JACK GREALISH made a touching gesture for girlfriend Sasha Attwood after scoring for England.
The Manchester City star opened the scoring after 18 minutes against Finland and celebrated by sucking his thumb.
The gesture was Grealish’s way of celebrating the birth of his first child.
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Sasha gave birth to their daughter Mila Rose at the end of September but announced the arrival only last week.
Grealish, 29, described Mila’s birth as the “best moment” of his life but he spent just a few hours with his daughter before flying from London to Newcastle to play in Man City’s 1-1 draw with Toon.
He has now scored for the first time since becoming a dad and he delivered on his celebration promise.
Before the match he was asked if he had something special planned if he scored, to which Grealish replied: “Yeah, to be fair, do you know what I’ve half thought about it for a while, I just didn’t manage to score yet.
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“Well, obviously I scored for England but in the moment just so much was going on and it being against Ireland and that I just completely forgot. So, yeah, maybe next time.”
Grealish has been with childhood sweetheart Sasha for 10 years.
She has been with him for virtually all of his football career, and celebrated with him on the pitch after he won his second Premier League title earlier this year.
However, intense interest in Jack’s private life came to a head in 2021 when England reached the final of Euro 2020, delayed a year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Because of their romance, Sasha was cruelly targeted by trolls on TikTok and Instagram, receiving 200 death threats a day from “young girls”.
The pair were spotted on holiday together following the tournament and slowly began showing more of their relationship on social media when the vile trolling died down.
In 2022, they celebrated their 10-year anniversary and purchased a seven-bed mansion set in 24 acres worth £5.6 million.
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They moved in to the home in late 2023, but Sasha and members of Jack’s family were subject to a terrifying robbery while cheering on the Manchester City star during a televised match just after Christmas.
Their latest milestone is Sasha’s pregnancy, which they announced on social media on July 7, and the birth of daughter Mila Rose on September 27.
The couple have been congratulated by several of Grealish’s footballer pals, including Dele Alli, Declan Rice, Ross Barkley, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Morgan Rogers.
New dad Jack Grealish reveals why he would never ask Bukayo Saka to babysit and which England pal he’ll go to for tips
Former Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel fits the bill by Carsley’s measure but international management is a different matter from leading a club. Newcastle’s Eddie Howe is still mentioned, while any idea of luring Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola to St George’s Park is surely a dream, a fanciful one at that.
The questions and second-guessing will continue until this is cleared up once and for all. It has created an inertia which will only be solved by someone, perhaps the FA, showing their hand.
The received wisdom is the FA would like Carsley to be their man, continuing on the pathway – from St George’s Park to under-21 coach and then national coach – forged by Southgate.
At this stage, however, it appears they are no closer to putting a firm recruitment strategy in place.
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On whether he would like to carry on, Carsley repeated the lines consistently trotted out as he added: “I’ve not really thought much about it. I keep saying the same thing. My remit was six games and I’m happy with that.
“This is a privileged position. I’m really enjoying it but I didn’t enjoy the last two days. I’m not used to losing in an England team. I don’t take losing well.
“People are always going to try and put their chips on one side. I’m in the middle. My bosses have made it clear what they need from me.”
Carsley’s credentials to take England to the 2026 World Cup have taken a heavy hit since the victories against the Republic of Ireland and Finland in his opening two games. Just about everything about the 2-1 loss to Greece needs to be placed in the negative half of his ledger.
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He got his team selection horribly wrong, his front-loaded side stripped of a recognised striker were a tactical mess, and Carsley’s suggestion he would “hopefully” return to the under-21 job crowned a truly dismal, head-scratching night for all involved.
England won 3-1 in Finland. They had to win. Anything else was unthinkable against a gallant but limited side ranked 64th in the world and without a point in this Uefa Nations League Group B2.
And yet, for long periods, England were slow, sterile and ponderous, even with the lift of Jack Grealish’s early goal. The nerves would have been rattling had Finland striker Fredrik Jensen not spurned two big chances at 1-0, the second after the break a shocking miss when he somehow fired over the top with the goal at his mercy.
England made Finland pay with further goals from Trent Alexander-Arnold, used at left-back in another Carsley break from convention, and Declan Rice, but this was not enough to blow away the cobwebs left from the loss to Greece.
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Grealish continued his rejuvenation with a goal but it was not a good night for Chelsea’s Cole Palmer, marginalised on the right to little effect, with returning captain Harry Kane looking short of fitness.
It was better than Greece. It could not be worse.
England at least had a shape but they were making very hard work of seeing off Finland until Alexander-Arnold produced a very rare moment of quality with a brilliant free-kick from 25 yards.
They were flat for long periods, lacking tempo and fluency. It was not an impressive dispatch of such inferior opposition.
