Mark Doyle

There were just a few minutes to go in the first half of Brazil's friendly with France last week when Raphinha began to experience what Carlo Ancelotti called "mild discomfort" in his right thigh. However, the mere fact that he failed to re-emerge for the second period at the Gillette Stadium immediately put Barcelona's medical team on red alert and they promptly reached out to the winger, desperately hoping to receive reassurance that he hadn't aggravated an issue that had already sidelined him twice this season.

Gianluigi Donnarumma was one of just a number of Italy players reduced to tears by Tuesday's World Cup play-off loss to Bosnia and Herzegovina - but the penalty shootout defeat in Zenica hit the goalkeeper harder than most. This wasn't the first time he'd been involved in a failed attempt to qualify - it was the third. Despite his devastation, though, Donnarumma remained defiant.

There was always a chance that Liverpool would announce a high-profile departure during the international break and, just three days after their latest Premier League setback at Brighton, the Reds confirmed that Mohamed Salah would be leaving at the end of the current campaign. The timing of the announcement surprised some, but Salah had successfully pushed for the news to be made public more than two months before the end of the season in what felt like an obvious attempt to control the narrative surrounding his painful and unexpectedly early exit.

There really is nothing like the World Cup. Even just qualifying generates a level of nationwide excitement that the club game simply cannot match, which is why we witnessed truly joyous scenes all across the globe during the March international break, as the final six qualifiers were confirmed for this summer's festival of football in North America.

The Neymar chants began just moments after Hugo Ekitike put France 2-0 up on Brazil at the Gillette Stadium. It was the last thing Carlo Ancelotti would have wanted to hear, but probably the first thing he would have expected in the circumstances. The Italian's decision to leave out the Selecao's all-time leading goal-scorer from his latest squad had dominated the build-up to Thursday's high-profile friendly in Foxborough.

Italy are World Cup royalty. Only five-time winners Brazil have been crowned champions on more occasions than the Azzurri (four). And yet it's now 20 years since Italy last lifted the trophy. Worse still, they've failed to qualify for the past two tournaments, meaning there's an entire generation that have never seen their country even play in a World Cup.

In November, we were treated to the most exhilarating reminder possible of the magic of the World Cup. History was made in Jamaica as Curacao became the smallest nation ever to qualify by holding the Reggae Boys to a 0-0 draw in Kingston. Elsewhere in CONCACAF, Haiti managed to secure a spot at the finals for the first time in 50 years with a 2-0 win over Nicaragua - in spite of the fact that they weren't able to play any games at home because of the ongoing conflict on the Caribbean island.

After the mini-montage of memorable Mohamed Salah moments, the man himself entered the frame and took a seat in front of his colossal trophy cabinet. After a brief pause, and a deep breath that turned into a sigh, he began to speak, "Hello, everyone, unfortunately, the day has come." And there can't have been a single football fan across the world that didn't know what that meant: Salah was leaving Liverpool.

GOAL attempts the impossible by ranking the finest footballers to grace the English top flight since 2000

He's only gone and done it again! A year after becoming the first player to win NXGN twice, Lamine Yamal has finished top of GOAL's annual list of the top teenagers in world football for the third time in a row. It's not as if the outcome of the 2026 vote was ever in any doubt either. Yamal is no longer just the most talented young player in the game today. He's also its most talented player, full stop.

Roma's acquisition of Robinio Vaz from Marseille on January 14 was considered quite the coup for the Serie A side. The Frenchman was still only at 18 at the time of the €25 million (£21.5m/$29m) transfer from Stade Velodrome to Stadio Olimpico, with Lamine Yamal the only player younger than Vaz to have scored at least four goals in Europe's 'Big Five' leagues this season to that point.

Lamine Yamal kept his cool to convert a penalty with the last kick of the game to earn Barcelona an undeserved 1-1 draw with Newcastle in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie at St. James' Park on Tuesday. The Blaugrana's teenage sensation had, just like the rest of his team-mates, performed poorly on Tyneside and could have had no complaints had another winger, Harvey Barnes, proven the match-winner.

Liverpool coach Arne Slot claimed that his team were in a much better place as they returned to Istanbul to face Galatasaray in the Champions League on Tuesday - but the Reds looked to have made zero progress at all as they slumped to another 1-0 defeat at RAMS Park that this time puts them at real risk of elimination.

It's been a little over two years since Victor Osimhen revealed that he'd made up his mind on which club to join after Napoli. Just three days later, Partenopei president Aurelio De Laurentiis revealed that the striker would "go to Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain or some Premier League team". Osimhen instead ended up in Istanbul playing for Galatasaray, the biggest team in Turkey but not exactly the destination the Nigeria international had in mind when he announced his intention to leave Naples.

Xavier Vilajoana made headlines during his failed bid to become Barcelona's new president by claiming to have already made "some contact" with Bayern Munich superstar Harry Kane over a move to Camp Nou. In reality, though, the most interesting topic the industrial engineer raised while on the campaign trail centered around another Englishman in Marcus Rashford.

The Gazzetta dello Sport claimed earlier this week that Arsenal have expressed an interest in signing Inter prospect Francesco Pio Esposito. However, the Nerazzurri's CEO, Beppe Marotta, moved quickly to quell the transfer talk by insisting that there had not been any contact between the two clubs. "Arsenal did not ask for Pio," the Italian told Sport Mediaset before Inter's Coppa Italia semi-final first leg against Como on Tuesday. "But also Inter are not a selling club. We don't make player trading our main activity.

The recalled Andy Robertson was the star of the show with a goal and an assist as Liverpool went some way towards making amends for Tuesday's utterly embarrassing Premier League loss at Wolves. Indeed, the rematch was a far better experience for the Reds as they returned to Molineux on Friday evening to record a 3-1 win that secured Arne Slot's side a spot in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.

Arne Slot called Tuesday's embarrassing 2-1 loss at Wolves "the same old story". And he was right. There was nothing new or novel about their painfully predictable defeat at Molineux. Liverpool produced a dreadfully flat first half, got themselves back into the game after gifting the opposition a goal, only to then lose it by conceding an injury-time winner.