The Guardian

Black Knights overpower Sky Blues for 1-0 win at Go Media Stadium Cameron Howieson scrappy goal in 60th minute seals deserved victory Auckland FC have won their first A-League Men championship title after defeating all-time record-holders Sydney FC 1-0 in front of a record crowd in Auckland on Saturday night. A single, serendipitous goal to the club’s first signing, Cameron Howieson, in the 60th …

The 19-year-old nicknamed the ‘new Rafa’, seeded at this year’s French Open, is the latest talent to emerge from the country’s conveyor belt of champions Spain is at it again. A year ago Rafael Jodar, the teenage sensation from Madrid, was ranked around No 700 in the world and completing his freshman year at the University of Virginia. After winning several ATP Challenger titles (the level below …

Naegohyang FC beat Tokyo Verdy Beleza 1-0 in final in South Korea Kim Kyong Yong’s scores only goal to claim win in rare trip across border The first North Korean team to visit the South in eight years crowned their trip by winning the Asian Women’s Champions League, beating Japan’s Tokyo Verdy Beleza 1-0 in Saturday’s final. Naegohyang Women’s FC lifted the trophy thanks to captain Kim Kyong Yon…

Congo squad told to remain in a “bubble” in Belgium Officials impose 21 days of isolation Congo’s World Cup squad must isolate for 21 days before they will be allowed into the United States due to the African country’s deadly Ebola outbreak . Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House Task Force for the World Cup, told ESPN that US officials had informed Fifa, the Congolese nation…

⚽ Buildup to a busy day of finals action around Europe ⚽ Sign up for Football Daily | Follow on Bluesky | Mail us How about a reminder - for those blinking into the weekend from a long slumber beneath a rock - of the England World Cup side. Goalkeepers: Dean Henderson (Crystal Palace), Jordan Pickford (Everton), James Trafford (Manchester City) Continue reading...

Our fans’ network reviews the season with one game to play: the highs, the lows and what they need in the summer In this age of the managerial revolving door, I’m enormously proud that the Premier League champions (man, does that sound sweet!) stand as the antithesis to that. Admittedly, “trusting the process” aged a lot of us massively, but the agony of the past three campaigns evaporated with t…

From Champions League redemption to that stunner against City, we look at half a dozen memorable moments from striker’s Anfield career It was surely the worst moment of Mohamed Salah’s Liverpool career, yet the reaction said everything about his impact on the English game; the respect he had earned in his first season at Anfield. It was not just the Liverpool support who were upset to see Salah s…

Manchester City are about to lose a player Pep Guardiola called ‘my weakness’ and ‘my favourite’. Who am I to disagree? Bernardo Silva is more than a footballer. He’s a time-travelling, shapeshifting superhero. He even looks like a superhero – a nine-volt battery of a man doing battle with feral giants on the pitch. In 55 years of watching football I’ve never seen anybody or anything like him. Fo…

England to be based in Kansas City near Argentina camp Governing body to try to erect protective fences The Football Association is worried England’s World Cup training ground in Kansas City lacks privacy and will try to erect protective fences to guard against the team being spied on by rivals. The English game is in the grip of the spygate scandal, which has led to Southampton being expelled fr…

The Enhanced Games promise human advancement and world records but critics fear more worrying effects On the eve of the most controversial sports event of the 21st century so far, one swimmer is explaining how it felt to take banned drugs for the first time. “I was anxious, to be honest,” says Andriy Govorov, the 50m butterfly world record-holder. “Because there’s no way back.” The 34-year-old Uk…

Italian is overwhelming favourite in the men’s draw while women’s event has several genuine contenders Daniil Medvedev sighed deeply. He had been asked in his pre-French Open press conference to provide some of the intel he gleaned from his spectacular last battle, yet for once he did not have much to say. Medvedev had produced a brilliant performance in the semi-finals of the Italian Open last w…

With temperatures in the mid-30s expected, Leo Cullen’s side will need to be at their best to avoid another sad denouement to a French drama There was a very different feel when Leinster last came to Bilbao for a Champions Cup final. In 2018 it was wet, grey and could have passed for Ballsbridge in March. Not so this time with temperatures in the mid-30s and another baking afternoon in store for …

Thomas Tuchel has placed great faith in John Stones and Djed Spence while ignoring several star names in attack Thomas Tuchel said that whittling down his 55-player longlist gave him “a certain edge”. There were some tough phone calls and some decisions inevitably caused outrage. But there was a pointed remark from Tuchel about how creating a winning team is not necessarily “to select the most ta…

She thought the 1976 Roland Garros women’s singles title was the first of many; half a century later no British man or woman has repeated the feat As one of Britain’s leading TV sports presenters for the best part of three decades, Sue Barker has always been more comfortable asking questions than answering them. Many who watched her relaxed, confident style as she presented coverage of Wimbledon …

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now! In a ceremony carrying all the suspense of the official ribbon-cutting of a supermarket that has been open to shoppers for three months, journalists dutifully convened at Wembley on Friday to confirm that the England Geopolitics World Cup squad leaked into the public domain on Thursday was definitely the same as the one that was actually picked …