Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2025 i World Soccer

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An Instagram post of Jhon Duran celebrating another goal for Al Nassr inevitably drew some mocking responses. “He grew up watching this team!!!” said one. “Money will ruin your career,” added another. It’s no surprise. Cynicism spiced by dollar emojis will invariably follow the £64 million January signing from Aston Villa around during his time in Saudi Arabia. A torrent of criticism chased him out of England for turning his back on the Premier League and UEFA Champions League for the money of the Saudi Pro League. As if to highlight the average quality, Duran promptly scored twice on his league debut against Al Fayha on February 7 in front of 20,207 fans at Al Awwal Park. It’s no Villa Park. A league with average attendances of a little over…

Can a player who has scored117 goals in his first133 games for a club really be regarded as a problem? It seems ridiculous to suggest as much, particularly in the present climate in which the general mood seems to be shifting against philosophy coaches towards pragmatists. Erling Haaland scores goals and so, by a certain logic, he is a good thing. But it’s also true that since he joined Manchester City they have won the treble, won the Premier League again and then gone into decline. The question is: is that coincidental? Has he simply turned up at an awkward period for the club as a generation comes to an end, or is he in some way a contributor to City’s issues? What is clearly true of Haaland is that…

“I missed the national team, but now I am ready [to return]” Thibaut Courtois makes himself available for international selection again after Rudi Garcia replaced Domenico Tedesco as Belgium boss. The goalkeeper hadn’t played since June 2023, missing Euro 2024 as a result under the previous management TRANSFERS LOANS SACKINGS HIRINGS SWITCHES RETIREMENTS Keny ARROYO Selected by Tim Vickery as one of World Soccer’s wonderkids to watch for 2025, the19-year-old Ecuador winger joined Besiktas from Independiente del Valle. Cristian CHIVU A Champions League-winning player with Internazionale, who has been working in their academy since 2018, the Romanian took his first senior coaching role as Parma manager. Robin VAN PERSIE Feyenoord sacked Brian Priske on the eve of their Champions League clash with Milan and, after reaching the last16, hired Heerenveen…

SEASON RANKINGS Cumulative votes through the season GOALKEEPERS Jan Oblak (Atletico Madrid) 9 David Raya (Arsenal) 5 Matz Sels (Nottingham Forest) 4 Yann Sommer (Internazionale) 4 Alisson (Liverpool) 3 Caoimhin Kelleher (Liverpool) 3 Emiliano Martinez (Aston Villa) 3 Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich) 3 Thibaut Courtois (Real Madrid) 2 David De Gea (Fiorentina) 2 Michele Di Gregorio (Juventus) 2 Peter Gulacsi (RB Leipzig) 2 Franco Israel (Sporting) 2 Alex Meret (Napoli) 2 Inaki Pena (Barcelona) 2 Marco Carnesecchi (Atalanta) 1 Lucas Chevalier (Lille) 1 Kepa Arrizabalaga (Bournemouth) 1 Mike Maignan (Milan) 1 Vanja Milinkovic-Savic (Torino) 1 Kevin Trapp (Eintracht Frankfurt) 1 Michael Zetterer (Werder Bremen) 1 DEFENDERS Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool) 23 Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool) 18 Federico Dimarco (Internazionale) 11 Giovanni Di Lorenzo (Napoli) 10 Gabriel (Arsenal) 8 Denzel Dumfries (Internazionale)…

OCEANIA New Zealand remain overwhelming favourites to qualify automatically ahead of Fiji, Tahiti and New Caledonia in March’s final round The third round of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers in Oceania will represent a final chance for a place on the game’s biggest stage for a handful of the region’s veteran stars. Four teams have made the third round, and New Zealand face Fiji in the semi-final on March 21 with home advantage. Darren Bazeley’s side already have the benefit of playing in Wellington and have been aided further by a debilitating injury to Fiji’s key player. Roy Krishna, 37, Fiji’s all-time top scorer and record appearance maker, injured his anterior cruciate ligament in November playing for his club side Odisha in the Indian Super League. The absence of Fiji’s…

