Sports
Neymar’s World Cup hopes hit new low at Santos as Estêvão’s star rises
Wind the film back to the end of January. Estêvão, with four brief substitute appearances under his belt, was a promise and a possibility for Brazil‘s 2026 World Cup squad. Neymar, meanwhile, was a certainty. The one-time boy prince was returning to Santos, where the story started, and his old club was going to give him a platform to round off the narrative with one final attempt at World Cup glory.
Fast forward 10 months, and things have turned out very differently. Estêvão is going from strength to strength and was given his first Brazil start in Carlo Ancelotti’s debut match in charge. He is making an extreme case to be an integral part of the World Cup team, helping himself to five goals between September and November.
And the wonder strike — off his weak foot — in Tuesday’s 3-0 win over Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League merely reinforces the point that Chelsea would seem to have signed the most brilliant talent to come out of Brazil since … Neymar.
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The original wonderkid, meanwhile, has had a 2025 to forget, rounded off by the news on Tuesday that a knee injury may well keep him out of the last three games of the season. With Santos in the relegation zone, that is bad news for him and bad news for the club.
The expectations were probably always too high for a couple of reasons.
First, there is the extraordinary, nigh on miraculous, history of Santos. In the late 1950s and through the early 1960s, Pelé and his wonderful supporting cast formed arguably the greatest team in the world, and certainly the most easy on the eye. Excellent youth development brought back the glory years in the 21st century, and lightning appeared to have struck twice when a baby-faced Neymar emerged and led them to the Copa Libertadores in 2011.
But this history can be something of a burden for a club representing a city of under half a million, tiny by the standards of Brazil’s big clubs. As financial gaps have opened up, it has become harder for Santos to compete. In 2023, the first season since Pelé’s passing, they suffered their first-ever relegation to the second division. They bounced straight back, and the hope was that the return of Neymar would add plenty more positive momentum. Some saw them as possible title contenders, but they were aiming too high.
This is especially true since Neymar was still trying to shake off the effects of a serious knee injury he suffered while playing for Brazil in October 2023. He was free to go back to Brazil after Jorge Jesus, his coach at Saudi Arabian club Al Hilal, refused to register him for the club’s league campaign. He simply was not fit enough, said the coach.
At the beginning of 2025, Neymar was an unknown quantity as a footballer. And if that was true at the end of January, it remains the case in late November. Judging him as a player still seems harsh; he has never been able to put together a sequence of games that would enable him to get up to full match fitness.
After such a long layoff, muscular problems were to be expected, and he broke down in April after a couple of early rounds of the Brazilian Serie A.
There were two more games before the pause for the Club World Cup, and then a two-month, nine-game sequence when the action resumed in July. He was then out for another six weeks before returning early this month, but then, worryingly, given the original problem, he went down with a knee injury that threatens to end his season.
But when has he played? In those 17 rounds (of 35 played so far) in which he has been on the field, how has he done? Neymar has not lost the ability to see and to execute a pass that opens up the field and his proficiency as a striker of a dead ball remains. But the standout feature of peak Neymar was his skill as a dribbler, his talent to change direction and improvise solutions at top pace.
This has not been seen, as he has found it hard to get away from his marker. And without this, it has not been easy for Santos’ coaches to find a way to make him useful. A low point was the 6-0 defeat to Vasco da Gama in August. The lesson — and it cost coach Cleber Xavier his job — was that it was not feasible to play Neymar, a center forward and two wingers. With no balance between attack and defence, Vasco carved Santos to pieces.
The solution found by the new boss, Juan Pablo Vojvoda, has been to use Neymar as a free-roaming center forward, left upfield to avoid defensive responsibilities, and also able to drop and organize the play from deep.
This arrangement has had its moments, like when he scored in the last game he played, against Mirassol. But for Brazil’s all-time top scorer, three league goals is a disappointing return and very frustrating.
