“Emiliano Martinez’s right hand will never be the same again. The 34-year-old broke his ring finger while playing for Aston Villa in the Europa League final last May and opted against having it surgically repaired in order to be able to play for Argentina at the World Cup. In the weeks leading up to the tournament, he could not train properly — diving with one arm to avoid the excruciating pain that came from putting weight through his right hand. …”
NYT/ATH
Why Liverpool are in love with Ronald Araujo: Garra charrua, floor headers and Anfield difference
“When Ronald Araujo made his home debut against Nottingham Forest as a substitute right-back, he lumbered onto the pitch with the ease of a wardrobe appended to billiard-table legs. While he had mainly featured in the middle of Barcelona’s defence in recent years, he was brought to Anfield because of his versatility and experience. It might not have been obvious watching him emerge from the bench, but at Barcelona, he had sometimes been trusted to play at right-back against Real Madrid — and had dealt well with Vinicius Jr. On that squally Merseyside afternoon in August, everything felt very awkward indeed. …”
NYT/ATH
If Mikel Arteta’s dossier is part of a deliberate strategy, it is a dangerous one for Arsenal – Jonathan Wilson
“English football loves the word ‘dossier”’ It doesn’t love dossiers themselves, of course; they’re for nerds – unless, that is, they’re a ‘secret dossier’, which have a thrilling redolence of spy dramas, invisible ink and dead drops. Non-secret dossiers, though, are inherently risible: call something a ‘dossier’ in English football and you’re immediately signalling: this is absurd poindextering. Dossiers were preposterous when Don Revie was – imagine the pretension! – drawing up scouting reports on opposing players, and they are preposterous today as Mikel Arteta collates images of rival managers stepping outside their technical area. …”
Guardian
“Serie A had its second scoreless draw of the season on Wednesday evening. Parma and Udinese were the culprits, though perhaps they can be allowed some grace. The game was not short on incident, Maduka Okoye saving a penalty for the Friulians, who had been on a six-game losing streak, midway through the second half. Mariano Troilo made a goalline clearance for Parma soon after. An open, end-to-end game was made to look drab in the context of this bonkers campaign. While Parma and Udinese stymied one another at the Tardini, Milan came from behind to lead Bologna at San Siro. And then collapsing to a 4-2 defeat. …”
“By all appearances, things on the Yellow Wall seemed as they always had been. The stadium announcer hollered out the first names of Borussia Dortmund’s starting lineup and the supporters responded with their last names, tens of thousands of voices bellowing as one. Dozens of black and yellow flags waved over Europe’s largest standing terrace, a mass of faces fixed on the field beneath them. And then Signal Iduna Park, sold out with 81,365 fans, roared when Max Beier’s lone goal led Dortmund to victory over Eintracht Frankfurt last Saturday, putting the home side even on points with Bayern Munich atop the 
“‘A bad system will beat a good person every time.’ The words of Dr. Deming, a pioneer of systems thinking, perfectly encapsulate the problems faced by Moroccan football throughout the 2000s. At the turn of the century, on paper, it seemed like Moroccan football was in a pretty good place. In 1998, it was ranked 13th globally by FIFA. The team’s performance at the 1986 World Cup, when Morocco became the first African and Arab country to advance to the knockout rounds, was monumental. Despite these early successes, Morocco would subsequently not qualify for a World Cup for the next 20 years. By 2014, Moroccan football would hit rock bottom, with FIFA ranking it 81st in the world—a precipitous decline. …”
“Scott McTominay was leaving nothing to doubt. He appeared to have scored with a close-range header early in the second half of Napoli’s game at home to Roma, but Pierluigi Gollini clawed the ball out from inside the goal. McTominay got his noggin to the rebound, nudging it back across the line. Roma’s keeper pushed away again, so the 
Flávio Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign has been using the Brazil shirt.