Africa’s World Cup qualifying group stage campaign passes the halfway point this March. After the two rounds of action, there will only be four matchdays left – in September and October. While most countries are still in with a chance, several upcoming games will likely prove key in the race to fill places at the finals in North America. The nine group winners all advance, with the four best runners-up getting another crack in November’s second round. The winners of that will then enter the new cross-continental play-off system, which takes place in March 2026. Surprise packages Sudan have a massive showdown with Senegal in Group B that could go a long way to determining who finishes on top of the standings, while Algeria can put some daylight between themselves…

It’s almost a cliché in Asia that Uzbekistan are the continent’s chokers but the label could soon be removed forever. The Central Asians have managed to avoid going to the World Cup just when it was within reach. The first near-miss came in the continental play-off for the 2006 World Cup, when a win against Bahrain would have meant a final elimination match against Trinidad & Tobago. That failure – two draws but a defeat on away goals – was painful enough but, in 2014, the team missed out on an automatic spot by virtue of the narrowest goal-difference margin and then, in 2018, a victory over South Korea at home in the final game would have meant a place in Russia. Things are different now, or should be. The…

You returned to Everton last summer on a one-year contract, which ends this season. What does the future hold? My immediate focus is to help the team maintain its Premier League status. I’m 37, in good physical condition and still able to play to a high standard. Come the end of the season, I will assess my options and go for the one that suits me and my family. Medium to long-term I’m open-minded regarding coaching as I have both UEFA B licences [outfield and goalkeeping]. I speak several languages, have networks in various countries, so a sporting director role would interest me. I’m also enjoying my media work. I want to stay in football in some capacity, but it all depends on being given the right opportunity. My goalkeeping…

The record books suggest that Germany will have a tough time seeing off bogey side Italy when the two giants of the European game go head-to-head in the last eight of the Nations League in late March. In nine clashes with the Italians in major finals, Germany (or West Germany in days of yore) have only triumphed once and even that was on penalties at the quarter-final stage of Euro 2016. Over the years, Italy have proved time and time again that they know how to stifle the Germans tactically; no doubt Azzurri boss Luciano Spalletti will have a few chess moves up his sleeve in this prestigious, high-stakes rendezvous, both in the first leg at Milan’s San Siro and for the return in Dortmund three days later. The great…

As money flows in and financial gaps open up, the Brazilian championship has become more and more imbalanced, but a change to the usual routine could help level the playing field. The league kicks off at the end of March, earlier than usual, and will pause for a month in the middle of June to accommodate the FIFA Club World Cup, where four Brazilian teams are in action. Three of them are the big hitters, but reigning domestic and continental champions Botafogo are giving cause for concern. It had been expected that they might keep their all-conquering team together until the Club World Cup, but key players have gone, along with coach ArturJorge – who had yet to be replaced by the end of February, with his assistant Claudio Cacapa…

Samoa’s surprise appearance at this year’s Under-17 Women’s World Cup in Morocco will be the first time that a side from the Pacific island, with a population of just 225,000, has ever appeared in a global tournament. Their appearance benefitted from FIFA’s decision to expand the tournament from16 to 24 teams for this year, which gave the Oceania Football Confederation two slots. But the team’s hopes were also boosted by an incredible digital global trawl for players. The Samoa side was bolstered by a number of players from the island’s diaspora, who were identified by the UK-based International Football Consultancy (IFC) ran by Russell Gurr and Alastair McLae. The duo use artificial intelligence to identify players with qualifying ancestry and began looking for eligible potential players after being brought on…

IN THIS ISSUE… Home. That’s the theme of this month’s issue of World Soccer, with Brazil superstar Neymar leading the way. It’s probably not quite how he imagined it, it may not even be for very long, but he is back at Santos, the club where it all began. It’s a familiar story. Xherdan Shaqiri, one of 25 stars to watch that we’ve picked as the season’s conclusion approaches, has also returned to his first club, Basel, as has Roma manager Claudio Ranieri. As long as football is played, variations of the same story will occur. The nostalgia, the romance, is simply too irresistible.…

