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It was a beautiful day in Bagshot. The kind of afternoon made for chucking a ball around and contemplating a calculated risk or two. Slightly firmer pitches, the sun shining, a licence to thrill … if ever there was a week made for a player like Marcus Smith to go out and express himself from … Read more
A new six-team Women’s Champions Cup is to be established next year, featuring clubs from across the world. The competition was approved at a Fifa Council meeting on Wednesday that also confirmed a two-year delay to the first Women’s Club World Cup. The 16-team Women’s Club World Cup was due to launch in 2026 but, … Read more
The United Kingdom’s four separate football associations are preparing to launch a joint bid to host the 2035 Women’s World Cup. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland’s FAs are preparing an expression of interest to co-host the 2035 edition of the competition, an English FA statement released on Wednesday said. The statement came after Fifa … Read more
Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature Bayern 2-0 Bayer Talking of goalies, Manuel Neuer has pulled up with what looks a calf problem. On comes Ulreich, the usual reserve goalie? No, the other one, Jonas Urbig, signed from Koln, 21, and looking far younger. How many goalkeepers … Read more
Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature 59 min: Salah dribbles in from the right only to be stopped by Mendes with ease. But this is slightly better from Liverpool, who otherwise haven’t been able to get Salah into the game at all. “Maybe those who are criticising … Read more
In 1970, Alaskan doctor and mountaineer Grace Hoeman led a team of six women in the first all-female attempt to summit Denali – which was the first all-women’s ascent of any of the world’s big peaks. At the time, people thought that women were incapable of climbing mountains without men’s help. We had sent men … Read more
New Zealand will take on India in the final of the Champions Trophy after centuries from Rachin Ravindra and Kane Williamson enabled them to outmuscle South Africa in their Lahore semi-final. The Black Caps piled on the pressure with a tournament-record score of 362 for six, Ravindra with 108 and Williamson adding 102, and their … Read more
Georgia Hunter Bell, Britain’s Olympic 1500m bronze medallist, has revealed she no longer goes online before her races because of the “really dark side of social media”. Eilish McColgan was subject to a wave of body shaming abuse this week with people posting that she “looks like a skeleton” and had anorexia, and Hunter Bell … Read more
West Ham are trying to sign the England midfielder Angel Gomes on a free transfer from Lille. Gomes, who was given his international debut by Lee Carsley last September, is out of contract at the end of the season and is looking for a new challenge. Graham Potter quickly identified midfield as an area to … Read more
Early on during his stay in the Californian desert a year ago, Giacomo Naldi allegedly reached into his treatment bag one morning and accidentally brushed his left finger across the blade of a scalpel used to remove calluses, immediately drawing blood. Two days later, after Naldi had removed the bandage from his finger, his colleague … Read more