“The Medellín Cartel (Spanish: Cártel de Medellín) was a loose coalition of Colombian drug trafficking organizations based primarily in Medellín, Colombia, that played a central role in the expansion of the international cocaine trade during the late 1970s and 1980s. Rather than a single hierarchical organization, contemporary law-enforcement assessments and subsequent scholarship describe the cartel as a network of semi-autonomous traffickers who cooperated in production, transportation, financing, and enforcement while retaining independent control over their respective operations. The network included prominent traffickers such as Pablo Escobar, Carlos Lehder, Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, and the Ochoa brothers—Jorge Luis Ochoa Vásquez, Fabio Ochoa Vásquez, and Juan David Ochoa Vásquez—whose activities collectively shaped the structure and scale of Colombian cocaine trafficking during this period. … The Medellín network emerged in the early 1970s from Colombia’s longstanding contraband economy and expanded rapidly as cocaine replaced marijuana and other illicit goods as the dominant export commodity. …”
W – Medellín Cartel, W – Pablo Escobar
The Ringer – Andrés Escobar, an Own Goal, and Tragedy at the 1994 World Cup (Video), COLOMBIA: The Rise and Fall of Narco-Soccer
NY Times/The Athletic – The triumph and the tragedy: An oral history of USA vs. Colombia
YouTube: The player who was killed for an own-goal, Pablo Escobar: The True Story Of The Ruthless Colombian Drug Lord
Andrés Escobar
“After much uncertainty about the Finalissima match between Spain and Argentina in Qatar later this month, its cancellation was finally — and dramatically — confirmed on Sunday. The war in the Middle East is why the game, pitting the reigning champions of Europe and South America against one another, 
“The result of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations final has been reversed, with hosts Morocco now standing as 3-0 winners after a stunning decision from the competition organisers. The Confederation of African Football released a statement on Tuesday evening, 57 days after the final, saying that its appeal board had declared that Senegal have now forfeited the game, which they had won 1-0 on January 18. CAF said the decision came after an appeal from the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) following that match, which Senegal won in extra time 
“‘What a difference a year can make,’ reflects Dominic Calvert-Lewin. The striker, who turned 29 on Monday, is playing regular football for Leeds United and enjoying his best season in front of goal since 2020-21. His performances have even led to his name resurfacing in 
Fulham fans have been ridiculed for their posh matchday food
“The contrast could hardly have been greater. On Tottenham Hotspur’s previous visit to Anfield 11 months earlier, Arne Slot’s name was chanted repeatedly by the Kop. An emphatic 5-1 victory ensured that the Dutchman became just the fifth manager in the Premier League era to win the title in his first season in English football. Having surpassed all expectations since the departure of the beloved Jurgen Klopp at the end of the 2023-24 campaign, the club’s first league triumph secured in front of their supporters for 35 years triggered scenes of unbridled joy. It felt like the start of a new golden era. …”
“Welcome to the latest edition of Inside Barcelona, our weekly series to follow throughout La Liga’s 2025-26 season. We will bring you key information and analysis on the biggest talking points in and around the Camp Nou, cutting through the noisy world of all things Barca with reporting you can trust. The information contained in this article reflects multiple conversations with various sources at the Spanish champions, all of whom wanted to speak anonymously to protect relationships. …”
Askou has kept faith with most of the backroom staff he inherited
“Fudbalski klub Crvena zvezda, commonly referred to as Crvena zvezda … and colloquially referred to as Red Star Belgrade in 
Iraqis celebrate reaching the World Cup play-offs in November but the journey is not over yet
Iraq fans show their support for the national team
Legia Warsaw fans show their support
Jagiellonia Bialystok’s players celebrate a goal against Strasbourg in the UEFA Conference League
“Liverpool’s return to the summit of the Premier League last season dovetailed with a return to profitability, and the club’s 2024-25 financials, publicly released last Thursday, unveiled the platform from which they launched last summer’s £400million transfer splurge. The champions booked a £15.2million profit, their best financial result since the 2018-19 season and a first profitable year in three. Revenue shot up £89m and 15 per cent to £702.7m, easily a club record, making Liverpool only the second English side, after Manchester City, to top £700m in annual turnover. …”
A fan was ejected after making a Nazi salute at Real Madrid’s previous Champions League home match
Real Madrid fans pictured at the Santiago Bernabeu in January 2002
