Knockout rounds · Win or go home
Germany, gone. The Netherlands, gone. Cape Verde still standing. Three weeks into the biggest World Cup ever staged, the tournament has stopped being polite. FULL TIME is at every twist — written by fans, checked like journalism.
Read the latest Test your knowledgeAlejandro Balde's time at Barcelona appears to be winding down. The left-back has fallen to third or fourth choice under Hansi Flick, missed Spain's World Cup squad, and Barcelona have now given him permission to explore a January loan move. Manchester United, Liverpool and AC Milan are all in the picture.
Champions League Matchday 4 is complete. Bayern Munich, Arsenal and Inter Milan lead on 12 points. Liverpool beat Real Madrid. PSG lost at home to Bayern. Barcelona drew 3-3 with Club Brugge. Here is everything that happened.
Cristiano Ronaldo scored 146 goals in 234 appearances for Portugal, the all-time men's international record. No player in the history of the men's game has scored more goals for their country. Here is how he did it.
Cristiano Ronaldo's international career with Portugal lasted 23 years, produced 234 caps and 146 goals, and delivered the only major trophy in the history of Portuguese football. This is the full story of what he built.
Cristiano Ronaldo captained Portugal for more than 15 years, leading his country to a European Championship and two Nations League titles. His captaincy was as complicated and as brilliant as the man himself.
Cristiano Ronaldo has announced his retirement from the Portugal national team, ending a 23-year international career that produced 234 caps, 146 goals, and the only major trophy in Portuguese football history.
Cristiano Ronaldo appeared at six FIFA World Cups across 20 years of trying to win the one prize that always eluded him. No player in history has appeared at more. Here is the full story of Ronaldo and the World Cup.
Harry Kane is set to extend his Bayern Munich contract until 2029, according to Sky Sport Germany. The deal is in its final stages after Kane's historic 2026 Ballon d'Or win, which Bayern moved quickly to secure following his record-breaking season.
Julian Alvarez has reportedly given Arsenal the green light for a January 2027 transfer from Atletico Madrid. The Argentine turned down Arsenal in the summer after holding out for Barcelona, but with that move now off the table, the January window looks like his moment to leave.
Barcelona put six past Alavés to maintain their lead at the top of La Liga after Matchday 11. Real Madrid won 3-0 at Racing Santander to stay within touching distance. Atletico Madrid beat Levante 2-0. Here is the full roundup.
Manchester United are 16th in the Premier League, without a win in eight games, and their manager has survived repeated calls to leave. The board have kept Michael Carrick despite a terrible run, partly because sacking him would cost £8.8m. Fabrizio Romano confirmed the club is staying quiet on the situation. Gary Neville said he was surprised they kept him.
West Ham United have sacked manager Nuno Espirito Santo following a poor start to the Championship season. Back-to-back home defeats to Southampton and West Bromwich Albion left the club eighth in the table, one place outside the play-off positions. Scott Parker is reported to be the frontrunner for the job.
Arsenal are top of the Premier League after Matchweek 9, following a 1-0 win at Liverpool on 1 November. Chelsea beat Manchester United. Manchester City lost at home to Brighton. Here is the full picture from the latest round of fixtures.
AC Milan beat Inter Milan 3-1 in the Milan derby to announce their arrival as a Serie A title contender. Juventus beat Napoli 2-0 to go top of the table. Roma hammered Udinese 5-2. Here is everything from Serie A Matchweek 10.
Luis de la Fuente has won the men's Coach of the Year award at the Ballon d'Or ceremony in London, recognised for leading Spain to World Cup victory. Pere Romeu won the women's award for his work at Barcelona.
Lamine Yamal has won the men's Kopa Trophy at the 2026 Ballon d'Or ceremony in London, recognised as the best young player in world football. Vicky Lopez won the women's equivalent.
Paris Saint-Germain have won the Men's Club of the Year award at the 2026 Ballon d'Or ceremony in London, capping a remarkable season in which the French club placed more players in the men's rankings than any other side in world football.
Arsenal and England forward Bukayo Saka has won the 2026 Socrates Award at the Ballon d'Or ceremony in London, the prize awarded to the player who best combines sporting excellence with social commitment.
Harry Kane has won the Men's Striker of the Year award at the 2026 Ballon d'Or, completing a remarkable double alongside his main Ballon d'Or victory. Charlyn Corral won the Women's Striker of the Year award at the same ceremony.
The full Ballon d'Or 2026 rankings have been revealed at the London Palladium ceremony. Here are all the confirmed men's and women's positions from the 70th edition of football's most prestigious individual award.
Athletic Bilbao's Unai Simon has won the 2026 Yashin Trophy, awarded to the world's best goalkeeper, while Barcelona's Cata Coll claimed the women's equivalent at the ceremony in London.
Harry Kane has won the 2026 Ballon d'Or at the London Palladium. The Bayern Munich and England striker claimed football's most prestigious individual prize on home soil, capping a season of 73 goals with the one award that had always eluded him.
The Ballon d'Or 2026 ceremony takes place on 26 October at the London Palladium, the first time London has ever hosted football's most prestigious individual award. Harry Kane and Lamine Yamal lead the betting. Here is the complete guide.
The 2026-27 Champions League opened with a bang as Europe's heavyweights served notice of their intentions across a memorable matchday one.
Harry Kane scored more goals than anyone else in the world over the Ballon d'Or reference period. He won the European Golden Shoe. He carried England to the World Cup final. The case for the Bayern Munich striker is not complicated. It is just a question of whether the voters agree.
