Football

Missing the country's second World Cup in a row, Italy's European Championship victory last summer now appears like a blue mirage

Not for the first time in recent history, Barcelona is playing beautifully while living on bank loans that almost defy financial gravity

Paris St Germain's superstar project has failed and the fans are turning their fire on their expensive acquisitions

Chelsea’s future is uncertain and manager Thomas Tuchel finds himself asked questions about war and morality instead of tactics and injuries

Shakhtar Donetsk dream of being the Chelsea of the east, but just playing a game at home seems as far away as ever

Kurt Zouma's animal cruelty is just the latest wretched revelation for football, says ROB HUGHES

The Premier League club's decision to stick with a player videoed kicking a cat shows it exists in a moral vacuum, writes MATT WITHERS

Africa is finally getting something back from the long, long money trail that has procured its talents for the rich Europeans

Long deemed "unmanageable", Mario Balotelli might be the man to rescue Italy's World Cup qualification

ROB HUGHES on the potential return of Christian Eriksen, eight months after his heart stopped suddenly on the pitch

Lawyer Joe Tacopina has represented the great and the not-so-good. But what’s he doing as the owner of a club in Italy’s Serie B? By RYAN HERMAN

Two of the leading lights behind the failed European Super League bid have since gone in very different directions

Freiburg's Christian Streich is similar to a managerial legend in more ways than one

Football's authorities need to pay more attention to players' physical and mental burnout, says ROB HUGHES

Diego Maradona’s move to Sevilla in 1992 was supposed to be a rebirth. Instead, it resulted in more controversy and the start of a decline that ended with his death a year ago this month.

You could now almost fill a team with the number of players and pundits ready to take a stand against this abysmal government.

Like Emma Raducanu, Jamal Musiala has become the new Wunderkind of his sport, writes ROB HUGHES

Arsène Wenger changed the Premier League forever. Now, he tells ALASTAIR CAMPBELL he’s creating radical ideas about how the sport itself should evolve while sharing a few thoughts on the present day

Italy is not only in it's financial conundrum. The summer transfer window shows the unequal distribution of wealth in global football, writes ROB HUGHES

If Bryan Robson is right, the value of Cristiano Ronaldo’s return to Manchester United could extend beyond the pitch, writes Rob Hughes

Gerd Müller, who died earlier this month, was not only a Bayern Munich icon but a man who gave Germans their pride again. So when he fell, club and country helped pick him up By ROB HUGHES

Giuseppe Meazza was the greatest footballer Milan, and arguably Italy, ever produced, meaning many turned a blind eye to his excessive habits

A tale of two Jurgens and the power of German coaching

As he approaches 70, the veteran coach is ready to make the orange brilliant again

Rob Hughes asks how long Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi will stay at the top before they finally retire from football Some day, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo will cease being the most extraordinarily gifted among more than 250 million men and women playing football around the world. Their body clocks are ticking. They face […]

MITCH BENN offers four good reasons to feel proud of England’s footballers and to look forward to the World Cup despite their Euro final defeat to Italy By the time you read this, several days will have passed since England’s defeat (on penalties, inevitably) at the Euros final on Sunday.  How are things going, up there […]

ROB HUGHES examines England’s near-miss at the Euros and finds that for all their advantages, a change of mindset is necessary at the top So near, and yet so far. England released itself from the European Union, but remain far from the world-beaters some fans imagine it is their birthright to be as the motherland of […]

Ireland’s former ambassador to the UK BOBBY McDONAGH says political tensions mean many of his compatriots have found it much tougher to lend their support this time When the president of Ireland, Michael D Higgins, made a state visit to the UK in 2014, he expressed the hope that the England football team would “go all the […]

England's footballers have brought joy to the nation. Nonetheless, ROB HUGHES explains how our opponents still have much to teach us

Scotland fan ALASTAIR CAMPBELL on his texts with Gareth Southgate, meeting Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling – and why he’s found England so easy to like this summer I wouldn’t overstate my England football credentials, but I have seen Harry Kane naked but for his underpants (more later); and Raheem Sterling has given me a guided tour of […]

Sometimes brooding, sometimes brilliant, sometimes bludgeoning, Roberto Mancini’s remoulded Italy face a Euros date with destiny against Belgium European football is never complete without Italy. Sometimes brooding, sometimes brilliant, sometimes bludgeoning, Roberto Mancini’s remoulded Azzurri will on Friday aim to make Roberto Martinez’s Golden Generation of Belgium suffer and perhaps be suffocated in Munich. The […]

John Blankenstein was back-page news when he took charge of England’s first match at the 1992 Euros – but it wasn’t his refereeing the newspapers were interested in… When England faced Denmark in their opening match of the 1992 Euros, many tabloid-reading fans knew as much about the referee as they did about the Danes. […]