Rob Smyth's Blog, page 8

Matchday live: PSG v Inter Champions League final buildup – as it happened

Our writers brought you all the build-up ahead of a mouthwatering final in Munich

Inter: Simone Inzaghi’s talent-packed team will be underdogs against PSG but believe they have learned from 2023 agony, writes Nicky Bandini.

Ousmane Dembele: “This has been a dream of mine since I was a child,” said the PSG striker, whose form this season has been revelatory. “I am very concentrated. This will be an unforgettable moment. I just hope tomorrow will be history in the making. Tomorrow will be a tense game. We know Paris will be vibrating with excitement. You need to keep a cool head. We are very excited but, as has been mentioned, we need to be calm, cool, collected, serious but smiling, because this is an incredible moment for us.”

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England beat West Indies by 238 runs: first men’s one-day cricket international – as it happened

Jacob Bethell top-scored with 82 as Harry Brook’s captaincy reign began with a thumping victory

4th over: England 34-0 (Smith 15, Duckett 19) Seales overpitches twice to Duckett and is punished with efficient flicks to the midwicket boundary. Ben Duckett, 30 years old and totally at peace with his game, is an increasingly remarkable player. I’m not sure there has ever been an England opener quite like him.

“Can’t help but feel England’s team looks a tad lop-sided,” says James Brough. “Seven front line batsmen and then batting down to Adil Rashid at no 10 - all well and good. But the bowling looks a bit optimistic. Three seamers, of whom Overton has not yet convinced at international level, and Rashid. But then you have to cobble together 10 overs from Root, Jacks and Bethell. If just one frontline bowler has an off day, I think we could have problems.”

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The Spin | The summer of 2005 without Pietersen? Imagining World Test finals of the past

Ahead of next month’s match at Lord’s, we work out who would have reached previous finals and how history may have been altered

This, dear reader, is the 1,126th edition of The Spin. For the past 23 years it has been a weekly source of news, views and automated data about the unread message count in the deleted items folder. As such it is hard to find new journalistic frontiers. But, in the face of some molten competition, this week’s Spin stands alone as the nerdiest, the most anal, the one grounded furthest from reality.

We say this not to boast, only to flag that it may not be for everyone, and that we feel for those unfortunates whose neurological disposition means they have precisely no interest in imagining what a World Test Championship final might have looked like in May 1989.

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The Football Daily Premier League Awards 2024-25

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Welcome to the inaugural Football Daily Premier League Awards, a celebration of a dramatic, eventful 2024-25 season and definitely not an attempt to get half the Football Daily Christmas Awards done early so that we can get lost in eggnog a few days earlier in December. Enjoy!

The Fauja Singh Award For Finding A New Interest In Your Dotage

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

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Gary Lineker emotional as he bows out of BBC’s Match of the Day after controversial final day of the Premier League – as it happened

Gary Lineker says ‘it is time to say goodbye’ as he bows out from presenting Match of the Day on the final day of the 2024/25 Premier League season

Kevin De Bruyne starts on the bench. Jack Grealish does not, and he’s not in the XI either. That’s a pretty sad end to his Manchester City career.

Fulham (4-2-3-1) Leno; Tete, Andersen, Cuenca, Robinson; Cairney, Lukic; Traore, Andreas Pereira, Wilson; Jimenez.

Subs: Benda, Bassey, Vinicius, Berge, Iwobi, Willian, King, Sessegnon, Smith Rowe.

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Sheffield United 1-2 Sunderland: Championship playoff final – as it happened

Tom Watson’s last kick as a Sunderland player was a dramatic injury-time winner that secured promotion to the Premier League

For far too long playoffs have felt impossibly high altitude for a Sheffield United side who have never won promotion this way, losing four finals. Wilder has addressed theproblem by reminding his players that the Wembley air is really not all that thin and maintaining that history is bunk.

His hopes of avoiding another demoralising repetition of the past should be enhanced by Gustavo Hamer’s presence. Two years ago the Brazil-born attacking midfielder scored for Coventry against Luton at Wembley and, as the Championship player of the season, he possesses the confidence and class to alter the Blades’ playoff story.

What’s trigonometry got to do with it?

During Le Bris’s teenage years in the western Breton village of Pont-l’Abbé, he devoted his spare time to completing an in-depth analysis of Arsène Wenger’s tactics as Monaco’s manager. As an adult, he spent holidays touring clubs across Spain and England – Arsenal, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Everton and Leeds included – to watch their coaches. “He’s not someone who shouts at you,” the Sunderland striker Wilson Isidor says, “but he makes you understand things really, really thoroughly.” The winger Patrick Roberts agrees. “He’s efficient,” he says. “He’s brought us new ideas and he’s capable of changing our play depending on the opponent. He’s modern.”

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WCL and Championship playoff finals, Liverpool favourites to sign Wirtz: matchday live – as it happened

Arsenal fans took to the streets of Lisbon ahead of a huge Women’s Champions League final meeting with Barcelona, while thousands of Sheffield United and Sunderland supporters made their way to Wembley

Manchester City wrap up their Premier League campaign on Sunday with a game Pep Guardiola believes is “by far” their most important of the season. City head to Fulham knowing a draw will almost certainly secure a top-five spot and a place in the Champions League for next season.

After winning the title in the past four seasons, it is a relatively modest target but Guardiola recognises it is the least of the club’s expectations. The City manager said: “If we want to play in the Champions League, we have to take a result there. This is what we are going to do. Of course, it’s really important.” Asked if it was the most important game of the season, Guardiola said at a press conference: “By far.”

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WCL and Championship playoff finals, Klopp disappointed with boos for Alexander-Arnold – matchday live

Buildup to today’s major finals

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“Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s having the experience of doing it in other moments,” Leah Williamson told The Guardian this week. “The Euros final was fairly level to this in terms of testing my ability to manage the emotions of the day and occasion. I’m just going to enjoy it.

“If I think that the fact that I’m an Arsenal fan is going to get in the way I have to shift, because that’s not my focus for the day – my job is to be a player, a player that wants to do it for the fan in me.”

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England thrash West Indies by nine wickets: second women’s T20 international – as it happened

Nat Sciver-Brunt and Em Arlott starred as England hammered West Indies with more than 10 overs to spare at Hove

Em Arlott has two wickets in the over and Sophia Dunkley has taken a blinder! James scuffed Arlott towards midwicket, where Dunkley threw up her left hand to take a brilliant reaction catch. There has been lots of focus on England’s fielding after the Ashes defeat; catches like that will change the narrative very quickly.

A huge wicket for Em Arlott! Hayley Matthews wafts all around an excellent delivery that nips back to hit leg stump. Matthews had driven the previous ball majestically over extra-cover for four but Arlott kept pitching it up and got her reward.

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England end day one on 498-3 against Zimbabwe: men’s cricket Test – as it happened

Ollie Pope’s swashbuckling 169 not out helped England to build a big lead in their first innings

“It looks to me that Zimbabwe have got it right, with five bowlers, and England are limited to four,” says John Starbuck. “They are a seamer short and, unlike some earlier selections, they have only one all-rounder (Root, a limited spinner) given that Stokes won’t be expected to exert his frail body just yet. Shoaib Bashir might have done a good job, even if we have a limited choice of possible seamers.”

John, John, John, over the next eight months we’re going to have a gazillion conversations about the balance of the England side. Let’s just enjoy ourselves for a few days – or until Zimbabwe reach 200 for 3 in reply to England’s 121 all out and Gus Atkinson and Josh Tongue have gone off injured and Ben Stokes is into his 12th over of offspin because he’s pulled both hamstrings.

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