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England embrace the chaos - but control also needed to win big prizes

England embrace the chaos, but superb Spain show it will never win big prizes, says chief football writer Phil McNulty.

Oyarzabal earns Spain Nations League win as England pay for Kane penalty miss

It was another high-profile game when Thomas Tuchel’s England let a lead slip in the second half and went on to lose. But unlike the last time, it was not one for recriminations. The England support can accept losing when their team plays with cut and thrust. More to the point, they can accept losing to Spain who, at times, played football from a different stratosphere. England were game. They were driven by Jude Bellingham, who ran on adrenaline and played to the point of maximum expression. They had positive surges either side of the interval, especially the one towards the end of the first half when goals from Anthony Gordon and Harry Kane put them in charge, hauling them back after Lamine Yamal’s second-minute goal. Continue reading...

Messi’s exit leaves Argentina with impossible task of replacing their superhero | Jonathan Wilson

When things are going awry, the Albiceleste will no longer be able to rely on their ultimate get-out clause It isn’t quite over yet. Lionel Messi will return a week on Wednesday for his formal farewell in a friendly against Benin, but, before that, Argentina face two games when they will begin to experience a future without the most potent get-out-of-jail-free card football has known. Messi’s international career falls into two distinct halves. There was the first decade when there was a sense that he didn’t quite fit, was somehow insufficiently Argentinian, didn’t care for his country. That was always absurd and can be recognised now as a manifestation of the Argentinian public’s frustration at their trophy drought despite the presence in their forward line of one of the best three to play the game. Continue reading...

Roma refuse to let Dybala and Molina attend final Messi match

Roma have reportedly refused a request for Paulo Dybala and Nahuel Molina to attend Lionel...

Spain are reigning world and European champions. They're just getting started

Winning the next four tournaments -- two Nations Leagues, Euro 2028 and the 2030 World Cup -- is something Spain will be aiming for, and it's within their potential.

Should England try to emulate Spain or embrace Premier League 'chaos'?

Thomas Tuchel was hired to answer England's biggest question: How do you win?

‘I’m pretty sure I didn’t imagine it’: the little-known trio of high schoolers who made USMNT history

The idea of 16-year-olds like Cavan Sullivan playing for the USMNT was once unfathomable – until Mike Slivinski, Mark Jonas and Nelson Vargas appeared in a 1991 friendly If 16-year-old Cavan Sullivan takes the field for the US men’s national team in the coming days, he will join a list of youngest-ever US players that has no shortage of recognizable names. At the top is onetime phenom (turned cautionary tale) Freddy Adu, still the youngest player to ever appear for the US men. Names in the top 20 like Eddie Gaven and Bobby Convey will feel familiar to longtime US fans; Christian Pulisic, Yunus Musah and Gio Reyna are all still very much in the picture and may well prove to be Sullivan’s future partners in attack. Continue reading...

Ex-Southampton and Italy striker Dani Osvaldo in intensive care

Former Southampton, Roma, Juventus and Italy striker Dani Osvaldo has been admitted to hospital and...

Lamine Yamal: ‘Football is mechanised but players like me have that special spark’

Spain and Barcelona wonderkid has won World Cup and European Championship but says there are no limits for his career Like the kid he is, Lamine Yamal just wanted to keep playing. This wasn’t Plaça Joan XXIII, wasn’t El Parque de Rocafonda either; it wasn’t the Mataró neighbourhood where it all began, but it might have been. “We’re in a World Cup final and I wanted to carry on,” he says, and there’s the smile again, the braces. Really? “Yes”. No nerves? “No. I never thought: ‘Just blow the whistle’. I was enjoying it.” No fear, just fun: 19 July, New Jersey and he knew: this 19-year-old who had happily been asleep on the bus to the biggest match of his life. And now he sits in a first-floor office in Las Rozas, surrounded by tactics boards and stats sheets. There’s a Spain keyring hanging from the door and a second star on his shirt. In the corridor, crates loaded for London. Son of Mounir and Sheila, named after the family friends who helped them, “ touched by God’s wand ” in the words of the coach whose office is next door, there’s something about Lamine Yamal. He turned 17 the day before the final of Euro 2024 , a schoolboy sitting exams, and 19 the day before the semi-final of the World Cup. Asked what he wanted, he said a trip to New York, so there he was, about to be a champion again. Continue reading...

Do England have a problem against top-10 teams?

As England prepare to take on Spain in their opening Nations League match, BBC Sport takes a look at whether they have a problem when faced with teams in the world top 10.

Northampton, Bath begin Prem season with crushing wins as Pollock sports new hair

Friday's opening night of the Prem Rugby season sees defending champions Northampton Saints and Bath post crushing wins over Newcastle Red Bulls and Harlequins...

Thomas Tuchel warns Cole Palmer about ‘missing way too many’ England camps

Head coach said latest withdrawal is ‘missed opportunity’ England host Spain in Nations League on Saturday Thomas Tuchel has thrown Cole Palmer’s England future into major doubt by questioning whether the Chelsea attacker wants to be part of his squad. England’s head coach did not hold back on Palmer’s latest withdrawal from international duty, warning that the 24-year-old has missed too many opportunities to play for his country. Palmer has only 14 caps and his decision not to join up with the squad this week, because of a minor muscular injury, caused disappointment given he was left out of Tuchel’s World Cup squad after struggling with form and fitness last season. Continue reading...

England aim to win over Wembley and revive Wonderwall in Spain glamour fixture

Emotions of a Nations League match cannot pulse to the same levels as the World Cup but Tuchel needs to reconnect Thomas Tuchel has pictured the scene. It comes after the final whistle has blown on England’s Nations League opener against Spain on Saturday night, the first post-World Cup fixture for both teams, and it has Wembley swaying to the strains of Wonderwall. It is a moment of communion, a reconnection with the Oasis classic that was the soundtrack to England’s World Cup campaign, which delivered so much only to end in such disappointment. “Do I think it will happen tomorrow?” Tuchel said, when asked if Wonderwall would play again afterwards. “I think it will happen if we win.” Continue reading...

England v Spain, Azerbaijan GP and county cricket finale – follow with us

Here’s how to follow along with our coverage – the finest writing and up-to-the-minute reports Continue reading...

Palmer misses too many opportunities to play for England - Tuchel

Thomas Tuchel has said that Cole Palmer "misses too many opportunities" to play for England after the Chelsea forward pulled out of the latest squad.

Tennis scores from Team Europe vs Team World at the Laver Cup

Why Spain test is 'pivotal' for Tuchel's England project

England go again. After World Cup heartbreak this summer they kick-off their Nations League campaign against Spain on Saturday at Wembley.

Connelly's must-see international soccer: Cape Verde's return to action, USMNT kids

FIFA has served up a veritable feast of soccer with the first-ever three-week September international window. So what should you look out for? Bill Connelly casts his eye across the fixture list.