A 'winning culture' may be one of the most over used terms in modern football but Real Madrid and Carlo Ancelotti proved on Saturday, at Liverpool's expense, that there truly is meaning and value in the concept.
A number of football leagues around the globe will resume after the COVID-19 stoppage in the coming weeks but the matches will be played without fans.
Messi was three ahead of nearest rival Kylian Mbappe, who scored 33 times for Paris St Germain as they won France's Ligue 1.
Beer-swilling English football fans bathed in public fountains on Thursday evening in the northern France town on Lille to celebrate their team's victory over Wales in nearby Lens, with little sign of the tensions seen there in previous nights.
Factbox on Germany midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, who announced his retirement from international football on Friday.
An inhospitable climate and the smallest population of any World Cup nation have failed to dampen Iceland's burning desire
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics torch lighting ceremony in ancient Olympia will be the first in more 35 years to be held without spectators after organisers introduced tighter measures to protect against the coronavirus. Here is a list of international sports events hit by the coronavirus outbreak.
Lionel Messi said on Wednesday he was delighted to have signed for French club Paris St Germain and that he is ready to help the team clinch their first ever Champions League title.
Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema has admitted to lying to fellow France international Mathieu Valbuena over a sex video at the centre of an alleged blackmailing attempt, Le Parisien reported on Friday.
Weir capitalised on a mistake by United captain Katie Zelem as City emerged victorious on the opening day of the season
Austria are the favourites in their Euro Group C opener against the Balkan nation
Germany beat France in a penalty shootout after their thrilling Women's World Cup quarter-final ended 1-1 after extra-time.
Australia and New Zealand were handed the right to host the 2023 Women's World Cup soccer tournament by a comfortable margin after a vote by the FIFA Council on Thursday. Their joint proposal beat a rival bid from Colombia to host the tournament which is being expanded to 32 teams.
China and Spain played out a 0-0 draw in their final World Cup Group B match on Monday and the result was good enough for both teams to advance to the last 16 after Germany beat South Africa 4-0 in the other game in the section.
Lionel Messi came off the bench to inspire Barcelona to a 3-1 win over a dogged Leganes side on Sunday, creating one goal and scoring another to keep the Catalans five points clear at the top of La Liga.
Croatian footballer Ivan Rakitic has said that his national team-mate Luka Modric should win everything that star striker Lionel Messi cannot.
Arsenal have triggered a buy-out clause in striker Jamie Vardy's contract with English champions Leicester City after making a bid of about 20 million pounds, several British media reports said.
Former France striker Louis Saha celebrated his 35th birthday on Thursday by announcing his retirement from professional football.
French Football Federation (FFF) president Noel Le Graet told the country's top clubs on Wednesday to make the quality of their pitches an absolute priority, describing one ground at Euro 2016 as "a failure".
Belgium and England have already met during the World Cup in a match both teams seemed reluctant to win and on Saturday they will face each other again in a game they both seem reluctant to play. The two sides must pick themselves up and dust themselves down after suffering the crushing disappointment of semi-final defeats to play for the modest prize of third place in a fixture often criticised as pointless.
Italy coach Roberto Mancini believes that the postponement of Euro 2020 could work in his team's favour although a gap of 10 months between working with his players will create difficulties. Under his leadership, they finished their Euro 2020 qualifying group with a 100% record and are on a run of 11 successive wins.
Portugal will look to their Euro 2020 opener with Hungary to get a head start
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola hopes his players return injury-free from the international break this month for a hectic run of fixtures that could define the Premier League champions' season.
Former Nigeria defender Stephen Keshi, who won the African Nations Cup as both a player and a coach, died of a suspected heart attack on Wednesday, the country's football association has confirmed. The 54-year-old coached Nigeria to the Nations Cup title in South Africa in 2013, 19 years after lifting the trophy as a player, only the second man after Egypt's Mahmoud El-Gohary to achieve the feat. Keshi is regarded an iconic figure in a golden generation of Nigerian players that includes Finidi George, Rashidi Yekini, Jay-Jay Okocha, Samson Siasia, Daniel Amokachi and Sunday Oliseh, captaining the team at the 1994 World Cup in the USA. During a 20-year playing career, Keshi had spells in France and Belgium, most notably for Anderlecht, and also in the U.S. during the Sacramento Scorpions' brief existence in the mid-1990s.
Italy face a tough opening day task against a resilient and talented Turkey side that impressed in qualifying and has a penchant for big games.
As results prove every week, nothing can be taken for granted in soccer and despite long odds, FIFA could next year have its first French president since Jules Rimet with Jerome Champagne planning to succeed Sepp Blatter.
West Ham United vice-chairman Karen Brady says hopes of re-starting the Premier League in three weeks are "dreamland" and believes this season could be declared null and void. England's top-flight soccer league, like the rest of world sport, finds itself in unprecedented peace-time territory as it attempts to react to the coronavirus pandemic which has infected nearly 800 people so far in Britain.
You can see Messi, Suarez and other South American superstars play in the Copa America. Why then are soccer fans ignoring the oldest football tournament and looking forward to the European championships, which begins in France on Friday?
World-record signing Neymar greeted delirious fans at a grand welcome event at Paris St Germain's stadium on Saturday but must sit out the French club's Ligue 1 opener after his transfer was not registered in time.
How they strategised, motivated and led their teams to victory.
'Until I was on the pitch in the second half, I didn't think about football'
'Putting tanks on the Ladakh border is not enough to combat China, what is needed to ensure resilience against any cyber-attacks or attacks in outer space or China flexing its economic muscle, as it did with Australia.'
A round-up off all transpired on and off the football pitch
The expanded European soccer Championship format with 24 teams in the finals instead of 16 contributed to fairytale runs by so-called minnows at Euro 2016 but also helped Portugal lift their first major trophy. The new formula introduces an extra knockout stage, the round of 16, with the top two teams in each of the six groups going through as well as the four best third-placed sides. Portugal did just that, finishing third in their group and going on to win the tournament with a 1-0 victory in extra time over hosts France in Sunday's final.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter's public mockery of a confidential Irish request to be added as the 33rd team in the 2010 World Cup helped trigger a controversial 5 million euro payout, the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) said on Friday.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino promised that the tournament would leave a lasting legacy and there are "concrete plans" to make sure the stadiums are used in the future.
Germany's federal cartel office on Tuesday launched an investigation into the German football association's (DFB) sale of tickets for the national team's matches at Euro 2016.
Arsenal right back Bacary Sagna broke his leg in the 2-1 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur and could miss three months, the French Football Federation said, on Sunday, as he was replaced in France's Euro 2012 qualifying squad by Lille's Mathieu Debuchy.
Iceland joint-coach Heimir Hallgrimsson likened his team to an army on Sunday heading for a "win-win" second-round battle with England at Euro 2016. Iceland are the smallest country at the tournament with a population of just 332,000, the size of a city such as Leicester whose club won the English Premier League title this season.