This has been a keynote of Neymar’s return, the sense of frustration that frequently comes close to boiling over.
1:38
What makes Estêvão a special player for Chelsea?
Stewart Robson and Craig Burley discuss Estêvão’s performance vs. Barcelona and his contribution in Chelsea’s attack.
It might have been hoped that the time away from the pitch would have focused his mind on ways that he needed to change to reach his immense potential. Instead, he seems at war with everyone. With the referee (of course), with his opponents, and, earlier this month, with his own teammates.
Against Flamengo, he strutted around the Maracanã pitch, blaming everyone and anyone for the opposition’s 3-0 lead. He threw a mini-fit when he was substituted — and it came across as poetic justice — when, in his absence, Santos pulled two goals back.
This was extremely disappointing from a player who, whatever the public perception, has usually been very popular in the various dressing rooms he has been a part of. But now, if he really is ruled out of the last three games of the season, he needs his teammates to come to his rescue.
What happens if Santos are relegated? It is far from clear that the club could afford to keep Neymar, as there are already grumblings about his cost and benefit. But there is surely no way that he could play his way back into the Brazil squad from the second division. He would presumably be forced to hurriedly fix himself up with another club.
The career of Neymar has been full of the kind of twists and turns that he once performed in his exhilarating dribbles. Another one is called for now if he is not to spend the 2026 World Cup on the sidelines, watching the twists and turns of Estêvão.
Who would be a football manager? Well, as it turns out, in the Premier League the answer is an increasing number of head coaches.
The difference between the job titles of “manager” and “head coach” may seem mere semantics at first glance, but events at Manchester United and Chelsea this month point to deeper structural problems that many clubs are now grappling with.
Both Ruben Amorim and Enzo Maresca chose to go public with frustrations they deemed as unnecessary interference from the infrastructure around them.
Maresca went first. In mid-December, after a routine 2-0 home win over Everton, which should have calmed the mood around Stamford Bridge, Maresca opted instead to ignite a fire by declaring the buildup “the worst 48 hours” of his tenure due to “a lack of support.”
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His working relationship with senior figures at the club quickly eroded, and Chelsea parted company with Maresca just 19 days later. We will never know for certain, but perhaps Amorim, increasingly disgruntled at United, was inspired by those events in west London.
The following day, Amorim hinted at internal issues at a prematch news conference before facing Leeds United and, after that game, launched a full-scale assault on his bosses, insisting he joined United to “be the manager, not the head coach.” Amorim was sacked the following morning.
Chelsea have since doubled down on their existing head coach model by appointing Liam Rosenior as Maresca’s successor, not least because of his experience working for the club’s owners, BlueCo, at their sister team, Strasbourg of France’s Ligue 1.
United’s next move seems less certain after they installed Michael Carrick as an interim boss before making a permanent appointment in the summer.
The club still appears stuck at a crossroads created by legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s departure in 2013, just as Arsenal were when Arsène Wenger left in 2018. They were the two most prominent exponents of the old model, which dictated that control comes at all costs for a manager. But what balance works best in 2026?
What’s the difference between ‘head coach’ and ‘manager’?
2:02
Rosenior: I’m accountable for my players mistakes
Chelsea boss Liam Rosenior refused to criticise Robert Sánchez after errors in the 3-2 Carabao Cup semifinal defeat to Arsenal.
This isn’t a new problem. Ferguson and Wenger once sat on stage together at a League Managers’ Association meeting, opining on how the preeminence they enjoyed was founded on controlling all aspects of their respective clubs. They were becoming increasingly isolated cases.
“The manager is the most important man at the club,” Wenger said. “If not, why do you sack the manager if it doesn’t go well?”
“Very good,” said Ferguson, sitting alongside him, smiling.
Ferguson later praised then-Premier League bosses Alan Curbishley and Kevin Keegan for leaving their posts on “a point of principle,” specifically that West Ham and Newcastle United, respectively, were letting players leave against the wishes of their managers. That was in 2008.
