Left to right: Osimhen, Salah and Hakimi are three of the biggest names at this season’s Africa Cup of Nations
“The 35th Africa Cup of Nations starts on Sunday when hosts Morocco take on Comoros. This edition of the tournament was originally scheduled for summer 2025, but it got pushed back six months to ensure it did not clash with the inaugural playing of FIFA’s revamped Club World Cup in June and July. Matches will be held at nine stadiums across six cities, including Marrakesh, Casablanca and Tangier. The venue for the opening game and the final is the 68,700-seater Prince Moulay Abdellah stadium in Rabat, Morocco’s capital. AFCON is frequently full of surprises. For example, host nation Ivory Coast won the previous one in early 2024, despite losing two of their three group games. None of the 24 competing teams are making their debut this year, but Botswana and Comoros have qualified for only the second time. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
“The 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, also referred to as AFCON 2025, will be the 35th edition of the biennial Africa Cup of Nations tournament organised by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). It will be the second edition hosted by Morocco, after 1988. Morocco was originally scheduled to host the 2015 edition, but withdrew due to fears stemming from the Western African Ebola virus epidemic. Due to FIFA expanding its Club World Cup competition to 32 teams and having it scheduled for June and July 2025, this edition of the tournament will be played between 21 December 2025 and 18 January 2026. …”
Wikipedia
Everything You Need to Know About the TotalEnergies CAF Africa Cup of Nations, Morocco 2025 (Video)
ESPN: AFCON 2025 team-by-team guide – Key players, predictions, will there be a surprise winner?
YouTube: AFCON 2025 Stadiums: Morocco
“In urban centers and tiny villages, amid plains, deserts, forests, rainforests, coastal areas and any other habitat on our spinning sphere, football found a formidable foothold. ‘Is there any cultural practice more global than football?’ author David Goldblatt asks at the outset of The Ball Is Round: The Global History of Soccer. Well, is there? Birth, death, taxes—all are imbued with what we might call universality, but as Goldblatt points out, differing rituals greet these occasions from place to place. Though styles of play can vary based on culture, history, innovation, daring, success and failure, commonality lies in the rules and rudiments of the game, which are uniform across six of seven continents. …”
“How do you properly assess, evaluate, and explain Manchester United’s 4-4 draw with Bournemouth without descending into well-worn football verbiage (‘Football, bloody hell!’) or frequent repetitions of the word ‘chaotic’? Ruben Amorim’s men entered Old Trafford on Monday on the precipice of change. The upcoming Africa Cup of Nations (which begins on December 21) will see him lose two of his best attackers in Bryan Mbeumo and Amad. Earlier in the day, The Athletic reported the head coach had spent a significant amount of 
“Welcome to the latest edition of Inside Barcelona, our weekly series to follow throughout the 2025-26 La Liga season. Every Monday, we will bring you information and analysis on the biggest talking points, cutting through the noisy world of all things Barca with reporting you can trust. The information contained in this article reflects multiple conversations with various sources at the Spanish champions, all of whom wanted to speak anonymously to protect relationships. …”
“Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday The Athletic discusses three of the biggest questions posed by the weekend’s 
“Liverpool’s game against Brighton & Hove Albion was always going to be centred around Mohamed Salah. Whether he was going to be involved or not, though, it was unlikely any definitive conclusions were going to be drawn about what happens next. Exclusion from the squad may have pointed towards an exit, but the fact he was included leaves the door for reconciliation open. 
The opening ceremony for the 1994 World Cup took place at Chicago’s Soldier Field.
