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Milan, Napoli and Atalanta all have new head coaches as Italian football hopes to return to the spotlightAnd so, calcio’s “third apocalypse” has passed. A lot of Italians enjoyed the World Cup more than they expected to. Without a team to cheer for, again, a country turned its attention to different sports. And found its athletes dominating them.On the day Spain defeated Argentina in New Jersey, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the first Italian driver to win a Formula One race in 20 years, extended his lead in the season’s standings by triumphing again at the Belgian Grand Prix. A week before that, Jannik Sinner defended his men’s singles title at Wimbledon. Since then, Italy has finished top of the medal table at the European Athletics Championships, and second in the European Aquatics Championships. Manila Esposito also took floor exercise gold at the European Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Championships. Glancing over the front pages of La Gazzetta dello Sport this last week, you could almost miss that a new Serie A season is upon us. The transfer gossip that typically gets top billing at this time of year has faded into the background of a medal parade.Perhaps that is a reflection of an underwhelming mercato. The best signing of the summer may be Como paying €60m to reclaim Nico Paz, who they already purchased for far less money in 2024. Real Madrid triggered their buy-back clause in June, only to immediately sell him to Como all over again. The new deal also has a buy-back clause. In practical terms, this is an overelaborate loan extension.Milan did drop a club-record €74m to land Gonçalo Ramos from Paris Saint-Germain, an astonishing figure for a player who has not started regularly at club level for three years. That is not to diminish his talent. Competition at PSG is fierce. Ramos was prolific for Benfica before moving there in 2023 and, according to Gazzetta, his goals-to-minutes ratio has remained third-best of any under-25 talent across Europe’s top-five leagues in the past three seasons.Ruben Amorim, Milan’s new manager, believes he knows how to get the best out of his compatriot, highlighting the player’s aptitude for breaking down the low blocks his club will face in Serie A. Still, we are talking about someone who started 13 Ligue 1 games last season, and 12 the year before that. Ramos feels like a gamble with potential for great rewards more than a sure bet.We might say the same for Amorim, seeking to rebuild his reputation after an unhappy chapter in Manchester. Pre-season performances have been encouraging. But wasn’t that also true for Paulo Fonseca, another Portuguese Milan manager, who spoke of aspiring to the Scudetto in August 2024 and wound up getting sacked in December?At least Amorim is a new face. As usual, Serie A’s annual valzer delle panchine – “waltz of the benches” – has found new dancing partners for familiar faces. Massimiliano Allegri swapped Milan for Napoli; Maurizio Sarri left Lazio for Atalanta. The latter was replaced in Rome by Gennaro Gattuso, who failed to qualify Italy to the World Cup. Allegri’s past transgressions hang over him in Naples. Reminded that he hurt people here previously – both when his Juventus team pipped Napoli to the title in 2017-18 and when he played for a Partenopei side that finished dead last in 1998 – he quipped “that’s why I’m here, to repay things”.Runners-up under Antonio Conte last season, Napoli have done little so far to refresh a squad that fielded the oldest average starting XIs in Serie A. The owner, Aurelio De Laurentiis’s, repeated references to Allegri as an “aziendalista” – a company man – tell a story. Much is being pinned on the return to fitness of Kevin De Bruyne. In any case, Inter will not easily be caught. No team has successfully defended a Serie A title this decade but, after finishing 11 points clear in their first season under Cristian Chivu, the Nerazzurri look well positioned to become the first.Denzel Dumfries was sold to Real Madrid, a significant loss even if injuries did limit him to 15 league starts last season. Djed Spence has been signed to fill the vacancy at right wing-back, though the impressive Andy Diouf may push him for playing time. The departures of the veteran defenders Francesco Acerbi and Stefan de Vrij have been covered by the return of Benjamin Pavard and the addition of John Stones. Inter are also still trying to reinforce their midfield with Curtis Jones from Liverpool. There is uncertainty about who will start in goal but their attacking depth, with Lautaro Martínez, Marcus Thuram, Francesco Pio Esposito and Ange-Yoan Bonny, is by far Serie A’s best.Who besides Napoli might push them? Milan would need Ramos to hit the ground running, and yet another age-defying chapter from Luka Modric. Roma will hope to progress in their second season under Gian Piero Gasperini, adding the mobile forward Santiago Castro to a squad growing into his vision, though playing in the Champions League will also demand more from them. Como should not be underestimated after finishing fourth last season. Keeping Paz was their best piece of business, but they have also strengthened their defence with the signing of Trevoh Chalobah from Chelsea. The core of the team should only continue improving as the likes of Martin Baturina, Máximo Perrone and Lucas Da Cunha hit their mid-20s.It speaks to how the landscape has shifted that we got this far without mentioning Juventus. Did they overpay on a reported €41m fee for Randal Kolo Muani? Probably, but he did average a goal every second game on loan there in 2025 and they have done smart business elsewhere. The centre-back Jhon Lucumí arrives off three solid seasons with Bologna. Kerim Alajbegovic and Jeff Ekhator are highly regarded teenage talents. Juve might just be primed for a relaunch.Can anyone else muscle into the top four conversation? It will be fascinating to see how Sarri reshapes Atalanta. Bologna, after their recent European adventures, look more likely to take a step backafter the departures of Lucumí and Castro. There is yet another renaissance under way at Fiorentina, who have appointed Fabio Grosso as manager – fresh from promoting Sassuolo then steering them to 11th – and invested more than €100m into young talent. The 20-year-old Christ Inao Oulaï was a standout for Côte d’Ivoire at the World Cup.As ever, there is intrigue throughout the division. Can Daniele De Rossi build on his impressive start at Genoa? How will Parma evolve under Carlos Cuesta, the 31-year-old former assistant to Mikel Arteta, who somehow got them to 13th while scoring just 28 goals? Gattuso started his Lazio tenure with a Coppa Italia elimination by second-tier Mantova. Perhaps he will surprise us yet, but everything about the Biancocelesti looks stale. A sharp contrast with clubs like Torino, where Ignazio Abate gets his first chance at top-flight management and might be building a team around the 19-year-old Alessio Cacciamani, who thrived under him on loan at Juve Stabia. Or Cagliari, where Fabio Pisacane also looks set to give the kids a chance … alongside Harry Winks and Yerry Mina.The newly promoted clubs are a fascinating mix. Venezia, back for the third time in seven years, hope this will finally be the time they make it stick. Monza returned via the playoffs with a group of grizzled Serie A vets including Patrick Cutrone, Matteo Pessina and Andrea Petagna. Frosinone, who only narrowly avoided relegation to the third tier in 2025, are led by Massimiliano Alvini, who insists they will continue to play the front-footed game that got them here.Lecce, 17th last season, once again look most likely to be drawn into a relegation fight. Sassuolo may suffer the exits of Grosso and their totemic defender, Tarik Muharemovic, sold to Leeds. Udinese’s manager, Kosta Runjaic, invoked Sisyphus as he contemplated the club’s insistence on overhauling its entire squad every summer, but so far he has been adept at moving the boulder up the mountain.There is much more to say, not least about the ever-expanding contingent of British footballers in Italy. But no more room for this column to say it. Fear not, we have a whole season ahead. It might not live up to Italy’s medal parade this summer, but calcio beyond its third apocalypse still has stories to tell.

