Category: Football (Soccer)

Football (Soccer) News

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Manchester City’s title hopes hit after Rico Lewis’ late red at Crystal Palace

The way things have been going for Pep Guardiola, this could have been much worse. With his side having twice fallen behind to a Crystal Palace side brimming with renewed confidence, the Manchester City manager saw Erling Haaland end his mini drought with a 13th Premier League goal of the season before Rico Lewis equalised again to end the losing run of five successive away matches.

Even if this was another afternoon to forget for the underperforming Kyle Walker, whose mistakes helped Daniel Muñoz and Maxence Lacroix establish the lead, City will be thankful to have emerged with something after Lewis was shown a second yellow card in the later stages.

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Leeds sink Derby from unlikely sources and return to Championship summit

Joe Rodon and Max Wöber stepped out of defence to score their first goals for Leeds as Daniel Farke’s side moved to the top of the Championship, ahead of Sheffield United on goal difference.

Given that Illan Meslier, Farke’s goalkeeper, was so underemployed he appeared in danger of hypothermia by the end, it is probably to safe to assume that Tuesday night’s engagement with a key promotion rival in Michael Carrick’s Middlesbrough will be somewhat tougher but Leeds still did enough to suggest they should not be underestimated.

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Liverpool facing fixture backlog after Merseyside derby falls to Storm Darragh

  • Safety risk at Goodison Park with rain and 70mph wind
  • Leaders left with little leeway in their packed calendar

Liverpool are facing acute ­fixture congestion after Saturday’s ­postponement of the Merseyside derby because of Storm Darragh. Should the Premier League leaders win their Carabao Cup quarter-final at Southampton on 18 December they will have a midweek game every week until mid-February, with the exception of new year.

That would leave them with little leeway in a packed calendar to face Everton for the 245th edition of the derby and the final one in the league at Goodison Park. Liverpool’s next game will be against Girona in the Champions League on Tuesday with Everton travelling to Arsenal next Saturday.

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Premier League’s flying ball-carriers are breathing fresh life into elite game | Barney Ronay

Dribbling runners such as Tyler Dibling are exhilarating to watch, and a reminder that football always finds new forms

The Premier League has got more exciting. And it’s fine, really. For the more grudging among us it can be hard to accept this at face value, if only because the league is always telling you how exciting it already is, the regular in-house TV hosts styling the whole experience with the glazed and proselytising look of shopping channel presenters trying to sell you a hamper of executive cheese.

But sometimes the hamper of cheese is just good. The games are exciting right now. The median standard of teams is high. Financial power, improved scouting, the presence of clued-up global data nerds mean even the weaker teams are studded with mindbogglingly good footballing hyper-athletes. Ah yes, club that was quite recently in League One and represented on the pitch by men who look as if they’ve just been dishonourably discharged from the navy. You appear to have signed a 21-year-old Paraguayan genius made entirely from elastic and feathers.

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MLS Cup is a chance for LA Galaxy to become the league’s glamour club again

The club of David Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimović and Robbie Keane has been through a downturn. A sixth title would restore some shine

As Major League Soccer moved into a new age with Inter Miami’s signing of Lionel Messi last year, the LA Galaxy had seemingly been left behind as a relic of different era. The club of David Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimović and Robbie Keane failed to make the playoffs for the fifth time in seven seasons. Supporters protested against the Galaxy’s leadership and boycotted matches. MLS’s original glamour club had lost its shine.

Now, though, the Galaxy are just one game from a record sixth MLS Cup title with Greg Vanney’s team hosting the New York Red Bulls in Saturday’s championship decider. Ten years after they last lifted the trophy, the Galaxy have the opportunity to reassert their standing as the league’s marquee franchise while Messi and Co watch from home.

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Alex Iwobi scores twice as Fulham march past Brighton

Alex Iwobi scored twice as Fulham marched into the top half of the Premier League with a win over Brighton at Craven Cottage.

The Cottagers were pegged back after Iwobi’s quickfire opener by Carlos Baleba’s fine strike early in the second half. But Matt O’Riley’s own goal gifted them the lead again and Iwobi hit his second to ensure Brighton have still never beaten Fulham in the Premier League.

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Messi Fueled 13% MLS Sponsorship Rise in 2024, Report Says

The Lionel Messi tide continues to lift all boats in MLS when it comes to attracting new sponsorships. Ahead of Saturday’s MLS Cup, SponsorUnited released its latest report on MLS marketing partnerships, which found sponsorship dollars for the league and its clubs rose to $665 million in 2024, up 13% from a year ago and …