Despite €2bn spent on new players in the past four years, Chelsea coach Xabi Alonso still has few midfield options

Big-spending English clubs increasingly reluctant to take a risk on players without Premier League experience

Arsenal’s squad is most likely to endure in a league that prizes the strength of Declan Rice over the subtlety of Rodri

Argentinians may believe that nobody can get more carried away over football than they do ... but we know better – just think England

Tournament finale proves spending the big bucks does not guarantee entertainment

Argentina are an inexplicable frenzy of tears, rage, ecstasy, barbecue, violence and genius

Manager is said to be an Anglophile, but those feelings are no longer reciprocated after England’s disastrous World Cup exit

Substitutions backfire for England, as Lionel Messi helps inspire Argentina’s comeback to make final

England have a lot that Argentina don’t have, except Messi

While harmony is notable among semi-finalists France, Spain and Argentina, that quality appears absent in the England camp

Some 76 per cent of Brazil’s 2026 World Cup squad were Evangelical Christians, compared to their footballing peak when they were majority Catholic

Jude Bellingham struck twice for England while Erling Haaland played a peripheral role

‘The question is, can Norway stay afloat long enough for Haaland’s firepower to send England down?’

Kylian Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé provide the goals as Les Bleus crack Morocco

When you have Messi, it’s never really over as flawed Argentina are a dark and brilliant alliance of plot armour, destiny and genius