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Mohamed Salah’s arrival made a splash, but the Turkish Super Lig will probably become the latest league to end up as a bailout fund for Europe’s powerhousesMohamed Salah plays in Turkey now. So do Romelu Lukaku and Leandro Trossard and Leroy Sané and Nathan Aké. Mason Greenwood and N’Golo Kanté and Dusan Vlahovic, too.Bruno Fernandes and Gabriel Martinelli may yet follow them there, depending on negotiations and moods and whatever else compels a footballer to leave one club for another.Victor Osimhen, one of the world’s highest-rated strikers, was already at Galatasaray, where he has hammered in 43 league goals in two seasons, plus this campaign’s opener.Salah, the Super Lig’s signature signing, will reportedly earn about as much at Trabzonspor as he did with Liverpool last season, where he was one of the Premier League’s highest earners – on account of the net salary structure in Turkey.As the Saudi Pro League, which flooded the game with billions in cash when it lured Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar in 2023, scales back its ambitions, the Turkish league has stepped into the void. A flurry of investment by its four biggest clubs – Galatasaray, Fenerbahce, Besiktas and Trabzonspor – is remaking it into the new moneyed destination league for the game’s ageing and the underplayed and the overpaid and the overvalued. Or perhaps they’ve made a series of savvy signings; we’ll soon find out.Unlike in previous spending sprees by leagues seeking to claim a more prominent spot in the transfer market ecosystem, the Super Lig doesn’t seem to have benefited from massive investment from a soft-power nation-building project or the sudden interest of oligarchs. Rather – and it’s all slightly confounding – it appears to have more to do with the collapse of the Turkish lira relative to the euro, which went from trading at €0.10 half a decade ago to about €0.018 today. While their clubs pay their players in lira, revenue from European competition and foreign broadcasts is paid out in euros. The long and short of it is that the big four Turkish clubs can now afford players they previously couldn’t because they can write down more of their earnings on their balance sheets.As such, Turkey joins an increasingly long line of unconventional homes for some of the game’s biggest names. Every few years, some new league invests heavily in hopes of finding a shortcut into the firmament of the world’s best-regarded competitions. Before Saudi Arabia, it was China, where it was the stated objective of President Xi Jinping and his government to leverage the sport as “a must to build China into a sports powerhouse as part of the Chinese dream”. Eventually, Chinese soccer awoke from that dream with a start.Before that, it was the Russian Premier League, when sanctioned oil billionaire Suleyman Kerimov bought Anzhi Makhachkala and plowed in hundreds of millions to lure some of the world’s top players. That set off an arms race with Zenit St Petersburg, Rubin Kazan and Dynamo Moscow, before the spending fever broke just a few years later when Kerimov backed off.The Brazilian league has had flurries of pricey signings over the years – although mostly focused on bringing home the country’s wayward sons – in apparent accordance with the state of the nation’s economy and bank balances. In January, Flamengo brought Lucas Paquetá back from West Ham for an astounding $50m, setting a new Brazilian record for an incoming transfer, dwarfing the $32m Cruzeiro had paid Zenit for Gerson just 20 days earlier.During its Beckham Era, Major League Soccer was routinely paying above-market rates to lure Thierry Henry, Robbie Keane and the like. And before that, the Qatar Stars League tried to deliver on its name by drawing Gabriel Batistuta, Pep Guardiola, Frank de Boer, Marcel Desailly and others for a final payday.Every one of these leagues moved on from this gambit before long, switching to some other strategy, or however they spun the decision to cap the money gusher.It should probably be pointed out here that unlike most of the aforementioned circuits, Turkey actually has a thriving and long-established football and fan culture. That makes it feel slightly different this time around, as Turkish clubs have earned credibility as the homes of star players, unexpected though their arrivals may be, and because those players will probably still appear in the Champions League (Galatasaray qualified automatically; Fenerbahce are in the qualifiers) and Europa League (Trabzonspor and Besiktas are both in the qualifying rounds).All the same, the Turkish clubs now take the mantle of acting as a kind of bailout fund for Europe’s storied leagues, where clubs from the latter can offload their distressed assets. At a minimum, these nouveaux riche leagues provide a hefty cash injection to the old-money center of the European game.In the end, nothing much ever comes of this play for the newly ambitious. They move on, eventually. The whole thing turns out to be counterproductive. Because rather than match the status of the legacy competitions they hope to challenge, they wind up bankrolling them, cementing the chasm between them.They learn that lesson before long and the money dries up. But no matter, there is always some fresh source of dumb money out there.Leander Schaerlaeckens is the author of The Long Game: U.S. Men’s Soccer and Its Savage, Four-Decade Journey to the Top, or Thereabouts, which is out now. He teaches at Marist University.

