Sports
UWCL talking points: Chelsea eye top 4, what’s happened to PSG?
Matchday 5 of this season’s UEFA Women’s Champions League league phase is in the books and there are plenty of talking points beginning to crop up.
Tuesday saw Juventus thrash St Polten 5-0, before Arsenal beat FC Twente 1-0, Real Madrid saw off VfL Wolfsburg 2-0, and Paris Saint-Germain were knocked out after only managing a 0-0 draw with Oud-Heverlee Leuven.
On Wednesday, OL Lyonnes made light work of Manchester United to beat them 3-0, while Chelsea hit six past cellar-dwelling Roma.
Elsewhere, Bayern Munich held Atletico Madrid 2-2 and Paris FC beat Valerenga 1-0, but it’s Barcelona that remain top of the table after a 3-1 win over Benfica and — for now — favorites for the title.
Read on as ESPN experts Emily Keogh, Yash Thakur and Sam Marsden offer their thoughts on some of our burning questions.
– UWCL permutations: Who has qualified? What’s left?
– Hamilton: Man Utd’s UWCL ambitions tempered by OL Lyonnes’ brilliance
– Keogh: Wasteful Wolfsburg allow Madrid to join UWCL contenders
– As it happened: OL Lyonnes beat Man United, Chelsea roll past Roma
Q1: Who will take the final two places in the top 4?
Keogh: With goalkeeper Stina Johannes a possible doubt after taking a boot to the face against Real Madrid, and their current lack of clinical finishing and poor final touch in front of goal, I am not convinced VfL Wolfsburg will have enough in the tank to defeat Chelsea. That’s especially true after the Blues’ recent loss to Everton in the WSL sparked them into a ruthless performance against Roma on Wednesday — so I think Chelsea will claim third place.
Bayern Munich or Real Madrid are realistically best placed to clinch fourth, while Juventus will face a wounded Manchester United. A draw feels likely between the two teams, who have been pretty evenly matched thus far. Bayern and Madrid both have fairly easy draws against minnows in comparison to their history and financial backing so, assuming they both claim three points, I think Madrid will sneak in with their goal difference already significantly higher than Bayern’s.
Thakur: I feel Real Madrid are one of the best positioned teams to take one of the spots after their win against Wolfsburg this week. With a final game against FC Twente remaining, Las Blancas will feel confident of securing another three points. Linda Caicedo and Caroline Weir are back to their best and have carried the side on their backs again. After a 6-0 win this matchday, Chelsea are the other likely contender for the final two spots. Despite a tricky fixture against former European champions Wolfsburg, Sonia Bompastor’s side will feel confident. However, the last time these two sides met in the UWCL, the She-Wolves beat Chelsea 4-0 and knocked them out of the group stage in 2021-22.
Marsden: Chelsea, with 11 points, are in pole position behind Barcelona and OL Lyonnes, but they have the hardest game of the teams in the chasing pack. If they fail to win away at Wolfsburg, Juventus, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, all on 10 points, are waiting to pounce. A Wolfsburg win could even propel them into the top four, so it’s all to play for when it comes to claiming a direct spot in the quarterfinals.
Given Wolfsburg are still in the running, I’m going to pick them to frustrate Chelsea, Juve to fail to beat Manchester United at home, and Madrid and Bayern to sneak into the top four. They have the most winnable games on paper — Madrid at Twente and Bayern at home to Vålerenga — but do need other results to go their way.
0:47
How Wolfsburg can recover from Real Madrid loss
VfL Wolfsburg striker Lineth Beerensteyn discusses what she thinks her team need to comeback stronger after UEFA Women’s Champions League loss.
Q2: Bayern have really turned things around since that mauling by Barcelona. What’s been the catalyst?