“‘So many times we are creating more than we concede, but the end result has been far too many times that we lose a game of football,’ Liverpool head coach Arne Slot told BBC’s Match of the Day highlights show after their 1-1 Premier League home draw against Sunderland just over a week ago. Slot has a point. Using 
Mohamed Salah, Unai Emery and Thomas Frank have already experienced highs and lows
“Emiliano Buendia crashed home a stoppage-time winner to stun leaders Arsenal and end their 18-match unbeaten run. Trailing at half-time to Matty Cash’s opener at Villa Park, Arsenal were far from their best but looked set to take a point thanks to substitute Leandro Trossard’s 52nd-minute equaliser. But Villa were not to be denied, with Buendia coming off the bench to hammer a shot beyond David Raya following an almighty scramble. …”
“Paulie Gualtieri wanted to know why Tony Soprano was a quiet and sullen presence at dinner. The goomahs in attendance were having to listen about the good old days, a time when many of them weren’t even born; a beach house booked on the Jersey shore, the summer of ’78, the hippie kid who mysteriously drowned during a party. … On the morning of the World Cup draw on Friday, a photo from the restaurant of the FIFA hotel went viral. It showed the coach of Uzbekistan and Italy’s last World Cup-winning captain, Fabio Cannavaro, sat round a table with Christian Vieri. Behind them were Francesco Totti, the original Ronaldo, Marco Materazzi, Roberto Baggio and Vincent Candela. ‘Once upon a time in Serie A’ should have been the caption. …”
“This time, it’s West Germany in 1990. This is remembered as the most negative, defensive World Cup, supported by the lowest goals-per-game figure on record, 2.21. It was so disastrous that FIFA and IFAB felt compelled to improve the spectacle afterwards, largely by clamping down on dangerous tackles and introducing the backpass law — although not, as was floated by some, by increasing the size of the goals. West Germany won the competition in somewhat unglamorous fashion, as their key matches were dominated by penalties and opposition red cards. But in the group stage, they played some good football, and in the knockout stage, they at least attempted to, which was more than most of their opponents could claim. …”
Harry Kane (England)
“The cold nights are drawing in, hopes and dreams from those optimistic, innocent, bright summer days are long gone. Reality has bitten. With the Premier League table still tighter than the proverbial camel’s backside in a sandstorm, with just six points separating fifth from 15th (this time last year the gap was 12 points), it’s hard to judge which clubs and which fanbases are happy with what they’ve seen so far. A week of wins can lift you from relegation concerns to a European push, while successive defeats can take you from the Champions League places to looking downwards to the Championship. It’s temperamental. Far more reliable than the actual league table, then, is The Athletic’sHappiness Table, in which we accurately summise each club’s xH (expected happiness) level, but without the xH bit because that’s a bit silly. …”
“Welcome to The Athletic’s 2026 Transfer DealSheet — covering the January and summer windows. Our team of dedicated writers will take you inside the market to explain the deals being worked on. The transfer window will reopen on January 1, 2026 — at which point The Transfer DealSheet will return to its weekly in-window format. The information found within this article has been gathered according to The Athletic’s sourcing guidelines. Unless stated, our reporters have spoken to more than one person briefed on each deal before offering the clubs involved the opportunity to comment. Their responses, when they were given, have been included. …”
“World Cup 2026, previously just a dot on the horizon, starts to come into full view this week. With qualification now wrapped up (well, mostly — more on that shortly), the draw for the tournament takes place in Washington, D.C. on Friday. In the lead-up to that event, we answer some of the big questions you may have about that draw and the World Cup more generally. Let’s start with the basics, and then we’ll delve a bit deeper. …”
“This was the weekend when 
“When you are called out by your head coach for the ‘ridiculous’ number of goals the team has conceded so far this season, the ideal response is not to let in another four in the next game. Arne Slot did not mince his words when talking about his Liverpool side’s defensive record this season ahead of the Champions League tie against Dutch visitors PSV on Wednesday. …”
“In an era where football fans implore their club to spend big money on new players, it’s notable that very few of the most expensive footballers in history have been an unqualified success at their new club. Eleven players have been transferred for £100million or more, and there are more flops than clear positives. Antoine Griezmann’s 2017 move from Atletico Madrid to Barcelona (
“Declan Rice took the captain’s armband after Bukayo Saka was substituted, charged down a loose ball and seconds later Arsenal were ahead through Noni Madueke in the 69th minute. Gabriel Martinelli then made it 3-1 seven minutes later, with Bayern Munich cut apart by a through ball and the substitute doing the rest. 