The intervening 18 years have seen the power balance shift steadily away from autonomous managerial figures toward head coaches, who are expected to work within a structure which divides responsibilities, including scouting, recruitment, medical determinations and data analysis among several others. A manager is a visionary to whom everyone must answer. A head coach is more of a prominent cog within a larger machine.
In one clear example of the transformation in thinking, Arsenal appointed nine new department heads around the time of Wenger’s departure in 2018 and trebled the number of operations staff in three years.
Top Premier League clubs routinely arrive at away games with two team buses — the expanded support staff no longer fit onto one bus with the playing squad. Club doctors Stephen Lewis (Chelsea) and Zaf Iqbal (Arsenal) were even listed on the official teamsheet for Wednesday’s Carabao Cup semifinal first-leg clash at Stamford Bridge.
Where the boundaries are drawn for each member of this infrastructure is where the tension usually lies for a head coach.
Today, there are only five Premier League clubs employing someone whose official job title is ‘manager’: Arsenal, Everton, Manchester City, Crystal Palace and Leeds.
One of those is Mikel Arteta, but he is a unique case. He was appointed as Arsenal head coach in December 2019 — following Unai Emery’s unsuccessful attempt to operate within the club’s post-Wenger model — but then “promoted” to manager in September 2020 after winning the FA Cup a month earlier in a Covid-delayed season.
Arteta revealed last week that the plan to promote him was actually hatched before his Wembley triumph.
“It was in my house,” he said. “They came to me and started to propose the idea of what they thought and the way they wanted to structure the club. That was after probably five, six months in the job.
“They believed that and [I said] ‘this is where I think I can help, this is my vision, this is what I would do, this is how I see this project.’ I presented it, and from there we started all together to start to add value to those ideas.
“I didn’t demand it. I didn’t ask for it, and they believed it was the right thing to do. When you have a leader, which is ownership in this case — Stan [Kroenke] and Josh [Kroenke, representing owners Kroenke Sports Enterprises] — and Josh that is very close to us with clear alignment to all of us what he wants to do, how he wants to create that space for everybody, I think it is very easy to work like this.
“At the end, it is about the relationships and the people that we have from great teams with very different qualities. Sometimes, I have been more on certain things; when there is somebody who is much better than me on that, I let them do it. For me, the title doesn’t really reflect the way we operate daily.”
Although KSE is an American company, well-placed sources within football point to the increase in U.S. ownership — now 22 of the top 44 clubs comprising England’s top two leagues — as a contributing factor. They want their clubs to retain a stable, long-term identity of their own, impervious to the idiosyncrasies of the man in the dugout.
The modern-day trend certainly appears to be clubs seeking to establish an identity based on principles set by their own sporting infrastructure, rather than the shorter-term whims of a manager or head coach who is just passing through. The League Managers’ Association published data last year suggesting the average tenure of a sacked manager is 1.42 years.
But there are signs head coaches are pushing back against this transient existence. Amorim and Maresca took internal tensions public while Tottenham Hotspur captain Cristian Romero broke ranks with an Instagram post that suggested the Spurs hierarchy “only show up when things are going well, to tell a few lies.”
It doesn’t help advocates of the head coach model that Arsenal under Arteta lead the Premier League from Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City and Aston Villa, who named Emery as head coach but whose influence is widely acknowledged to extend far beyond the limitations that title would suggest.
Finding the right fit
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Was the Man United job ‘too big’ for Ruben Amorim?
Julien Laurens explains what went wrong for Ruben Amorim at Manchester United after being sacked following 14 months at the club.
Supporters have protested against Chelsea’s BlueCo owners, who completed their takeover in 2022 and whose methods have frustrated head coaches of high pedigree before Maresca, including Thomas Tuchel and Mauricio Pochettino.
The appointment of Rosenior has emboldened critics, suggesting the owners want a “yes man” as head coach, willing to acquiesce to the specialists who operate separately to his immediate coaching staff.