Marsden: A shout out to coach José Barcala and the belief demonstrated by the Bayern players to bounce back from that 7-1 Barça humbling on matchday one, but it certainly helps when you have the quality of Klara Bühl and Pernille Harder. Harder has scored big goals in big moments, including two more against Atlético this week, but Bühl has been sensational when it comes to driving her team on. With seven assists and one goal, she has more goal contributions than anyone else in the league phase. She has created a whopping 27 chances in five games, 10 more than Lyon’s Melchie Dumornay, who ranks second in chance creation in the competition. If Bayern are going to go far in this competition, it’s going to be at the feet of Bühl.
Keogh: Realistically, the only way Bayern could have responded to that humbling defeat at the hands of Barcelona was by going on an extended unbeaten run. That crushing loss served as a wake-up call; none of those players would ever want to experience a performance or the emotions that came with it again. In many ways, it jolted them into gear. Since then, individual performances have risen sharply, and the result has been a noticeably improved team as a whole. Their press has become far more cohesive and organized, and their patience, something evident in both meetings with Arsenal last season and this one, has allowed them to withstand pressure with real resilience and grind out results. In the past, Bayern might have crumbled in those moments, so this shift in approach and mentality is clearly paying off.
Thakur: I feel Bayern Munich and Barcala had the worst audition at the European stage that belied their true level. The club have since gone on a 13-game unbeaten run, including 12 straight wins until the draw on Wednesday. Barcala’s approach forces them to be slightly braver on the ball and aggressive off it. This urge to play vertical and press high can leave the side exposed in moments. Against Barcelona, all such moments were punished and the team lost morale as the game went on. Since then, the Bavarian giants have put their squad depth — especially in attacking areas — to great use. Bühl’s otherworldly form has quite literally been the difference maker on multiple occasions. The Germany winger has been involved in 46% of Bayern’s goals this season, creating 20 goals before mid-December.
Q3: Did you expect Juventus to be so good, and Paris Saint-Germain so bad?
Thakur: I feel Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain are two sides of the same coin. The two teams are closer in their performances than the table might suggest. One team has had the lion’s share of the fortune compared to the other. Juventus have scored 11 non-penalty goals from a non-penalty expected goals (npxG) value of 7.7 while PSG have three goals from a npxG of 8.1. The Parisian club have conceded 11 times as compared to Juventus’ seven, despite both clubs conceding the same xG so far (6.9). Juve had some freakish moments, especially in the 3-3 draw with OL Lyonnes, where everything they tried turned to gold before the opponents came back. Unfortunately, PSG haven’t had that luxury this campaign.
Marsden: Yash is right, the points difference between Juve and PSG is not completely representative of how matches have always gone, but I also want to take this chance to gloat about suggesting Italy‘s success in reaching the semifinals at the European Championship last summer could propel Juve on in the Champions League this season. Eight members of that Italy squad played for Juve, who have an experienced squad and will be eyeing a quarterfinal spot at the least. As for PSG, however fine the margins have been, it’s unacceptable to only have one point from five games. I did not expect them to be exiting the competition after the league phase — and certainly not with one game to spare.
Keogh: PSG are probably finally feeling the real repercussions of having their talent pool drained summer after summer by French rivals OL Lyonnes. It has been a conveyor belt of top players moving from one teams to the other, and while OL Lyonnes have continued to strengthen, PSG have unmistakably regressed. That doesn’t excuse their frankly unforgivable performances, but when you compare last season’s squad to the one that they have now, the gaps are obvious. And they go a long way toward explaining why this season has unravelled so badly.
As for Juventus, they’ve grown steadily, keeping pace with the evolution of the women’s game without trying to accelerate too quickly, and that patience has paid off. As Sam mentioned, Italy’s Euro 2025 campaign has also boosted development, investment, and overall player quality. On top of that, Juve’s smart summer business has ensured they remain competitive. They have assessed the conditions of each of their games well and adapted quickly, which has led to their current standing.
Q4: How impressive have Oud-Heverlee Leuven been this tournament?