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Today’s gossip is being advertised in imaginative waysA new Premier League season is just days away, so it stands to reason that a few clubs are getting panicky in the transfer market. Newcastle are certainly in need of some fresh faces after being raided earlier in the summer so, after being linked with Christopher Nkunku, could move for RB Leipzig midfielder Nicolas Seiwald. The Austria international played under Matthias Jaissle at RB Salzburg.Newcastle have shunned Manchester United’s attempts to snare Lewis Hall, so the Old Trafford club are still in the market for a left-back. Joaquin Seys, 21, of Club Brugge, is said to be a carbon copy of Hall and the Belgian has apparently been shunted to the top of United’s hitlist. Barcelona midfielder Marc Casadó is also a potential United midfield target with the Catalans ready to move on the 22-year-old after agreeing a deal for Rodri.Let’s stay in Spain for a moment, where the future of Julián Alvarez has been a hot topic all summer. The former Manchester City forward remains keen to join Barcelona, but Atlético Madrid are understandably a bit edgy about selling their best player to a domestic rival. It seems Atléti would prefer him to go to Arsenal. A meeting between Miguel Ángel Gil Marín, club’s chief suit and Alvarez is scheduled, where the latter’s future will be thrashed out. Stand by, Gunners fans.Liverpool have danced with Bradley Barcola all summer and now want another Paris Saint-Germain winger in the shape of 18-year-old Ibrahim Mbaye. A combined fee of £155m has been mooted for the pair. Manchester United are possible Mbaye suitors, too, along with a number of others.Leeds United have done some solid business so far this summer and are now interested in Nelson Deossa from Real Betis. The midfielder, along with Marseille wide man Igor Paixão, is on the Whites’ radar, though it’s claimed Paixão could be lured by the riches of the Saudi Pro League instead. Zian Flemming from Burnley is another possibility, though he could cost nearly £20m, as Leeds look to replace West Ham-bound Joël Piroe.One Championship player on the move may be Blackburn goalkeeper Balazs Toth. The £4m-rated Hungarian international is wanted by Celtic as a Kasper Schmeichel replacement. Rangers, meanwhile, are set to finalise the transfer of Aston Villa defender Kosta Nedeljkovic, and also want to add Kevin Kelsy, a striker for Venezuela and Portland Timbers. Rangers desperately need a transfer boost or two, that’s for sure.And finally, could Jamie Vardy be set for a final hurrah in Brazil? West Ham had previously been linked with the former Leicester striker, who is still a free agent after leaving Cremonese, but São Paulo may enter the market for the 39-year-old.

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Teenager’s glorious strike made it 2-0 against Villarreal – but though they were pegged back to a draw the match sealed a feelgood return from the abyss“The poor kid couldn’t believe what had happened; none of us could have if we’d just done what he had just done,” said Álvaro Mantilla, Racing Santander’s captain in the match they had longed for more than anything in the world. Which was why the kid – a 19-year-old from just along the coast who had been at the club half his life – wasn’t the only one crying. The day Sergio Martínez played his first game for Racing, he had climbed into the stand to hug his grandad; the day he played his first in primera, on Sunday afternoon at the Sardinero, he just about managed to stand before it, legs giving way a little and tears coming to his eyes. All around him they felt it too, 22,413 people absolutely losing it.What he had just done was, well, everything. At least that’s how it felt right then. “Euphoria”, his captain called it. In his first game in the first division, his third start ever, Sergio hadn’t just scored; he had scored the kind of goal you get in a comic, all explosions and exclamation marks. The ball sat up like an invitation and Kapow! – Sergio smashed it on the bounce, a cartoon arrow drawn to the top corner. It tore through the air and through time, flashing past at 126km an hour and 14 years a second, so Sergio ran to the corner, holding the badge he has worn since he was 10. There, there was a wobble as it came to him just what he had done. Bloody hell, this was actually happening.The teenager won’t even remember the last time Racing were in the first division: he was five. This was not just Sergio’s first top-flight game, it was Mantilla’s too – he was born and raised 5km away. And it was Jorge Salinas’ first as well, another 19-year-old from Santander. Sergio Canales, an academy kid from Santander like them, had played there and with Racing but that was 16 years ago, when he was a teenager too, the most eligible in Spain. Thirty-five now, he had at last come home. In almost the entire time he had been away, so had his club. Sunday afternoon was the first time that Racing, founder members of the first division, had played a top-flight game since 2012. And here they were 2-0 up against Villarreal, the redemption real.It didn’t last long but it will last for a very, very long time. Leading 1-0 through a penalty from Andrés Martín, Sergio made it 2-0 in the 34th minute. They had deserved it too: “The energy was unstoppable,” Villarreal coach Iñigo Pérez admitted. For 44 minutes, Racing were something like perfection. And then in 67 seconds, two flashes from Pape Gueye and Nicholas Pépé had taken it away again – a reminder, Racing’s coach José Alberto López said, of what the first division is, how unforgiving it can be. Except this wasn’t going to be taken away: not the point, a 2-2 draw against the team that finished third last season which could be decisive in what will surely still be a fight for survival, and not the moment, their day.El Sardinero, more ground than stadium, built in the late 1980s and with something about it that’s happily still there with corner floodlights touching the sky, was packed again. Along the waterfront they had come, the only people not in white Racing shirts those in green ones: a city, a community built, heading back to where they belong. If they were home, so was the first division: this was one of those days that everyone else could celebrate too. “I loved it,” said Pérez, and he coaches their opponents. “I’m so happy to come here and see all the emotion and the excitement. This is a joy for anyone who comes.” But more than a historic club being in the first division for the first time since 2012, this was about being, full stop.Relegated in 2012 after a decade in the top flight, having played in Europe just three and a half years earlier and beaten Manchester City along the way, Racing fell a long way, and might never have got up again.They were relegated again immediately and spent seven of the next 10 years in Segunda B, Spain’s theoretically amateur third-to-seventh-tier with its 80 teams and four groups. Worse, their fight for survival was not just about sport. By then, the financial and institutional crisis was out of control. The debt had reached over €40m. €14m was owed to the state and players and staff went unpaid. In July 2011 they filed for bankruptcy, opening up an administration process. In an era when the club’s shirt sponsor was for a brand of chorizo, slang for thief, two presidents would eventually get jail sentences for embezzlement of club funds – and that doesn’t include Ahsan Ali Syed.Francisco Pernía and Ángel Lavín were the men charged. Between them came “Mr Ali”, welcomed as a saviour in the winter of 2011, championed by Pernía and the leader of the Cantabrian government, Miguel Ángel Revilla, who declared: “The Hindu has his pockets full of cash.” Ali spent €3.5m on the buyout and said there was space alongside Real Madrid and Barcelona for Racing. Instead