“Darwin Nunez’s poacher’s finish fired Liverpool to victory at RB Leipzigand maintained their flawless start to life in this season’s Champions League. Arne Slot’s side made it three wins from three in the competition with a 1-0 win in Germany, with former Leipzig players Ibrahima Konate and Dominik Szoboszlai tasting victory against their old team thanks to Nunez’s first-half goal. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
RB Leipzig 0 Liverpool 1: Rampaging Nunez, Liverpool go three from three and Leipzig stutter
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“For long periods of their 2-1 victory over 
“The woman behind the counter hands me a piece of cardboard and tells me to hold it up in the air if I want to bid. I’m number 7002 and that makes me feel uneasy. Is that how many people are going to be involved? Inside the auction room, it is a 
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“It’s the firmly established anthem for calms before sporting storms — but what’s the maximum number of times you’d want to listen to 
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“Life at 
“Football Manager 25, scheduled for release next month, has been delayed until March. This is the first major delay for an edition of Football Manager since 2002 and will impact millions of gamers worldwide. The 2024 edition of the game was played by seven million players within 100 days of its release. Football Manager content creators attract hundreds of thousands of subscribers on YouTube. And Sports Interactive, the creator of Football Manager, had revenues of over £66million in the financial year ending in March 2023, according to Companies House. …”
“What are 
Adi Hütter
“‘At three o’clock on Saturdays, we know who we are, where we belong, and where we should be even when we aren’t,’ wrote Daniel Gray, the author and historian, in his 2016 book Saturday, 3pm: 50 Eternal Delights of Modern Football. Gray calls that sacred point in the English week ‘football time’, the opportunity for hundreds of thousands to escape the humdrum and stresses of everyday life and find a fleeting, common sanctuary. ‘What a privilege that is,’ he concludes. …”
“When Nicolas Jover signed up for an online set-piece course last summer, the tutors initially thought it was a prank. Despite transforming 
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Hungary’s ‘Carpathian Brigade’ before a recent game against Bulgaria 
“Life provides us all with many reminders that we’re getting older. Your body aching for no ostensible reason. The increasing realisation you have no idea what music is cool anymore. Hangovers appearing after a couple of quiet beers, rather than a big night out. Measuring the time since you last visited a nightclub in decades, rather than years. For us football fans, there’s another: managers getting younger. And in the 
“‘He was always the best. He was always a big mouth. He was a little Johan Cruyff with the mouth (giving instructions to team-mates during matches). He was always thinking he knew things better than us.’ Leon ten Voorde is speaking about his childhood friend Erik ten Hag, now the 
“The script was already written. 
Larbi Ben Barek of Marseille and Eloy of Sedan during a French Cup quarterfinals match in 1954.
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“What do Pep Guardiola and Enzo Maresca have in common? Coaches wedded to a certain style of football? 
“The 
“Before an unforgettable footballing adventure had even begun, a nation had one man to thank. Such was the magnitude of 
“We are just days away from the 
“Welcome to the latest edition of the Transfer DealSheet, your weekly guide to what is happening in the summer window. Our team of dedicated writers, including Adam Leventhal and David Ornstein, will take you inside the market to explain the deals being worked on, the players who could arrive and the ones who are on their way out across the 
“There is no escaping the cult of the manager in English football. From Busby to Ferguson, from Chapman to Wenger, from Shankly to Klopp, from Revie to Clough, from Mourinho to Guardiola, it sometimes feels like one of the last bastions of the 19th-century ‘great man theory’ — as if, to bastardise the words of Thomas Carlyle, the history of English football is but the biography of great men. Some of the greatest are commemorated with statues outside their clubs’ stadiums: Herbert Chapman and Arsene Wenger at 
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“There was a chaotic end to the Olympic men’s football match between 
“… This summer marks the 30th anniversary of the backpass law being introduced, following FIFA’s successful experiment in Italy a year earlier. It is arguably the most significant — and the best — rule change in the modern game. The mindnumbing sight of goalkeepers rolling the ball out to defenders, receiving it back, picking it up and holding it in their hands to kill games, was gone. …”
“It was in the autumn of 2017 when goal kicks first started to become viewed as a legitimate attacking instrument. After signing from Benfica, it soon became clear that the left leg of 
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“The black gates at the southwest entrance of Hard Rock Stadium had been closed for one hour and 45 minutes when a young child was hoisted on a guardian’s shoulders amid the crush of people waiting to get in for the 
“There are only two matches left of 
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“A late winner from England substitute Ollie Watkins against Netherlands put Gareth Southgate’s team into the final of Euro 2024, where they will face Spain. The 
“The 
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“Watching 
“By this point, it’s time to accept that 
“Sometimes it happens. High stakes, growing tension, a sheer desperation not to lose — the biggest games can light a fire within compulsive competitors that catches too quickly, spreads across the pitch, and burns any sense of spectacle to the ground. Uruguay’s Copa America quarterfinal clash with Brazil fell foul to that intensity: an ugly collision of arms, legs and bodies constantly interrupted by the referee’s whistle. By the time Dario Herrera signalled for the end, it felt as if the contest had barely been given the chance to begin. …”
“Under Luis de la Fuente, 
“Despite having an array of attacking talent at his disposal, not one of Deschamps’ players has scored a goal from open play during Euro 2024. And yet his team are through to a semi-final against 
“The entire NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas gasped. The whistle blew and 
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“One of the wonders of the human brain is how it translates words into experiences, sounds and images. The notion, which is called semantic processing, is how our brain understands what we read by searching for associated words, sounds or images in our memory. Try reading the following words: Spain national football team. …”
“Didier Deschamps is a glass-half-full sort of fella. 
“A generous estate agent might describe the two-up, two-down terraced houses on the cramped side streets that lead towards Gillingham’s Priestfield Stadium as ‘snug’. On this warm day, the windows of several are open and the smell of frying mince and onions hangs over the turnstiles in the Brian Moore Stand, an open ‘temporary’ structure held together by scaffolding that has now been in place for more than 20 years. …”
“This always promised to be one of the more frenetic nights at Euro 2024 — and 
“The 
Scissors Kick 