“Paris Saint-Germain vs Barcelona. Bayern Munich vs Arsenal. This week, four of the favourites to win the Champions League were pitted against each other. Since the start of last season, they make up four of the top five for wins across Europe’s top competition and their respective leagues. Despite 
“On Iñigo Pérez’s first day as a head coach he took a call from Andoni Iraola, just as he had every day for months. They had known each other for 22 years, lived in the same residency, come through the same academy and played in the same team; they had worked side by side, manager and assistant, and embarked on an adventure together. Now, though, Pérez was having to go it alone. At 36, he had become what his friend thought he would be from the moment they met, just not so soon. …”
“This was the night Rio Ngumoha announced himself on the Champions League stage Liverpool’s prodigiously gifted 18-year-old was excellent in the 6-3 win over LASK last week but against sterner opposition in the form of Villarreal he delivered a display that had Merseyside — and, indeed, the whole of Europe — salivating. He produced two assists to write his name into Liverpool’s record books, becoming the youngest player to assist a goal in the Champions League, and helped Andoni Iraola’s side overcome a dreadful start which saw them fall 2-0 behind after 29 minutes but ultimately win 4-3 thanks to two goals from Alexis Mac Allister, and strikes by Ronald Araujo and Florian Wirtz. Our experts analyse the big talking points. …”
“Barcelona’s La Liga juggernaut rolled into Seville on Saturday and left with the scoreboard smoking, as the leaders beat Real Betis 5-2 to make it nine wins from nine, stretching their blistering league goal tally to 39. Lamine Yamal lit the fuse with a dazzling opener before Rodri, Gabriel Jesus, Eric García and the substitute Dani Olmo joined the party, while Valentín Gómez and Ez Abde replied for Betis, who played much of the second half with 10 men after Facundo Bernal was sent off for headbutting Lamine Yamal. … Álex Baena struck in the 89th minute to snatch a 1-0 win for Atlético Madridat Espanyol. Baena smashed in from the edge of the box to claim the Rojiblancos victory from a tight game in Cornella. Atlético have won six consecutive games across all competitions and remain five points behind Barcelona. Valencia and Athletic Bilbao drew 0-0 at Estadio de Mestalla. … In Germany, Luis Díaz scored a hat-trick as Bayern Munich pummelled a listless RB Leipzig 6-1 at home on Saturday to climb to the top of the Bundesliga table. Borussia Dortmund had edged ahead of Freiburg into top spot after their earlier goalless draw at Union Berlin, but Bayern responded in typically ruthless fashion. … In Italy, Inter pulled clear at the top of Serie A by coming from behind to beat Bologna 3-1. The champions were criticised after a 4-3 Champions League defeat against Club Brugge in midweek, but bounced back to move three points clear of second-placed Lazio, who face Juventus in Turin on Sunday. …”
“To the left of the main 
“A moment. A goal. A barrier broke down. New ground broken. A legacy cemented. There are many ways to become an iconic figure at a Premier League club. To mark UK Black History Month, our writers have paid tribute to a Black British icon from every club in the Premier League, from those that broke new ground to those still winning hearts and minds to this day. …”
“Real Madrid have demanded the ‘
“It is midday on Saturday in Ukraine and 12 vehicles transporting more than 100 Shakhtar Donetsk personnel are setting off for a home game. What makes this unusual? The home fixture is not for another four days. And it is taking place more than 1,000 miles from Shakhtar’s Lviv training base, at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium in London. Then again, Shakhtar have not been operating in a usual situation for some time. The Ukrainian club have not played at their actual home ground, the Donbass Arena, since 2014, after Russia invaded the region of the same name. Domestic home games have been consistently played at Arena Lviv, 750 miles west of Donetsk, since 2023 (Shakhtar had spells playing in Kyiv and Kharkiv before then). Home matches in UEFA competitions have been held in Germany, Poland and Slovenia over the past four years. This decision was taken following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. …”
“José Mourinho enjoyed a Roma reunion to remember as Real Madridcompleted an astonishing comeback by scoring three late goals to claim a 4-3 away win in the 
“Welcome to week six of The Athletic’s Premier League performance table — a ranking system that will make the Nottingham Forest head coach Oliver Glasner instantly feel better. In case you’ve missed 
“The number of words in an article and touches of the ball share a common theme: only a few may not be enough, and too many can ruin it — you just need the right amount depending on the situation. The artists know precisely when to add an extra word to portray a performance by a talented player, such as Manchester City’s Rayan Cherki. Cherki also knows when to take an extra touch that mesmerises even top-level defenders, making them look like kids in a playground. In this example, from City’s 2-1 victory against Bournemouth in August, Cherki receives the ball in a pocket of space and tries to find an attacking solution as Tyler Adams and Alex Toth close him down. …”