Predictably, Rosenior pushed back on any such notion when speaking at his first Chelsea news conference.
“Being a head coach, you talk about football systems and tactics,” he said. “[But] that’s 10% of the job. The job is to create spirit, energy, a culture. It doesn’t matter if you’re called a head coach, manager or anything else. The job is the same. My job is to have a team that runs, fights for each other, that plays with spirit and quality. That’s what I’m going to focus on.”
Whatever the rights and wrongs of Chelsea’s strategy — which includes employing five sporting directors, an independent medical team whose advice on player load must be followed and regular technical feedback sessions for the head coach after every game — they know exactly what they want.
Multiple sources told ESPN that BlueCo had quickly identified Rosenior as a leading candidate among a small pool of options, ruling out higher-profile names almost immediately. The belief in their model is resolute and clear.
If anything, control has been tightened. Maresca brought six staff with him from Leicester City. Rosenior has three from Strasbourg — assistant Justin Walker, first-team coach Kalifa Cissé and analyst Ben Warner — while Calum McFarlane was promoted from Chelsea’s under-21s and goalkeeper coach Ben Roberts remains in post. Set-piece coach Bernardo Cueva was appointed independently from Maresca and stayed on. All six of Maresca’s staff left.
There seems to be less clarity at United. Even caretaker boss Darren Fletcher admitting that he called Ferguson for “his blessing” before accepting the temporary position smacked of a club still struggling to emerge from the shadow of its past. They didn’t appoint a director of football and technical director until 2021, and Amorim was the first man in the club’s history to be appointed “head coach” rather than “manager.”
However, club sources have told ESPN that director of football Jason Wilcox sees recruitment falling within his sphere of influence and has said publicly that he can’t help but “interfere” in what the head coach is doing. It is, at least from the outside, a confused picture.
Carrick has brought in two staff members for his five-month stint: ex-England No. 2 Steve Holland and Jonathan Woodgate, who worked under Carrick at Middlesbrough.
‘Manager’ is a title that’s earned
Recruitment is invariably a point of friction. Club sources told ESPN that Maresca wanted a center back last summer after Levi Colwill got injured but was told to find internal solutions.
Conversely, ESPN sources say Arteta fought hard and won a battle to sign Mikel Merino from Real Sociedad in 2024 despite others involved in recruitment casting doubt over his ability and transfer fee.
Tottenham are grappling with their own approach, appointing Fabio Paratici as co-sporting director alongside Johan Lange in October, only for Spurs to confirm on Wednesday that the former will leave next month to join Fiorentina.
Gone are the days when the chief scout — and wider scouting staff that followed — operated as close allies of the manager. Some head coaches now insist on bringing their own trusted recruitment staff, often as part of their initial appointment, because they want specialists who share their way of seeing the game. This guarantees the coach a voice early in the scouting process and keeps them closely involved in the club’s strategic thinking and player selection.
Sources working in recruitment say that even though power has gradually shifted away from the manager or head coach, cases where players are signed without that individual’s involvement remain extremely rare, to the point of being almost unheard of in a top-five league environment.
However, the level of power can change over time. If a sporting director signs off on a run of mediocre transfers, a head coach may use that to push for greater influence over recruitment. Equally, when a head coach is flavour of the month with successful results, some will take the opportunity to gain a greater say in squad building.
What matters initially are the job description and the powers laid out in the contract. Perhaps the conclusion is that head coaches who want to become managers have to go to great lengths to earn it.
Arsenal recognised they needed a cultural overhaul and believed in Arteta to deliver it. Guardiola earned it before he arrived as City’s whole football structure was tailored to lure him to the club. Emery has improved Villa to such a dramatic extent that the case for greater influence was almost impossible to ignore.
Maresca and Amorim chanced their arm and failed. They almost certainly won’t be the last.
