Aberdeen striker Kevin Nisbet has been called up to Steve Clarke’s Scotland squad for the upcoming Nations League fixtures against Croatia and Portugal.

The 27-year-old has not played for his country since a substitute appearance in a 2-0 win over Georgia in June 2023, but replaces Lawrence Shankland in the squad after helping Aberdeen to 13 consecutive wins at the start of this season.

Nisbet joined the Pittodrie club on loan from Millwall over the summer and has scored three goals in seven outings for Jimmy Thelin’s side.

He joins Aberdeen teammates Nicky Devlin and Jack MacKenzie in the squad, while Shankland’s withdrawal – after he missed training on Tuesday – adds to an ever-growing injury list.

Captain Andy Robertson was also not at Tuesday’s training session in Glasgow, along with Scott McTominay, Kenny McLean and John Souttar.

First-choice goalkeeper Angus Gunn (ribs) and left-back Greg Taylor (calf) had already been ruled out of the double header, with 10 others unavailable for selection, including influential vice-captain John McGinn.

Scotland visit Zagreb on Saturday before hosting Portugal three days later.

Portugal lead Group A1 on six points, with Croatia and Poland both on three and Scotland yet to get off the mark.

The draw for the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup in England will be live on the BBC’s The One Show on Thursday, 17 October.

In August it was announced BBC Sport had secured exclusive rights to broadcast every game of the tournament.

BBC presenter Gabby Logan and England’s 2014 World Cup winner Maggie Alphonsi are part of the team hosting the draw.

The match schedule will not be announced during the draw, which is expected to begin at 19:20 BST.

New Zealand hosted the last World Cup in 2022, defeating England in a dramatic final in front of a then record-breaking crowd for a women’s fixture of 42,579 at Eden Park.

Select matches for next year’s tournament will be shown on the BBC’s linear channels, while every game will be available to watch live on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app.

BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra will also broadcast commentary on the tournament, which begins on 22 August.

Sunderland’s Stadium of Light will host the opening game, while Twickenham will stage the final on 27 September.

More than 60,000 tickets were bought in the pre-sale across the opening match, the bronze-medal game and the final.

Seedings are yet to be confirmed following the completion of the final round of WXV fixtures, shown across the BBC this weekend.

Canada, France, Brazil, Ireland, South Africa, Japan, United States, Fiji, back-to-back champions New Zealand, and hosts England have all qualified, with the remaining top-six ranked non-qualified teams at the end of WXV booking spots at the World Cup.

OKTAGON MMA is days away from putting on one of the highest-attended MMA events in history.

With more than 58,000 tickets sold for Saturday’s OKTAGON 62 at Deutsche Bank Park in Frankfurt, Germany, the budding European-based organization will draw what could be the biggest crowed ever for an all-time MMA fight.

The UFC’s announced attendance record sits at 57,127 for UFC 243, which took place at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia in October 2019 with a Robert Whittaker vs. Israel Adesanya middleweight title headliner.

The only higher attendance figured have come out of the now-defunct PRIDE organization in Japan. A hybrid PRIDE/K-1 kickboxing event in August 2002 claims to have more than 91,000 seats filled, while the all-MMA PRIDE Final Conflict 2003 show announced 67,451. There is no formal confirmation of these numbers, however.

OKATAGON MMA promoters Ondrej Novotny and Pavol Neruda claim their figure is entirely authentic, and fans from all over the world have purchased tickets to be on the scene.

“It’s definitely various spots, but most of them are definitely from Frankfurt and the whole of Germany,” Novotny told MMA Junkie on Tuesday. “A few thousand coming form Czech Republic and then people who like big events. Not just MMA, but big events, they are coming from all over the world. Around 46 with different kinds of people from business, show business or also fighters and fans.”

Novotny said there are approximately 600 tickets still remaining, and encouraged fans to snatch them up to be part of a historic show. The organization is going all-out to make it a spectacle for both those at the venue and watching from home.