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A win is a win, though, and that is at least a small mercy at the end of a highly unsatisfactory week on and off the pitch.
In a parallel universe, Pierre Gasly is a professional football player often daydreaming about how far he could have gone in racing, if he had only continued his career in karting. In this universe, however, the French F1 driver every so often wonders if he could be playing for his favourite club, Paris Saint-Germain, had he made a different decision in his teenage years.
If you follow Pierre Gasly on Instagram, you know the 28 year old from Rouen is a huge fan of football. (“Don’t write ‘soccer’,” Gasly’s manager Guillaume Le Goff jokingly warned me.) The number on Gasly’s car, 10, is an homage to legendary French footballer Zinedine Zidane, who wore it for much of his international career. Gasly regularly strolls the paddock in football shirts, including Paris Saint-Germain’s and the French national team’s. He organizes matches played with Alpine colleagues to blow off steam after a long day at the track (they’ll play in a 30,000-seat stadium in Mexico City, Alpine’s press officer tells me). And in the ultimate fan move, Gasly became part owner of FC Versailles, a semi-pro club in France’s third-tier league, this past March.
Gasly started playing football at age 5. “I loved it,” he tells me with a huge smile on his face. “Honestly, I’m still dreaming about it. The sport itself, actually playing ball and being with my teammates. And the whole atmosphere of being with your team, going to places and challenging other teams from other cities. I loved every single moment of it.”
“Even this morning I was saying: I think the day that I retire from F1, I’ll enter a veteran team or an old men’s club just to play. Because it’s really a big, big passion of mine.”
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Before Alpine’s PR lead snatched Gasly’s ball and pulled him away for another interview, we talked about investing in a pro team, being forced to choose between his two loves as a teenager, and having a life outside Formula 1.
You told me once that you had a “good level” when you played football as a kid. What would you qualify as a “good level”?
Well, I clearly lost it! [Ed note: Gasly’s attempts to show off his football skills shortly before the interview did not quite rise to “a good level”.] But back then, I was good with the ball. We went to the French Cup and did well in the qualifiers for just a small club.
One day we went to the formation in Auxerre, which at the time was the winner of the French championship. And they had a very famous manager back then, Guy Roux, who I got to meet. And I got in the selection for the French academy.
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I always used to run a lot. I was a winger. Until 11 I was playing half pitch, and as a winger I was going from attack to defense, attack to defense. So, actually that was really good for me, because I built up a very, very good cardio. I was putting as much effort in karting as in football.
When you were 6 years old, you started karting as well. How did you manage football, karting, and school?
So when I was 6 or 7 — I can’t remember exactly — the school actually offered my parents [the opportunity] for me to jump a year, because I had very good grades and they estimated that I could go a year ahead of what I was. And I think my parents were quite smart to say: “Well, we rather want him to stick [to his current year] and have it easy at what he does now at school, because that will free more time for him to do sports.” I could dedicate the rest of my time to karting and football. And I could manage it pretty well.
When I started to do karting competitions at 9, then it started to become more complicated with football. When I was 10 or 11, I started to miss a few practices here and there. And because of the races, I couldn’t go to all of the games. I remember I came for a game on Sunday and the coach was not happy that I was focusing more on karting than on football. And he told me as a punishment he would put me in the second team. And I said: “Fuck that, I’m not playing for the second team.” And I just stopped on that day.
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That must have been a hard decision.
I said to myself: OK, I basically need to choose. But in my mind it was already clear. Even though they are my two biggest passions, my love for karting and racing was a touch bigger. And also, I think I was slightly more competitive in karting than in football — the first was bringing me more trophies. It got to a point where I could see I couldn’t do both at my best. And I wasn’t fine with that.
Are there any things you’ve learned in football that you benefit from in motorsport? You mentioned the cardio…
Cardio is definitely one. But also team spirit and being supportive of each other. In football sometimes you’ve got to make an extra effort to compensate for a teammate’s mistake. Or sometimes you do a mistake and then someone needs to have your back. And then, in the locker room, even if you are kids, you start building bonds between each other and you understand that your best games are actually the ones when there is a nice synergy between everyone.
To a bigger scale in F1, it’s the same, you know. When we are in the engineering room, it’s like a football locker room. The only difference is that everyone is dressed up in the engineering room. But also in Formula 1, you’ve got to get everyone together and very united as a team, and you’ve got to be very transparent and honest, and you’ve got to have everybody working towards the same target. So I think that team mentality was very good to have from a young age.
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Karting is more individual. At the time it was only my dad and myself. So you’re not really looking after a team behind you. But on Wednesday, I would go to a game or practice and then I’d be with other kids and I had to understand that I needed to fit in and have that team spirit.
