Rashid Latif labelled the Mohsin Naqvi’s PCB as the worst since its foundation more than 70 years ago.© AFP

Liverpool finalised the most expensive transfer of the summer window by signing Bradley Barcola from Paris Saint-Germain on Monday in a deal worth around £123 million ($166 million).

Liverpool secured its main target of the summer after a monthslong pursuit of a speedy 23-year-old France international who is coming off winning back-to-back Champions League titles with PSG but mainly as an impact substitute, backing up Désiré Doué.

Now Barcola will expect to be a key part of an expensively assembled Liverpool attack that also includes striker Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz, who were signed last summer for £125 million ($170 million) and £116 million ($156 million), respectively.

Barcola is primarily a left winger so isn’t a like-for-like replacement for Liverpool great Mohamed Salah, who played on the right for nine years before leaving for Trabzonspor to end a trophy-laden spell at Anfield.

The deal will see Liverpool paying £106 million ($143 million) for Barcola, who was part of the France team which lost in the semifinals to Spain at the World Cup this summer, and up to an additional £17 million ($23 million) in potential add-ons. Barcola joined PSG for €45 million ($38.5 million) from Lyon in 2023.

The fee sets a record for a player leaving the French league.

Read moreBrazillian football star Ronaldinho makes a comeback at the age of 46

Barcola, a fast and direct winger, joins a team that has gotten off to a sluggish start to the Premier League, with Liverpool needing late goals to salvage draws against Newcastle and Nottingham Forest in the opening two rounds.

Cody Gakpo and summer signing Víctor Munoz have played on the left wing so far this season. Gakpo reportedly has been a target of Manchester City in the final days of the transfer window.

Liverpool will also play in the Champions League this season.

PSG made a massive profit from Barcola’s sale, but without him, the team has struggled to unsettle its opponents’ defenses, drawing its opening two Ligue 1 matches.

Known for his explosive pace, acceleration and ability to stretch defences, Barcola was always capable of creating space for the two-time European champions. That quality could be missing for Luis Enrique’s side this season, although wingers Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Doué still provide plenty of quality on the flanks. 

PSG also reinforced its attack over the summer with the signings of Maghnes Akliouche, Ferran Torres and Mika Godts, helping to offset the loss of depth following Barcola’s departure. 

English clubs have spent big this summer – but this is the biggest deal of the lot.

The most expensive previously was Morgan Rogers, who left Aston Villa for Chelsea for $156 million. Next is Elliot Anderson, who joined Man City from Nottingham Forest for $155 million and then it’s Sandro Tonali, who signed for Tottenham for $133 million from Newcastle.

The transfer window shuts late Tuesday.

(FRANCE 24 with AP)

As Tadej Pogacar gingerly stepped into the waiting ambulance, a funereal hush descended on the peloton. His teammmates rolled forlornly over the finish line together like soldiers mourning a fallen commander; new race leader Enric Mas refused to don the red jersey out of respect for the patron.

But cycling waits for no-one and by the next day the general classification battle ignited in earnest. Stage nine’s full-throttle racing between the top names set the tone for how this Vuelta a Espana will play out, with four men poised to capitalise on Pogacar’s untimely exit.

Pogacar’s crash made a mockery of the many, many confident declarations of his victory (including this writer’s), so predicting who will now win the most open grand tour in years feels something of a fool’s errand. But here goes: barring a miraculous late comeback from someone further down the standings, one of Mas, Primoz Roglic, Felix Gall or Oscar Onley will be wearing red in two weeks’ time. (It goes without saying that that is depending on all of them avoiding Pogacar’s misfortune, too.)

As of the first rest day Mas sits 1’18” ahead of four-time champion Roglic, with Gall a further 21 seconds back. In provisional fourth sits Britain’s Onley, 2’20” behind Mas and 41 seconds behind Gall.

Of the quartet, Roglic is the only one with the experience of winning a grand tour; having won in Spain a record-equalling four times, he is at home here and his guile and race-craft will be a huge advantage. In the Slovenian’s ‘cons’ column: he is 36, five years older than Mas, and certainly not in peak Rogla form.

Mas is in unknown territory; this is the first time he has ever worn the leader’s jersey at a grand tour. As a Spaniard riding for a Spanish team, and having just secured Movistar’s first stage win at the Vuelta in five years, the pressure on his shoulders is huge. With three previous second-placed finishes on his palmares, he wants this the most – but with that comes the danger of taking too much risk to achieve it.

He played his cards brilliantly on stage nine, powering away with Onley for company in the last 3km and holding off the Scot for victory. “Now I understand Tadej – the jersey gives you wings,” the 31-year-old said afterwards. “This morning I was as excited as a little boy.” He will have to keep that excitement in check in order to change the narrative surrounding him; Mas is a perennial top-10 finisher at grand tours but has always cracked at some point.