“It took 147 days for Rayo Vallecano to walk out for a competitive game on the Avenida de Albufera and 24 minutes and 56 seconds for them to walk off again. Half of those had been spent watching thousands of paper planes touch down on the turf, play suspended while a message was delivered, over and over, until it was impossible to avoid. Forced from their home, the team from the barrio had been away for five months. On the bright Saturday afternoon that they came back, there were just 13 minutes of football, a fans’ protest instead forcing the abandonment of their match with Athletic Club, the 
“Diego Simeone is such an established part of top-level European football that you sometimes forget how unusual his tenure is. Approaching 15 years in charge of Atletico Madrid, ‘only’ winning two league titles doesn’t quite summarise his considerable impact on European football, and the extent to which he has overachieved in a division that had become a two-horse race. Atletico had spent the previous decade as a mid-table side in La Liga, even dropping into Spain’s second tier for a couple of seasons. It is one of the most impressive dynasties in the modern game, and all the more special because of something we all know, but take for granted: Simeone is South American. For all the South American playing talent in European football over the decades, it’s very rare for a South American manager or head coach to succeed in Europe. …”
“Last month, the Premier League confirmed The Athletic’s reporting that Manchester City 
“Football, the world’s most popular sport, played by laws drawn up in London in 1863. The 
“More than anything, what sticks in the mind is the sound of David Moores’ voice faltering. Standing in front of unhappy shareholders in the Bill Shankly Suite at Anfield, the Liverpool chairman sounded beaten, like someone hit by a sudden realisation that things had changed. It was January 2004, the 12th year of the Premier League era but the first of a new economic reality. Six months earlier, Chelsea had been bought by a Russian billionaire named Roman Abramovich, whose £120million-plus transfer outlay that summer was only just short of the combined expenditure of the Premier League’s 19 other clubs. In the famous words of David Dein, then Arsenal’s executive vice-chairman, Abramovich had ‘parked his Russian tanks on the lawn and (was) firing £50 notes at us’. Football had always been split between the haves and the have-nots. Now there was a division between the haves and the have-yachts. …”
“Just over two weeks remain until the winner of the 70th edition of the Ballon d’Or is revealed, and the race for the prestigious award seems to have taken an unexpected twist. According to most bookmakers, Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal is now the joint-favourite to be crowned the world’s best player at the ceremony in London later this month, the first of its kind to take place outside of France. He has joined Harry Kane — born just under 10 miles from the London Palladium venue — at the top of the running, with Kane hoping to become just the fifth English winner after Blackpool’s Stanley Matthews won the first in 1956. …”
“Anthony Gordon scored his first goal for Barcelona as the Spanish champions extended their perfect start in La Liga with a 3-0 home win over Getafe. The England international opened the scoring in the second minute and Gabriel Jesus added another after half an hour for the league leaders, who have won every match they have played this season. Jules Koundé tucked home the third from Lamine Yamal’s cross to cap Barça’s solid win at the Camp Nou. Barça moved five points clear of second-placed Atlético Madrid, who won 2-1 at Alavés earlier, and lead Real Madrid, fourth, by nine points before Los Blancos host Villarreal later on. …”
“The internet: an apology. It turns out you were right. It was actually a simulation all along. Now, talk to me about chemtrails again. And yes, maybe Vinícius Júnior has been replaced by a handsome, baffled-looking waxwork. Welcome to the weirdest weekend of them all. We are now post-judgment, post-statement, postlapsarian. As the Premier League prepares to snap back into what must be described, out of habit, as reality, armed with the knowledge its serial champions have been the authors of 
“Even 18 years after the money arrived, six after their (overturned) Champions League ban, three-and-a-half after the charges were brought by the Premier League, and a week after 
“Premier League football is back after the three-week international break, and it’s time to assess potency. One of the key aspects that could be on the menu this weekend is shooting from long range. Across the first five rounds of the past five league seasons, 2026-27 has seen the largest proportion of shots from outside the penalty area — 36 per cent. Teams have converted just 10.1 per cent of their attempts into goals, the second lowest after the opening five rounds in eight seasons, behind 2021-22 (9.9). Some sides have prioritised quantity, while others have looked to work their way into the box. So, as Premier League action returns, who has created the most xG? …”
“Where do you start with trying to pick a favourite Lionel Messi moment from his Argentina years? From Copa America and World Cup brilliance to qualifiers and even going back as far as under-20s matches, a selection of our writers have chosen theirs. With Messi’s 208th and final senior appearance for his country coming up in a Buenos Aires friendly against Benin on Tuesday (early Wednesday UK time), enjoy these memories, then let us know in the comments below about your number one. …”
“If this is to be the end for 
“It was noon on Saturday when Cavan Sullivan walked into a Westin Tempe meeting room and felt his stomach jump. It was hours before he’d board a bus to State Farm Stadium, where he’d 