they ended up in a league with Langreo, Durango and Calahorra. He, meanwhile, had disappeared entirely, wanted by Interpol and finally arrested almost a decade later for fraud.With Lavín taking over, Racing’s crisis deepened, the sense that the end was coming. In January 2014, fans stormed the directors’ box and tried to force Lavín out. Then, a fortnight later, their players walked on to the pitch for the quarter-finals of the Copa del Rey against Real Sociedad. Still in Segunda B, they had beaten two first division sides but instead of playing they just stood there with their arms around each other’s shoulders. There was a dignity in their defiance, a solidarity.With Lavín at last forced out, former player Manolo Higuera stepping in in 2015, there was the start of a revival: a decency, an honesty, a seriousness about confronting their reality. Something was forged by being on the edge too, but they hadn’t stepped back from it entirely. When club legend Pedro Munitis became coach in 2015, it wasn’t just that he wasn’t paid, it was that he, like others at the club, was paying: players’ wages, and even travel costs were coming out of his pocket. More than 50 legal cases still hung over them. The club was “dead and buried”, Higuera admits, little they could do; that they came through it was “a miracle”. They only played one of the next three seasons in the second division and although they went up in 2022, when José Alberto López took over as coach that December, there was a risk that they would slip back down again. Instead, he secured survival. Then seventh, then a playoff place, and then the title.José Alberto said that to begin with Racing were still closer to being an amateur side, “more neighbourhood team than professional club”. He admitted that he wondered what he had got himself into, but he helped them get out of it. Having been forced to give up playing at 20 because of rheumatism, José Alberto had begun at the bottom, working at Ikea while he coached in Asturias; now his approach carried Racing. Brave and attacking, his team would go for opponents; this was going to be fun too, that was non-negotiable. Even last year when they won the second division, they conceded 61 goals. A momentum built that would eventually bring them up. Optimism was back at last, on and off the pitch.That summer Higuera convinced Sebastián Ceria to get involved. The time was right: Ceria, a social democrat Argentinian philanthropist with a PhD in mathematics from Carnegie and a professor at Columbia, had just sold his company for $850m. His wife, Alicia Zorrilla, is from Cantabria and friends with Higuera’s wife. Ceria bought a controlling stake for €30m, bringing a new mentality built around the people – and above all stability. In December 2024, the final administration payments were met, their debts paid off 13 years on. Assets that had been stripped have been recovered, so too has the pride, a sense of belonging. With Ceria describing football as “democratising”, the shift is visible in the shirts all across the city.It had started with a lunch in London. This Sunday Higuera and Ceria sat in the stand at the Sardinero together and watched Racing Santander play in the first division once again. And they watched the side play the way the coach that transformed them always said they would: no backing down, no doubt that primera is their place too. They saw the flags along the roof – every first division team there, them too – and heard the fans belt out La Fuente de Cacho at the start of the day they had waited a lifetime for. They saw fans lead the way alongside the Cantabrian sea and Mantilla lead the way out of the tunnel, armband on. They saw Sergio announce his arrival and all of theirs, not alone in feeling the tears. And Canales, who had announced his departure at the same age, standing before supporters singing songs of redemption and return. “It was … strange,” Canales said, somehow speaking for all of them too. “I can’t quite assimilate this still. I could feel the hairs standing on end. Above all, what I feel is gratitude.”

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Florentino Pérez pressed the Special One button again after two straight trophyless seasons at Real, but Lamine Yamal and co remain title favouritesA lot has changed since José Mourinho was last appointed Real Madrid manager, but a lot has also not changed. Before his first game in charge in 2010, Spain had just become world champions, their extra-time winner in the final scored by a Barcelona player after their opponents, who had been reduced to 10 men, had tried to kick them off the park. Like then, Mourinho’s task is to take down a Barcelona team that have won two La Liga titles in succession. And like then, he has a host of world-class talent at his disposal.Florentino Pérez is also still around – and he is largely the reason why Mourinho is back. After the chief executive, José Ángel Sánchez, was said to have led the charge to appoint Xabi Alonso last summer, the 79-year-old club president has made the decision his own this time. He promised Mourinho, who won La Liga with 100 points in his first spell, would return if he was re-elected in snap elections in June and the announcement came, in true Pérez style, on the opening day of the World Cup.Jorge Valdano, the former Madrid player and manager who worked upstairs during Mourinho’s first tenure, was of the opinion that a lot has indeed changed since then. “Almost 15 years have passed: football is no longer the same, society is not the same, Florentino is no longer the same, and Mourinho certainly won’t be either,” he told A Bola.But Mourinho was the outstanding law-and-order candidate. Even after Alonso’s sacking last January, Madrid’s season continued its descent into chaos under Álvaro Arbeloa. In May, Federico Valverde was taken to hospital for stitches after a bust-up with his teammate Aurélien Tchouaméni. A few days later, Madrid conceded the league title in the clásico and would finish the campaign trophyless. By then an online petition calling for Kylian Mbappé to leave had reached 30 million signatures. Speculation about the future of Vinícius Júnior, who had 12 months left on his contract, would not go away.Not everything has gone right since – a £129m bid for Julián Álvarez was turned down by Atlético Madrid, while Barcelona look more likely to sign Rodri from Manchester City – but Madrid’s preparations for the new campaign have exuded an air of calm. Mourinho began work a month before his contract started and has not had an official unveiling in front of the media. “It’s not about working at Real Madrid, it is working for Real Madrid,” he said sternly in a short in-house interview at the start of pre-season. The soundbites are limited to his new Netflix documentary. There has been no globetrotting summer tour either; just a series of low-key friendlies across Europe.Perhaps most importantly, after all that Arsenal talk, Vinícius has signed a new six-year deal. “Vinícius has become one of the most important players in one of the most successful periods in our history,” the club said. Mourinho will have to find a system that gets the best out of him, Mbappé and Jude Bellingham, not to mention a new galáctico, the £115m winger Yan Diomandé, who was playing across town for Leganés B in Spain’s fifth tier only last year.Diomandé made his Leganés first-team debut at the Bernabéu in March 2025. “Who makes their debut at 18 against Real Madrid? It was a dream. And then it was a nightmare,” Diomandé wrote in the Players’ Tribune this summer, while he was shining for Côte d’Ivoire at the World Cup, in a raw and emotional article dedicated to his sister Roxane, who died aged 15 after her drink was spiked at a party, just weeks after her brother’s La Liga debut.Supporting Diomandé and Vinícius down the left wing will be Marc Cucurella