“Liverpool fell to a shock 4-1 loss to PSV Eindhoven on Wednesday night to make it three defeats in a row. After a handball by Virgil van Dijk, Ivan Perisic scored a sixth-minute penalty to put PSV Eindhoven ahead. But the hosts levelled in the 16th minute after Cody Gakpo dribbled down the left before cutting inside on his right foot. His shot was saved, but the ball fell to Dominik Szoboszlai, who fired home to level the game. …”
“Tottenham may have put in a more positive display against PSG than against Arsenal on Sunday, but they came away from Paris defeated in an eight-goal thriller despite twice taking the lead. Richarlison headed in during the first half after a great team move from Spurs before an incredible strike from Vitinha just before half-time drew the hosts level. Randal Kolo Muani, playing against his parent club, put Spurs back in front before Vitinha again drew the teams level with another lovely finish. Two poor goals to concede followed, though, as the early promise from Spurs evaporated. Kolo Muani made it 4-3 before Vitinha completed his hat-trick from the penalty spot after a handball. PSG then had Lucas Hernandez sent off in stoppage time. …”
“As television money has transformed the landscape of European football in the 21st century, the challenge has fallen on big clubs in smaller markets to innovate, or face being left behind. Ajax, the most successful club in the Netherlands, have proven that invention does not require abandoning tradition. In fact, their history has provided the blueprint for continued success. In the early 1970s, legendary coach Rinus Michels built Ajax into the best club team in Europe. In 1973, they became just the second team to win three successive European Cups, with Michels’ 
“Andres Iniesta’s first night at Barcelona’s renowned La Masia youth academy was one of the worst of his life. Aged just 12, and having spent his whole upbringing until then surrounded by family in his small village of Fuentealbilla (population 2,400, in the southern Spanish province of Albacete), he was now alone, hundreds of miles from home. He was fulfilling a dream, but the experience left a mark on him. Iniesta says the ‘traumatic’ change ‘took its toll’ and he believes it may have played a role in the depression he would later suffer at the peak of his career, even if ‘things returned to normal’. …”
“It is 30 years since Liverpool smashed the British transfer record to sign Stan Collymore, a brilliant, brutally effective centre-forward with the build of a cruiserweight boxer and skills that, on his day, made him almost unplayable. He was the match-winner on his debut against Sheffield Wednesday, conjuring an eye-catching goal out of nothing, and scored another beauty against reigning champions Blackburn Rovers a month later, but, behind the scenes, cracks soon appeared. From an early stage, he felt out of place at Anfield, cold-shouldered in the dressing room and an awkward fit in a team whose commitment to pass-and-move football was at odds with the strengths he had showcased at Nottingham Forest. …”
“The next men’s FIFA World Cup is now 200 days away and 42 nations — including its co-hosts the United States, Canada and Mexico — have secured their places in the expanded 48-team competition. Seventy-five per cent of matches will be played in the U.S. across 11 cities. Mexico will host the opening matchday in Mexico City and Guadalajara, but the involvement of both it and Canada, in terms of venues anyway, will cease after the round of 16, with all games from the quarter-finals onwards to be played in the States, including the final at MetLife Stadium in the state of New Jersey, a few miles west of New York City. …”
“Liverpool’s season goes from bad to worse. A wretched 3-0 home defeat to Nottingham Forest, who were entrenched in the relegation zone ahead of kick-off, dealt a further blow to 
“Manchester City missed an opportunity to put pressure on Arsenal in the title race, falling to a 2-1 defeat to Newcastle United at St James’ Park. The result leaves Pep Guardiola’s team in third, a point behind Chelsea, and potentially seven points behind Arsenal, should Mikel Arteta’s side beat Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday. The game was decided in a dramatic seven second-half minutes. Both sides had missed an abundance of chances before Newcastle opened the scoring in the 64th minute. A smart interchange in midfield between Bruno Guimaraes and Harvey Barnes ended with the latter shooting low and hard past goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma. The lead only lasted five minutes, however, as Newcastle struggled to clear from a corner and Ruben Dias equalised, his shot squirming between the legs of Fabian Schar. …”