“Manchester City have launched their appeal against an independent commission’s decision that the club broke Premier League spending rules via a ‘Disguised Funding Scheme’ that 
“At this stage, the narrative changes. No longer should it be a debate about whether the Premier League would dare to drum Manchester City out of England’s top division. Now the question takes another form: how can you justify anything else? Attitudes can only harden now that the first official judgment has been published, subject to an appeal, and the sheer scale of deception is increasingly, and jarringly, clear. Nobody ever thought it would be pretty. We knew, City being City, that the numbers would be eye-watering. We knew there would be mountains of paperwork, legal arguments, redactions and recriminations. Even so, it was still quite something to read 
“How bad could it be, really? How serious can a breach of arcane financial regulations be, really? Just how damning can accountancy be? Even after Friday’s revelation that 
“There was a stir when 
“So it turns out none of that was real. Nothing that happened in English football between 2009‑10 and 2017-18 that involved Manchester City actually happened. City beating Manchester United 6-1 at Old Trafford? Fake. Sergio Agüero’s 94th‑minute winner to 
“Moments before munching on a salad at an upscale Italian restaurant in Los Angeles, Andrés Cantor was stopped by a worker for a brief conversation in Spanish. After dinner, another worker hailed him down to take a photograph together near the car valet stand. … Cantor is a soccer celebrity currently starring in his 10th men’s World Cup. But his great physical skill is not precision dribbling of Lionel Messi or the acceleration of Kylian Mbappé. It is his buoyant and limber voice. As a play-by-play announcer for the Spanish-speaking network Telemundo, Cantor must capture the explosive moment whenever a player finds the back of the net. And he does not treat ‘gol,’ or ‘goal,’ as a typical one-syllable word. He enthusiastically elongates it, stretching the word for upward of 10 seconds, while curling his lips and cupping his hand near his ear. …”
“Spain beat England 3-2 in a highly entertaining and open Nations League game at Wembley, with the World Cup winners extending their record unbeaten run to 39 games. Thomas Tuchel’s side did have the visitors rattled for the middle period of the game and could have gone 3-1 up had Harry Kane not missed a second-half penalty. 
“Manchester City have spent much of the last decade dominating the Premier League but for the last three and a half years there has been a very different battle to fight. City, English football’s champions in six of the last nine seasons, were charged with over 100 breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules in February 2023, leaving the legacy of Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering team under a cloud, even as a new era is beginning under Enzo Maresca. 
“It’s the place where points are lost and never to be seen again, according to a popular social media meme. Draw a line from 
“The qualifiers for the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations begin on Thursday, with 48 countries competing to earn spots in Africa’s biggest football tournament. Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda will cohost AFCON 2027, as the competition returns to East Africa for the first time in 51 years. Divided into 12 groups, the teams will be involved in a six-round qualifying process that runs to March next year. Here’s everything to know about AFCON 2027. …”
“In the end, Steve, Brian, Gaz or similar, he’s just not done the job he was hired to do. The job? The one he was hired to do? He’s not done it. How can I put this? There are three things here. The job. The being hired. The doing it. And him. Four things. And if you put those things together, there is no clear equation of … no linear semiotic cluster, he’s not, he’s just not, what I’m saying is … How many times have you heard variations on this statement in the few short, tender weeks since 
“When UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham embarked on his trip to the United Nations in New York, he might not have been expecting a question about football fans drinking alcohol in grounds. Burnham firmly believes the law that prevents supporters from having a beer at their seat during a match is outdated. It’s a position the 
“Xavi Hernandez and Jurgen Klopp shared the points as they got their careers as international managers underway, in a frenetic Nations League game between the Netherlands and Germany that ended 1-1 The Dutch began with a spring in their step and thought they’d taken the lead when Virgil van Dijk headed home an early Tijjani Reijnders corner, only for VAR to rule it out for an extremely-soft looking Brian Brobbey block. But it was Klopp’s team that went 1-0 up when Felix Nmecha scored from close range just after the half hour mark. The Dutch were furious, as Brobbey had gone down with a hamstring injury, but there was no reason for Germany for stop playing — and, to be fair, they didn’t. Brobbey had to be substituted, as did Kai Havertz a few minutes earlier — news that will concern Sunderland and Arsenal fans respectively. …”
“Who is the best player in the Premier League? It’s a simple question with a complicated answer — one that The Athleticwill continue to attempt to answer throughout the 2026-27 season. This is the second instalment of our Premier League Player Rankings, in which we use form, data and the eye tests of Phil Hay and Tim Spiers to assess exactly who the division’s top 50 footballers are. 