who, along with Bernardo Silva, Ibrahima Konaté, Denzel Dumfries and the 6ft 4in striker Carlos Espí, are all signings that should adapt easily to Mourinho’s coaching. But of all the star quality on the pitch, it is the Portuguese coach who will attract the most attention.By landing the Real Madrid job again, Mourinho has staged a comeback few expected after his later struggles in the Premier League and a tour of Europe that delivered mixed results. His orchestrating of Benfica’s remarkable Champions League escape against Madrid last season, with the goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin’s late goal, thrust him back into the spotlight. But his disappointing comments after Vinícius accused Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni of racist abuse – Prestianni was ultimately banned by Uefa for “homophobic conduct” – were criticised by Kick It Out as “a form of gaslighting”. “Mourinho is Mourinho,” said Arbeloa.After returning for pre-season, Vinícius said: “It has gone very well, getting to know the new coach … Mourinho wants me to be as I have always been: happy, cheerful and playing my football.” There has been no suggestion of any lingering bad blood.It is not only Mourinho who is returning to La Liga after a lengthy absence. Racing Santander are back for the first time since 2012 and have welcomed back one of their own in Sergio Canales, now 35, who left aged 19 to join Mourinho’s Real Madrid in that summer of 2010. “I’m still struggling to believe this is real,” the midfielder said last month. Deportivo and Málaga also return to La Liga for the first time since 2018 having both dropped to the third tier in that time. Depor’s marquee signing has been a 37-year-old Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.Diego Simeone, beginning his 15th full season in charge of Atlético, reunites with Mourinho in the dugout for the Madrid derby. Atlético have started life after Antoine Griezmann with investment in their squad that has included signing Lee Kang-in from Paris Saint-Germain and giving him Griezmann’s No 7 shirt. Manuel Pellegrini, Mourinho’s predecessor in his first spell at the Bernabéu, remains in charge of Real Betis while Villarreal, the other of Spain’s five clubs in the Champions League this season, have appointed Iñigo Pérez after his feats at Rayo Vallecano.Pellegrino Matarazzo, the American in charge of Real Sociedad, will be looking to build on the club’s Copa del Rey triumph in April. The other hotseat in the Basque Country, at Athletic Club, is occupied by a German for the first time since Jupp Heynckes in 2003. “Athletic is the only club where a handshake is more important than a signature,” Heynckes told the new man, Edin Terzic, before he took the job.It is Barcelona, though, who remain favourites for the title. Like Griezmann, Robert Lewandowski has departed for Major League Soccer in the US, and there is still a gap up front while Atlético stand firm on Álvarez. Anthony Gordon has replaced Marcus Rashford to fight for a place with the injury-prone Raphinha on the left wing, but, with respect to Karim Adeyemi, there is no real competition on the other flank. Lamine Yamal did not take the World Cup by storm as many expected but he has returned from America as a world champion and, let’s remember, a 19-year-old. He will probably be the ringleader once more if Hansi Flick is to match Pep Guardiola’s achievement of three successive league titles. The first clásico is at the Camp Nou at the end of October.Unlike Europe’s other major leagues, La Liga is staggering the start of its new season. Owing to their players’ involvement in the later stages of the extended World Cup, none of Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético are in action on the opening weekend. The league’s president, Javier Tebas, is one of Gianni Infantino’s loudest critics and said on Sunday that the Fifa president’s projects are “destroying” the national leagues. All this means José Bordalás’s Getafe, soon embarking on a European campaign, will raise the curtain at Quique Sánchez Flores’s Alavés on Saturday evening – what more could you ask for?

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You can’t help but feel the Argentinian with a penchant for red cards will arrive at his spiritual home when he completes his move to Diego Simeone’s Atlético Madrid‘He’s not that kind of player” is perhaps the greatest of the co-commentators’ meaningless banalities. Used shortly after a “nice guy” has scythed someone in half about a day after the ball has gone, it is by definition nonsense because if you have scythed someone in half about a day after the ball has gone, then you are indeed that kind of player.But I don’t recall ever hearing anyone saying “the thing is Clive/Brian, he is that kind of player”. I haven’t analysed every foul in Premier League history to tell if you those kinds of challenges are carried out by players all of us would consider to be “that kind of player” as opposed to the opposite – but the list of players with the most red cards suggests a pattern – Richard Dunne, Duncan Ferguson, Patrick Vieira with eight reds, Lee Cattermole and Roy Keane on seven, Vinnie Jones, Joey Barton and Alan Smith (obviously not that one) among those on six.This article is about Cristian Romero – who I would have in tier A of “that kind of player” if I had any idea how to do one of those Instagram reels where you rank things (posh hotels you can’t afford, non weight-bearing exercises for middle-aged people, biscuits of the 80s etc). There is not a debate about the category in which he belongs.A player with a permanent look of mild confusion about the situation he finds himself in – am I really playing for Spurs? Consistently inconsistent. And always just a moment away from just giving the whole game a Falling-Down-full-Michael-Douglas-ing.Six red cards in his Spurs career. It feels like so many more. The one that sticks in my mind is in the last 16 of the Champions League exit to Milan in 2023. Hopefully you don’t remember the game, it was awful. 1-0 going into the second leg, it’s goalless in the 77th minute at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Spurs aren’t doing much. Romero’s already on a booking for lunging into Rafael Leão. And then for no apparent reason he flies into Théo Hernandez on the touchline.It’s peak Romero. That sense that he was just a bit annoyed he wasn’t playing for someone better and so he needed a release. And in this case Hernandez was that release.His four Premier League red cards feature all your favourites. Two yellows against Manchester City featuring a wild late tackle on Erling Haaland deep in the City half – really letting him know he was there.There are a couple of straight red get-the-ball-really-get-the-man challenges that he probably would have got away with in 1986. One against Chelsea when Spurs were top of the league and 1-0 up early in the Ange Postecoglou tenure earned a “oh nooooo Romero, you … you … you …” from Gary Neville. The other on Casemiro last season came shortly after he criticised the club on social media prompting calls for Thomas Frank to strip him of the captaincy. It was his second red of the season after getting two yellows for dissent and kicking Ibrahima Konaté on the floor against Liverpool last December. “What’s he doing?” Neville again.It’s often said the great defenders don’t go to ground – but it feels like that is exactly where Romero spent his entire Spurs career.And yet. And yet – he spent most of the Europa League final win against Manchester United on the floor – hurling himself at shots, and United players, in a man-of-the-match performance. People rightly remember the Micky van de Ven goalline clearance, but Romero was unbeatable in that game. He can’t not be good. Gasperini, Scaloni, Conte, Postecoglou, Frank, Simeone all like him. He