England team-mates Steven Gerrard and Gareth Barry. Photograph: S Botterill/Getty Images
Steven Gerrard has urged his England team-mate Gareth Barry to force through a summer move to Liverpool, insisting the Aston Villa midfielder needs to be playing Champions League football “to better his career”.
Barry was the subject of a failed opening bid from Liverpool this month, [...]

Gary Naysmith and Jan Koller clash during the friendly. Photograph: Matthew Childs/Action Images
It may have taken them until the closing stages to do so but the Czech Republic ultimately proved that this was a considerably more worthwhile exercise for them than for Scotland.
A shadow Scottish team who, long before full-time, displayed the weariness which results [...]

Iraq fans retain an intense love of the game in the face of almost intolerable pressures. Photograph: Karim Sahib/Getty Images
So now we know. Iraq will play Australia, as planned, in Brisbane on Sunday in a crucial World Cup qualifier. The will-they-won’t-they-play shambles that has blundered on for the past week has left everyone looking bad: [...]

Franck Ribery and Luca Toni celebrate their one-two in the only awards that matter. Photograph: Oliver Lang AFP/Getty Images
Bayern Munich’s fourth-place finish in 2007 was always going to be bad news for the rest of the Bundesliga. General manager Uli Hoeness had an epiphany, suddenly realising the correlation between spending big money and signing quality [...]

Polish Man of the Year ‘07 Leo Beenhakker has seen his side struggle since qualifying for Euro 2008. Photograph: Thomas Kienzle/AP
Poland have qualified impressively for the last two World Cups, only to flop badly having got there and the fear is that, having reached the finals of the European Championship for the first time, the [...]

Matt Burke in action for the Falcons. Photograph: Matthew Lewis/Getty Images
The Newcastle Falcons full-back Matthew Burke is retiring from the game after failing to recover fully from a knee injury. Burke, a World Cup winner with Australia in 1999, has spent the last seven months trying to overcome a torn anterior cruciate knee ligament.
“I thoroughly [...]

Can this winking, walking hair-gel ad inspire Portugal to Euro glory? Photograph: Francisco Leong/AFP/Getty Images
The challenge is to get as far into this piece as possible without mentioning his name. It’s not easy: Portugal’s hopes of completing their European Championship odyssey (quarter-final in 1996, semi-final in 2000, final in 2004, winners in 2008) depend on [...]

Sharapova wasn’t at her best against Rodina. Photograph: Christophe Karamba/EPA
The abrupt and startling retirement of Belgium’s Justine Henin, aged just 25 and the French Open champion for the past three years, did not come as a major surprise to Maria Sharapova, who has taken over from Henin as the world’s No1 and is the top [...]

Capello said his decision to reinstate Terry was made before the Champions League final. Photograph: John Walton/Empics/PA Photos
John Terry will lead England out as captain at Wembley for Wednesday night’s friendly against the United States.
The England manager Fabio Capello confirmed that, after selecting Steven Gerrard and Rio Ferdinand for his previous two matches in [...]

Blatter is pressing on with his plans for foreign player quotas. Photograph: Greg Wood/AFP/Getty Images
The Fifa president Sepp Blatter is confident that his controversial ’six-plus-five’ rule will be in place by the 2012-13 season after the plans received the backing of key members of Europe’s football hierarchy.
Blatter, in Sydney for Fifa’s annual congress, said rules [...]