Growing tension over the venue for the 2030 Centenary World Cup Final illustrates the shift in the axis of world football. Europe may boast the game’s most magnetic club competitions with the Champions League in the international sphere and the English Premier League at domestic level, but high-level governance is fleeing Europe at greater speed than at any time since the1950s when FIFA fragmented into regional confederations. Awarding the 2026 World Cup finals to Canada, Mexico and the United States was no insignificant leap in logistics, given the finals’ expansion to 48 teams. But the complexities of 2030 are entirely different. South America accepted, with bad grace, the anniversary gesture of opening matches in Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Asuncion; simultaneously Europe accepted the inclusion of Morocco to ensure no significant…

“If I were to deliver a message to FIFA, I would say to avoid the afternoons, from midday to 6pm. That would massively reduce the risk of extreme heat” Climate scientist Dr Donal Mullan, speaking to BBC Sport, warns of the risks players face at the 2026 World Cup in North America 5 Japanese Super Cups won by Sanfrecce Hiroshima, one behind the record, after they beat Vissel Kobe 2-0 in the 2025 edition. 33,208 Attendance at the Aviva Stadium for February’s opening-weekend Dublin derby between Bohemians and Shamrock Rovers, a record crowd for the League of Ireland. 143 Years between Queen’s Park’s last two wins over Rangers, after they knocked them out of the Scottish Cup. Philippe Clement was sacked as Gers manager two weeks later. 6 Premier League…

Neymar re-joining Santos is the biggest return to Brazilian football in exactly 30 years, since Romario turned his back on Barcelona at the start of1995 and signed for Flamengo. True, in the following three decades both Ronaldo and Ronaldinho went back home. Both, of course, were huge stars, and they had their moments in Brazil. But it was generally accepted that their best days were behind them. That was not the case with Romario, who was just turning 29 when he came back across the Atlantic. Just a few months earlier, he had been the star name in Brazil’s USA ’94 World Cup triumph and had just won the FIFA World Player of the Year award. Theoretically, then, he was at the peak of his powers, although in reality his…

The brutalist, concrete exterior of the Partizan Stadium seamlessly matches the atmosphere on a grey mid-February afternoon in south Belgrade. Flecks of snow and a sense of tension are in the air. For once in this passionate sporting city, it is not football causing the tension. Since a tragedy in Serbia’s second city, Novi Sad, in November, student-led protests have become a daily occurrence, the likes of which have not been seen for a generation. With agitation bubbling away under the city’s surface, the last thing it needs is a Belgrade derby between two of the country’s most storied clubs. But that is exactly what this afternoon has in store mere days after violent clashes between rival sets of fans hit the headlines. Today, however, Partizan will not be welcoming…

South America’s World Cup qualification moves into its final third at the end of March and, with six teams qualifying (plus a seventh going into a play-off), this is the moment when the first places in next year’s tournament will be filled. Leaders Argentina, for example, already have 25 points. In all of the previous campaigns, the side finishing sixth had between 23 and 27. It could be, then, that the defending world champions already have enough points in the bag. They might need one more win to make absolutely sure – but it probably will not come easily in March, as Lionel Scaloni’s side travel to Uruguay before hosting Brazil. These are tough fixtures, and they could shed some light on a question that has been worrying some in…

Ghana could find redemption from their 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying disaster sooner rather than later as a place at the next World Cup finals beckons. The Black Stars share top spot in Group I of Africa’s 2026 World Cup qualifiers with Comoros, and go into their next set of fixtures determined to put behind them a horror three-month run at the end of last year. The qualifiers for the upcoming Cup of Nations finals in Morocco were crammed into a three-month spell from September to November and saw Ghana crash badly despite an exciting-looking team. They had a disastrous campaign, finishing rock bottom of their group – a pool featuring Angola, Sudan and Niger – and embarrassingly failed to win a single game. But head coach Otto Addo…

Friday, March 21, 2025 is a date underlined in triplicate in the diary of elite German coach Thomas Tuchel, who will be making his debut as England supremo that night in a World Cup qualifier at Wembley against Albania. Tuchel has brought his own distinctive brand of innovative teaching methods and uncompromising will-to-win to a host of top European clubs – Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich – but has never plied his trade with a national team. No doubt he will need time to affect the transition from the daily grind of the club game to the relatively sparse calendar of the flag-bearing fraternity. Sven-Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello, the two other foreigners to have led England, both won their first match in charge of the Three…