“Many malignant readers, seeing how I discuss here the noble sport of soccer with detachment, irritation, and (oh, all right) malevolence, will harbor the vulgar suspicion that I don’t love soccer because soccer has never loved me, for from my earliest childhood I belonged to that category of infants or adolescents who, the moment they kick the ball — assuming that they manage to kick it – promptly send it into their own goal or, at best, pass it to the opponent, unless with stubborn tenacity they send it off the field, beyond hedges and fences, to become lost in a basement or a stream or to plunge among the flavors of the ice—cream cart. And so his playmates reject him and banish him from the happiest of competitive events. And no suspicion will ever be more patently true. … And perhaps for this reason I (alone, I think, among living creatures) have always associated the game of soccer with negative philosophies. This having been said, the question could arise as to why I, of all people, should now discuss the World Cup. …”
“IT SEEMS bizarre that, despite the multitude of missiles falling on Tehran, the counter-strikes across the Middle East and the punchy rhetoric of the United States, FIFA are even considering to run the World Cup this summer. Let’s remember that the US is a host nation in this World Cup and host means ‘welcoming’ your visitors. And yet, Haiti, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Iran have either had partial or full travel bans slapped on them by the Trump administration. Furthermore, Mexico (co-hosts) and Colombia have been ‘warned’ by the US. Yes, Mexico, who helped the US win hosting rights for this tournament, have been warned. If you add it all up, among the 48 nations taking part, there are quite a few who have either been insulted, bullied, penalised (by tariff bingo) or threatened in some way by the US in the past 18 months. Why, oh why, would anyone want to travel to the States to take part in the competition in 2026? …”
“The received wisdom was that the Premier League would have three, possibly four, of its six representatives in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. It might now be lucky to have one. Expectations have flipped in 48 hours. It is one of the reasons we love this sport and, in particular, this competition. Fatigue has been the lens through which people have viewed the shortcomings of the Premier League teams halfway through the round of 16. …”
“Welcome to the latest edition of The Alternative Premier League Table, where each week, The Athletic analyses the entire division through a specific lens. And with over 75 per cent of the Premier League campaign in the books, now feels like a good moment to assess fan sentiment about their team’s season. To that end, we’ve taken the team ratings data from Fanalysis, an app where fans can rate their team’s performances, including those of the players, manager and even referees, after every match. 
“… The FA Cup needed a result like Port Vale 1 Sunderland 0 and a hero in the form of Kiwi international Benjamin Waine, who scored the winning goal on an emotional afternoon. It wasn’t the only shock of the round, either, as Southampton won at Fulham. At one stage, it looked like Wrexham might spring a surprise against Chelsea, who came from behind twice and were assisted by VAR to take the game into extra time. They then scored twice in the extra half hour, the goals coming from constantly-jeered Garnacho and in-form João Pedro. The other games all followed the script – Arsenal winning at Mansfield, Manchester City beating Newcastle United, Liverpool disposing of Wolves and Leeds United beating Norwich City. West Ham United and Brighton drew 2-2 with the Hammers winning the penalty shoot-out. …”
“It was in the sixth minute of Tottenham’s Champions League last-16 tie against Atletico Madrid that Antonin Kinsky’s night began to unravel. A routine phase of build-up had worked its way back toward the Spurs goalkeeper, which should have set up a relatively straightforward action, but just as he attempted to play out from the back, his footing suddenly gave way on the slippery surface and he landed on his backside. As the ball squirted loose, panic set in for the young goalkeeper, who was making his Champions League debut, and after a squirmish in the box, Marcos Llorente slotted home to give Atletico an early lead. …”
“There are many things this match will be remembered for. The goals, the errors, the disbelief that Tottenham Hotspur could be 4-0 down within 22 minutes. But, mainly, it will be for the sight of goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky walking down the tunnel, a comforting hand over his shoulder, after the goalkeeper was brutally substituted in the 16th minute after two calamitous slips in an opening 45 minutes like no other. The Czech’s Champions League debut went horribly wrong and now Tottenham not only face having to play a second-leg tie against Atletico Madrid when already 5-2 down but also likely face an inquisition over head coach Igor Tudor’s call to haul off his 22-year-old goalkeeper with the game in its infancy. …”
“On a dramatic night at St James’ Park, Newcastle United looked like they had secured a famous victory over Barcelona only to be denied by a penalty deep into stoppage time. With the last kick of the game, Lamine Yamal converted a spot kick after Malick Thiaw tripped Dani Olmo inside the box. It meant honours were even in a thrilling first leg of this last-16 Champions League tie. Newcastle looked to have won it when Harvey Barnes scored from close range from Jacob Murphy’s cross. By the time the hosts finally scored, they had missed a host of chances as they repeatedly used their pace to get in behind the high line of Barcelona’s defence. …”
Virgil van Dijk and Galatasaray’s match winner, Mario Lemina
“Goals from corners have been arriving at an unprecedented rate in the Premier League this season. 
