The final international break of 2023 is officially history as we are back in league action all across Europe with mouthwatering performances and surprise results happening amongst the major leagues. In England, we saw Manchester City unable to extend their lead atop the Premier League in a 1-1 draw against Liverpool and we also witnessed Kai Havertz snatch the headlines with Arsenal defeating Brentford 1-0 and become the new league…
NEWCASTLE — Football has a short memory if any at all. The atmosphere around Chelsea has been refreshingly abuzz the past few weeks after wild, frenetic games against Tottenham and Manchester City, but Saturday’s punishing 4-1 defeat at Newcastle United’s fortress, St. James’ Park, made clear who Chelsea really are: A team still very much in progress; a team still lacking much of the desired mettle. “We were soft in…
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has said “freedom of speech” is crucial for improving the standard of refereeing in football and confirmed he has responded to a charge from the Football Association (FA) following his outburst after the defeat to Newcastle United earlier this month. Arteta had branded the VAR decision not to rule out Anthony Gordon’s goal in Arsenal’s 1-0 defeat at Newcastle as “embarrassing” and a “disgrace,” which caused…
FIFA opened disciplinary cases against Argentina and Brazil on Friday after fan violence at the Maracanã Stadium delayed the start of a World Cup qualifying game. The Argentina football federation (AFA) was charged with crowd disturbances and the late kickoff at Tuesday’s game in Rio de Janeiro. – Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.) The Brazilian federation was charged with failures of managing security at a game it organised,…
The Venezuelan Football Federation (FVF) on Wednesday condemned the treatment of one of its national team’s players by Peruvian police following a World Cup qualifier. Peru and Venezuela drew 1-1 on Tuesday in Lima. Venezuela player Nahuel Ferraresi told local media that fingers on his left hand were injured by a baton-wielding Peruvian police officer who hit him twice as he tried to approach Venezuelan fans in the stands after…
You can’t say we weren’t warned. The first taste of vast amounts of added time came at the 2022 World Cup as FIFA moved to increase effective playing time, and this season it has hit the club game. In Qatar, average stoppage time — the total played above the allotted 90 minutes across both halves — was 10:11 (10 minutes and 11 seconds), compared to 6:30 in Russia in 2018.…
Manchester United fans were excited for a fresh start when the Glazer family announced a year ago that they would be open to selling the club. Instead, they’ll be getting Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s minority investment, which is expected to be formally announced within the next week. The British billionaire, who is chairman and CEO of chemical company INEOS, will spend around £1.3 billion to get his foot in the door…
English football clubs have collectively failed to hit annual targets to improve their ethnic and gender diversity, the Football Association (FA) said on Wednesday in a report on the Football Leadership Diversity Code for the 2022-23 season. A total of 53 clubs from the Premier League and English Football League (EFL) have signed up to the code, which was introduced in 2020 to focus on increasing equality of opportunity to…
For almost a full week after El Clásico on Oct. 28, Barcelona coach Xavi Hernández fielded questions about midfielder Ilkay Gündogan’s comments following the 2-1 defeat to title rivals Real Madrid at the end of October. Gündogan, who joined from Manchester City in the summer as a treble winner, had criticised Barça for showing a lack of “frustration, anger and emotion” after what was their first loss of the season.…
The horrible spate of injuries to elite footballers during this international window has serious repercussions for both their international teams and, more importantly, their clubs. Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain still have work to do in order to assure qualification from their Champions League groups, but they’ll need to complete their task without Gavi and Warren Zaïre-Emery, respectively. Imagine the repercussions if both of those teams found themselves demoted to the…