And also, sport in general just brings that structure in your life. Like, practice is at six… you have to be there at six. You have to do every exercise, follow the process and do the practice to get better and stronger. So when you’re a kid — you don’t necessarily see it then — but it does bring some structure to your work, which is essential in whatever you do later on.
“I need more than just Formula 1 in my life to get me mentally balanced and in a happy place.”
Earlier this year you decided to invest in FC Versailles. How did that come about?
As a big football fan, I’ve always somehow wanted to be involved in the sport. Obviously, I wasn’t going to be involved as a player. But I always had in the back of my head that if one day an attractive offer would come up, I would find a way to be involved.
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The owner who took over FC Versailles last year reached out to me at the end of last year because he saw that I was so into football — that I was going to a lot of games and watching a lot of football. They explained to me their project, their vision for the club, and what they wanted to do and how. And then they asked me if I was keen on coming and joining them on this project.
Obviously, football is a very complex sport. But given my knowledge of my sport and my experience of working in a high performance environment, they were quite keen to understand the standards of F1 and how things work here, and somehow use some of that knowledge and introduce some of those standards at the club.
And as an athlete, I think this is also an area where I bring them a lot. I try to put myself in the player’s position. I can say: as an athlete, me personally, I need this and this and this to be looked after. Where, generally speaking, owners probably don’t look so much at those things. They probably look at it more as a business, so they sometimes miss a little bit of the player side of things. But when you know how you can extract the maximum out of the guys, that actually brings performance on the pitch. So it’s a lot of interesting conversations. And a different angle to football, which I didn’t have before but which I actually enjoy a lot.
I think value-wise, we really matched. I had a very good connection with the two other owners [Alexandre Mulliez and Fabien Lazare]. And then I was like, OK, that’s definitely a very attractive project. And more for the long term as well. I need more than just Formula 1 in my life to get me mentally balanced and in a happy place. And this is just something that I love following, besides Formula 1.
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Obviously, I’m not involved on a day-to-day basis, but every week we have a catch-up. And if they are playing, I watch the game. I’m very proud to be part of it.
Photo by: Michael Potts / Motorsport Images
What are your ambitions for FC Versailles? Can it be a success story like Wrexham A.F.C., which climbed from the fifth division in the English football league system to the third-tier League One?
I mean, we are in the third division. The target for the short term is to get into the second division, which is obviously very difficult because it’s very competitive. Football is so big, you have a lot of clubs with big budgets and big structures. So it’s a good challenge, but we’re not going to hide from it. For us, it’s clear that we want to get in that second division. And mid-to-long term, to get in the first division, which is a big jump that hopefully in a few years time we’ll be able to make.
Speaking of Wrexham: actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, who bought the club in 2020, joined the Alpine F1 team as investors last year. Did you seek their advice before investing in FC Versailles?
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No, but I clearly got inspired by that story with Ryan and Wrexham. As a football fan, I obviously followed his journey with Wrexham. It’s a similar type of story with me. [Football] is not my industry. And I’m going in with some other people who are not actually coming from football as well. And yeah, I’d love to have a Wrexham versus Versailles friendly game at some point!
Have you also considered making a documentary series about FC Versailles, like “Welcome to Wrexham”?
So that’s in the pipeline, because yeah — you need exposure, you need sponsors. The more money you have, the better infrastructure you have, the better performance you’ll get out of the guys. So we have to promote our team the best way possible. But to be fair, there is a great team looking after it and they’re doing a very good job. Hopefully the ambitions and the results can follow each other.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Clarke’s jaw appeared misshapen, with a large dent in his cheek, after Wardley’s shuddering right-hander finished the fight in just 2 mins 28 secs.
The British Boxing Board of Control’s chief medical officer, Neil Scott, insisted that the injury that he suffered was similar to that of being hit by a brick.
He revealed: “I’m a maxillofacial surgeon in the NHS and, typically, those kind of injuries are caused by bricks.
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“With the size of the glove it’s not something we see in boxing.
“It must be a tremendous amount of power to do that.”
Clarke’s promoter, Ben Shalom, revealed that the boxer is recovering well after undergoing surgery.
He added: “Frazer successfully underwent minor surgery.
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“He’s feeling well and rested and will head back to the UK this evening to further recover with his family.”
Wardley spoke to the media after the fight and insisted that he followed a “gameplan”.
He said: “I know that once I hurt someone, I can get rid of them.
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Fabio Wardley swaps jobs and holds pads for heavyweight trainer in Frazer Clarke rrmatch training session
“I had a few issues for the first fight but I got rid of them, had a gameplan and executed it.
“I learned enough from the first fight to know I had enough to beat him properly.
“I can’t help it, it’s my name; War by name War by nature.