has played in two World Cup Finals (if you accept any Argentinians actually played in the last one).All fans like a player who flies into challenges – we like to think we’re subtle, but we evolved from primates – one of your own putting in a reducer, an oof into the turf perhaps it takes us back somewhere deep into our past. And he scored vital goals too.Atlético Madrid feels so perfect. The people I talk to who watch Spanish football (ie Sid Lowe once he’s actually replied to a WhatsApp) tell me Atléti aren’t the Atléti we want them to be anymore. It’s not all Godín Giménez and Juanfran. Perhaps Simeone is taking them back there. But we should all be thankful that he has arrived in his spiritual home.As soon as the Atléti rumours began it felt perfect – it is rare for a player to feel like they fit at a club before they’ve even worn the colours. But in the same way James Maddison always looked like he should be in a Spurs shirt, perhaps Romero never did, even when he was wearing it – even when he was playing brilliantly in a gritty backs-to-the-wall job in a Europa League final. Is that really emblematic of what a Spurs centre-back should be? At their best Spurs centre-backs are Gary Mabbutt or Ledley King, Jan Vertonghen or Toby Alderweireld – solid, reliable, measured. At their worst – well there have been lots of them, but not many as rash as Romero.It is perhaps a fault of mine, or a fault of how we watch and consume football, that I’ve already made my mind up. Watching Romero I was either annoyed by something he’d done, or annoyed that I was going to be annoyed about something he was going to do later. This permanent pre-annoyance rendered an objective judgment impossible.So when people talk about his leadership and especially his ability on the ball, I was never totally convinced. But good luck Cristian, I get the feeling it will be much less stressful watching you play for a team I am less invested in. He might leave Spurs a club legend, it’s hard to say for sure; but if he does, he leaves as an incredibly infuriating one.

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Ultimatum issued hours before plan was scrappedEuropean Football Clubs demanded Infantino back downEurope’s leading clubs threatened not to participate in future Club World Cups unless Gianni Infantino withdrew his Fifa Forward Enterprise scheme, issuing their ultimatum hours before the plan was scrapped.In a letter to the Fifa secretary general, Mattias Grafström, seen by the Guardian, the influential European Football Clubs (EFC) group warned its cooperation with future tournaments would hinge on Infantino backing down. It said the threat will hold unless a joint venture between EFC and Fifa – a framework for which has already been agreed – is completed before television rights can be sold for the 2028 Women’s Club World Cup.The letter, dated 31 July and signed by the EFC chief executive, Charlie Marshall, said Infantino’s actions could constitute a “substantial breach” of the bodies’ existing memorandum of understanding (MoU) and suggested this could be grounds for its termination. It floated the idea that EFC and its clubs may push back against the international match calendar and its player release rules, which are crucial to ensuring national team tournaments can function. Infantino shelved the privately backed Football Forward Enterprise (FFE) in the early hours of 1 August after widespread condemnation.Fundamental to EFC’s complaints was the impression FFE would bring all broadcasting, commercial and sponsorship rights under its own umbrella. The letter asked Fifa to confirm this and said it would take decisive action if these elements were not included in the long-proposed joint venture, whose creation is enshrined in the MoU and intended to involve managing the commercial side of global club competitions. It witheringly wrote that progress on the tie-in had “unlike the FFE proposal, made no meaningful progress over the past year”. EFC already has a similar joint venture with Uefa, named UC3, which was launched in 2025.A potentially incendiary section read: “Unless a fully operational Fifa-EFC CWC joint venture, with exclusive authority over, among other things, all commercial and operational matters, is established well ahead of the women’s 2028 Fifa CWC rights cycle, EFC will not support – and its member clubs will not participate in – any future edition, including the women’s and men’s 2028 and 2029 Fifa CWC.”In theory the threat still holds although Fifa, in a response to EFC’s letter since Infantino climbed down, is understood to have promised a swift meeting to keep the joint venture on track. EFC’s position followed concerns raised by a vast number of clubs around Europe, who were angered by the lack of consultation around the design of FFE. One major European club expressed concerns in its own letter, also seen by the Guardian, saying it would support EFC in any “firmer collective action” if necessary and called for “more rigorous and transparent governance processes”.Any European withdrawal from Club World Cups would in practice mean those tournaments could not run. EFC and Fifa operated last year’s Club World Cup, the first to take place with 32 teams, using a short-term prototype for any future joint venture. No hosts have yet been announced for the new-look Women’s Club World Cup or for the next edition of the men’s tournament in 2029.EFC’s letter also raised the ongoing delay, first reported by the Guardian in February, in distributing £185m of solidarity money to clubs that did not participate in the Club World Cup. Transparency over the event’s financial performance was also requested.“We ask that you urgently share the final surplus revenue generated by the 2025 Fifa WC, together with a full profit and loss statement, so that all revenues, expenses and costs can be properly assessed in line with our partnership in this competition,” it said. “The absence of information on this matter, as with the lack of a solution on CWC solidarity for over a year, is also of serious concern and disappointment to EFC and our member clubs.”The Guardian understands there is increasing optimism that this issue is on the verge of resolution although a notional average £50,000 windfall for every global top-flight club, if the pot was divided equally, pales in comparison with the £84m reward long since banked by last year’s winners Chelsea.Referring to clubs releasing players for international duty EFC continued: “Our memorandum of understanding, set to expire on 30 December 2030, includes EFC’s and its member clubs’ acceptance of the international match calendar and the release rules. Both are directly relevant for Fifa’s non-European member associations and to any value FFE may have.” It said Fifa’s apparent commercial vision for FFE constituted a “serious breach of trust” and warned the MoU could be jeopardised.The letter demonstrates the extraordinary level of leverage EFC, which is chaired by the Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser al-Khelaifi, can claim over Fifa and its increasing influence on football’s future. The organisation, set up in 2008 as a lobby group for clubs around the continent, now has well over 800 members although only a minority hold full voting rights. Some stakeholders elsewhere in football’s ecosystem have expressed fears about the level of power it has assumed. A separate representative body, the Union of European Clubs, was created in 2023 to represent smaller sides but is not recognised by Uefa.One potential consequence of EFC’s discussions with Fifa could, in the medium term, be its expansion into a group representing clubs around the world. More immediately, last month’s letter demanded that Fifa deliver on a previous promise to fully integrate Al-Khelaifi into the Fifa council, which is purportedly its main decision-making body.