“We have almost 500 different kinds of lights,” Novotny said. “Some crazy fires and fireworks inside the arena. Definitely there’s some special entrances but we don’t want to spoil them before. There will be some superstars from the German rap scene. We’ve got a halftime show with John Newman, who is a crazy DJ who was just in Tomorrowland. He has many hits. It’s going to be really crazy.”

The attempt for OKTAGON MMA to differentiate itself from a production perspective is fully intentional. They want to put on events that can’t be compared to others in the industry, and for a show of this magnitude, the ante was upped event further.

“We will have a special drone which is allowed to fly above the people and it will go into the live stream,” Neruda said. “We have a special 360 degree camera with a VR set. It will be a crazy experience. We also have cameras on the referees that are live. As far as I know we are the only one who is doing it live. You can see it from an action perspective. Plus open scoring. A lot of these elements that make to entertained for the whole night.

“We love it. All the members of OKTAGON team, if you have this passion about something it’s never enough. You are never satisfied. You achieve something, you want more and to make it better and entertain people more. We are always going to events that are musical or another type of entertainment around the world or sports event, we watch what’s going on and try to inspire and bring it to the world of MMA.”

OKTAGON 62, which can be ordered via online pay-per-view from the company website, will feature 11 bouts and three championship fights. There is a local flair to the headliner, with German athletes Christian Eckerlin and Christian Jungwirth fighting for a special “King of Germany” belt.

“The main event is the biggest thing to ever happen on German soil,” Neruda said. “It’s Christian Jungwirth vs. Christian Eckerlin. Two huge stars. Very similar styles of fighter. One is from Frankfurt, and another from Stuttgart. Both used to be pro football players who dreamed on one day playing in a big stadium, and now it turned out the event they will be in a stadium will not be as a football players, but as fighters. We call this title ‘The King of Germany.’ It’s a welterweight fight. It’s going to be crazy. We prepared a special belt.”

MARTIN ODEGAARD has got Arsenal fans dreaming after sharing footage of himself working out as he steps up his injury recovery.

The Gunners captain, 25, has been out since suffering an ankle injury on international duty last month.

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He has since missed games against Tottenham, Manchester City, Leicester and Southampton – as well as Champions League clashes with Atalanta and Paris Saint-Germain.

With several of his team-mates away playing for their countries, Odegaard has been in the gym working out.

In his latest Instagram post, the Norwegian shared a video of himself running on a treadmill.

His upload also includes further images of him working on strengthening exercises in the gym.

He captioned his post with three emojis; a graph, an egg-timer and “soon”.

Odegaard’s post quickly received thousands of likes.

And several fans rushed to leave a comment.

One wrote: “We need you captain!”

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While a second gushed: “My captain is back.”

A third swooned: “Premier League ain’t ready for Martin Odegaard regen.”

And another added: “Can’t wait to see you back on the pitch.”

A fortnight ago, Odegaard lifted the lid on the exact nature of his injury.

He told Arsenal media: “It was a bad twist to my ankle, and I damaged some ligaments there, but it’s part of football and now I’m just trying to recover as quickly as I can.

“I’m moving forward, making progress and I’m feeling more positive every day.

“I’m working hard and my only thought is to get back as soon as possible.

“I’m at the Sobha Realty Training Centre basically every day now, working hard and doing everything I can do to get better.

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“I have to be careful not to push it too much, but at the same time do what I can to make sure I come back as strongly and quickly as possible.

“I’m trying to support the team in a different way now, if I can’t be on the pitch. That’s my situation, and I have to make the best out of it.

“It’s something I’m not used to. I’ve been quite fortunate, if that’s the word, or have done well to avoid injuries in the past, but this is football and I have to get on with it.

“I think it was unfortunate to get the injury in the way that I did, but also it could have been worse.

“It was not a nice twist, and when it happened I felt it could be serious.

“I’ve injured my ankle before and the pain felt a bit different this time.”

Arsenal will return to action after the international break with a trip to Bournemouth.