Onley may be the biggest unknown: at 23 he is comparatively inexperienced, with this just his third grand tour and first as Netcompany-Ineos’ leader. He rode an astonishingly mature race to finish fourth at the Tour de France last year, playing a patient game, and has picked and chosen his moments so far this Vuelta, sticking with Mas on stage nine but unable to overhaul him in the sprint. He was fourth on stage four despite having been, in his words, “up all night on the toilet”; now he seems to have recovered from that complaint he is hugely dangerous on the toughest terrain.

Gall has the strongest team in the race on paper and is an excellent climber in incredible form. His Decathlon CMA CGM squad showed the most willingness to take the fight to Pogacar and are likely to try to control the majority of this race – albeit with many eyebrows raised at their strategy and propensity to burn their matches, seemingly with no gain. Lidl-Trek’s assistant sports director Maxime Monfort rather summed it up after stage eight: “Decathlon… sometimes they do some strange things.”

With no outfit as strong as UAE Team Emirates XRG, this race is going to be difficult to control in the model we have become used to since the ‘Sky train’ years, leaving the destiny of the red jersey to be decided most likely on moments of individual brilliance or collapse. There is plenty of road left for both. The first challenge is how the riders will manage the blistering heat of Andalusia, with even Pogacar caught out without adequate fuel late on stage six, in slightly more temperate climes.

There are four major summit finishes to come: stage 12 will take the riders 2,000m above sea level, another challenge to go with the punishing gradients; stage 14 is another mountainous test before three back-to-back stages to decide the race.

Stage 18’s individual time trial will have been circled by each of the main four; Mas and Gall will need to take time out of Roglic on every summit finish to compensate for how comprehensively the Slovenian will beat them against the clock. That’s followed by two more gruelling, long mountain stages, with stage 20 taking in three category-one climbs. Stage 21’s inaugural summit of the hors-categorie Collado del Alguacil could rip up the GC entirely, in the manner of Simon Yates’ long-range assault on the penultimate stage of the 2024 Giro.

As ever this is a climber’s Vuelta, but the TT will be hugely significant too. What may yet prove most significant of all is the psychological challenge that grand tour racing presents.

All four of these riders have a wholly unexpected chance to win the Vuelta, chances that looked more microscopic with every attack Pogacar put in. For Gall, Mas and Onley, success would make their careers; for Roglic, it would provide the sweetest of endings. Pogacar’s absence has blown the entire race up. Now it is a case of who can hold their nerve.

Oleksandr Usyk has spoken out after Moses Itauma dramatically came up short against Filip Hrgovic on Saturday.

Itauma suffered the first defeat of his professional career as he was stopped by Hrgovic in their vacant IBF heavyweight title fight at The O2 Arena in London.

It looked like the Brit was well on the way to earning the win and becoming the second youngest world heavyweight champion in history, after knocking down Hrgovic in the second round and continuing to dominate as the action progressed.

Hrgovic showed a granite chin though and was able to weather the storm throughout the bout, allowing him to defeat his exhausted rival in the ninth round after Itauma had punched himself out and was struggling to stand upright.

The vacant IBF belt was on the line after Usyk had relinquished his unified heavyweight titles earlier this summer, and the Ukrainian has now shared his reaction to what unfolded over the weekend.

Posting on social media, Usyk congratulated Hrgovic on his win, whilst also insisting that Itauma will be able to bounce back from the loss.

“The Itauma vs Hrgovic fight is another reminder of how unpredictable boxing can be. Anything can happen once you step into the ring. Congratulations, Filip on a great victory! Moses, this is not the end. Come back stronger and keep moving forward. Your journey has only just begun!”

Usyk has previously referred to Itauma as ‘the future’ of the heavyweight division, but the 21-year-old will now have to rebuild as he looks to recover from his first professional defeat.

In the end, the end comes for everyone. And at the end, the end can be brutal; not a heroic rage against the passing of time and dying of the light, but in tears, doubling over with cramp, and vomiting in the punishing New York humidity. Novak Djokovic was not just left facing the question of how long he has left to fight after his first-round exit from the US Open on Sunday night, but how many more times he could stomach the difficult scenes that accompanied his five-set defeat to Mariano Navone. “I pretty much despised every moment that I spent on the court,” the 39-year-old said.

Djokovic has previously stated that he wants to keep playing until the LA Olympics in 2028, where he compete under Serbia’s flag for one last time. The dream of a record 25th grand slam title and the thrill of competition is what keeps his fight alive. It was only in January that Djokovic produced one of the greatest performances of his career in defeating Jannik Sinner in five sets in the semi-finals of the Australian Open, a night that vindicated his belief and continued pursuit. It is an achievement that looks all the more remarkable now after Djokovic admitted to an underlying health issue that is causing serious discomfort on the court. “Can the issue be fixed?” Djokovic said. “I don’t know. I’m trying.”

