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⚽ All the latest on day six of the tournament⚽ Player guide | Bracketology | Golden Boot | Mail usDonald Trump: The US president is in France for the G7 summit where he is meeting with world leaders. The US-Iran agreement will be high on the agenda after Trump clashed with and threatened key allies. Why am I mentioning this in the Geopolitics World Cup blog? Because the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, took a punt and opted to give Trump a belated 80th birthday gift: a Germany football top with the number 47 on the back and “Trump” written on it. It is quite rare for Trump to endorse anything that is not branded “USA! USA! USA! but he seemed pleased.Algeria: The Desert Warriors will hope to harness strong backing from local supporters ⁠when they open their campaign ​against the defending champions Argentina. Residents of Lawrence, Kansas have fallen in love ⁠with Algeria, who have made their base camp in the city 40 miles west of Kansas City and Petkovic praised the north African team’s newfound fans for their warm welcome.Lawrence is located a little over 40 miles from Kansas City, a roughly 40-minute drive from the Metropolitan area that is hosting the base camps of Argentina, the Netherlands, and England for the World Cup. All three are staying at boutique hotels around the city. Algeria? Well, they chose the humble Lawrence DoubleTree.So where did this come from? According to Stan Herd, a local artist, you have to go back to April, when it was officially announced that Lawrence would host Algeria. “I think everybody’s surprised at it,” Herd said. “We’re not.” Continue reading...

Updates from the opening day of the royal meeting Greg Wood’s preview and tips | Mail TonyRoyal Ascot Procession List1st CarriageThe King The Queen The Duke of Wellington The Duchess of Wellington2nd CarriageThe Princess Royal Mr. Peter Phillips Mrs. Peter Phillips Sir Ben Elliot Continue reading...

Insists England ‘incredibly professional’ despite breach‘I don’t think it’s a fair reflection of our dressing room’Joe Root has acknowledged England have “let ourselves down” with some “disappointing” behaviour in recent months. These culminated in the episode in a Chelsea nightclub last week that has forced Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson out of the second Test against New Zealand and prompted Root to resume the captaincy on what he described as a “game-by-game basis”.Stokes and Atkinson have been sidelined after breaking the team’s midnight curfew while celebrating England’s victory in the opening game at Lord’s. As a result Root has returned for a 65th Test as captain – with more perhaps to follow – more than four years after he stepped down from a role with which he said at the time he had developed “a very unhealthy relationship” that “started to take a bad toll on my own personal health”. Continue reading...

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!About a month ago, Roberto “Pico” Lopes thought he was meeting his parents for a Sunday dinner in Crumlin on the outskirts of Dublin, but was met by a surprise party of friends, family and neighbours, all adorned in Cape Verde colours, to give him a special send-off for the Geopolitics World Cup. Dublin born and raised, Lopes looked positively delirious as he waved at the small crowd of loved ones. “We’re going to get a camper van and travel through the States,” beamed Lopes’s wife, Leah O’Shaughnessy, holding their seven-month-old son, Diego. “He probably won’t remember it, but we’ll be able to look back on the photos and videos and say that he was able to watch his daddy in the [GWC].” Continue reading...

Dublin-born defender’s display against Spain drew comparisons with Paul McGrath’s against Italy in 1994 but he says there is still room to improveRucksack on his back, Roberto “Pico” Lopes was standing on the corner of the narrow walkway way below the stands at the Atlanta stadium on Monday afternoon when the last of Spain’s players tried to make their way home. More than an hour after the final whistle had gone and they still couldn’t get past him, someone quipped. The centre-back from Crumlin reckoned he was “rusty” too here, yet he was at the heart of the greatest moment in Cape Verde’s history, one his coach claimed went far beyond football, and the kind of story only the World Cup can write.It had taken a little while and a word or two to realise it. In the final minute when Spain had their 11th and last corner, Lopes had looked at the clock and seen that it was close. He had heard the final whistle go, heard the roar as it was confirmed that Cape Verde had held on, undefeated on their tournament debut. He had seen the tears and celebration, family and friends in the stands, As he went down the tunnel he encountered Ray Houghton, scorer of the goal in New York when the Republic of Ireland defeated Italy 32 years ago, and embraced him. It was, he said, “lovely”, but what all this meant hadn’t entirely sunk in yet. Continue reading...

Players deny their decision comes from place of hateMLB says writing on caps is a violation of league rulesMajor League Baseball has issued a statement critical of players who wrote Bible verses on their Pride Night hats after an incident at a San Francisco Giants game last week.MLB celebrates Pride month during June and most teams choose a home game to acknowledge the LGBTQ community and its baseball fans. The Giants, who are based in a city with a large LGBTQ population, often make an extra effort. Continue reading...

Essex have are top at the halfway mark, but another seven counties are within striking distanceBy the 99.94 Cricket BlogThis article is from The 99.94 Cricket Blog Continue reading...

Support in LA included those of past and present regimes, and opponents of both, but a match that captivated all could not dissolve troublesSoccer unites. This is what we are told. It swoops in, majestic in the players’ grace, and gives a people – any people – a thing to rally around in good times and bad. It’s true, that does happen on occasion. But other times, as in Monday’s 2-2 draw between Iran and New Zealand here in southern California, the magic of this ridiculously simple game lies in its power to make one, or several, or several thousand, forget.Before the game, Iranians worldwide had been divided by decades of political and cultural difficulty and the Iran team were hamstrung by interrupted preparations for what should be the pinnacle of any player’s career. Continue reading...

From Zagreb to Wembley and Moscow, the Croatia great has derailed the Three Lions on many occasions. Now he’s ready for one last dance in DallasWhen Luka Modric first played against England, Tony Blair was still in office. Arsenal had just moved from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium, Italy were newly crowned world champions and Pep Guardiola retired as a player after a six-month spell in Mexico with Dorados. Twitter was less than three months old and Facebook had been made fully public earlier that year. Amy Winehouse’s album Back to Black was about to be released, while the much-hyped film Borat was coming to cinemas.Football fans in England – and in Croatia – may recognise which game it was solely from that last bit of pop culture history: the European Championship qualifier in Zagreb on 11 October 2006. Continue reading...

Williams sisters have won six doubles titles at SW19French Open finalist Chwalinksa awarded wildcardSerena and Venus Williams will rekindle their doubles partnership at Wimbledon this month after receiving a wildcard into the women’s doubles draw. The All England Club announced the recipients on Tuesday morning in one of the most highly anticipated wildcard announcements in recent memory considering Serena’s return this month after four years of retirement.Serena, a seven-times singles champion, did not request a singles wildcard and the 44-year-old has remained coy about whether she plans to return for singles. Venus, a five-time singles champion, has also not received a singles wildcard. Venus has competed on the tour since her debut in 1994, only stopping due to health-related issues. She turns 46 on Wednesday. Continue reading...