“When 
West Ham and Millwall players shake hands before kick-off at 
“In some football matches, we simply remember the result. Whenever Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid meet, it is dramatic scenes that stick in the memory. Sergio Ramos’ 93rd-minute equaliser that helped Real Madrid win a 10th European Cup in 2014, 
“While Thomas Tuchel continues to 
“By now, you’ll probably have seen the clips of Brighton & Hove Albion’s press against Arsenal. They make for compelling viewing. Of course, it’s hard not to be impressed by sequences of well-choreographed pressing. There is something exhilarating about any complex action that requires a level of collaboration from multiple agents in order for it to come off. We see it in nature in the murmurations of starlings or the communal behaviour of a shoal of fish. On top of this, a well-worked press also fulfils one of the primary requirements for any football fan watching their team: the impression of effort. There is nothing a fan enjoys more than the players of their team exerting themselves around a football pitch. 
“The boos are what generate the headlines — ‘Tottenham Hotspur booed off after winless league start continues’, etc. — but what hits you harder is the silence. Football stadiums are meant to be cacophonous arenas of celebration, singing, unfiltered joy and, yes, of aggro and anger and despair and misery and questioning life decisions. But silence? Before a ball has even been kicked? There is something askew here. It’s midday, 30 minutes from kick-off and Aston Villa are in north London for one of English football’s oldest and grandest top-flight fixtures. The atmosphere, though, doesn’t feel at all like one of anticipation, despite more than 60,000 people all heading to the same venue. …”
“… Some truths transcend culture. Some myths appear and reappear in every tribe and community across the globe. And in every sport in every nation in every continent, we all share one unchanging tradition: Overreacting way too soon into a season. The sample size is small. The season is long. The teams are still finding that magic we call ‘gelling.’ (Especially this year with a record number of new managers or head coaches in the Premier League.) And yet. We are human beings, and we are entitled to our overreactions! It’s called passion. So, with the season’s first international break upon us and Premier League action halted until October 10, we figured it was time: Welcome to the overreactions and hot takes edition of the Soccer Weekender. …”
“Wrexham have bought The Turf pub that stands next to The Racecourse Ground. The deal for the iconic venue, arguably the most famous pub in football after featuring heavily in the Welcome to Wrexham documentary, has been struck between Wrexham Holdings, the club’s parent company, and Admiral Taverns. Wrexham’s purchase of The Turf, which continues to welcome hundreds of overseas fans every week, is seen as an important part of a development plan that has the new £69.1 million ($92.4m) Kop stand at its heart. …”
“Diego Simeone said it had been a special week in Madrid, a ‘tremendous energy about the city’, and it closed the way he wanted. He had enjoyed the Formula One, he said, and he had enjoyed going to see Shakira. He enjoyed this even more, at least he did by the time the last of many, many blows on the referee’s whistle brought it to an end, sending him sprinting up the tunnel punching the air. Two-nil up against 10 men through goals from Álex Grimaldo and Jonathan David, seemingly in control, a late strike from Antonio Rüdiger awoke old ghosts and brought tension to the final minutes, but they had done it. …”
“This was a happy homecoming for Andoni Iraola. Liverpool’s head coach did not have to wait long into the new season to return to his former club Bournemouth and he will have taken huge satisfaction in claiming a 1-0 victory, even if the performance was not always convincing. The crucial moment came in the 57th minute as Alexander Isak swept in from close range after Cody Gakpo’s cross deflected into his path. After that it was down to the defence to close out a third consecutive league clean sheet — the first time they have achieved that since the start of the 2024-25 campaign — to secure the points. …”
“Arsenal’s turbo-charged start to the new season has come to a shuddering halt. The Premier League champions’ perfect record across all competitions was shredded by a 3-0 defeat at an inspired Brighton & Hove Albion, who celebrated their 125th anniversary (an occasion which saw them wear a special edition shirt) in style. The hosts were simply too intense for Arsenal to handle. They were 2-0 down by half-time courtesy of long-range strikes by Pascal Gross and Charalampos Kostoulas and the game was effectively killed off by Chema Andres’ header early in the second period. Kai Havertz saw one effort saved by Bart Verbruggen in an otherwise toothless performance by Mikel Arteta’s side. …”