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Former Ireland Under-20 head coach Murphy, who was given the Ulster job in May following an interim spell in charge, has presided over an up-and-down start to the campaign with an opening URC win over Glasgow followed by back-to-back defeats by the Lions and Bulls.

Despite a couple of negative results in South Africa, Murphy says the squad is in “good spirits” ahead of a testing encounter against a Connacht side who secured impressive wins over the Sharks and Scarlets after a thrilling 35-33 loss to Munster.

“We’re coming home to the Kingspan where all the lads really love playing,” said Murphy, who will welcome centre Jude Postlethwaite back into the fold after he was released from Emerging Ireland duty earlier this week.

“It’s a big day and they know that. Connacht are riding high. Although they lost their first game, they got a lot of confidence out of that.

“They still managed to give Munster the opportunity to win the game, which they did, they went away and beat Sharks at home and beat Scarlets away, played really well although they did give Scarlets a chance to win that game.

“They’re confident, we can see that with the way they’re speaking. We’re concentrating on ourselves and trying to look after our performance which will hopefully lead to a positive result.”

LAS VEGAS – It wouldn’t be the first time a champion kickboxer transitioned to MMA to chase a former foe holding a UFC title, and Artem Vakhitov isn’t hiding the fact he hopes to face Alex Pereira again.

Vakhitov (3-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC) earned a UFC contract by finishing Islem Masraf in the first round at Dana White’s Contender Series 75. Now that he’s in the same promotion with UFC light heavyweight champion Pereira (12-2 MMA, 9-1 UFC), the chase is on.

The pair battled twice in kickboxing, splitting decision results in 2021. Neither man denies the storyline in a potential trilogy, much like when Pereira entered the UFC and was fast-tracked to a third, and then fourth, meeting with then-middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.

Pereira, 37, who just retained his light heavyweight title by defeating Khalil Rountree in a Fight of the Night main event at UFC 307, flew in to watch Vakhitov, 33, compete at the UFC Apex.

“I had no idea he was going to be here, but as I was walking out, I saw that he was sitting in the audience, and to be honest, it kind of lit the fire a little bit, kind of motivated me even more.” Vakhitov said through an interpreter during a post-fight news conference.”

The motivation worked, as Vakhitov turned in a first-round TKO finish. Not just a motivator from the sideline, Pereira also ended up being the convincing voice urging UFC CEO Dana White to sign him after his performance.

The storyline for a potential meeting in the UFC writes itself. But unlike Adesanya, who couldn’t get over the Pereira hump until their fourth meeting, the series between Vakhitov and Pereira is tied, and there is no animosity between them.

“I respect him and he respects me,” Vakhitov said. “There’s nothing but respect through both of our teams. We had a great history in kickboxing, and when we left that chapter of our life, we left on really good terms. I’ve never had any ill will towards him.

“He also congratulated me on the fight. He said it was a great fight and I told him that we soon will see each other. It’s going to take some time. I have nothing but a sportsman-like interest in seeing him in the octagon. When it happens eventually, I think it’s going to be also done with respect, just like in kickboxing. I really do think that both of us are very much just good sportsmen. We’re respectful, we respect each other’s team, and just going to see each other as fighters.”

Even with the story outlined, Vakhitov said he won’t rush through the chapters. He is well aware of where both he and Pereira are at this point in their careers, and is ready to climb the ladder to eventually reach the top of the division.

Vakhitov is also aware of the pressure that comes with each appearance he makes moving forward, as many will expect him to fulfill the destiny of earning a trilogy with Pereira.

“I thought about eventually there was maybe a possibility that we would fight again,” Vakhitov said. “To be honest, we’re 1-1. That’s what the history books say, but obviously, I think it’s 2-0.

“… A loss today was not an option. We had to come here, we knew we were coming into the cage with the win in mind. I’m sure that going forward, whether it’s debut or other fights, it’s going to be on my shoulders; it’s going to be hanging over me even more because there’s that narrative.”