Following former referee Mike Dean’s confession, it is now clearer why certain penalties aren’t awarded: they were just joking

The referee who was arrested years ago during a debauchery involving weapons and drugs is the right man for the final act

Anyone who thinks that with so many star players on the pitch, the manager is almost superfluous should watch the semi-final from the other night again. The England manager’s misjudgement and the cloying rhetoric about Argentina

The unpredictability of performance is one of the few positive aspects remaining in a sport that the FIFA president is attempting in every way to undermine. The good news is that the new rules introduced at this World Cup have been an embarrassing flop