England play Greece away on Thursday followed by Ireland three days later at Wembley but nine players, some of them regular starters, who were called up by interim boss Lee Carsley have pulled out due to injuries.

"South American football has grown a lot overall. If you look at the majority of the national line-ups, you see players playing in teams all over the world, which wasn't the case until recently," he said.

An Indonesian team under Dutch colonial rule sailed to France for the 1938 World Cup -- they lost their only game 6-0 and the country has not played at the tournament since.

Deportivo Riestra selected a streamer known as "Spreen" for their match against Primera Division leaders Velez Sarsfield on Monday, before substituting the 24-year-old off after 78 seconds. He had  not touched the ball.

Questions are being asked of Manchester City's title defence after they slipped five points behind leaders Liverpool at the weekend but centre back Ruben Dias has told the critics to write off City's chances at their peril.

Santos won promotion back to Brazil's Serie A with a 2-0 win over Coritiba on Monday as Pele's former club secured top flight status a year after being relegated for the first time.

"Messi has been the type of boost that MLS has needed. The issue for MLS has been attracting stars at the end of their career," said Andrew Zimbalist, a professor at Smith College and co-author of National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Football.

The Portuguese coach bid farewell to Sporting Lisbon in style on Sunday, securing a thrilling 4-2 comeback win at his former club Braga -- an 11th win in 11 league games.

Lewandowski suffered a back injury in Sunday's 1-0 defeat at Real Sociedad during which he had a goal controversially disallowed.

National Sports Council (NSC) has issued 32 cheques for players and support staff of the SAFF winning Bangladesh women’s football team, equally disbursing the promised Tk 1 crore reward for bringing home the regional football title for the second time in a row, said sports Adviser Asif Mahmud on social media.

New Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim said he is under no illusions about the difficulty of the task he faces when he moves to England from Portugal but he is looking forward to the challenge.

Napoli coach Antonio Conte criticised the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) for not intervening to reverse a penalty that Inter Milan's Hakan Calhanoglu eventually missed in their 1-1 draw on Sunday.

Lewandowski's early disallowed strike led to furious debate over whether the Polish forward had been offside or not.

Miami had won the regular season campaign with a record points total but after losing twice in the best-of-three series, the MLS Cup favourites and their eight-times Ballon d'Or winner are out.

The victory, provisionally, leaves Juventus level on points with champions Inter Milan in second and one behind league leaders Napoli.

They have won 15 out of 17 games in all competitions since the Dutchman replaced Juergen Klopp in the close season.

Kylian Mbappe has fallen out with France coach Didier Deschamps and has no desire to play for the national team under the coach, reports French media.

It was another commanding victory for LaLiga leaders Barcelona who are in an imperious vein of form, scoring 24 goals in six successive wins in all competitions, including thrashings of Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.

The Brazilian superstar lasted just 26 minutes as a second-half substitute before limping off with an apparent right hamstring strain in Monday's 3-0 AFC Champions League Elite win over Esteghlal.

Pep Guardiola believes Manchester City will struggle to overcome a mounting injury crisis but encouraged the English champions to bounce back in Tuesday's Champions League trip to Sporting Lisbon.