While Real Madrid remain the unquestioned kings of the men’s Champions League, their women’s side are a long way from being queens of the female counterpart. Having only been in existence for five years, after taking over CD Tacon, which itself did not reach the top flight until 2019, Madrid have been playing catch-up in the women’s game. They quickly became good, qualifying for the Champions League every season since 2021, but becoming very good has been more problematic. There is no shame in trailing Barcelona, Europe’s best team, in La Liga F, but to have not made so much as a dent in the Champions League is disappointing. This season they saw off Twente and Celtic easily enough to qualify for the knockout rounds, but lost home and away…

The nations of North and Central America and the Caribbean continue to prepare for the football bonanza taking place on their shores during the next two summers as the 2024-25 CONCACAF Nations League reaches its finale just as the 2025 Gold Cup begins. The Nations League finals coincide with the preliminary round of the Gold Cup where14 more teams bid to qualify for the tournament proper this summer. Seven of those will join the nine that have already secured their spots in what is also a chance for teams to make their mark ahead of these flagship tournaments. All three 2026 World Cup hosts, Canada, Mexico and the United States, have already qualified for the Gold Cup thanks to their Nations League performances. They now get the chance to add…

The story of the group stage of the AFC Champions League Elite is one dominated by Saudi Arabia andJapan and a final-day controversy that cast a shadow over the east. The league phase of the continental tournament looked very different this time around where, instead of the ten groups of four, 24 teams were split into two, 12 in the western half of the continent and12 in the east. Each played eight games (well, not quite, but more on that later), with the top eight going through. In total, there were 96 matches scheduled over five months or so, which meant a lot of work, travel and preparation just to eliminate eight clubs. It also meant that progression was not that taxing for some. The sight of Uzbekistan’s Pakhtakor getting…

In the south-western corner of Taichung, the second largest city in Taiwan, something special is happening which could eventually help soccer supersede baseball as the country’s most popular sport. “We want everyone here to participate in it,” local mayor Lu Shiow-yen said, referring to the International Football Sports and Leisure Park (TIFSLP) complex, which is scheduled to be completed in April. “Our aims include to enhance the social atmosphere of the game here, increase participation, cultivate talent and elite-level competitors, and take part in exchanges with teams from abroad which will bring about new ideas.” The project, costing an estimated NT$1.51 billion (around £37 million), will see an11-a-side artificial pitch, two five-a-side playing areas, an underground car park and associated transport links constructed on the 4.7-hectare site. Most significantly, however,…

ANDRE KRUL TICKS OFF FINAL CONTINENT Dutch goalkeeper Andre Krul has become only the second-ever footballer to play professionally on six geographic continents after appearing for AJEL de Rufisque in Senegal. After spells at several different Dutch clubs, the 37-year-old headed to Colombia (South America), Puerto Rico (North America), Japan (Asia) and Australia (part of Asia in football terms but part of Oceania geographically), before the move to Africa last autumn. However, he had to wait before making his debut earlier this year in the Senegalese Cup – a competition that has recently gained a reputation for producing unusual headlines, most notably last season when the final was contested by teams from the third and fifth tiers. It has been an eye-opening move for Krul, who has been electrified by…

Chelsea v Arsenal 2006-07 Premier League, Stamford Bridge In the history of the Premier League rivalry between London giants Chelsea and Arsenal, few goals have been struck as sweetly as the Ghanaian midfielder’s was when the two sides met back in December 2006… Every player loves to play in big games, especially derbies. When you are playing against your rivals, you don’t want to lose. We were on a long run of home games without a defeat at the time we played against Arsenal in December 2006. It was a record. We were the reigning champions but we had fallen behind Manchester United in the title race, so it was crucial not to come away from this one empty-handed. Losing to Arsenal at Stamford Bridge was something that would be…

