German club Mainz have lost a court appeal for wrongful dismissal by Dutch winger Anwar El Ghazi over social media posts regarding the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Plus: more football records that were rapidly broken and Home Nations players from the crown dependencies Mail us with your questions and answers “In September, Lithuania became the lowest Fifa-ranked country (143rd) to score against the Netherlands, who were ranked seventh,” writes Pete Tomlin. “That means a difference of 136 places between the two countries. I have two questions upon hearing this – which is the lowest-ranked team to score against England (since the rankings began in 1992) and what is the biggest difference between teams where the lower-ranked team has scored? I was thinking of the respective rankings at the time the matches took place rather than current rankings.” The Netherlands, who won that match 3-2 in September, will meet Lithuania in the return fixture on Monday. The respective rankings are now sixth and 146th so the gap will be 140 places if Lithuania manage to score in Amsterdam. 65 North Macedonia 1-1 England, November 2023 75 Albania 1-3 England, March 2001 87 Macedonia 1-2 England, September 2003 91 England 2-2 Macedonia, October 2002 116 Northern Ireland 1-0 England, September 2005 118 Malta 1-2 England, June 2000 120 England 5-3 Kosovo, September 2019 122 San Marino 1-7 England, November 1993 131 England 5-1 Kazakhstan, October 2008 Matt Le Tissier England, 8 caps, 1994-97 (b Guernsey) Maya Le Tissier England, 10 caps, 2022- (b Guernsey) Graeme Le Saux England, 36 caps, 1994-2000 (b Jersey) Kieran Tierney Scotland, 50 caps, 2016- (b Isle of Man) Continue reading...
Amorim: ‘We have a lot of problems, we’re just in the beginning’ Frank defends substitutions after jeers from fans Ruben Amorim accused Manchester United of feeling too comfortable after they salvaged a draw from the jaws of defeat at Tottenham in a game they had led for long periods. Matthijs de Ligt’s 96th-minute header ensured United are five games unbeaten but their levels varied wildly in a match they controlled after Bryan Mbeumo’s first-half goal. They were overhauled by strikes from Mathys Tel and Richarlison before the last-gasp salvation act and Amorim expressed concern that they had drifted through spells of the game while ahead. Continue reading...
How to make sense of a match that, so low on quality for the majority, swung in every conceivable direction in its final 15 minutes? Tottenham were on the brink of a potentially transformative win for Thomas Frank when Mathys Tel, who had only been on the pitch for five minutes, equalised out of nowhere before Richarlison glanced in an apparent clincher early in added time. It would have been their first league victory at home since the opening day but then Matthijs de Ligt, getting on the end of a deep corner with virtually the final action, extended Manchester United’s run of encouraging form. Head scratching was the only response; from Frank’s point of view at least Bryan Mbeumo, his former charge at Brentford, had not decided matters with his first-half header. Continue reading...
Wayne Rooney gives his side of THAT post match chat with Virgil van Dijk.
‘Isak had to go off because he felt his groin,’ says manager Striker played first half of 5-1 Champions League rout Arne Slot welcomed an emphatic end to Liverpool’s losing run but fears he could be without Alexander Isak for several weeks after the British record signing sustained a groin problem against Eintracht Frankfurt. Liverpool produced a 5-1 rout in Germany with Slot’s call for set-piece improvement answered by two goals from corners by Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konaté. The win ended a sequence of four successive defeats for the Premier League champions but Isak had to be withdrawn after 45 minutes of his second start in four days. Slot believes the workload may have been too much for the striker, who missed most of pre-season at Newcastle in his attempt to force a £125m move to Liverpool. Continue reading...
Injury-hit and under pressure, Hansi Flick turned to defender turned makeshift striker to take them top of La Liga “I told my teammates: ‘If I go on, I’ll score,’ and everybody laughed,” Ronald Araújo said but they weren’t laughing now. Actually, wait, no: they were laughing now. Laughing and shouting and swearing and scrambling to escape the bench, like someone had set fire to it. Someone like him: 6ft 3in and 15 stone of Uruguayan beef, tearing off his top and leaping over the boards advertising Kicking My Feet, fists thudding at his bare chest while Barcelona’s players chased him, Frenkie de Jong leapt on for a ride, and over on the far side of Montjuic the manager who wasn’t supposed to be there let rip. “It’s football, it’s emotion,” Hansi Flick said. When it’s like this especially. On a weekend when the first 15 seconds of every game weren’t played at all and weren’t always broadcast either – La Liga distracting everyone from the 22-man standstill protests over their unilateral decision to go to Miami by encouraging cameras to look elsewhere and commentators to talk about something else – the best was instead saved for the final seconds when attention was actually on the pitch. And there it was all kicking off. Properly, this time. Continue reading...
Record signing and Liverpool talisman continue to toil but it is crumbling foundations at back where real problems lie The time has come to start judging Alexander Isak fairly as a £125m Liverpool centre forward, Arne Slot said on Friday. In that case judgment must be harsh but, as Britain’s most expensive footballer sat alongside Mohamed Salah on the Liverpool bench while the Premier League champions tried in vain to force an equaliser against Manchester United without them, it was not Slot’s misfiring forward line that warranted the fiercest criticism at Anfield. His defensive foundation has evaporated. Yes, Isak was largely anonymous in the No 9 role and Salah again poor as his individual toils continued against the club he usually plunders. The Sweden international had his first shot on target in the Premier League as a Liverpool player in the 35th minute, well saved by United’s latest goalkeeper Senne Lammens. Salah squandered a glorious second-half chance in front of the Kop and neither could complain when their numbers eventually came up. Cody Gakpo also struck the woodwork three times and somehow failed to score a second moments after Harry Maguire’s winner. Continue reading...
Rapper, philanthropist, muse - Memphis Depay is not your conventional footballer, but he is Netherlands' all-time top scorer.
