Bruno Fernandes and João Neves both score hat-tricks Result seals top spot above Ireland in Group F Portugal qualified for the 2026 World Cup on Sunday with a 9-1 hammering of Armenia in Porto that included hat-tricks from both Bruno Fernandes and João Neves. The reigning Nations League champions were forced to wait to book an automatic spot after losing 2-0 to the Republic of Ireland on Thursday in a game where their captain Cristiano Ronaldo was sent off. However, Roberto Martínez’s side needed no help from their all-time top scorer in a one-sided match that assured them top spot in Group F with 13 points, giving Ronaldo the opportunity to play at a record sixth World Cup. Continue reading...

⚽ All the latest news from around the football world ⚽ Fixtures | Tables | Get in touch! You can email David Republic of Ireland 2-0 Portugal. While England winning 2-0 generated nothing much more than a shrug around the football world, another qualifier ending in that same scoreline raised lots of eyebrows. Fantastic stuff from the Irish as two goals from Troy Parrott secured a famous win in Dublin and kept their playoff hopes alive. And just for extra craic for the home fans filing out of the Aviva, Cristiano Ronaldo was sent off! More details here on the best sporting performance from a Parrott since John beat Jimmy White 18-11 in the final of the 1991 world snooker championship. Good morning! Before the deep dive, let’s start with the bread and butter: David Hytner’s match report of England 2-0 Serbia. Continue reading...

India are struggling at domestic and international level, and are now missing out on hosting two superstars of the game In September 1977 an Indian astrologer predicted that Pelé would fall ill in Kolkata and be unable to take the pitch for Santos in an exhibition against Mohun Bagan. In the end the Brazilian did actually play to the delight of 60,000 fans but almost half a century later, there was perhaps even more excitement, with Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi set to appear on the subcontinent in the space of a month. This time, though, any doomsayer would be correct. Ronaldo didn’t come in October and Messi will not in November. Without getting into that debate, Ronaldo’s absence is more painful simply because he was due to play in a competitive fixture, by some distance the biggest name ever to appear in a real game on Indian soil. August’s draw for the AFC Champions League Two put Al-Nassr in the same group as FC Goa, where the hotel for the visitors reserved the presidential suite for the five-time Ballon d’Or winner for the 22 October game. Continue reading...

Portugal great joins Bloomberg Billionaires Index with net worth $1.4bn 40-year-old signed $400m deal with Saudi side Al-Nassr in June Cristiano Ronaldo has become the first footballer to reach billionaire status, according to the latest Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which has valued the Portugal great’s net worth at an estimated $US1.4bn. The 40-year-old striker’s financial ascent comes after he signed a new contract with Saudi side Al-Nassr in June reportedly worth more than $400m. Continue reading...

Kane hits landmark to beat Ronaldo and Haaland Marseille go top after late 2-1 victory at Strasbourg Harry Kane scored his 100th goal for Bayern Munich on Friday night, reaching the landmark in just 104 matches to become the fastest player this century to reach 100 goals for a single club. The England captain was on target twice in a 4-0 home win against Werder Bremen, taking him to three figures and extending Bayern’s 100% record after five Bundesliga outings. In doing so Kane has nudged ahead of Erling Haaland and Cristiano Ronaldo, who took 105 matches to reach three figures for Manchester City and Real Madrid respectively. The pair had jointly shared the scoring record in Europe’s top five leagues but Kane has now gone clear on his own. Continue reading...

Veteran striker on target twice in 5-0 win against Armenia Nigeria keep hopes of reaching 2026 finals alive Cristiano Ronaldo scored his 139th and 140th international goals as Portugal thrashed Armenia 5-0 in their first match since the death of Diogo Jota in a car accident in July. A minute’s silence was held before the World Cup qualifier in honour of Jota, who won 49 caps for Portugal, and banners were on display around the Vazgen Sargsyan Republican Stadium in Yerevan. Continue reading...

American investment has recently arrived and the ‘big five’ clubs will contest the title in an increasingly strong league The Saudi Pro League season kicks off on Thursday, just before the international break, when Cristiano Ronaldo will probably make headlines by saying the Saudi Pro League is one of the top five in the world. If so, the 40-year-old is bound to reference Al-Hilal reaching the quarter-finals of the Club World Cup, drawing with Real Madrid then beating Manchester City 4-3. There is now something else, though, that the league has in common with its European counterparts – US money. In July the ministry of sports announced that three clubs had passed into private hands. Al-Kholood, the only one in the top tier, have been taken over by an American investment company, the Harburg Group, run by the venture capital investor Ben Harburg. “The first three Saudi sports clubs have been privatised through a public offering – Al Ansar, Al Kholood, and Al Zulfi – with their ownership transferred to investment entities,” the ministry said Continue reading...