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FOOTBALL IN WIND AND RAIN By John Williams (Pitch Publishing, £14.99) Football in Wind and Rain provides educational but entertaining bite-size accounts of the history of British football and its people. The voices of commentators, fans, managers and players all feature amid the succinct observations and engaging narrative stories, with topics such as fandom, stadia, great matches, law changes, memorable goals and regional differences given due coverage. KLOPP’S LAST STAND ByJeff Goulding (Pitch Publishing, £19.99) Klopp’s Last Stand: Red Odyssey IV continues the epic chronicle of Liverpool’s history, picking up the baton from Champions Under Lockdown and exploring events on and off the pitch following the club’s momentous Premier League title win in 2019-20. From the European Super League debacle, the agonising quadruple near miss, the horror of Paris, and…

Never go back. That’s always been the advice to football managers tempted by a return to former glories. Never go back to a previous club, however strong the sentiment, however rich the history, however loudly the supporters sing in praise. It doesn’t end well. Claudio Ranieri has been busy defying accepted wisdom at Roma this season, but then he loves proving people wrong, as he did most famously with his miracle of leading Leicester City to win the Premier League in 2015-16, arguably the single greatest managerial achievement of modern soccer. He was also more than happy to take on the sceptics who believe you can’t be a successful manager at a top club at the age of 73. “Sir Claudio”, as they call him in Italy, is anything but…

Together with their fellow Eastern Europeans Bulgaria – who went all the way to the semi-finals – Romania were a smash hit, capturing the hearts and minds of American and international fans. A tight-knit team, manager Anghel Iordanescu started just13 different players during the tournament, but his cast of stars, built around the metronomic Gheorghe Hagi, delivered sumptuous football and a result that still stands as the apex in Romanian football history. They fluffed their lines against Switzerland in a 4-1 defeat, but victories against Colombia and then Argentina in the round of16 ranked among the most entertaining matches of the competition. Against Sweden, Romania’s weakness – their inability to protect leads – cost them a spot in a showpiece semi-final against eventual winners Brazil. Hagi, Romania’s talisman and greatest-ever…

The question of home advantage is a contested point in South America, where vast distances and differing conditions often make life hard for the visitors. So far in this campaign there have been 32 home wins and ten away – and that 3:1 ratio is standard in the continent’s World Cup qualifiers. In the1994 campaign, Brazil tried to “persuade” Ecuador and Bolivia not to play at altitude – successfully with the former, unsuccessfully with the latter, when they lost the first qualifier in their history. As a response, when Brazil were back for the 2002 campaign, CONMEBOL tried to place a restriction. Countries were limited to one host city only – if one had to go up to La Paz, everyone did. On account of its size, Brazil was allowed…

It’s almost easier to count the Asian nations that haven’t changed coaches since the start of 2026 World Cup qualification back in 2023 than the ones who have. The latest was shocking, if not surprising. Indonesia’s last qualifier was a famous 2-0 win over Saudi Arabia in Jakarta in November. In January, Shin Tae-yong, who has been in charge of the team’s best-ever period, was dismissed. With the majority of the team now made up of naturalised Dutch-born players, in came ex-Oranje striker Patrick Kluivert. With four of the ten games in the third round remaining, the two March matches are crucial for all18 remaining teams. The top two from each of the three groups of six qualify automatically for the World Cup, while those that end in third and…

The 18 teams that reached the third round of qualification for the 2026 World Cup have already been rewarded with a place at the 2027 Asian Cup. That means there are still six places to play for at the 24-team tournament, which will be held in Saudi Arabia. The battle to claim them is going to be fierce and starts on March 25. The format is simple: six groups of four, with the teams that finish first getting the last remaining golden prize. Group A’s Tajikistan were one of the stories of the 2023 Asian Cup (which took place in early 2024), making the quarter-final stage in their first appearance, and will be favourites to return to the tournament. Their biggest obstacle is likely to be the Philippines, seeking to…

Holders Al Ahly might have again stumbled through the group phase of the African Champions League but the potential path to the final looks comfortably attainable for the Cairo giants, who have drawn Al Hilal of Sudan in the quarter-finals. While Al Hilal were the first club to secure their berth in the last eight, winning their opening three group games in December and then drawing the fourth to make sure of a top-two place, they have a long history of disappointment when pitted against Egyptian opposition. It has been a remarkable story of resilience from the exiled Sudanese club, shifted lock, stock and barrel to far-away Mauritania, where they not only play as invited guests in the local league but have also been using Nouakchott as their home ground…