Canada 5 Honduras 0
June 17 – Canada over the past six years have forced their way into Concacaf’s elite but have so often flattered to deceive. They are the team everyone quite likes but have never delivered the championship title their talent screams for. Re-adjust everyone.
January 10 – It was initially hoped to be ready last September but the waiting goes on after a series of delays. Tottenham Hotspur say their state-of-the-art new stadium may not be ready until at least March, possibly only being able to stage the final five home league games of the season.
January 10 – Chelsea will report Bayern Munich to FIFA if they find evidence of an illegal approach for their rising star Callum Hudson-Odoi according to British media reports.
By Paul Nicholson in Abu Dhabi
January 10 – The 17th and biggest ever Asian Cup currently being hosted in the UAE completed its first round of group games yesterday. Expanded from 16 to 24 teams, this is a competition that is opening a remarkable new world of football frontiers. It has spotlighted countries too often on the periphery of global football and is generating stories, new legend and football history every day.
Thailand 1 Bahrain 0
By Paul Nicholson in Abu Dhabi
January 10 – Thailand, who sacked their Serbian coach Milovan Rajevac after losing their first game, turned their Asian Cup campaign around with 1-0 win over Bahrain at at the Al Maktoum Stadium.
January 10 – Namibia is the latest country to be subject of a normalisation committee imposed by FIFA to run its affairs as a result of a bitter internal squabble.
January 10 – Italian police have launched an inquiry after Roma supporters allegedly distributed anti-Semitic leaflets on Wednesday to coincide with the 119th anniversary of bitter city rivals Lazio.
January 10 – Under pressure UAE coach Alberto Zaccheroni (pictured) has described the game with India as a “make-or-break” Asian Cup encounter for the hosts. In the opposition dugout he faces a buoyant Indian coach in Stephen Constantine who has vowed that his team will play for all three points.
By Abdelaziz Abuhamar
January 9 – Uzbekistan’s goalkeeper Ignatiy Nesterov made history at the AFC Asian Cup, posting a new playing record in the Asian football showpiece.
January 9 – Japan’s coach Hajime Moriyasu part blamed the heat for his team’s underwhelming 3-2 win against Turkmenistan and acknowledged that Japan will need to improve as the tournament progresses.
Things rarely go according to plan in African football, as one French publication emphasised this week. The decision to strip Cameroon of staging this coming summer’s African Nations Cup may have been a deeply hurtful blow to the original hosts but hardly took anyone by surprise given the nature of African football’s leadership which has, quite frankly, become a laughing stock.
By Abdelaziz Abuhamar
January 10 – The Iraq national team broke an unwanted record when they posted their first group game victory over counterpart Vietnam in Group D.
By Paul Nicholson in Abu Dhabi
January 9 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has issued a statement condemning the Saudi-backed pirate broadcaster beoutQ’s theft of live matches from the Asian Cup currently being played in the UAE.
By Samindra Kunti
January 9 – Four-time Asian champions Japan came back from a first-half deficit to defeat a stubborn Turkmenistan 3-2 and claim their first three points at the 2019 Asian Cup.
By David Owen
January 9 – Surging player costs and one-off items pushed Everton, the club from the blue end of Merseyside, back into the red in 2017-18, in spite of a 34% jump in commercial revenue.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 9 – The video assistant refereeing system, whilst gaining in overall popurity, has had its fair share of criticism since being gradually introduced across European and international football.