Europe

Lionel Messi must stay at Barcelona so he can lead the team for the remainder of his career and play a strategic role when he retires, the club's presidential candidate Victor Font told Reuters.

The six-times World Player of the Year and Barca’s all-time top scorer came close to leaving the Catalans in August after his relationship with then president Josep Maria Bartomeu turned sour. But the Argentine can leave the club, where he has spent his entire career, for free at the end of this season unless he pens a new contract before the end of June.

The FIFA Club World Cup, originally planned for December, will now be held from Feb. 1 to Feb. 11 in Doha, Qatar, organizers FIFA said on Tuesday.

The tournament brings together the six continental champions from across the world, with European Champions League winners Bayern Munich the first to have qualified. Last season's tournament ended with Liverpool beating Brazilian club Flamengo in the final.

Former Iran striker Ali Daei has said he would be honored to see Cristiano Ronaldo break his record for the most goals in international soccer as the Portugal forward moves closer to his tally of 109.

Ronaldo, the only other centurion in the men's international arena, has scored 102 goals in 168 appearances since his debut in 2003.

Atletico Madrid and Uruguay forward Luis Suarez has tested positive for COVID-19, the Uruguay national team said in a statement on Monday.

Uruguay's statement said top scorer Suarez and stand-in goalkeeper Rodrigo Munoz plus a staff member had tested positive. Other members of the squad had all tested negative ahead of Tuesday's World Cup qualifier at home to Brazil.

When Bolton Wanderers and Salford City faced off in a League Two tussle on the outskirts of Manchester on Friday, the match featured two sides that had converged on the lowest level of the English Football League. It was a match over a decade in the making as the sides were once eight divisions apart in English football. 

During the 2007-08 season, Bolton was a Premier League club and featured in the Europa League, while Salford played in the North West Counties League Division One, the country's ninth tier.

The World Cup finals in Russia feel a lot longer than two years ago, especially for an England team, beaten 2-0 by Belgium on Sunday, that have lost their way.

During their run to the semifinals in 2018, England seemed to have solved the long-standing puzzle of how find a way to inject the quality, tempo and excitement of Premier League football into the national team's style of play. Finally, Gareth Southgate had created a team where players were performing in the same manner, with the same intensity and positivity, that they showed with their clubs every week.

Atlético Madrid striker Luis Suárez has talked up his side's LaLiga title chances ahead of next week's showdown against former club Barcelona, saying his side's strong start to the campaign could give them an edge.

Atlético have won five of their first seven games and are the only unbeaten side in the top flight, while champions Real Madrid and Barça have already lost two games each. Real Sociedad are top of the standings with 20 points while Atlético are third on 17 but have two games in hand. Real Madrid are fourth, while Barça are eighth.

The U.S. Women's National Team will return from an extended break due to the COVID-19 pandemic with an exhibition game against the Netherlands on Nov. 27.

The rematch of the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup final, won 2-0 by the Americans, will be played at Rat Verlegh Stadium in Breda, Netherlands, about 67 miles south of Amsterdam. There will be no fans in the stands. The U.S. squad last played March 11, when it beat Japan 3-1 to win the SheBelieves Cup in Frisco, Texas.

Norway will send a team to play Austria in their final Nations League group game on Wednesday despite the chaos that saw their match against Romania on Sunday cancelled following government intervention over a player's positive COVID-19 test.

The Norwegian players were on their way to the airport on Saturday to catch a chartered flight to Bucharest when authorities told them that such a journey would breach the country's stringent coronavirus measures because a player in the squad had tested positive.

There’s enough to Zlatan Ibrahimović that — despite your opinion on his ego and how he handles himself — he’s essentially a stand-alone force when it comes to pure entertainment. 

No athlete on the planet transcends myth, legend and reality quite like Zlatan, just as no other athlete would proclaim themselves god before backing it up in the most incredulous way: The 39-year-old is at the top of the Serie A goalscoring charts and AC Milan is top of the table.