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Gunners remain interested in Aston Villa’s Ezri KonsaArsenal have opened talks with Bayer Leverkusen over a move for Jarell Quansah as they intensify efforts to bring in cover for William Saliba and Jurriën Timber.The England defender, who left Liverpool last summer for an initial £30m and was part of Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad, has been identified as an ideal replacement for the France and Netherlands defenders, who will miss the start of the new season due to injury. While Quansah’s preferred position is in central defence, he was also deployed at right-back by Tuchel at the World Cup and was sent off in the last-16 victory over Mexico.It is understood that Leverkusen are reluctant to sell the 23-year-old, who signed a five-year deal when he left Anfield last July, and would want at least €50m (£43m). Arsenal – who saw a bid of £30m for Aston Villa’s Ezri Konsa rejected earlier in the window – are not thought to want to pay that much but now could test the German club’s resolve by submitting a similar offer. Liverpool had a €70m buyback option on Quansah but that has now expired.Arsenal are still believed to be interested in Konsa, who also filled in at right-back for England during the World Cup but is better known as a central defender. Villa value the 28-year-old at £60m.Mikel Arteta said this week that Saliba’s back injury would take “some time to heal” and he was unsure about when he would be available again. Arsenal also have concerns over Timber, who pulled out of the Netherlands squad on the eve of the World Cup after failing to recover from a persistent groin injury that forced him to miss most of the run‑in last season.“Jurriën is progressing really well,” Arteta said after Arsenal’s friendly defeat by Borussia Dortmund last weekend. “He’s on the pitch, he’s doing quite a lot right now, but it’s still weeks away. I cannot tell you how much.”Arsenal would still like to sign a new attacker before the end of the window and could allow Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus to depart in order to free up more funds. Galatasaray have offered £38m for Martinelli, although the Brazil forward is not thought to be keen on a move to Turkey. Napoli have shown an interest in Jesus.Ethan Nwaneri could also be sold, with Milan, Fulham, RB Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund among those who have been linked with the 19-year-old.The future of Myles Lewis-Skelly is unclear after he was offered to Chelsea and Manchester United this week. Arteta refused to address the rumours after he scored in the friendly against Como – managed by Cesc Fábregas – on Wednesday. “I’m not going to talk about speculation,” he said. “If there is speculation about our players, it’s a good sign. That means our players attract attention and are doing a good job.”

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They may have sold Robbie Ure, their top scorer, to Sevilla, but the team from Uppsala have good reason to believe they can finish the jobFor most teams, losing a forward with 15 goals in 15 games midway through the season, amid a historic title chase, might be cause for panic. Sirius, the runaway Allsvenskan leaders, are not most teams.“I’m actually really confident,” says Henrik Castegren, the club captain, when asked about the team’s ability to adapt after Robbie Ure’s move to Sevilla for a club-record fee, reported to be £5.6m plus add-ons. “I’m really happy for Robbie, but also quite sad because I enjoyed playing with him a lot. I think he was by far the best player in this league for the first six months [of the season] … but, with that being said, I’m feeling quite comfortable with us moving forward.”It helps that Sirius have been here before. They loaned last season’s top scorer, Leo Walta, to Swansea in February before the deal became permanent this summer for a fee of around £3m. Like Ure, Walta arrived at a young age, developed rapidly, caught the eye of a wealthier club and earned Sirius a significant profit, which they reinvested. That has become the blueprint for their success, allowing a club with no major honours to their name, having spent most of their existence in Sweden’s lower leagues, to compete for a first Allsvenskan title against storied rivals with far greater resources.“One important part of our strategy is to have a lot of sellable players,” says Jonathan Ederström, Sirius’s sporting director. “We’re not the biggest in Sweden, we’re not the richest in Sweden, we don’t have the fanciest history in Sweden, but we decided that we were going to aim to become the best in terms of development. Having the best development culture, but also building a squad with mostly young players that we saw big potential in.”In that sense the departure of Ure, a former Scotland youth international who came through Rangers’ academy and Anderlecht’s reserves before moving to Sweden at the start of last season, is a sign that Sirius’s model is working exactly as intended. “It’s such a good thing for all parties,” says Ederström. “It’s a fantastic journey for Robbie, but it’s also fantastic for Sirius.”As well as allowing for reinvestment in the squad – Sirius have already signed Jesper Uneken, a promising 22-year-old forward from PSV Eindhoven, as Ure’s replacement, along with the Finland Under-21 midfielder Otso Liimatta from Famalicão – the fee will be ploughed back into the club’s infrastructure and facilities. “[The other advantage] is that we become more attractive as a club for other players around the world,” says Ederström. “It can be close by in Sweden but it can also be Belgium, or Netherlands, or Scotland obviously. Hopefully it helps us getting the next Robbie here.”No one is expecting Uneken to match Ure’s numbers immediately and, if there is a period of adjustment, Sirius have plenty of breathing room. They are 12 points clear of second-placed Hammarby and undefeated in the league with just under half the season to play. Isak Bjerkebo, their left winger, has also been prolific, tallying 14 goals and nine assists in all competitions. They also have one of the tightest defences in the league buttressed by Mohamed Soumah, a goalscoring centre-back brought in with money reinvested from the deal that took Walta to Swansea, and a high-tempo midfield capable of harrying opponents to exhaustion.Holding it all together is Andreas Engelmark, who was appointed head coach in January last year. The team’s ascent is all the more impressive given that his early days in charge were hard going. Sirius spent a significant portion of last season looking nervously over their shoulders, dropping to 14th, the Allsvenskan’s relegation playoff spot, for several weeks. Engelmark battled on and, despite sustaining the heaviest defeat of the season, an 8-2 loss at Djurgården in September, Sirius ended strongly. In fact, they have not lost in the league since.“Even though he went tough when the results weren’t there last summer, he stuck to what he thought was the best going forward,” says Castegren. “That, I would say, is his biggest strength, to not give that up and start doing other short-term stuff.“He really sees you as a player and adjusts small things to get the most out of you, and also how you can complement the team as a collective. I really feel comfortable, in that sense, now Robbie has left us, that we can find ways to get results, to perform well and play well.”For people in Uppsala, the city where Sirius are based, the club’s meteoric rise has been a source of huge excitement. Attendances at their ground, Studenternas, have leapt up, while there is a buzz around the place that has energised staff and players alike. “With the results that have come, I think the city has really turned it on,” says Castegren. “You can see blue and black shirts wherever you go … you can tell also by the numbers we have at the games, in the audience. It’s a packed house every game, which you couldn’t even think would be a reality three years ago when I first came here.”While Sirius winning the title might have seemed unthinkable a few seasons ago, there is an encouraging precedent: last season’s Swedish champions, Mjällby, were also rank outsiders who had never won a major trophy before. All three Scandinavian leagues have been won by dark horses in recent seasons, with Viking, for the first time in 34 years, the reigning champions of Norway, and Aarhus, after a 40-year wait, triumphant in Denmark.Asked why the Allsvenskan, in particular, has been so unpredictable over the past few years, Ederström gives a concise answer: “Because the big teams underperform.” That has created an opening for insurgent clubs who scout well, recruit smartly and are willing to innovate.There is still a way to go for Sirius, but they have good reason to believe they can finish the job. “The biggest thing for me this season is what we have created in Uppsala as a city,” adds Ederström. “To have something to believe in, to have something so important in [people’s] life … we really appreciate that.”

