Marking Pelé, team bonding in war-torn Vietnam, stubbing your toe when your nation’s first ever World Cup goal beckons. An alternative, international history of the World Cup, told through the 48 different stories of 48 men whose lives converge there: www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

A few months ago, I embarked on a quest to speak to 48 World Cup footballers past and present: one from each nation at this year's finals. It was a mission, and a joy. This is what it means, through the decades and across the planet, to play at the World Cup: www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

Santos FC gave us Brazil's two greatest scorers. But whereas Pelé was gospel, Neymar is content. Parties, posts, poker, Bolsonaro...as he awaits Ancelotti's World Cup call, is Neymar a symbol of decadence and wasted talent, or a misunderstood modern icon? www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

Back at Santos, cradle of Pelé, as Brazil's record scorer: it should be a fairytale. Yet Neymar stands for avarice and 'happiness squandered'; a possible hero, lost. As the World Cup squad looms, will he get one last chance to reclaim his story? Special report from 🇧🇷 www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

Back at Santos, cradle of Pelé, as Brazil's record scorer: it should be a fairytale. Yet Neymar stands for avarice and 'happiness squandered'; a possible hero, lost. As the World Cup squad looms, will he get one last chance to reclaim his story? Special report from 🇧🇷 www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

Graham Potter is returning to Swedish football just as it sees itself at a profound fork in the road, between old & new, collectivism & individualism. Can he navigate that, while rediscovering the daring to be different which defined his own success there? Column: www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

One of the big sports moments of 2026 could be the fall of the men's mile record. With a new generation in pursuit of that goal, I went in search of the soul of this mythic event, which spans continents and decades, but also resides in a glorious but dwindling club: www.thetimes.com/sport/athlet...

With 35 scored in 2 & ¾ years, penalties have become Harry Kane's daily bread, but each one leaves a trail of crumbs. Can he stay ahead of the keepers in an era when penalties are an information war? And could his single-kick mastery be a bridge to another sport? www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

With 35 scored in 2 & ¾ years, penalties have become Harry Kane's daily bread, but each one leaves a trail of crumbs. Can he stay ahead of the keepers in an era when penalties are an information war? And could his single-kick mastery be a bridge to another sport? www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

Since the Premier League went to 38 games in 1995, there have been 8 instances of a team both scoring & conceding 60+ goals; 7 have come in the last 3 seasons. I wrote about how managers who invite fire with fire have come to outnumber the managers who hero the zero: www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

Few careers are more carefully plotted than Xabi Alonso's. Few are more impulsively adventurous than Roberto de Zerbi's. Ahead of their first meeting in the CL on Tuesday, column on two of the finest coaches of their generation, and their fundamental differences: www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

In England we tend to see half-time interviews etc as part of an unwanted Americanisation, but is football, as the the Lens midfielder Adrien Thomasson eloquently argued, too mistrustful of any opening-up, & not mindful enough of the TV audience? This week's column: www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

This week's column is on Tomas Soucek, West Ham's robot lawnmower, who I think might be the most unique footballer in the Premier League: www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

No England men's player has ever started at six straight major tournaments. Kyle Walker is potentially one good season away from that feat; but last season he seemed in terminal decline. Can Scott Parker, the man he came on for on his England debut, get him there? www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

Maybe never in the great Hadron collider of fate have elite sport & quantum physics smashed together...until now. I loved talking to F1's new star Isack Hadjar & his scientist dad Yassine about how the lessons of a life devoted to the subatomic can build a champion: www.thetimes.com/sport/formul...

Isack Hadjar has been F1's revelation of the season. His dad Yassine is a quantum physicist. Their story runs through Algeria and academia, manga and Pixar, Isaac Newton and Schrödinger's equation. They told me about a plan for stardom rooted in the rigour of study: www.thetimes.com/sport/formul...

Scott McTominay was the ultimate 'Ask Me Anything' footballer. He built a fine Man Utd career on following instruction. Now he's on the brink of a Scudetto: no longer a player in listening mode, but one who has relearnt how to get lost in the game. This wk's column: www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

I can't recall a final that's offered such a contrast in tone, messaging & narrative energy as Ange's pugnacious optimism vs Amorim's ascetic adherence to the truth. Rarely has one game felt so much like a referendum on how to be the public face of a club. Column: www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

Mikel Arteta has built a v good, highly methodical team. They win through control; when they don't, it's things outwith their control: a weird red, an odd ball, a keeper on 🔥. Are they too easily destabilised by the inherent randomness of football?This week's column: www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

Jürgen Klopp always understood that football is a business of stories. How does his own story end? This week’s column: www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...