Keogh: Reaching the knockout stages in their first-ever European campaign would be an extraordinary achievement, especially for a club that had never even reached the qualifiers before this season. I’m a sucker for a fairytale, and I can’t help but hope Leuven complete theirs by making it to the playoffs. It isn’t always about the results. They may not beat Arsenal, yet they’ve already exceeded all expectations with a win and three draws.
In truth, they probably would have been delighted simply to experience their first European adventure, however condescending that might sound from the outside. Perhaps having nothing to lose and an opportunity to shake up the competition without any real expectations is what has aided their impressive run. Having spent a lot of time researching the club, I can say the project behind their rise is genuinely impressive. And the core group of fans who have been with them every step of the way has made the journey even more special. Their support for the minnows of the competition is what makes this story so heartwarming.
Thakur: Mighty impressive. The debutants from Belgium have been the surprise package with just one loss in five games. They have made themselves a difficult side to score against, conceding just seven times so far. They even managed to keep the mighty Barcelona out for almost the entirety of the first half. Belgian goalkeeper Lowiese Seynhaeve has been a standout performer. She made 11 and 14 saves against Roma and Barcelona respectively and made another six against PSG this matchday. Her spectacular shot stopping skills have saved their blushes on multiple occasions. Unless Valerenga — without star striker Karina Saevik — upset Bayern in their final game, the Belgium side have all-but secured their place in the top 12, irrespective of their result against Arsenal in the final matchday.
Marsden: With Christmas coming, shall I play Scrooge? Leuven look set to reach the knockout round and that will be a remarkable and unexpected feat, but hindsight does put a slightly different gloss on their performances. Apart from Barcelona, who they lost to, they haven’t played anyone higher than 10th in the standings. Three of their five matches have been against teams who have already been eliminated in PSG, Twente and Roma. Of course, reaching this stage with just one defeat so far is impressive. They should make the next round now — save defeat to Arsenal next week and an unlikely Vålerenga win at Bayern — but it’s hard to see them causing any major upsets.
Sports
Seahawks Super Bowl hero Derick Hall opens up about how ‘God’ saved him from near-certain death
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Seattle Seahawks linebacker Derick Hall made his mark on NFL history when he came up with a tone-setting strip sack in the Super Bowl against the New England Patriots this February.
There’s a low percent chance that any football player will get a moment like that in his career. But Hall had to beat much greater odds. Hall had a 1% chance of survival when he was born four months premature at just 23 weeks gestation, born without a heartbeat and suffering from a brain bleed.
“I wasn’t born… breathing,” he told Fox News Digital. “I was born dead.
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Derick Hall of the Seattle Seahawks strip sacks Drake Maye of the New England Patriots during the third quarter of the NFL Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Feb. 8, 2026. (Brooke Sutton/Getty Images)
For his mother, Stacy Gooden-Crandle, those first days of her son’s life were filled with uncertainty and fear.
“Emotional, a lot of uncertainty, scared,” she said of her emotions in the days that followed her son’s premature birth. “But… those weren’t the feelings that I was feeling during Derick’s birth. I just trusted that God would work everything out.”
That belief became the center of how the family made sense of everything that followed.
“It is probably the most important thing that we share,” Gooden-Crandle said of their religion.
“We are people of faith and have been for most of my lifetime. I joined church when I was 16 years old, and I’ve just grown up as a woman of faith. I’ve raised my children in the church and instilled faith in them and just allowed them to flourish in their faith in their walk with Christ.”
For Hall, growing up inside that environment gave meaning to struggles he didn’t yet understand.
“It was huge. It was amazing because I never really understood why me or why my family had to go through what I was going through,” Hall said said.
Derick Hall of the Seattle Seahawks watches from the sideline during the national anthem before an NFL game against the Atlanta Falcons at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Ga., on Dec. 7, 2025. (Perry Knotts/Getty Images)
“My pastor always told me, you weren’t dying for this, you are blessed to be in this position and God has something greater for you, and I think that helped me be at ease with the situation and the things that me and my family were enduring during the time.
