“Lionel Messi and Argentina will play Spain in the World Cup final on Sunday after they scored twice in six minutes and 24 seconds at the end of a ferocious semi-final to break England hearts. England had led from the 55th minute through Anthony Gordon and looked set for a first final since 1966, but as they dropped deeper and deeper, Enzo Fernandez curled in a stunning equaliser from outside the box on 85 minutes and then substitute Lautaro Martinez headed home in the second minute of stoppage time, with Messi assisting both goals. He now has 12 World Cup assists, an all-time record. …”
NYT/ATH
YouTube: England vs Argentina Highlights 🌎🏆 2026 FIFA World Cup™ | Semifinals
Argentina risks FIFA punishment for Falkland Islands flag during England win celebrations
“Argentina is at risk of being sanctioned by FIFA after its players celebrated with a Falkland Islands banner following its semi-final win over England on Wednesday. After the team’s dramatic comeback victory at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, midfielder Giovani Lo Celso appeared on the field with a banner saying, ‘Las Malvinas son Argentinas,’ which translates to ‘The Malvinas are Argentine.’ Lo Celso held the banner, which appeared to have first been displayed by supporters in the crowd, with defender Nicolas Otamendi, only to then briefly put it away. He then laid it out on the pitch. …”
NYT/ATH
YouTube: The DARK Truth: Argentina’s DIRTY World Cup Wins
“World Cup games mean more. England have only ever played 80 games in the finals, which is to say, not much more than two Premier League seasons in the 76 years since they first entered. Those games draw huge audiences: more than 17 million in the UK watched Saturday’s win over Norway, even though it was after midnight by the time it finished. In most countries, 
Bellingham scored twice, though Norway were furious about his first
“England held on with 10 men to withstand a late bombardment by Mexico in the Estadio Azteca and triumph 3-2 to reach the quarter-finals of the World Cup. The game exploded in six mad first-half minutes. First Jude Bellingham headed in the opener after a brilliant run by Bukayo Saka down the right on 36 minutes, then he exchanged passes with Harry Kane to add his second on 38 minutes. 
“Darcy Norman, a former performance director for U.S. Soccer and the German Football Association, is talking about the mindset required when a team steps into the Azteca. ‘It is a bit like the Shackleton experiment,’ says Norman. Ernest Shackleton, an Irish explorer, is remembered mainly for the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. It aimed to be the first to cross Antarctica, but his vessel, Endurance, was trapped and lost in sea ice. This turned a great explorer into a great survivor, as the voyage went down in legend for the extraordinary escape by those on board and a heroically safe return. …”
“It’s a warm June afternoon in 2009. The teams look uneven. At 30, I am the second-oldest player in our lineup. Lloyd, Nathan and Ben are early 20s – they can all play. Micky the German isn’t in top condition, and at 34 is past his peak. But at a conservative estimate every member of the opposition has two more decades in their legs. A couple of them might be pushing 70. We’re in kit. They are in jeans. We have trainers. They’re in boots – working boots, not ‘cleats’. And yet after an hour we have been beaten to a pulp. The final score evades my memory, but it might be the only six-a-side I’ve ever played in where ‘next goal wins’ wasn’t a vaguely justifiable way to end things. How had this team of old men beaten us? A word you may have heard more often than usual in 
“The England men’s team has been playing football for 154 years, but it has never had a player quite like Harry Kane before. England have had some great moments in their history, winning the World Cup in 1966. But they have rarely won a game quite like this. Not with this same sense of being seized, being saved, of one man deciding to take control of a game that was slipping through English fingers. 
“England struggled to a 0-0 draw against Ghana in their second match at this World Cup after wasting chances late on to win the game at the Gillette Stadium. Thomas Tuchel’s side were excellent in their 4-2 win against Croatia in their opening match but they created far fewer chances against a resolute Ghana defence. 