If it can’t, and Djokovic’s body continues to “collapse” in conditions such as a stifling late August night in New York, then the road to Los Angeles could become a long one. Though he continues to dedicate himself entirely to his physical conditioning, Djokovic is already essentially a part-time tennis player, concentrating solely on the grand slams and using the occasional tour event as a warm-up towards the biggest tournaments. He still reached all four grand slam finals in 2025 and was the third-best player in the world behind Carlos Alcaraz and Sinner, and then reached a grand slam final at the start of 2026. But the drop-off since Wimbledon – although he has only played two matches – has been alarming.

Djokovic’s ranking will now fall outside of the world’s top-10 for the first time since 2018, making his path in future grand slams even harder. So much had to fall his way already: managing his conditioning and staying injury-free, avoiding both Alcaraz and Sinner in the draw, and the odd stroke of luck such as Lorenzo Musetti’s quarter-final retirement in Australia. At the US Open, with Sinner sidelined and Alcaraz only just returning from his wrist injury, Djokovic had what appeared on paper to be a golden opportunity, before the painful reality of attempting to become the oldest man to win a grand slam in history set in the final two sets of his defeat on Sunday night.

And yes, the words “painful reality” have been used to describe the challenges Djokovic encounters at grand slam many times since his last major title at the US Open in 2023. But there was a pride and defiance on his way to successive semi-final defeats to Alcaraz and Sinner last season. Even at Wimbledon this year, his five-hour quarter-final victory over the third seed Felix Auger-Aliassime ranked as a vintage display. But the tears that welled up in Djokovic’s eyes as the Arthur Ashe Stadium stood to cheer his solitary game in the fifth set against Navone, as he shuffled around the court and looked every bit his age? They were painful, and all too real.

Djokovic knew it, too. He is not the first and will not be the last great champion to face the reckoning that comes when their powers begin to wane and their body refuses to answer. Djokovic “despised” it and likely gained nothing from it apart from perhaps a few more doubts to go along with the body-blow of how suddenly the end can appear. Ahead of 2027, the year where he turns 40, he could yet find comfort in reframing his expectations. But even doing that would be admitting to defeat. If Djokovic’s physical issues are simply his age, it is a problem that has no remedy.

As tough as it was to watch Djokovic’s defeat to Navone, there is every chance he returns in January at the Australian Open following several months of rest, recovery and preparation and once again proves everyone wrong by going deep into the tournament. But Djokovic’s earliest grand slam exit since he was a teenager asks a question that will surely now follow him into the 23rd season of his career, of how long he is prepared to accept being a diminished force, should another he fall to another early defeat in Melbourne.

It may be a Bank Holiday in the UK but that does not mean it will be a slow one at City. The transfer window closes at 11pm tomorrow and there are still deals for City to do before the market shuts until January. City’s main focus is likely to be on incomings. Palmeiras’ Allan is set to sign but the Blues still want another forward. Liverpool’s Gakpo is on their radar.

Crunch talks are expected with Chelsea between now and the 11pm deadline to finalise a move for Fernandez. The Argentina international would complete City’s midfield rebuild, were he to sign. Everton’s Ndiaye is also thought to be on City’s radar and Grealish could be used as a makeweight to complete the deal.

Stay tuned for updates…

San Beda Red Lions coach Yuri Escueta during the Filoil Preseason Tournament Finals.–FILOIL PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—San Beda will have to make do without one of its key players in its NCAA title defense in the upcoming Season 102 men’s basketball tournament.

After losing stars Janti Miller, Bryan Sajonia and Joe Celzo, the Red Lions also won’t have the services of starting guard Nygel Gonzales, who suffered a torn ACL in the offseason.

“Losing Nygel is very big for us, especially since he’s a big part of our defensive schemes,” coach Yuri Escueta told the Inquirer during the league’s pre-season press conference on Monday at Mall of Asia Arena.

READ: Janti Miller transfers to La Salle from San Beda

When asked who would take on the mantle as the Red Lions’ premier guard, Escueta joked he’s the next man up.

“Sabi ko ako na lang, e. Ako na lang mag-point guard,” the former Ateneo guard said in jest. (I told them I’d do it. I’ll play point guard.)

Kidding aside, Escueta remains confident that the team has other guards who have what it takes to step up.

“We have capable guards. I’m very confident with our guard rotation. We have Jimmy Reyes, Penny (Estacio), Maco Dabao and Dan Marcelo.”

Gonzales was a key part of San Beda’s NCAA Finals sweep of rival Letran last season, averaging 16.5 points, 4.5 assists and 2.3 rebounds.

“His recovery is looking very positive. He’s in his third month and he’s running and jumping now. We’re very happy with the process of his recovery,” said Escueta o