Kylian Mbappé became the youngest player with 100 Champions League appearances when he reached the century mark at age 27 in Real Madrid’s match at Roma on Wednesday.And he celebrated the mark by scoring a first-half equalizer in Madrid’s 4-3 win.Lionel Messi had set the previous record at age 28 against Roma in September 2015.Mbappé lined up at center forward in coach José Mourinho ’s starting lineup for the match at the Stadio Olimpico and his 72nd Champions League goal moved him ahead of former Madrid player Raúl González into fifth place on the competition’s career scoring list.He also scored…

With FIFA’s extended 16-day international break over, club soccer roared back to the forefront over the weekend. The action didn’t disappoint, especially in Europe, where some of the game’s biggest teams and players wowed fans before the spotlight shifts to a full slate of UEFA Champions League matches midweek. Before those matches kick off, here’s where the world’s best clubs rank seven weeks into the 2026-27 season:20. Bayer LeverkusenRecord: 3-1-1Now 3-1-1 after Saturday’s stirring 4-3 triumph away to Mainz, Leverkusen is all alone in 4th in the Bundesliga.Key Player: (Photo by Pau Barrena/Getty Images) 19. LazioRecord: 5-1-0Life is good on the…

Paris Saint-Germain coach Luis Enrique came to Manchester City’s defense on Tuesday, saying he hopes the club won’t be stripped of titles after being found guilty of breaching Premier League financial rules.Back-to-back Champions League winner PSG plays City at the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday.City could face sanctions including a huge fine, points deductions or even expulsion from England’s top flight. There have also been calls for it to be stripped of trophies it won during a nine-year period in which it was found to have artificially inflated its revenue by more than $1 billion.”I hope everything works out well for…

U.S. NATIONAL TEAM TRAINING CENTER (Fayetteville, Ga.) – The epiphany came to Emma Hayes about a decade ago.She was well into her coaching tenure at Chelsea and her team had just lost to rivals Arsenal, 1-0, in the 2016 FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium.When Hayes talks about this moment, she explains the Gunners deserved to win that game. What she couldn’t see at the time – but very clearly understands now – is why her players were so off that day. Their reaction times were slower than normal and their coordination was like “watching a group of people that…

Lionel Messi scored two goals to give him a league-leading 23 this season, and Inter Miami beat D.C. United 4-0 on Saturday night.Luis Suarez also scored twice and German Berterame had two assists for Inter Miami, which snapped a five-match winless skid. Miami had four draws and one loss before Saturday’s outburst.Four days after playing his farewell match that ended a 21-year tenure with the Argentine national team, Messi played the entire 90 minutes.The win was Miami’s first since a 7-1 rout of CF Montreal on Aug. 29. It was also the first league win for new coach Cristian “Kily”…

This is my first post-World Cup power rankings. I love power rankings and I especially love counter rankings. FIFA has their own rankings (released on Oct. 7), and I’m sure they spend a lot of time and money and technology on the formula to come up with it. I can’t say I do the same, it’s more of a gut feel. But these are my power rankings, and as I have always said: If you don’t like mine, then get your own. 10. Colombia (Raul ARBOLEDA / AFP via Getty Images) FIFA rank: 112026 World Cup Recap: A lot of expectations…

Erling Haaland called on everyone at Manchester City to “stick together” in his first public comments since the club was found guilty of large-scale financial rule-breaking in the Premier League.City will play Liverpool on Sunday in its first match since the publication of an investigatory panel’s verdict that City artificially inflated its revenue by more than $1 billion from 2009-18 to circumvent financial fair-play rules that restricted rival clubs in that period. Erling Haaland stressed to Manchester City fans to stay positive. (Photo by Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images) City was found guilty by the panel of all 80 of…

ON TUESDAY NIGHT, under the cloudy skies of Buenos Aires, as Argentina sorrowfully said goodbye to Lionel Messi in his final match for the national team, there was a very specific moment that I can’t erase out of my mind. (Photo by Luis ROBAYO / AFP via Getty Images) It wasn’t the crowd’s energy chanting his name upon scoring his 126th goal, nor the light drone show that extravagantly produced a tribute for the more than 85,000 witnesses packed into Estadio Más Monumental. It wasn’t Enzo Fernández’s uncontrollable tears or even Messi’s reflective speech where he solemnly remembered his late…

The first time I ever watched Lionel Messi play soccer couldn’t have been more anticlimactic.Though the player now generally accepted as the greatest in the history of the planet’s most popular sport had already made his first team debut for Barcelona by this time, the setting was far from the bright lights at the then 90,000-seat Camp Nou, Europe’s largest stadium.Messi was 18, the second-youngest member of Argentina’s under-20 national team, when he and his teammates met the United States on June 11, 2005, in both countries’ first match of what was then called the FIFA World Youth Championship. Arke…

United States men’s national team striker Folarin Balogun hasn’t given up on a return to the Premier League, a month after his deadline-day move to Everton fell apart.Asked by talkSPORT whether a Premier League move still interested him, the 25-year-old called it a possibility.”I was close to a transfer,” Balogun said. “It didn’t materialise, but for sure it’s definitely an option.”Balogun, who came through Arsenal’s academy before joining Monaco on a permanent transfer in 2023, remains with the Ligue 1 club after a summer that put him at the center of two major controversies.”Football has many twists and turns as…