“England are almost guaranteed to reach the World Cup knockout rounds after a thrilling and at times chaotic win over Croatia in Dallas sent them top of Group L. The first half of England’s campaign brought four goals, with Harry Kane scoring a retaken penalty and heading in from an out-swinging corner, only for Croatia to equalise each time. First, Martin Baturina fired past Jordan Pickford from the edge of the box, then Petar Musa, a striker for local MLS side FC Dallas, finished a brilliant team move to bring it level at the break. …”
“The night before England manager 
“It’s fair to say that Thomas Tuchel has ruffled a few feathers with his England squad for this summer’s World Cup. There was no room for 
“The mood around England was great last year as they won all eight World Cup qualifiers without conceding a single goal. But they were poor in both home friendlies last month, showing how lost they look without Harry Kane. With 50 days to go until this summer’s tournament kicks off, you can hear expectations being gently recalibrated… …”
“This was not the World Cup send-off that England were hoping for. Thomas Tuchel’s final match at Wembley before he and his squad travel to the United States — where they will play two more friendlies ahead of the start of the World Cup in June — was supposed to be a celebration of a squad brimming with talent and ambition. Instead, Tuchel’s flat and disjointed side missing captain Harry Kane through injury were defeated 1-0 by a polished Japan, who made their own statement of intent ahead of the summer thanks to Karou Mitoma’s first-half goal. …”
“Welcome to the final mid-season international window of 2025-26, the last chance for managers to work with players before naming their World Cup squads. Over the next 10 days, we will find out the identity of the final six of the record 48 qualifiers, with 22 nations still in contention via two play-off routes, one in Europe and the other playing out a rest-of-the-world mini-tournament in Mexico. So there are plenty of key decisions to make, while lots of players need to make a good impression now or risk missing out on the tournament altogether. We asked 20 of our writers to answer the key questions that will be addressed this month. You can use the tabs to scroll to the areas that interest you the most: European play-offs, inter-confederation play-offs, players, around the world (featuring key issues facing assorted managers), USMNT, England, Canada and how ready the co-hosts are off the pitch. Let’s start with perhaps the biggest question of all. …”
“Stop me if you’ve heard this one before but the Premier League and English Football Association are having another club vs country row. The latest flare-up in this forever war is significant for two reasons. The first is its timing and the second is the likely solution, which some English Football League clubs believe is to gang up on them. Let’s deal with the timing first. On Friday, Thomas Tuchel announced 
“‘What a difference a year can make,’ reflects Dominic Calvert-Lewin. The striker, who turned 29 on Monday, is playing regular football for Leeds United and enjoying his best season in front of goal since 2020-21. His performances have even led to his name resurfacing in 
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. …”
“It is the small hours of the morning and outside the Red Bar in central Belgrade, there are a dozen or so travelling England supporters making themselves heard ahead of a World Cup qualifier against Serbia. There are the usual chants that provide a soundtrack to England’s overseas trips, but there’s also a new addition to the national team’s songbook: ‘Stop the boats, stop the boats,’ they chant. ‘Nigel Farage, we’re all voting for Reform UK.’ …”
“Today marks 200 years since the world’s first passenger railway journey. On September 27, 1825, around 450 people made the 26-mile journey from Shildon to Stockton in the north-east of England on a steam train named Active, at an average speed of around 8mph. In the 19th century, Britain was the world leader in railways and in football. The relationship between the two shouldn’t be underestimated. Broadly speaking, there were three major reasons for the explosion of sport as a spectator activity in this period. The most important was the novel practice of workers getting their Saturday afternoons off, a victory for a lobbying group named the Early Closing Association, which had been formed in the 1840s. This opened up that time slot for leisure pursuits — and, in particular, sport. …”
“Aston Villa’s goal of the month for August was simple. They decided not to bother with it at all because, for only the second time in their history, Villa failed to score in their first three league fixtures. They are the only team out of 162 that make up England’s top seven leagues (Premier League down to the National League North and South) yet to hit the back of the net. A big caveat here is that they have played only three league matches, whereas some teams in lower leagues have played more than double that number. …”