Information from ESPN’s Rob Dawson and Tor-Kristian Karlsen contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has identified a host of athletic competitions it classifies as “major sporting events” — aside from soccer’s 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games — that athletes and coaches will be allowed to travel to the U.S. to take part in despite a broad visa ban on nearly 40 countries.
In a cable sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates Wednesday, the State Department said athletes, coaches and support staff for the World Cup, the Olympics and events endorsed or run by a long list of collegiate and professional sporting leagues and associations would not be subject to the full and partial travel bans that apply to citizens of 39 countries and the Palestinian Authority.
However, the cable made clear that foreign spectators, media and corporate sponsors planning to attend the same events would still be banned unless they qualify for another exemption.
“Only a small subset of travelers for the World Cup, Olympics and Paralympics, and other major sporting events will qualify for the exception,” it said.
President Donald Trump’s administration has issued a series of immigration and travel bans as well as other visa restrictions as part of ongoing efforts to tighten U.S. entry standards for foreigners. At the same time, the administration has been looking to ensure that athletes, coaches and fans are able to attend major sporting events in the U.S.
Trump’s Dec. 16 proclamation banning the issuance of visas to the 39 countries and the Palestinian Authority had carved out an exception for athletes and staff competing in the World Cup, the Olympics and other major sporting events. It delegated a decision on which other sporting events would be covered to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Wednesday’s cable lists the events that are covered, including “all competitions and qualifying events” for the Olympic Games, Paralympic Games, Pan-American Games, and Para Pan-American Games; events hosted, sanctioned or recognized by a U.S. National Governing Body; all competitions and qualifying events for the Special Olympics; and official events and competitions hosted or endorsed by FIFA, soccer’s governing body, or its confederations.
The exemption also will cover official events and competitions hosted by the International Military Sports Council, the International University Sports Federation and the National Collegiate Athletic Association as well as those hosted or endorsed by U.S. professional sports leagues such as the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and Women’s National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and Little League, National Hockey League, Professional Women’s Hockey League, NASCAR, Formula 1, the Professional Golf Association, Ladies Professional Golf Association, LIV Golf, Major League Rugby, Major League Soccer, World Wrestling Entertainment, Ultimate Fighting Championship and All Elite Wrestling.
The cable said other events and leagues could be added to the list.
Of the 39 countries, a full travel ban applies to Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and people with Palestinian Authority-issued passports.
A partial ban is in place for citizens of Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burundi, Cuba, Dominica, Gabon, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Mauritania, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Togo, Venezuela, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
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President Donald Trump will return to the sidelines Monday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio for the College Football Playoff championship in Miami, where the Indiana Hoosiers will face the Miami Hurricanes.
Trump’s expected attendance was first reported by Axios.
President Donald Trump, right, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attend an NFL game between the Washington Commanders and the Detroit Lions at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md., Nov. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Monday’s appearance at the national championship game marks another high-profile outing for the president, who has attended several major sporting events during his second term.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
In April, Trump sat alongside UFC President Dana White outside the octagon for UFC 314 in Miami and again two months later at UFC 316 in New Jersey. He also attended several events in September, including the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black in New York and a New York Yankees game on Sept. 11, 24 years after the 9/11 attacks.
President Donald Trump waves to the crowd as he arrives on the first hole on the first day of competition for the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. (Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters via Imagn Images)
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President Trump has taken a special interest in sports in his second term.
In December, he warned the current state of name, image and likeness (NIL) was not sustainable and could pose a threat to college athletics, especially sports outside of football. He has also made ensuring the fairness and safety in girls and women’s sports a top priority of his administration.
President Donald Trump attends the 126th Army-Navy Game between the Army Black Knights and the Navy Midshipmen at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore Dec. 13, 2025. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
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Top-seeded Indiana, led by Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza, will take on Miami at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, Monday at 7:45 p.m. ET.
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‘Head coach’ vs ‘manager’: Why job title matters for Chelsea, Man United
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