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Fungal outbreak damages surface at Estadio de BalaidosTurf for Osasuna match left ‘unfit for football’Celta Vigo’s ⁠season-opening La Liga match against Osasuna has been postponed after ⁠a fungal outbreak ⁠affected ​the pitch at Estadio de Balaidos, the Spanish club ⁠said on Thursday.Celta had been due to host Osasuna on Sunday, ⁠but the fixture was postponed with ​the decision ‌agreed by both ‌clubs and the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) ‌following a technical inspection by La Liga.The inspection found a fungal outbreak had damaged the Balaidos playing surface, while adverse weather conditions had undermined recent ‌progress in its recovery, leaving the pitch unfit for use.“LaLiga, in ​coordination with both clubs and the RFEF, agreed to postpone the match between Celta and CA Osasuna scheduled ⁠for next Sunday at Abanca Balaidos due ​to ​a problem affecting ​the stadium’s turf, which is ​currently unfit ‌for football,” ​the ​league said in a statement.

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Aston Villa supporters could have been forgiven for approaching the new season with feelings of great anxiety, nagging angst and face-twitching trepidation. Youri Tielemans has gone: such an elegant player with an eye [and nose? – Football Daily Ed] for the spectacular. Morgan Rogers has also departed: so energetic and skilful, always carrying that goal threat. And goodbye to Lucas Digne. But Villa fans who have been keeping their eye trained behind the curtain may not have been quite so concerned. Earlier this month, their 17-year-old striker Brian Madjo – 6ft4in, body of iron ore – was cleared by the court of arbitration for sport to play competitive fixtures for the club. Born in London but already capped for Luxembourg, Villa and Fifa were in diagreed over whether Madjo, signed from Metz in January for £10m, qualified as a home purchase or an international transfer. If it was the latter, as a minor, he wouldn’t have been eligible until turning 18 next January. While waiting for the verdict, Madjo banged in four goals in pre-season friendlies, against Walsall, Real Sociedad and Indonesia All Stars, and upon finally being cleared for the big boys, could have scored as many again in 45 minutes against the best team in the world, Paris Saint-Germain.Having become the youngest player ever to start in Uefa’s annual amuse-bouche, Madjo took a smidgen less than those 45 minutes against PSG to become the youngest to score in one. He’d already missed three gilt-edged chances by the time he bagged his goal, showcasing if nothing else an innate ability to turn up at the right place at the right time. When he finally converted, it was the hardest chance of all, roofing a volley from a tight angle on the left; all the while, he casually flung two-time European champion and Ecuador international Willian Pacho around like an old tattered sock. A bravura performance on debut, then, and the precursor to a tug-of-love between Luxembourg, for whom he’s only played friendlies, and England – the young man was born in Enfield but brought up in the Grand Duchy when his Cameroonian parents moved there (Cameroon have yet to throw their hat into the ring, but they’re surely tug-adjacent at the very least).All of this comes with the usual supermassive-star-or-supernova caveats: there’s nothing to be gained from lumping expectation on young shoulders too soon. Remember how Andy Carroll appeared to have all the tools too … why aye. But there’s also no point in flat-out denying the increasing insurgence of youth in today’s game – Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal is one competent Bigger Cup campaign away from completing football, and he’s only 19 for goodness sake – so file Madjo (17) and his fellow Super Cup teammate George Hemmings (19) alongside Arsenal’s Max Dowman (16), Manchester United’s JJ Gabriel (15), Liverpool’s Rio Ngumoha (17) and Manchester City’s Ryan McAidoo (18) as some of the prospects to keep an avuncular eye on. We also hear Portugal are planning their Euro 2028 hopes around some lad at Al-Nassr; we’ll keep you updated once we’ve found out a bit more about him.“I don’t know what I’m going to do without you, I don’t know how to carry on. All I ever did was play football, and now I have a fair few doubts as to whether I’ll carry on doing it for much longer. You were by my side from the start, we were so ⁠close to the end [of my career]. Why didn’t you hang on just that little bit longer so we could finish it together?” – Lionel Messi ponders his future in football after the death of his father and agent, Jorge, at the age of 68. The Argentina superstar was persuaded to play at the World Cup by his father, whose health deteriorated in the days before the start of the tournament. On Wednesday, Messi made his first appearance for Inter Miami since Jorge’s funeral in a 3-2 defeat to Club León in the Leagues Cup.“May I be the first of 1,057 tiny violin players to offer no sympathy whatsoever to Bob Cushion” – Matt Scott (and 1,056 others).“Roberto Martínez’s managerial career. Not so much a CV as a series of passport stamps” – Kev The Poet.“I see from Big Website’s Chelsea preview that Jordan Henderson will be contributing a lot “off the pitch”. Presumably that will be from a bit further off the pitch than the advertising hoardings?” – Phil Taverner.If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day is … Phil Taverner. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here.This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.