“The final of the Minas Gerais state championship in Brazil descended into chaos on Sunday night, with a violent brawl leading to red cards for no fewer than 23 players. Cruzeiro led bitter rivals Atletico Mineiro 1-0 in added time when a mass altercation — a textbook example of what Brazilians call cenas lamentaveis or lamentable scenes — broke out on the pitch at the Mineirao stadium. The flashpoint was a clash involving Cruzeiro forward Christian and Atletico goalkeeper Everson: the former made a late challenge and ended up pinned to the floor, his upper body trapped under Everson’s legs. Within seconds, almost every player in the two squads, including substitutes, had sprinted over to the goalmouth. Inevitably, a melee ensued. …”
“‘Anti-football’, also known colloquially as 
“… Italy’s fourth World Cup was won in typical Italian fashion — they rarely win international trophies in great style, but there’s always great drama involved. This success played out with Serie A, their domestic top flight, in a crisis. The Calciopoli scandal revealed that various club executives had been effectively choosing favourable referees for their teams’ matches. A complex storyline that was unfolding throughout the tournament, the main sporting consequence was that Juventus were stripped of the previous two years’ Serie A titles and relegated to the second division. …”
“There was quite a crowd building outside the Wrexham Lager Stand on Saturday afternoon: children, parents, grandparents, all waiting for a glimpse of their heroes and perhaps, if they were lucky, an autograph or a selfie. Wrexham’s players were happy to oblige. Kick-off was barely an hour away, an FA Cup fifth-round glamour tie against Chelsea that would leave a huge global TV audience enthralled, but one player after another did the rounds, signing every shirt, match programme, ball or scrap of paper that was eagerly thrust in front of them. …”
“El Gráfico is an Argentine 
Iran’s players celebrate after qualifying for the World Cup but there are doubts as to whether they will participate in the tournament
Italy’s players perform the fascist salute before the start of the 1938 World Cup final against Hungary in Paris
“Following Liverpool’s late defeat by Wolves at Molineux earlier this week, head coach Arne Slot lamented that it was the ‘same old story and sums up our season’. And it does. Liverpool have now lost five times to 90th-minute-plus goals this season, the most ever by a team in a single Premier League campaign. What should be a rare event has become worryingly commonplace for the reigning champions. 
“Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was speaking to the media after Everton’s 2-0 win against Burnley on Tuesday when Rodrigo Gomes scored for Wolverhampton Wanderers against the home side’s Merseyside rivals Liverpool. The loud cheers from fans in the concourses and corporate lounges at Hill Dickinson Stadium in response to that goal temporarily shifted attention away from the post-game debrief with broadcaster TNT Sports. …”
“Liverpool beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 3-1 to advance to the sixth round of the FA Cup on Friday night. Cody Gakpo hit the Wolves upright in the opening exchanges, but he was ruled offside. Neither side broke the deadlock in the first-half, even though Liverpool did have six shots at the Wolves goal. Wolves had none — the same as on Tuesday night. Just five minutes after the break, though, Gakpo broke before playing in Mohamed Salah. Salah worked the ball well to Curtis Jones, who then played in Andy Robertson to strike from distance. …”
“The 
“Shortly after the 
“SOME big clubs are in a perpetual state of flux. Some believe they have the right to perpetual success, others have been striving for it for decades. Managers have been sacked, often by that default explanation, ‘mutual consent’, and the club response has invariably been around finding a new coach who ‘understands the DNA of the club’. They invariably believe that “winning is in our DNA” but it is more appropriately described as the desire to win, which should actually be in every club’s ‘DNA’. Not everyone can win, however, and nobody is entitled to be on the victory podium on a regular basis. If you examine the honours list at most clubs, not many are regular champions or winners. Liverpool have 47 major honours, Manchester United 44, Arsenal 31. …”
“In the coming days and weeks, as they try to avoid being swallowed up by the relegation quicksands, maybe the relevant people can get round to answering an intriguing question. It is the one that is surely being asked already in the boardrooms of Tottenham Hotspur, Nottingham Forest and West Ham United, given the jarring reality that one of those three clubs is likely to drop out of the Premier League and be playing in the Championship next season. Where did it go wrong? …”
“The cold, hard statistics make for uncomfortable reading. Liverpool have lost five Premier League games after conceding in the 90th minute or later this season, 
Iran fans at Qatar 2022. They have been banned from entering the US for this year’s World Cup, while Iran’s participation is now in doubt after the US-Israeli bombardment of the country.
Fans fill the streets of Dakar as Senegal celebrate their victory parade following their triumph over Morocco in the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations final.
