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Vuskovic coming in after Van Hecke headed to SpursItaly right-back Palestra makes £47m Chelsea moveBrighton have agreed a £50m deal to sign the Tottenham centre-back Luka Vuskovic after allowing another central defender, Jan Paul van Hecke, to move in the opposite direction for £52m last month.Vuskovic, part of the Croatia squad at the World Cup, was bought by Spurs for £10m from Hajduk Split last summer but has never played for the club, after being loaned to Hamburg last season. Continue reading...

Updates from Wednesday’s action in SW19 Order of play | Joint ends Williams comeback | Mail DanielYara El-Shaboury was watching on No 2 Court, and has this quick report:Naomi Osaka cruised to a second-round 6-3, 6-2 win against the Russian qualifier Anastasia Gasanova. There was little worry for the four-time grand slam champion, whose serves and groundstrokes were stellar as she makes it to the third round at Wimbledon in back-to-back years.There was a small moment of frustration in the second set, with Osaka stating “What the hell?” after hitting the ball out, which garnered some chuckles from the No 2 Court crowd. She then turned to her team to complain about Gasanova’s grunting but got on with business to win in straight sets. The Japanese was candid in her on-court interview about her nerves, saying: “​I don’t rate my performance. I have to wait a bit to do that. My current emotion is that I am happy to win. I am glad to do it in straight sets. “Tomorrow is my daughter’s birthday so I didn’t want to make her get on a plane on her birthday. I will practise a bit in the morning and then maybe take her to the park. She loves making new friends.” Continue reading...

⚽️ Kick-off time: 12pm local/5pm BST/1am AEST⚽️ Player guide | Bracketology | Golden Boot | Mail ScottThe DRC make one change following the 3-1 win over Uzbekistan. Striker Cédric Bakambu makes way for an extra midfielder in Ngal’ayel Mukau. There are plenty of stars familiar to fans of British football in the team: Aaron Wan-Bissaka (West Ham), Axel Tuanzebe (Burnley), Noah Sadiki (Sunderland) and Yoane Wissa (Newcastle) start, while Aaron Tshibola (Kilmarnock) and Edo Kayembe (Watford) are on the bench.No surprises in the England starting XI. Especially if you’ve just read that communiqué from Jacob Steinberg. Thomas Tuchel makes three changes to his starting XI after the 2-0 win over Panama. Djed Spence replaces the injured Jarell Quansah at the problem position of right-back. Declan Rice returns at the expense of Morgan Rogers. And Noni Madueke starts on the right wing again, displacing his Arsenal colleague Bukayo Saka. Continue reading...

Over-by-over report from the match at Chester Le StreetJoe Root stands alone after Stokes leaves the scene | Email JamesElsewhere, this week’s Spin column written by some eejit: Root’s early evening ramp off Nathan Smith on Saturday was a beautiful, even emotional moment. Here was the sensible man on the stag do with his top off, dancing on the bar. Here was Root, for one last time the Sundance Kid to Stokes’s Butch Cassidy, joining his partner in running head first into a hail of bullets. Anything for you, old pal.Root is now the only player who survives from that first Bazball Test at Lord’s in 2022. Further still, he’s seen Cook, Anderson, Broad and now Stokes leave the scene. But he will play on, shepherding new faces with a half an eye on Sachin in the distance. England have one all-time great remaining. His best mate departing in a blaze, Joe Root stands alone among the embers.” Continue reading...

33-year-old returns to face South Africa at the Oval‘I’ve been put through my recovery paces’Nat Sciver-Brunt will return to captain England in their T20 World Cup semi-final against South Africa at the Oval after being “put through my recovery paces”.The 33-year-old missed the last three matches of the group stages after retiring hurt against Ireland with a recurrence of the calf injury she sustained in April. Continue reading...

Despite a softening of his cutting edge and an international career defined by near misses, the forward is expected to cause problems for AustraliaIt was fitting that it was Mo Salah who scored to put Egypt ahead in their World Cup match against New Zealand a little over a week ago. The Pharaohs, for all their achievements in Africa, had never won a World Cup match. Fighting back from 1-0 down to the All Whites, Salah helped engineer a long-awaited victory, at the same time moving to within one of Egypt’s record goalscorer Hossam Hassan, also the team’s coach at this tournament.“In years to come, we will remember that this was one of the achievements in history,” Salah said after the match, which finished 3-1 and all but secured the nation’s progression to the last 32. Continue reading...

The team time trial returns as this year’s Tour starts in Barcelona for the first time in race’s historyThe first team time trial since 2019, past many of Barcelona’s prime tourist sites – La Rambla, Sagrada Familia – but with a novel format: riders’ times will be taken individually at the uphill finish. So rather than trying to finish four or five riders together, teams will wear out non-climbers early on, then have lighter men peeling off one by one in the finale – replicating the usual approach to a summit finish in a road race. Advance warning: Jonas Vingegaard’s Visma, Remco Evenepoel’s Red Bull, and Tadej Pogacar’s UAE Emirates are masters of this game. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter we speak to the Lionesses’ record scorer, who has been inducted to the hall of fame at the National Football MuseumFor a generation of England fans she was the talismanic striker the nation could always rely on to find the net at a major tournament, scoring a record 52 goals for the Lionesses across her 113 caps. But now that it is her turn to live through the stress and tension of watching games, Ellen White personifies what she has always been deep down: an England fan.“I’m a nail-biter, I’m horrible [to watch a match with], I’m grabbing people, shoving people, I’m really kind of fully invested because I want the best for the team, I’m always rooting for them,” White says, as she reflects on her successful transition to working as a TV pundit and, particularly, covering the Euro 2025 triumph of Sarina Wiegman’s team, trying to use her own understanding of what the players are enduring to bring a fairness to her analysis.This is an extract from our free email about women’s football, Moving the Goalposts. To get the full edition, visit this page and follow the instructions. Moving the Goalposts will be sent out once a week, on Wednesdays, in the close season but will be back on Tuesdays and Thursdays from September. Continue reading...

In Wednesday’s last-32 match, the US team have more than just a chance to win against Bosnia and Herzegovina. They’re playing to win over their countryIt took Mauricio Pochettino a little while to understand that he had accepted an innately vibes-based job.If club soccer boils down to managers exerting control and fitting their players into an intricate system, buttressed by cutting-edge tactics, ultra-modern analytics and first-in-class sports science, international soccer demands a different job entirely. And it tends to take long-time club coaches who are managing in the international game for the first time a bit to catch on to the difference. Continue reading...

On the eve of their last-32 game with Austria, Spain’s unassuming midfielder explains their team spirit and about finding his rhythm after injuryAt the Embassy Suites on Broad Street, downtown Chattanooga, the vans have pulled out for the last time. The day before departure, like every day, a small crowd of kids had climbed barriers and trees, trying to get a glimpse of Spain’s players.A girl stood on a ladder and held a placard in each hand, raised above the fence. One said: “I’ve been here three weeks. I know you’ve seen me!” The other ran: “Please come out!” On Wednesday afternoon, Tennessee time, they did. They won’t be back. Continue reading...