from the group qualified, but for Pakistan that represented a huge step forward for a new-look side.

This is an extract from our free weekly email, 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.

Faye Carruthers is joined by Sophie Downey, Tom Garry and Sanny Rudravajhala to review the weekend’s WSL action

On today’s pod: is Arsenal’s title challenge already under threat? The panel ask how Renée Slegers’ side failed to close out the game at the Emirates, and whether Aston Villa’s late equaliser signals a turning point for Natalia Arroyo’s team.

The panel reflects on an emotional match as Manchester United win at Liverpool, and discusses Hinata Miyazawa’s growing influence and what United’s unbeaten start reveals about their own title credentials.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Will Unwin and Nedum Onuoha and there’s plenty to squeeze in as the panel review an eventful Premier League weekend, including Liverpool’s first dropped points of the season, Arsenal’s late win against Newcastle and also discuss Graham Potter’s departure from West Ham

Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.

On the podcast today; a fantastic weekend of football, starting at St James’ Park as Arsenal win in stoppage time to move just two points behind Liverpool who lost at Crystal Palace.

Is there anything you would like to ask the football commentator about his five decades in broadcasting?

Clive Tyldesley has spent 50 years in football. He started out as a teaboy ​a​t Radio Trent in 1975 and worked his way up to the very top, covering five World Cups and five European Championships for ITV.​

For a certain generation he will always be remembered for Wednesday night Champions League games on ITV in the 1990s. Like the best players, he rose to the occasion​.​ During the biggest match of his career he ​gave us ​two iconic lines – “name on the trophy” and “they always score” –​ in the space of two minutes. Simple, to the point and bang on the money.

Every deal in the NWSL, WSL, Liga F, Frauen-Bundesliga, Première Ligue and Serie A Femminile as well as a club-by-club guide

• Men’s transfers summer 2025: all the moves