“I always speak to my faith because obviously I’m a miracle child, and I don’t say I’m doing good, I say I’m blessed, I can’t complain, I’m above ground and I’m blessed… You can’t tell me that a child with a one percent chance to live and not supposed to be walking, not supposed to be talking, not even supposed to be alive, ends up being a Super Bowl champion one day without the Lord being in their lives.”
Even after surviving infancy, the challenges didn’t disappear, and his childhood looked very different from other kids.
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“My hardest time period was from about the age of four or five to about the age of 12 or 13,” Hall said. “I could go out and play, but it was only for about five minutes at a time and I would have to go sit down for an hour just to allow my body and my lungs to catch back up, and to this day my lungs are still underdeveloped, they always will be, they’ll always be three years behind.”
Those limits extended into nearly every part of his life, including the seasons when other kids were outside playing freely.
But through it all, Hall discovered football, and his condition wasn’t going to keep him from the game that would define his life.
Derick Hall of the Seattle Seahawks holds the Vince Lombardi trophy on stage with his teammates after winning Super Bowl LX against the New England Patriots at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Feb. 8, 2026. (Brooke Sutton/Getty Images)
“I started playing football at the age of four because I was trying to develop my body and get to the point where I was able to do things, and I fell in love with it because it was the first thing that I was able to do to make me feel like a normal kid,” he said.
For his mom, that moment came with a difficult decision about her son’s wellbeing.
“It was difficult to make the decision to allow him to play, so I allowed him to play flag football in the beginning, but making that jump to allow him to play tackle football when we were still seeing a neurologist every six months for a brain bleed, it was a difficult decision,” she said.
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“I made sure all the coaches had asthma pumps and rescue inhalers, and I gave one to the coaches, the trainers, I kept one, to make sure if somebody needed to get to him they had what he needed… And as he progressed, I was getting more and more comfortable.”
The faith in letting him play football paid off when Hall received his first college scholarship offer when he was just in the eighth grade, his mom said.
Hall went on to be a standout linebacker at Gulfport High School in Mississippi, rising from a touted four-star prospect to a dominant All-SEC edge rusher at Auburn University.
Hall finished his career at Auburn with 147 tackles, 19.5 sacks and 29.5 tackles for loss in 40 games. A highly touted recruit, Hall developed into a dominant SEC starter, earning first-team All-SEC honors in 2022 as a team captain, known for his elite power, speed, and high motor.
It earned him a chance to take his extraordinary story to the NFL as he went on to be the 37th pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.
But the 2025 didn’t unfold the way Derick Hall expected, at least in terms of his individual stats at first. For much of the year, the numbers didn’t match the effort. He was getting pressure, getting hits, doing the work that doesn’t always show up in headlines, but the sacks weren’t coming.
“I was steady getting hits… I’m getting pressures,” Hall said. “But I can’t get the sack… I’m like, Lord, whatever you got planned, let it reveal itself.”
Statistically, that frustration was real. Hall finished the regular season with just two sacks across 14 games, contributing more as a rotational edge presence than a headline pass rusher. But within Seattle’s defense — a unit built on balance, depth and consistent pressure — his role still mattered. The Seahawks leaned on a collective pass rush rather than one dominant star, finishing the season as one of the league’s more effective defensive fronts.
And then, almost all at once, everything changed.
On the biggest stage in football, in Super Bowl LX against the Patriots, Hall delivered the kind of performance that reshapes a career. He recorded two sacks and a forced fumble, including a strip sack that helped break the game open and set the tone for Seattle’s 29–13 win. That single play — driving through the offensive line, knocking the ball loose, and creating a turnover — became one of the defining moments of the game.
For Hall, it didn’t feel like a coincidence. It felt like timing.
“I got to that Super Bowl and I got both sacks, and I’m like, man, ain’t no time like God’s time,” he said. “That’s true, man.”
In a season where he had spent months waiting for production to match effort, the breakthrough came when it mattered most.