“England made it four wins from four in their 2026 World Cup qualifying group, but it was far from convincing stuff. There was a fresher look to Thomas Tuchel’s starting XI, with the likes of Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden and Cole Palmer all out injured, but despite maintaining complete control of the match and never looking in any danger of dropping points, there was little to get the Villa Park crowd off their seats. A first-half own goal and a second half Declan Rice header were enough to preserve their five-point lead at the top of Group K, as they prepare to travel to Serbia — the biggest threat to their qualification hopes — on Tuesday. …”
“One of the charming aspects of following foreign football is realising that certain concepts are expressed in different ways to how it’s done in your own country. And one of these, for those of us accustomed to British conventions but who follow the game in continental Europe, is the simple passage of time. So whereas you’re generally more likely to find the 24-hour clock on the continent — a kick-off time might be listed at “19h” — it is somehow also more common for their television scoreboards to display a clock counting up from 00:00 at the start of the second half, rather than the 45:00 we’d be accustomed to in Britain. Similarly, if you read — for example — La Gazzetta dello Sport in Italy, you won’t read goals recorded as being scored in the 65th minute in its pages, but instead in the 20th minute of the second half. …”
“In 1991, England travelled to Poland for their final qualification match for Euro 92. It was a crucial contest: the winners would qualify for the tournament, with a draw favouring England. Considering the importance of the game, it was a surprise that England manager Graham Taylor handed debuts to two players: Queens Park Rangers winger Andy Sinton and Crystal Palace midfielder Andy Gray. The latter was given an unusual role for the game’s opening moments. With David Platt and Gary Lineker taking the kick-off, Gray was instructed to stand just behind them and launch a diagonal ball downfield towards the corner flag, and out for a Poland throw-in. …”
“Brace yourselves, the World Cup countdown officially starts…now. … Having 16 more teams means even more of the globe’s best players can showcase their talents on the biggest stage, but who do we expect to be the protagonists next summer? Some names might be obvious, others might not have even earned their first international cap or play for countries whose qualification hangs in the balance. It’s a tricky assignment, but it is fun to try. So, almost one year out, this is The Athletic’s shortlist of those predicted — or expected — to light up World Cup 2026. …”
“Football fans love the idea of the clean break, the fresh start, and the new era that is unlike anything that has come before. When Thomas Tuchel got the 
“Football’s memory is short, particularly when it comes to national sides. The most successful resemble club teams in that they have a core of players and a clearly defined style of play. There’s always an in-form player around whom a clamour develops, but continuity is just as important, perhaps even more so, in the international game. But next week inevitably represents a new start as Thomas Tuchel picks his first 
“The sight of a goalkeeper gathering a simple shot, collapsing to the ground and taking an age to part with the ball is an infuriating one if your team are trailing. If your team are leading, it is a beautiful form of expressive art. The room for such theatrics is set to be squeezed, however, as the International Football Association Board (IFAB) has acted on what it sees as the rising trend of goalkeepers getting away with time-wasting. 
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“Today should have been Thomas Tuchel’s inauguration day. The man who 
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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 
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“Watching 
“By this point, it’s time to accept that 
“It was a surprise to hear 
“It turns out Murat Yakin wasn’t lying in 2022. He was just one tournament early. ‘I think we are the best Switzerland national team that has ever existed,’ said their coach prior to the World Cup. He promised their best-ever finish at an international tournament but did not deliver — 
“England edged past Slovakia to reach the Euro 2024 quarter-finals, but only after staring a humiliating defeat in the face. Anyone hoping for an improved version of England in the knockout stages was left sorely disappointed during a disjointed and dispiriting first half. Sloppy defending from Gareth Southgate’s team let Slovakia in on several occasions in the first 20 minutes, a foreshadowing of the opening goal from Ivan Schranz on 25 minutes — the 30-year-old taking advantage of acres of space to slot past Jordan Pickford. …”
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“One player arrives at 
“The European Championships are almost upon us. Where the continent’s best and brightest gather to decide once and for all (or until 2028) who is the top dog. You have probably done all your research on the players and the teams and the tactics, so now it’s time to judge their outfits. And we’ve got some bad news for you folks: this has not been a vintage year for home kits. Too many templates, too many dull shirts, not much to get you excited about. And then there’s the kit that will make the players look like they’re wearing a diaper. So read on, and judge for yourselves…”
Scissors Kick 