After years spent in striker-less formations, the Premier League’s top teams are seemingly all set to rely on a big body (or two) up top Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here It’s only been a decade since it seemed the center-forward was being refined out of existence. Spain had won Euro 2012 with Cesc Fàbregas as a false nine, and Germany, who largely took Spain as a model, were less than convinced they needed one at the 2014 World Cup. They fielded Thomas Müller as a false-ish nine until the quarter-final, when Jögi Löw finally went back to basics and turned to Miroslav Klose. That he was 36 only seemed to confirm that the old-fashioned No 9 was an old-fashioned phenomenon – a dying breed. Yet this summer, the main interest in the transfer market has been the carousel of strikers. Of course, strikers never entirely disappeared. The four leading scorers in the Premier League in 2014–15 were Sergio Agüero, Harry Kane, Diego Costa and Charlie Austin. Mauri Icardi and Luca Toni topped the charts in Italy, while Cristiano Ronaldo, his conversion to A No 9 complete, was top scorer in Spain (although that he was followed by Lionel Messi, Antoine Griezmann, and Neymar suggested a greater variety of goalscorer there). Continue reading...

Today’s rumours are the very modern man It is very difficult to find a top quality No 9 in the game and with Paris Saint-Germain’s Randal Kolo Muani available, a fun three-way battle could be heading the way of rumourmongers. Juventus have already had a bid rejected, although they are expected to return with a second offer. While they are crunching the numbers, Manchester United and Chelsea may sneak in with a superior financial package and steal the France international from under the Old Lady’s nose. João Felix is on his way out of Chelsea after making absolutely no impact at the club for a second time, leaving many to wonder why they bothered signing him in the first place. It looked as if he was heading back to his boyhood club Benfica but Al Nassr have stepped in with a €50m bid to lure the benchwarmer to Saudi Arabia, where he will join his international colleague Cristiano Ronaldo at the club. Continue reading...

Today’s fluff is propelled by a fan Alejandro Garnacho wants to leave Manchester United but is not too eager on moving to the Saudi Premier League, even if it means teaming up with Cristiano Ronaldo. Al-Nassr approached the Argentina winger to suggest a change of scene and a massive wage but Garnacho wants to play in Europe. The same reportedly goes for his United colleague Marcus Rashford, with the England forward waiting for Barcelona to make a bid. One United winger finally getting to leave permanently is Jadon Sancho, who has joined Juventus for £17.3m, only £60m or so less than they paid for him four years ago. Continue reading...

Ronaldo says teammate’s death ‘doesn’t make any sense’ Wolves say ‘memories he created will never be forgotten’ Tributes paid after accident in Spain – latest updates Jürgen Klopp and Cristiano Ronaldo led the tributes from across the football world to Diogo Jota after the Liverpool and Portugal forward was killed in a car accident in Spain. Jota’s brother, André, also died in the crash in the province of Zamora. Jota was 28, a father of three young children and had married his long-term partner, Rute Cardoso, less than a fortnight ago. Klopp, who signed Jota for Liverpool in 2020 and managed him for four seasons, posted on Instagram: “This is a moment where I struggle! There must be a bigger purpose! But I can’t see it! Continue reading...

In the social media age, football is a fraction of the Portuguese Übermensch’s appeal and he is untroubled by his paymasters’ morals The winners of next season’s AFC Champions League Two, Asia’s second-tier club competition, will receive about £1.8m. The winners of the Saudi King’s Cup will receive just over £1m. Prize money for the Saudi Pro League is not disclosed, but by the most recent available figures (for 2022-23) is in roughly the same area. Weekly attendances at the King Saud University Stadium, where top-tier ticket prices start at about £12, range between 10,000 and 25,000, although of course you also have to factor in pie and programme sales above that. And so you really have to applaud Al-Nassr’s ambition in handing an estimated £492m to Cristiano Ronaldo over the next two years. Even if they sweep the board at domestic level, if they fight their way past Istiklol of Tajikistan’s 1xBet Higher League and Al-Wehdat of the Jordanian Pro League, if they extract maximum value from merch and sponsorships, you still struggle to see how they can cover a basic salary that comes to £488,000 a day, even before the bonuses and blandishments that will push the total package well beyond that. Continue reading...

Portuguese star will be 42 when deal ends in June 2027 News brings recent transfer speculation to a close Cristiano Ronaldo has signed a new two-year deal at Al Nassr, extending his stay with the Saudi Pro League team to June 2027, when the forward will be 42. “Al Nassr Club Company officially signed a contract extension with Cristiano Ronaldo,” the Riyadh-based club posted on X. “[The] Al Nassr captain’s contract will be valid until 2027.” Continue reading...

What was once simply a garment that declared your affiliation to a club is now a global business earning millions from collectors of vintage kits On the second floor of an unprepossessing building on the outskirts of Amsterdam, there is a metal cabinet that destroys footballers’ DNA. The contraption belongs to MatchWornShirt and was part of a deal to sell the kits of Real Madrid players to the public. To allay concerns that the genetic material of Cristiano Ronaldo might escape into the wild, the steel wardrobe was built so that every shirt could be blasted by a germicidal lamp. For new, read old, because MatchWornShirt sells precisely what the company’s name suggests: kits that have been stuck to the bodies of professional athletes. Want the jersey Son Heung-min pulled on against Manchester United in the Europa League final? You can have it, if you beat the current auction price of £22,000. The very shirt Cole Palmer had on when he scored four first-half goals against Brighton last season? That went for £34,000. Continue reading...