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⚽ Updates from the tie at Villa Park; kick-off 8pm GMT⚽ Live scores | Sign up for Football Daily | Mail Scott2 min: … but that was a fast start by Villa, and they’ve clearly been told to get right into Lille during the early exchanges. They’re first to everything at the moment. Small sample size, admittedly.1 min: Abraham gets lively quickly. He steals the ball off a snoozing Bouaddi and feeds McGinn down the inside-left channel. McGinn attempts something spectacular from distance. It doesn’t come off, dribbling harmlessly wide right. Continue reading...

Brit overcomes seven-time grand slam champion 7-5, 7-5 25-year-old secures first victory since JanuaryIn her first training session at the ATX Open in Austin last month, weeks after injury put an end to her Australian Open, Francesca Jones found herself in an unusual, delightful situation. Her training partner across the net was none other than Venus Williams, the most successful active female tennis player.Being able to train with such a legendary player was a dream itself, but as of Thursday afternoon Jones can now say that she has also defeated one of the great legends of the game as she closed out a 7-5, 7-5 win over the 45-year-old seven-time grand slam champion in the first round of the Miami Open. The victory marks Jones’s first WTA 1000 match win in her career, breaking a four-match losing streak. Continue reading...

Well, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. For Nottingham Forest, this was anything but the meek surrender widely feared, Vítor Pereira’s side advancing to the Europa League quarter-finals after triumphing 3-0 on penalties at Midtjylland, who missed all three spot-kicks. The goalkeeper Elías Ólafsson had celebrated his captain, Mads Bech Sørensen, winning the toss to decide that penalties would be taken in front of the hosts’ most ardent supporters, but it counted for nothing and ultimately Midtjylland, who lost 2-1 on the night, were punished for being lulled into a false sense of security.Forest stunned the Danish side by earning a 2-0 lead on the night, Nicolás Domínguez’s early header followed by the captain Ryan Yates’s superb strike from distance, before Martin Erlic’s goal sent the game to extra time. After 127 minutes, perfect spot-kicks by the substitutes Morgan Gibbs-White, who entered just after the hour, Ibrahim Sangaré and Neco Williams reignited Evangelos Marinakis’s hopes of Forest achieving European glory. For now, Forest can fret about Sunday’s trip to Tottenham on Friday afternoon’s flight back to East Midlands airport. Continue reading...

Tiny North Carolina university stuns WisconsinNo 1 Duke survive upset scare against No 16 SienaNebraska ends NCAA drought with rout of TroyChase Johnston made his first two-point basket of the season, a fast-break layup with 11.7 seconds remaining that gave No 12 seed High Point an 83-82 victory over fifth-seeded Wisconsin on Thursday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.Johnston finished with 14 points, including four three-pointers for the Panthers, who were 10-and-a-half-point underdogs. He came in shooting 64 of 136 (47.1%) from three-point range but 0 of 4 inside the arc. Continue reading...

Crystal Palace’s first taste of European competition has already taken them to Norway, Poland, France, Ireland and Cyprus. After Ismaïla Sarr finally broke down a stubborn Larnaca defence that had only conceded once in their previous seven matches in this competition, they needed more magic from their top scorer in extra time to set up a mouthwatering meeting with Fiorentina in the quarter-finals.Everything was going to plan for Oliver Glasner’s side when Sarr – who was part of the Senegal side who were stripped of the Africa Cup of Nations title they won in January on Tuesday – fired in his 14th goal of the season early on. But in their 49th match of a marathon season, Palace again illustrated their vulnerability from set pieces when Enric Saborit equalised from a corner. Continue reading...

Theories range from obvious mismatches to Premier League clubs not being able to defend from open playThere were 68 goals in the last 16 of the Champions League, which is not only a lot but goes against the trend of the previous four seasons. What’s going on? Has football suddenly become more attacking again? This surely can’t all be down to Premier League sides struggling to defend against teams who don’t just rely on corners but actually attack from open play, can it?An average of 4.25 goals a game is highly unusual, particularly given the recent context. Before 2008-09 there was only one season when the knockout phase of the Champions League yielded more than three goals a game; between 2008-09 and 2019-20 there was only one season when goals per game dipped below three. There then followed four campaigns in which the average did not climb above 2.72 (and in 2022-23, it was as low as 2.34), before bouncing back to 3.29 last season (including the playoff round). The playoff round this season produced 3.94 goals per game – and there were no Premier League teams involved; this is not purely an English issue. Continue reading...

Jones was vice-captain in Red Roses’ World Cup triumphCentre to lead team in Six Nations opener against IrelandMeg Jones has been chosen to lead England’s world champions in 2026 after the regular Red Roses captain, Zoe Stratford, announced her pregnancy on Wednesday.Jones, who was vice-captain when England beat Canada to lift the World Cup last September, will take over from Stratford for the upcoming Women’s Six Nations. England kick off their campaign against Ireland on 11 April at Twickenham when a tournament-record crowd of more than 60,000 will be in the stands. Continue reading...

‘It’s been great. I couldn’t ask to be in a better position’Hodgkinson 800m favourite at World Indoors in PolandKeely Hodgkinson believes she could not be in better shape to win a first world title this weekend having kicked on again after breaking the indoor 800m world record last month.The Olympic champion is the overwhelming favourite for gold at the world indoor championships in Kujawy Pomorze, Poland, and sounded bullish when asked if she had pushed on in training after obliterating Jolanda Ceplak’s record by running 1min 54.87sec in Liévin in February. Continue reading...

Clubs may be able to roll over squad cost ratio allowance£30 price cap on away tickets extended until 2027-28 seasonThe Premier League is poised to amend its new spending rules before they are introduced next season to give clubs greater flexibility in the transfer market.Under squad cost ratio (SCR) rules approved last November, clubs will be restricted to spending 85% of their revenue on player costs, with a levy payable to the Premier League, for distribution among the other clubs, in the event of a breach. A six-point deduction would be imposed if a club’s spending reached 115% of revenue. Continue reading...

Nellie Pou’s bill follows refusal of ICE chief Todd Lyons to rule out enforcement near stadiums and fan festivalsA New Jersey congresswoman introduced legislation on Thursday to block immigration enforcement from conducting raids within a mile of a Fifa World Cup soccer match or fan festival in the US this summer.The Save the World Cup bill, introduced by Nellie Pou, a Democrat, is meant to assure visitors that they will not be detained and to remove the chilling effect of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations on the events, she said in a release. The World Cup’s first US match begins on 12 June. Continue reading...