“The scene was a school in west London, the weather was overcast and, for what felt like the first day of a new term, the mood was horribly tense. It was the Premier League’s official launch event for the 2015-16 Premier League season. Eddie Howe led a contingent from Bournemouth, all of them wide-eyed with excitement on the eve of their first top-flight campaign. The Swansea City lot were happy to be there, too. The delegation from reigning champions Chelsea? Not so much. …”
“One of the common moans about English football is that everything feels homogenous these days. Teams play the same style of football. Stadiums are identikit bowls. Clubs play in away kits that don’t particularly feel like their colours. So among clubs becoming increasingly indistinguishable from one another, one small element of Premier League football is a complete free-for-all: the commentary used on the highlights packages for clubs’ respective YouTube channels. Here, there is absolutely no consensus whatsoever about the right thing to do. Should you use a standard feed of ‘neutral’ television commentary? Should you use a dedicated club commentator? Should you use the club’s dedicated radio commentary and overlay it on the pictures? Should you use local BBC radio commentary? …”
“The Premier League returns this week after the final international break of the calendar year. At the top, Arsenal are four points clear but have suffered further injuries, including to key defender Gabriel, before the north London derby against Tottenham on Sunday. Second-placed Manchester City visit Newcastle on Saturday evening, with Eddie Howe’s home side as close to rock-bottom Wolves in points terms as they are to Pep Guardiola’s team. …”
“The excitement of Jamaica potentially qualifying for just their second World Cup was palpable on the gridlocked streets of Kingston three hours before kick-off. Fans in a variety of yellow shirts, with flicks of green, creating a joyous kaleidoscope of expectation. Wafting through the air was the smell of the jerk chicken and curry goat being cooked outside the city’s National Stadium, while inside dancehall blasted over the speakers. …”
“You might walk past the International Dispute Resolution Centre (IDRC) in central London a hundred times without noticing it. Dwarfed by nearby St Paul’s Cathedral, the smart office building where arbitration rooms can be hired by the day for up to £5,000 ($6,580) seems unassuming. But the IDRC has emerged as a key battleground for some of English football’s most compelling contests over the last 12 months. It is where 
Mexico after winning the CONCACAF Nations League final in March 2025
“Curacao is a Caribbean island that’s home to around only 185,000 people, and it felt like half of them spilt onto the pitch in celebration at reaching their first-ever World Cup on a dramatic night in Jamaica. They are now the smallest nation ever to qualify for a World Cup, breaking a record previously set by Iceland in 2018. Two planes carrying Curacao’s most passionate supporters, or as captain Leandro Bacuna termed it, their “ultras”, were chartered to make sure the players would have some backing for their decisive qualifying match on Tuesday night at Jamaica’s National Stadium in Kingston. …”
“‘We’re returning home,’ read a Barcelona statement on Monday afternoon. After 909 days away, Barca will play again at the Camp Nou when they host Athletic Club in La Liga on Saturday. The Catalans have not played at their iconic home ground since they started a €1.5billion (£1.3bn; $1.8bn) refurbishment project more than two years ago. …”
Ireland’s players celebrate their dramatic 3-2 win in Hungary on Sunday
Gennaro Gattuso gestures during the defeat by Norway
“Seven months from now, thousands of miles from Wembley, England will start their 2026 World Cup finals challenge. Their qualification campaign so far has been perfect — six games, six wins — and their two remaining group matches are now effectively dead rubbers. England host Serbia on Thursday before playing Albania away on Sunday. When the final whistle goes in Tirana, England will not play another competitive game until the big kick-off. Just two home friendlies in March and then likely two more pre-tournament in Florida in early June. …”
“Arne Slot led Liverpool to a league title in his first season in charge with a defined plan and a team that had a clear identity. After a summer of change involving significant turnover of the squad, the current version of Liverpool, who have lost seven of their last 10 games, could not look and feel more different. Following the 2-2 draw against Arsenal in October 2024, Slot complimented the job their coach Mikel Arteta had done during his time at the club in his post-match press conference: ‘They always play 4-3-3, but the way they position themselves, they can do — I think he said it once himself — 40 different setups.’ …”
Scissors Kick 