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How can Brazil stop Haaland? It might come down to...
Brazil face Norway in the round of 16 of the World Cup, and the showdown against Erling Haaland and Carlo Ancelotti's midfielders will be one to watch.
Jürgen Klopp holds Germany talks: ‘I’m more than recharged, I’m ready’
He says ‘intensive’ discussions needed with federationKlopp wants to agree way ahead with changes requiredJürgen Klopp has confirmed he is in negotiations to take over as Germany’s coach and says he has “recharged” the energy missing when he left Liverpool.Klopp is the German football federation’s preferred candidate after Julian Nagelsmann resigned on Friday, four days after Germany lost on penalties to Paraguay in the World Cup last 32. Continue reading...
Jhon Arias goal sends Colombia into last 16 as Ghana bow out of World Cup
Ghana can only have feared the worst when Luis Suárez’s number came up in the seventh minute. A day on from the 16th anniversary of one of the most infamous episodes in World Cup history, the Colombia forward who shares a name with the man whose handball broke the hearts of Black Stars supporters in the quarter-finals of the 2010 World Cup returned to haunt them.Not long after coming off the bench, it was the Sporting striker who provided the assist for what turned out to be the winning goal from Jhon Arias to set up a last-16 clash against Switzerland in Vancouver on Tuesday. Even if they couldn’t find another goal that their superiority clearly warranted, Colombia were deserved winners and look more than capable of at least matching their previous best result at the 2014 World Cup when they reached the last eight. Continue reading...
Mbappé becomes leader of France’s collective under Deschamps’ regime of trust
Les Bleus’ thrilling front four is built on the spirit the head coach has fostered in his squad, allowing them to be both secure and adventurousIt was a striking image, the picture that best captured France’s World Cup campaign to this point. Not the one that caught Michael Olise in full flight as he executed a perfect bicycle kick that only sprang ungratefully off a Swedish post. Nor the one of the squad posing together on their private jet, turqoise hoods drawn tight to their chins. Instead it was the one of the hug, first between Kylian Mbappé and Didier Deschamps, and then with the rest of the squad too, as they celebrated the opening goal of their 3-0 last 32 victory over Sweden in a purposeful manner.Deschamps said later that Mbappé’s dash towards the technical area had “touched me deeply”. The head coach had briefly stepped back from his duties the week before to grieve the loss of his mother. Mbappé and the squad had wanted publicly to show how much he meant to them. “The group is united,” Deschamps said. “They delivered when I was away and now I’m back, they know I’m here 100%. Team spirit doesn’t win you matches but it can help you lose them. The collective strength is above everything and Kylian is the best shining example.” Continue reading...
Football Daily | Time waits for no man, nor Cristiano Ronaldo’s football legacy
Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!Before Football Daily’s inbox is flooded by an angry reader with fingers busier than Arsenal fans at a Viktor Gyökores lookalike contest, we would like to shout from the rooftops that Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the greatest male football players of all time. How far up or down that list is another matter, but there is no denying his place at the top table of our sport. Clutch moments, sublime bits of skill and athleticism, a trophy cabinet big enough to holiday in: Ronaldo has done (almost) everything for club and country. But time waits for no man.Football died a bit yesterday, didn’t it? No one actually saw the ball touch Igor Matanovic’s head for Croatia against Portugal. The ball’s trajectory didn’t change significantly, even the ball’s spin didn’t change. Yet the computer sensor felt something, and thus we must all bow to it. What’s objective to a machine is more objective than our own sense apparatus. This feels momentous – not a ‘paradigm shift’ or anything so dramatic, but it does encapsulate in a neat anecdote how our attitude to technology has been changing over the decades, how we feel happier and happier to delegate important decisions to it, how we become, in a literal way, ever more irresponsible. The GWC, as several of your own writers have already described it, is a weirdly warped microcosm of the world at large. And what happened yesterday can be read as a very ill omen” – Fábio Ribeiro. Continue reading...