Spanish legend Casillas has a heart-stopping moment
May 2 – Spain’s World Cup-winning goalkeeper Iker Casillas is recovering in hospital after suffering a heart attack during training with his club Porto.
Performance
RB Leipzig, Real Madrid, OL and Man Utd lead way with youth
April 30 – Player recruitment can either define a club’s future or be a short term fix. An analysis by the CIES Football Observatory looks at the average of players recruited in 24 European top divisions, not including academy graduates.
Season closers: PSG and Juve reinforce their dominance, PAOK break Athens monopoly
By Samindra Kunti
April 23 – Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain and PAOK all clinched domestic titles as the Serie A, Ligue 1 and Superleague were settled this weekend. For PAOK it was the first league title in 34 years, breaking Athens’s hegemony over the Greek domestic crown.
Champions League drama, VAR controversy and away goals rule sends Spurs into semis
By Andrew Warshaw
April 18 – For the second night running, the Champions League threw up the most extraordinary of stories as underdogs Tottenham Hotspur, without their injured talisman Harry Kane, went through to the semi-finals in remarkable circumstances against the might of big-spending Manchester City after one of the most stirring, nerve-wracking ties in the history of club football.
Ajax beat the odds and Juventus to reach Champions League semis
April 17 – They began their challenge back in the qualifying rounds when they were 250 to 1 outsiders. But now Ajax of Amsterdam, the pioneers of total football back in the 1970s, are just one round and two matches away from an unlikely place in this season’s Champions League final.
Head for heights: Maguire tops van Dyke in PL defensive stats, Guerdes leads Big 5
April 16 – An analysis of defensive aerial challenges across Europe by the CIES Football Observatory ranks Olympique Lyonnais defender Marcelo Guerdes as the continent’s leading defender winning 85.5% of aerial challenges.
Kane clattered: talisman’s injury dents Tottenham’s season ambitions
April 10 – England captain Harry Kane looks like being out for the rest of the season as his Tottenham team battle to secure a top four Premier League finish.
68% of Premier League goals scored by foreign players. Wolves buy in 97.4% of their goals
April 9 – More than 68% of goals in the Premier league are scored by foreign players. In a ranking of European leagues the Premier League came third out of 27, behind Cyprus (86.7%) and Turkey (80.7%).
Al Sadd and Xavi romp to Qatar league title
April 5 – Al Sadd and their star midfielder Xavi Hernandez have been crowned champions of Qatar after a mammoth 7-2 win over Al Ahli to take an unassailable lead in the Qatar Stars League.
Fulham join Huddersfield in drop from Premier League to Championship
April 3 – Fulham have been condemned to relegation from the Premier League with five games to play after an abject 4-1 defeat at Watford. Apart from already relegated Huddersfield, no club has been dropped down this early in the English top flight. Across Europe’s Big 5 leagues these are the first two teams to be relegated this season.
Punchy Pickford scores unwanted own goal at home
April 2 – England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford is being investigated by his club Everton over an alleged fracas in his home city of Sunderland at the weekend.
Platini still critical of VAR, but Cardiff wouldn’t agree after Chelsea loss
April 1 – Former UEFA president Michel Platini, who always resisted extending goalline technology to other forms of scientific aids for referees, has once again waded into the debate over the video assistant refereeing system, partly blaming the media for its implementation.
Connection lost: Saints boss Hasenhuttl bans wifi to protect video gaming players
March 29 – An English Premier League manager has banned its players using wi-fi at team hotels to prevent them from playing “addictive” video games.
American Dream: Kane sets sights on NFL kicking role
March 28 – England captain Harry Kane has revealed he wants to end his career by switching sports and trying to become an NFL star as a kicker.
Rashford gets in amongst Man City’s power play to make PL Best XI this year
March 28 – Manchester City players dominate a Best XI of Premier League players over the past 1,000 minutes of league football played, but they would need Man Utd’s Marcu Rashform up front to complete their line-up.