WOLVERHAMPTON — Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Nuno Espirito Santo is to leave at the end of the season, the club said on Friday.
The 47-year-old has been in charge since 2017, guiding Wolves back to the Premier League in his first season at the helm and then enjoyed consecutive seventh-placed finishes.
TAKE A BOW, NUNO
Paul Riley is the most successful head coach in National Women’s Soccer League history. With three championships and three more NWSL Shields, the opinion of the Liverpool native carries a lot of weight in women’s soccer. And his opinion on the differences between his current league and the top flight in England highlight how far the FA Women’s Super League still has to go.
FC Barcelona Femení continued its monstrous season with a casual 8-0 victory against Athletic Club on Wednesday. This was the sixth time this season that Barcelona scored seven or more goals in a single game.
This Barcelona team is putting up statistics unheard of in the soccer sphere. After 27 league games, the Catalan side has won all 27, scored 136 goals and conceded five. Those are like video game numbers put up by an expert gamer who put the difficulty setting on amateur.
Not long ago, Central Scotland was home to a generational footballing talent. Scouts from across Europe descended on the coastal city of Dundee to watch teenage sensation Ryan Gauld as he slalomed past Premiership defenders and picked apart backlines with his inch-perfect passes.
Standing 5-5 (he has since grown to 5-7) with an innate quickness and a deft left foot, Gauld quickly drew comparisons to Lionel Messi — gaining him nicknames such as: "Baby Messi," "Mini Messi" and "Aberdeen Messi" (the last one a tribute to the youngster's hometown).
In the lower reaches of the English Football League, teams are largely comprised of journeymen. Squad turnover at this level is high, and with shorter contracts and higher financial volatility, players often play on different teams from season to season.
But few footballing nomads have ever reached the migratory magnitude that goalkeeper Josef Bursik has achieved this season. Thanks to numerous injury dilemmas at the Championship and League One level, the 20-year-old Stoke City goalkeeper has played for four different clubs in the 2020-21 campaign alone.
MANCHESTER, England - Manchester City's Rúben Dias was named England's Footballer of the Year on Thursday in the annual vote of the Football Writers' Association (FWA), making him the first defender to win the award since Steve Nicol in 1989.
The 24-year-old Portugal center back beat Totenham's Harry Kane and City teammate Kevin De Bruyne in the voting, with nine players from the Premier League winners receiving more than 50% of the total votes cast.
PARIS - Kylian Mbappé said he is delighted at the prospect of teaming up with Karim Benzema in the French side at next month’s European Championship.
Real Madrid striker Benzema was included in the squad on Tuesday after he and coach Didier Deschamps resolved their differences. His return ended a six-year absence from the French team, including missing out of their World Cup triumph in Russia in 2018.
MANCHESTER, England - England and Tottenham Hotspur striker Harry Kane says he wants a meeting with chairman Daniel Levy and made the strongest hints yet that he wants to leave the club.
"It's a moment in my career where I have to reflect and see where I'm at," Kane said in an interview with Gary Neville's Overlap YouTube channel. "Ultimately it's going to be down to me, how I feel and what's going to be the best for me and my career."
Paris Saint-Germain knocked off Monaco 2-0 in the Coupe de France final to claim its second trophy this season. Kylian Mbappé was the star of the show, recording a goal, an assist, showcasing flashy skill moves and being responsible for breaking commentator Ray Hudson.
It was clear from the jump that the French Cup final was going to be special with a remote-controlled car delivering the game ball.
Juventus claimed the 2020-21 Coppa Italia 2-1 with a commanding second-half display against Atalanta at the Mapei Stadium on Wednesday night. Dejan Kulusevski put Juve in front after receiving the ball from Weston McKennie, but Ruslan Malinovskiy answered for La Dea — seeking its first major title since the 1963 Coppa — setting the stage for Federico Chiesa’s excellent second-half winner.
4,300 fans were allowed into the stadium in northern Italy, amounting to the country’s largest attendance since the pandemic began.