The Guardian

Spaniard, who at 30 has been coaching for half his life, discusses Arteta, tactics and how to win players’ trust Carlos Cuesta, towards the end of his first major interview, briefly lets himself wonder how far his journey will take him. “Maybe one day it brings the Maldives,” he says with a laugh, the joke being football managers can quickly be banished from view, twiddling their thumbs on the be…

‘Difference between us and other teams is too small’ Liverpool have conceded 11 league goals from set pieces Arne Slot has claimed Liverpool have much more to offer this season and can become the dominant team he envisaged, although only once their set-piece failings have been eradicated. Liverpool have stemmed a damaging sequence of nine losses in 12 games – the club’s worst run in 71 years – to…

Week 17 delivers a decisive at Soldier Field as Chicago and San Francisco battle for positioning in a crowded NFC race for the No 1 seed and a precious first-round bye Chicago Bears (11-4) v San Francisco 49ers (11-4) Continue reading...

⚽ Updates from the afternoon Boxing Day football action ⚽ Live scores | Tables | Follow us on Bluesky | Mail Barry Millwall 0-0 Ipswich Town: It’s half-time at the Den, where the deadlock between Millwall and Ipswich remains resolutely unbroken. Afcon: In today’s early match, Knowledge Musona scored for Zimbabwe in the sixth minute of time added on at the end of the first half to cancel out Gelso…

No rational judge could have expected England’s fall guys to succeed at the MCG where they were thrown on to a festive bonfire by a lack of red-ball cricket and a slack set-up Guess who just got back today? Those wild-eyed boys that had been away. This was a day of brittle, over-caffeinated cricket, on an MCG pitch streaked with faint green ridges. But it was also a day when the boys were, howeve…

Late Portuguese’s former English clubs meet on Saturday Dinis and Duarte also attended clubs’ season openers Diogo Jota’s two sons will join the mascots at Anfield when Liverpool face Wolves in the Premier League on Saturday, the club confirmed on Friday. The Portuguese forward, who played for both Premier League clubs, died in a car crash alongside his younger brother in July in northwestern Spa…

Forward underwent knee surgery in August Arteta: ‘It will be a matter of days, not weeks’ Mikel Arteta hopes Kai Havertz is ready to return from a long-term knee injury and has predicted the German will bring “a different dimension” to Arsenal’s attack. Havertz has been sidelined since undergoing knee surgery in August and had been expected back at the start of December before a setback in his re…

Race by race commentary on the Boxing Day fixture Redknapp eyes King George glory | Email Tony Good morning from a chilly Sunbury-on-Thames, where what may well turn out to be one of the last runnings of the King George VI Chase at its historic and traditional home at Kempton Park is due off at 2.30pm this afternoon. And if this is indeed the first act of the King George’s Kempton swansong, it is…

Forest great was loved in Nottingham but under-appreciated in Scotland before going on to thrive as a coach On the eve of a Celtic European tie 25 years ago, Stiliyan Petrov cut an increasingly agitated figure. The young Bulgarian, soon to shoot to prominence under Martin O’Neill, was finding it impossible to snatch the ball from a rotund, wizened coach during a possession drill. Petrov’s teammat…

The Spin’s annual selection marks a history-making World Cup triumph for India, and work to do for England India’s mission to build a global women’s cricket dynasty advanced apace in 2025. Few will forget the sight of Harmanpreet Kaur’s team converging joyously on the field at the DY Patil Stadium to celebrate a fairytale World Cup win that was five decades in the making. That final was the highl…

Given how parlous England’s batting has been, there was the strong chance that 152 for the home team in Melbourne presaged worse to come. So it turned out. For a while, Boxing Day 2025 felt like a re-enactment of Boxing Day 2010. We’re talking an amateur historical re-enactment, given the lower intensity and higher number of participants with private lives under investigation, but still, the broa…

Following every dizzying spin of Chalamet’s table tennis hustler, Josh Safdie’s whip-crack comedy serves sensational shots – and a smart return by Gwyneth Paltrow This new film from Josh Safdie has the fanatical energy of a 149-minute ping pong rally carried out by a single player running round and round the table. It’s a marathon sprint of gonzo calamities and uproar, a sociopath-screwball night…

Jannik Sinner dominated for three hours and 43 minutes, but the Spaniard somehow prevailed in an adrenaline-filled fifth set and all-time classic It was not until what appeared to be the dying moments of the French Open final between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz that I realised it could be worth taking a photo of such a monumental occasion. This was, after all, the first grand slam final betw…

Full-back is energised by club’s driving ambition under Red Bull while harbouring his own aspirations as an artist The Newcastle full-back Elliott Obatoyinbo tells a revealing story about his time as an academy player that taught him the difference between rugby in England and New Zealand. “I’d had a year at Saracens so I was learning the kicking game,” he says, recalling the southern hemisphere …

The four-time women’s world champion, ranked the No 2 all-time woman after the retired Judit Polgar, showed that she retains her skills Hou Yifan, the all-time No 2 woman grandmaster after the retired Judit Polgar and currently ranked women’s world No 1, showed that she retained her brilliant skills when she made a rare appearance in the Global Chess League for Alpine SG Pipers, who defeated the …