Eight weeks in and La Liga 2026-27 is already shaping up as one of the most compelling seasons in years, with Barcelona running away at the top and Real Madrid fighting to stay relevant.
Lamine Yamal won La Liga. He played the full 120 minutes of a World Cup final and came out on the winning side. He is 19 years old and has already finished second in this vote. The case for the Barcelona forward is not about potential. It is about what he has already done.
With Mohamed Salah gone, new ownership in place, and three marquee signings through the door, Liverpool under Andoni Iraola are constructing something genuinely new at Anfield.
Seven La Liga goals, a club sitting fourth, and controversy swirling beyond the pitch. Kylian Mbappe's 2026-27 season at Real Madrid is a study in complexity.
He arrived at Barcelona at 13 with a contract written on a napkin and a body that needed medical treatment just to grow. He leaves Argentina football at 39 with 98 international goals, a World Cup medal, and a farewell that made 84,000 people stand and sing for an hour after the whistle. This is the complete story.
A season that started a week late because of the World Cup has already delivered. Arsenal and City are level at the top, Coventry have yet to score, and Tottenham are in freefall. Here is everything you need to know about the 2026-27 Premier League.
He wrote the retirement note two days after the World Cup final. He kept it private for six weeks. Then, on a Tuesday night in Buenos Aires, Lionel Messi said goodbye to Argentina at the Estadio Monumental.
France fans chanted 'Olise Ballon d'Or' at the Stade de France after he came off the bench and scored twice against Belgium. Three records in one night, 17 goal contributions in 2026. The 24-year-old from Bayern Munich has arrived.
The Nations League is back and the storylines are extraordinary: Ronaldo walks out, Olise breaks records, England thrash Croatia 7-0, and Portugal win 4-2 without their greatest ever player. Here is everything happening in Europe's October football.
He was benched against Norway. He was left out against Denmark. He walked out of the camp in Copenhagen with the whole of Portugal watching. Ronaldo's rupture with Jorge Jesus is the most dramatic football story of October 2026.
Cape Verde unbeaten in normal time. Germany and the Netherlands gone in round one. Mbappé's record. Messi's farewell. Spain unbeaten from group stage to trophy. The 2026 World Cup will take decades to fully absorb.
Five years after missing the Euro 2020 final penalty as a teenager, Bukayo Saka ended his first World Cup with a hat-trick, four goals and a bronze medal. The journey between those two moments is one of sport's finest redemption arcs.
At 27, Kylian Mbappé has more World Cup goals than any man in history. He has more tournaments still ahead of him. The conversation about where this ends has barely started.
Spain won the tournament and then swept almost every individual award inside it. Mbappé broke the all-time record. Messi left with silver. A full breakdown of who won what, and why.
England led 4–0 at half-time and nearly blew it. Saka scored a hat-trick. Mbappé broke the all-time World Cup record. Bellingham sealed it in stoppage time. The match nobody cared about became the one everyone will remember.
England led with five minutes left. Then Enzo Fernández bent one in from distance, and Messi's cross found Lautaro in the 92nd. Forty years on, Argentina broke English hearts again.
A 19-year-old's birthday wish, a penalty-box theft, and the quiet suffocation of the world's number one team. Spain are in the final — and they made it look inevitable.
Egypt led the world champions 2–0 with 11 minutes left — after VAR had already wiped out a goal for contact at the other end of the pitch. What followed still divides the football world.
Maradona's hand. Beckham's red card. Owen's run. Now, for the first time ever, England and Argentina meet in a World Cup semi-final — forty years after the Azteca.
Miroslav Klose's record stood untouched for twelve years. It has now been broken twice in a single month — by two men who are still playing in this tournament.
A missed penalty redeemed, a substitute goalkeeper's nightmare, the Cable of God and a 112th-minute golazo. The last eight, reviewed in full.
A thunderstorm, a Bellingham double, a red card and two penalties. Mexico's fortress fell, the quinto partido died again — and England buried a 40-year ghost.
He scored at six World Cups. Nobody else has scored at five. In Dallas, in tears, clutching the armband, Cristiano Ronaldo's World Cup story ended.
Haaland sank Brazil. Belgium routed the hosts amid the strangest suspension saga in World Cup history. The round of 16 spared nobody.
Messi owns the World Cup goal record. Cape Verde own the tournament's heart. On Friday, Miami hosts football's most beautiful mismatch.
Balogun scored, then saw red on a VAR call nobody understood. What ten American men did next ended 24 years of waiting.
Three draws, three points, no defeats — and now the World Cup debutants get Messi's Argentina.
Four matches, eight goals, none conceded. Now England come to the Azteca — and a nation dares to dream past the quarter-finals.
Critics called the round of 32 padding. Then Paraguay and Morocco turned it into a graveyard for European heavyweights.
48 teams, 104 matches, three nations, sixteen cities. The biggest tournament ever staged kicks off now.
22 June 1986. The Azteca. One man, one match, two goals — one infamous, one immortal.
The final is scheduled for 19 July 2026 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. It will crown the champion of the first 48-team World Cup.
Forty-eight — up from thirty-two. The expanded format produces 104 matches across the United States, Canada and Mexico, the most in World Cup history.
Brazil, with five titles: 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002. They remain the only nation to have appeared at every World Cup.
Miroslav Klose of Germany, with 16 goals across four tournaments from 2002 to 2014. He broke Ronaldo's record of 15 at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
Uruguay, in 1930. The hosts beat Argentina 4–2 in the final in Montevideo, at the purpose-built Estadio Centenario.
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