“Mentally it was tough this year,” he said. “But like I said, it’s a blessing.”
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After the game, the numbers told one story: two sacks, a forced fumble, a championship. But for Hall, the meaning ran deeper, tied back to something far bigger than a stat sheet.
“You can’t tell me that a child with a one percent chance to live… ends up being a Super Bowl champion one day without the Lord being in their lives,” he said. “That’s a miracle in itself.”
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Drake Maye voices support for Patriots coach Mike Vrabel as off-field controversy continues to swirl
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Mike Vrabel has the full support of his young star quarterback.
The New England Patriots head coach and Drake Maye, in just his second NFL season, won the AFC and brought the Pats back to familiar territory: the Super Bowl.
The big game itself did not go how they had liked, but at the very least, it showed that Patriots fans likely have their coach-quarterback tandem for years to come.
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New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel talks to quarterback Drake Maye during the second quarter at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee, on Oct. 19, 2025. (Andrew Nelles/The Tennessean/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
But the team has hit quite the detour amid Vrabel’s controversy with former Athletic reporter Dianna Russini, which led to Vrabel having “difficult conversations with people that I care about” and even seeking counseling.
Last week, the Patriots said in a statement that they “fully support” their head coach, and Maye echoed similar sentiments.
“We’re here for coach, we love coach and what he does for us, and has done for us this past year. You can’t speak it into words, and thankfully, he’s our head coach,” Maye told WHDH-TV in Boston.
“We know he’s dealing with some stuff off the field and out of the coaching world, but we’re here for him and I know he’s gonna come back.”
Head coach Mike Vrabel of the New England Patriots speaks with quarterback Drake Maye during the game against the Las Vegas Raiders at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., on Sept. 7, 2025. (Adam Glanzman/Getty Images)
The scandal began early this month when he and Russini were photographed together at a Sedona, Arizona, private resort holding hands and lying beside each other at a pool.
Since then, photos have surfaced from 2020 showing Vrabel and Russini kissing at a bar in New York City. The pictures exclusively obtained by the New York Post were taken in the early hours of March 11, 2020.
Russini reportedly married Kevin Goldschmidt, her husband and a Shake Shack executive, six months after the photos were snapped. Goldschmidt and Russini also share two children.
Vrabel has been married to his wife, Jen, since 1999, and they share two sons together. In the pictures, Vrabel’s wedding band is visible on his left hand while conversing with Russini. At the time, Russini was with ESPN, while Vrabel was coaching the Tennessee Titans.
Dianna Russini, left, and Mike Vrabel, right, are shown in a split composite image featuring Russini with an ESPN microphone and Vrabel on the Titans sideline wearing a headset. (Imagn Images)
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Both initially denied any wrongdoing, but Russini has since resigned and is the subject of an investigation by her former employer.
Fox News’ Scott Thompson and OutKick’s Armando Salguero contributed to this report.
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Sri Lanka’s government took control of the island’s cricket board on Wednesday and appointed a nine-member interim administration to carry out “structural reforms”.
Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is the country’s wealthiest sporting body, but it has been plagued by allegations of corruption and mismanagement.
World governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), suspended Sri Lanka for two months in 2023-2024, citing political interference in the running of the national board.
“All administrative functions of Sri Lanka Cricket will be temporarily brought under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, effective today,” the ministry said.
Shortly afterwards, the ministry appointed former investment banker and opposition politician Eran Wickramaratne to lead the board.
Among the other members appointed by the government are former skipper Kumar Sangakkara and former Test players Sidath Wettimuny and Roshan Mahanama.
The ministry said the interim committee will “address the current issues in cricket and implement structural reforms”.
Four-time SLC president Shammi Silva resigned on Tuesday, along with his entire committee, after the government intervened.
AFP has contacted the ICC for comment.
Sri Lanka made an early exit from the T20 World Cup, which it co-hosted with India in February-March.
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