“After years of planning, the World Cup is now just 100 days away. This summer’s tournament in North America will almost certainly be the most-viewed sports event ever, watched by millions (or more likely billions) of fans across the world. But it also offers a huge opportunity to attract a whole new audience, particularly across the United States, where soccer has long been on the rise but still does not dominate the sporting landscape as it does in so many other countries. This will be a World Cup watched by diehards and those who have never engaged with the sport before. With that in mind, we have compiled this article as a guide to everything you could possibly want to know about the tournament, from the most basic questions for those who have never watched the sport to far more intricate details about how teams play, the politics of this tournament, the ticketing situation and much more. With 100 days until the tournament, our reporters have answered 100 questions. …”
“I’ve been to the last nine men’s soccer World Cups, and the dominant mood is almost always international friendship. The same vibe usually prevails on the field, even after hard-fought matches. One of the tournament’s 
“Six days after FIFA president Gianni Infantino 
“Virgil van Dijk is just one game away from another incredible milestone. The evergreen centre-half will mark two and a half years of continued availability for Liverpool by the middle of March and, if he starts against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Tuesday night, he will have played 99 of the last 100 Premier League outings. The lone blemish came in the penultimate fixture of the 2024-25 title-winning season when head coach Arne Slot rotated his side to give fringe players a rare outing. Van Dijk was an unused substitute in the 3-2 defeat at Brighton & Hove Albion and would have relished the chance to keep his run of consecutive appearances going, yet that solitary omission does little to diminish the broader picture. …”
“When Brentford manager Keith Andrews said before his side’s 1-1 draw with Arsenal this month that he ‘likes creating chaos’, he certainly would not have meant this. A visit to Burnley, languishing in 19th, turned into one of the matches of the Premier League season. Brentford had it… before they didn’t. Burnley thought they had it… but Brentford hit back. And there was still time for more. Breathless as it sounds, that does not do justice to the chaos of Burnley 3-4 Brentford — nothing might unless you were among those at Turf Moor to witness it first-hand. …”
“Another weekend, another London derby defeat for Tottenham Hotspur. And though this was not against arch-rivals Arsenal, failing at Fulham is just as damaging. After last week’s 4-1 loss, fans will have wanted to see a reaction, and there were first-half protests and chants against the board. There will have been anger, too, that Harry Wilson’s early opener was allowed to stand after a similar incident in the north London derby last Sunday. There could be no complaints over the second Fulham goal, though, as Alex Iwobi fired home with brilliant technique from outside the area. …”
“If somebody had told you that, this season, a team would break a Premier League record by scoring seven successive non-penalty set-piece goals, who would you guess? Mikel Arteta’s set-piece machine at Arsenal? Brentford, who appointed a set-piece coach as their manager? Either way, Liverpool would probably not have been towards the top of your list. …”
“Arsenal have cleared another major hurdle in their bid for the Premier League title. Mikel Arteta’s side restored their five-point advantage at the top of the table with a hard-fought 2-1 win over Chelsea, which once again relied on their prowess at dead balls, with both of their goals coming from corners. Chelsea looked impressive for long spells and had a goal disallowed for offside in stoppage time, but were ultimately undone by Pedro Neto’s second-half red card — yet another moment of indiscipline that has cost them dearly this term as they pursue Champions League qualification. We analyse the main talking points. …”
Benjamin Sesko makes it 1-1 deep in stoppage time at West Ham.
“FIFA says it is focusing on ‘everybody participating’ in this summer’s World Cup in the wake of the American military attack on Iran. The U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes on major Iranian cities, including the capital Tehran, on Saturday after weeks of mounting diplomatic tension. Iran has retaliated with its own missile attacks on Israel and U.S. air bases in the Gulf region, including in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain. 
“Football’s lawmakers attempts to combat timewasting will subject substitutions, throw-ins and goal-kicks to time limits from this summer. There are also changes to expand the scope of the sport’s video assistant referee (VAR) system, which will now be permitted to check and review red cards ‘arising from a clearly incorrect second yellow card’, cases of ‘mistaken identity’ when a yellow or red card are shown, and cases of a ‘clearly incorrectly awarded corner kick’. The International Football Association Board (IFAB) met for their annual general meeting near Cardiff on Saturday and ratified changes to the laws ahead of the World Cup beginning in June. …”
“The first half of Everton versus Manchester United was a low-on-entertainment slogfest. The Monday night kick-off was in keeping with many Premier League games this season, with teams finding it harder to create goalscoring chances in open play and focusing more on set-piece opportunities. Football can often be described as “a game of mistakes”, and this season has seen an increase in games where teams are so focused on avoiding them that they lose sight of how to proactively force one from the opposition. Thankfully, the second half brought something more entertaining. …”
“The shock value is notable. The Serie A champions not making it through the Champions League league phase. The current best in class and league leaders by 10 points 
Scissors Kick 