“I want belts and titles next, these domestic ones are great but I want the ones that have ‘world’ written on them.”
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Wardley now races on to be considered a serious world title contender when the belts are carved up after the December 21 rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury.
Brandon Royval had the utmost confidence he would end Tatsuro Taira’s undefeated run in the UFC Fight Night 244 main event, and he ended up doing just that.
Royval (17-7 MMA, 7-3 UFC) showed an unbreakable level of determination in going grappling exchange for grappling exchange with Taira (16-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) for all five rounds en route to a split decision victory at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
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After the fight, Royval called for a second crack at the flyweight championship and pointed to the strength of his resume, which includes several top names.
Will he get the shot at the winner of the newly-made title showdown between Alexandre Pantoja and Kai Asakura at UFC 310 on Dec. 7? Watch the video above for thoughts and analysis on Royval’s future after his UFC Fight Night 244 main event triumph.
Harrison tried to get up after the second-quarter incompletion but appeared to stumble. He then headed into the injury tent on the sideline and eventually walked into the tunnel. Early in the second half, Arizona ruled him out of the game.
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Harrison has 17 catches for 279 yards and four touchdowns for the Cardinals, who selected him out of Ohio State with the fourth overall pick in this year’s draft.
In other injury news, New Orleans Saints starting receiver Chris Olave was ruled out to be evaluated for a concussion following a helmet-to-helmet hit as he lost a fumble that was returned for a Tampa Bay Buccaneers touchdown on Sunday.
Olave was in the process of being stripped from behind by Bucs defensive back Tykee Smith moments after catching a pass from Saints rookie quarterback Spencer Rattler when the receiver absorbed a heavy hit to the head from cornerback Zyon McCollum.
Olave sat on the field, apparently dazed, while Bucs safety Antoine Winfield Jr. scooped up the loose ball and ran it back 58 yards for a score that gave Tampa Bay a 14-0 first-quarter lead.
Blakemen then delivered his decision that the fumble — and resulting Bucs score — would stand to a Superdome crowd that also had seen replays and booed in apparent anger over the missed personal foul call that put the Saints’ No. 1 receiver into the concussion protocol and out of the game.
Olave, a 2022 first-round draft choice also out of Ohio State, entered the game with 22 catches for 275 yards and a touchdown through the season’s first five weeks.
Olave had been in the NFL’s concussion protocol twice before in the past three NFL seasons.
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Reporting by The Associated Press.
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The FIM has announced a MotoGP engine freeze for the 2025 and 2026 seasons.
As reported by Motorsport.com last month, the MotoGP world championship will stop engine development for the next two seasons, before the new regulations come into force in the top class of motorcycle racing from 2027.
This will allow manufacturers to focus on preparing bikes for the new regulations, without having to invest in engine development after the beginning of the 2025 season.
Under the current rules, manufacturers could submit completely new engines before the first Grand Prix of each season. These were sealed and could no longer be modified for the rest of the year.
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With the engine freeze now agreed unanimously by all the manufacturers, the sample engine that each team submits on Thursday at the 2025 Thai Grand Prix, the first round on next year’s calendar, will be identical to the ones they use all season. They will be limited to eight engines for each year’s racing.
Exempt from the freeze will be the two manufacturers who currently enjoy concessions, namely Honda and Yamaha. Their concessions status is only likely to change if there is a dramatic improvement in their results over the final few rounds of this season.
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Both factory and private teams will be subject to the freeze ahead of 2027, when the current 1000cc engine formula will be cut to 850cc. This will be accompanied by a considerable restriction of aerodynamic elements and other devices, such as the ride height adjusters. The latter will essentially disappear, apart from those used specifically for race starts.
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Race start
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
The move makes sense given the desire of the championship’s governing bodies to limit investment by the factories with only two seasons left before the current technical framework changes.
This is not the first time that MotoGP’s highest decision-making body has played the engine freeze card to contain spending and stabilise budgets. The most recent case of this measure being taken was during the pandemic, specifically the 2020 and 2021 seasons.
In August 2020, Yamaha asked for permission to open the M1 engines of Valentino Rossi and Maverick Vinales, claiming there was a problem with the valves. That request led to considerable distrust from the other representatives of the Manufacturers’ Association (MSMA).
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In the FIM statement announcing the engine freeze, it confirmed changes for safety or reliability would be permitted if no performance gain can be proven.
“Engine specification in the MotoGP class will be frozen for 2026, requiring all manufacturers to use their 2025 specification the following season. This is in order to control costs and maximise parity ahead of the introduction of the new regulations in 2027,” the FIM statement read.
“Certain allowances may be made concerning corrections for safety or reliability, or proven nonavailability of components, providing no performance increase will be gained.”
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