Football Features

Latest features articles covering football.

Jul 21, 2026

France national football team players: Zidane’s first 23, the six debutants and Mbappé’s 67 goals

Zidane’s first window as France coach brought ten points from 12 and six debutants. Here are his 23 players, with caps and goals correct to 5 October...

Jul 20, 2026

Germany national football team players: Klopp’s 44, ten debutants and a first defeat to Greece

Jürgen Klopp named 44 players in two groups for his first Germany camp and used 36 of them. Every name with caps, goals and appearances, plus the resu...

Jul 20, 2026

Rodri and Spain dominate the 2026 World Cup awards, Mbappe takes the Golden Boot

Rodri won the Golden Ball, Unai Simon the Golden Glove and Pau Cubarsi the Young Player award as Spain swept the individual honours. Kylian Mbappe was...

Jul 19, 2026

Messi and Yamal: two Barcelona generations meet in the World Cup final

Messi is 39 and probably saying goodbye. Yamal is 19 and just getting started. The World Cup final puts two players from the same club lineage on oppo...

Jul 18, 2026

The Premier League is paying grown-up money for teenagers this summer

Brighton’s club-record £46m for 19-year-old Luka Vuskovic, plus heavy fees for teenagers at Newcastle and Manchester City, point to a summer window be...

Jul 18, 2026

England national football team players: Tuchel’s 25, the 7-0 in Rijeka and Kane level with Shilton

Spain won at Wembley, then England won three in a row without conceding. Every player Tuchel had in the camp, with caps and goals after the Czechia ga...

Jul 17, 2026

Spain national football team players: the squad after four Nations League wins, and Yamal’s 11 goals

Spain won all four Nations League games in September and October and are already in the quarter-finals. Here are the 30 players de la Fuente called up...

Jul 17, 2026

Messi edges Mbappe on assists as the World Cup Golden Boot goes to the wire

Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe are locked together on eight goals with one game each left, and the tie-break maths currently leaves the Argentine in f...

Jul 17, 2026

Germany turn to Klopp to rebuild after their World Cup disaster

After the humiliation of a round-of-32 exit to Paraguay and Nagelsmann’s resignation, Germany are on the brink of handing Jurgen Klopp his first inter...

Jul 16, 2026

A World Cup final of opposites: Spain’s control against Messi’s Argentina

Spain reached the World Cup final with the tournament’s meanest defence; Argentina got there on Lionel Messi and a habit of late drama. Sunday’s showp...

Jul 14, 2026

Tottenham’s record £237m summer is a huge bet on Roberto De Zerbi

Two months after scrapping for survival, Tottenham have spent more in one window than ever before. It is a huge bet on Roberto De Zerbi, and on the id...

Jul 14, 2026

MLS keeps luring Europe’s icons as its summer window swings open

Allan Saint-Maximin’s move to Charlotte is the latest sign of a trend. As the MLS summer window opens, some of Europe’s biggest names keep heading to...

Jul 13, 2026

Brazil national football team players: the 26 Ancelotti used, and the ten who made their debuts

Every player Carlo Ancelotti took to Australia and India, with caps, goals and clubs after the three friendlies, plus who was left out and Brazil’s No...

Jul 13, 2026

Mbappe leads Messi by an assist as the World Cup Golden Boot race reaches the semis

Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi are tied on eight goals, Erling Haaland is stuck on seven and out of the tournament, and Harry Kane is chasing on six....

Jul 12, 2026

Messi faces England at last as an old World Cup rivalry returns in the semis

Wednesday’s semi-final in Atlanta pits Thomas Tuchel’s England against Lionel Messi’s Argentina, reviving a fixture last played in 2005 and one Messi...

Jul 11, 2026

Neymar’s Brazil career ends where it began, and without the World Cup that shadowed it

Neymar has walked away from international football as Brazil’s all-time top scorer, bookending his career at the same New Jersey stadium where it star...

Jul 9, 2026

The greatest Indian football players of all time

From the golden-era greats of the 1950s and 60s to Sunil Chhetri’s record-breaking goals, these are the greatest Indian football players of all time,...

Jul 9, 2026

Elliot Anderson is now the most expensive British footballer ever

A £116m move to Manchester City turns a player Newcastle sold two years ago into the costliest British footballer in history.

Jul 8, 2026

A booking from the semis: the yellow-card tightrope facing the World Cup’s last eight

FIFA wipes every yellow card after the World Cup quarter-finals, leaving a clutch of players a single booking away from missing a semi-final. England,...

Jul 7, 2026

The World Cup’s three hosts are all out, and the last eight has no home team

Canada, Mexico and the United States each reached the last 16 and each fell there within three days, leaving the quarter-finals of their own tournamen...

Jul 6, 2026

Argentina national football team players: the squad after Messi’s farewell, and the eight debutants

Argentina won three home friendlies 14-0 in the window that ended with Lionel Messi’s farewell, and handed eight players their first caps. Here is the...

Jul 6, 2026

Norway reach a first World Cup quarter-final and get an England side built to win it all

Erling Haaland’s Norway are into the last eight for the first time in their history. Waiting for them in Miami on July 11 is Thomas Tuchel’s England,...

Jul 5, 2026

Morocco are the story of the World Cup again as the Atlas Lions reach the last eight

A 3-0 win over Canada has carried Morocco into the World Cup quarter-finals, the first African side to reach the last eight of two World Cups in a row...

Jul 5, 2026

Mbappe and Messi are level at the top of the World Cup Golden Boot race

Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi are locked together on seven goals at the top of the World Cup Golden Boot race, with Harry Kane and Erling Haaland lur...