Sports

‘How Liverpool Can Cope With PL Title Nerves’ – Van Dijk

Published

9 months ago

February 17, 2025

Editor

Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk insists the Premier League leaders can cope with the mounting pressure of the title race.

Arne Slot’s side moved seven points clear of second-placed Arsenal after surviving a sloppy second-half display to beat struggling Wolves 2-1 on Sunday.

After conceding a stoppage-time equaliser at Merseyside rivals Everton on Wednesday, there was a palpable air of anxiety around Anfield as Liverpool laboured to protect their lead in the closing stages against Wolves.

Van Dijk understood why there were nerves in the stands and the Dutch centre-back expects more drama as Liverpool edge closer to a record-equalling 20th English crown.

“We are all human beings and I totally understand anxiety or nervousness can kick in,” he said.

“I said it weeks ago, we just have to buckle up, enjoy the ride. There will be a lot of twists and turns.

“If you’re not ready for it, it will be a difficult couple of months for you but I feel like we as a team are ready for it.

“We will give it everything we’ve got and we will see in 13 games if that is enough.”

Liverpool can extend their lead at the top to 10 points if they win at Aston Villa on Wednesday.

But Van Dijk has experience of having a 10-point lead, albeit at an earlier stage of the season, and blowing the chance to win the league.

In January 2019, Liverpool had a similar-sized cushion over Manchester City when they lost at the Etihad Stadium as Pep Guardiola’s side won 18 of their last 19 matches, with the Reds finishing second by one point.

Arsenal have only 13 games to catch Liverpool and Van Dijk believes Liverpool will be able to handle the anxiety of the tense final weeks of the season.

“I don’t know how others would think, I can only say what I think and what I tell the boys to do because I’ve been through this whole situation and come up short as well twice,” he said.

“We have to put all our energy in only ourselves and that is hard enough already – you saw how Wolves made it difficult for us and on Wednesday it will be very difficult again.

“If you focus on other things or look at others it is only going to backfire so we keep going.

“Certain players in our team might watch other teams but it is not going to help you.

“I think that was also the mentality the season we won it (in 2020): we kept going, kept going and we found a way.”

AFP

Sports

UK Unveils Record-breaking Bid For 2035 Women’s World Cup

Published

8 hours ago

November 28, 2025

Editor

UK football chiefs on Friday unveiled details of their unopposed joint bid to host the Women’s World Cup in 2035, with 22 proposed stadiums listed in the official submission.

The bid team said the 48-nation finals would be the biggest single-sport event ever staged in the UK.

It would be the first World Cup played on British soil since the men’s finals in 1966, which were solely hosted by England.

“With 63 million people living within two hours of a proposed venue, it would be the most accessible tournament ever,” the bid team said in a statement.

Sixteen of the stadiums on the shortlist are in England, including Manchester United’s proposed new 100,000-seater arena, with three in Wales, two in Scotland, and one in Northern Ireland, across 15 cities.

The final number of stadiums is expected to be whittled down to around 16.

A measure of the size of the event is that at the Qatar men’s World Cup in 2022, just eight stadiums were used.

FIFA confirmed later on Friday that the UK bid would be formally ratified at next year’s congress in Vancouver.

The April gathering of football’s global governing body is also set to approve the joint candidature of the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Jamaica to stage the 2031 women’s World Cup.

“Hosting the FIFA Women’s World Cup would be a huge privilege for our four home nations,” the chief executives of the UK football associations  said on Friday.

“If we are successful, the 2035 tournament will be the biggest single-sport event held on UK soil with 4.5 million tickets available for fans.

“We are proud of the growth that we’ve driven in recent years across the women’s and girls’ game, but there is still so much more growth to come, and this event will play a key role in helping us deliver that.”

Manchester United’s existing Old Trafford stadium has been included, but the bid team intend to put the club’s proposed new ground forward for consideration by FIFA once plans are confirmed.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that the bid showed the UK’s passion for football.

“The (England) Lionesses’ success has inspired girls across our country, and we’ll build on that momentum by welcoming millions of football fans from around the world to a tournament that will benefit communities and businesses in host cities up and down the UK,” he said.

England’s women’s team have won the past two European Championships and reached the final of the 2023 World Cup.
From 2031, the Women’s World Cup will be contested between 48 teams, up from 32.

The next Women’s World Cup will take place in Brazil in 2027.

Sports

NFF In Fresh N1.4b FIFA Women World Cup Scandal

Published

14 hours ago

November 28, 2025

Editor

Former Super Falcons head coach, Randy Waldrum, has questioned the Nigeria Football Federation’s (NFF) management of the monies that the world football governing body, FIFA, gave the federation for the team’s preparation for the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, reports allnigeriasoccer.com.

Waldrum’s team was eliminated from the championship in the second round by England through a penalty shootout. But the American alleged in a viral video on X that his team was handicapped by the NFF’s failure to make available the fund needed to properly prepare the side for the championship.

He alleged that the NFF received $960,000 from FIFA in October 2022 to support the Super Falcons’ preparations for the tournament.

He said: “I have a real close contact here in the US that is very connected with some of the board at FIFA. This person told me that in October, every country was given $960k from FIFA to prepare for the World, where is that money.

“If Nigeria got that money why didn’t we have a camp in November? We went to Japan, we flew in and played the game and went home. Some of our players didn’t arrive until the morning before the game, I think five players who were going to start for me, arrived the night before the game and the game was 4:00pm and they traveled 16 hours on the plane. And we played Japan and then we went home. We wasted the last five days of that window to train.”

Waldrum, who affirmed that FIFA provides financial support to federations that are unable to afford business-class travel, with deductions made from their World Cup earnings.

According to him, the NFF had no justification for suboptimal logistics. “So, all these questions I have is where is this money? And the other thing I found out through my FIFA connections is that if countries don’t have the money to buy business class tickets for everybody, FIFA will fund the money and buy those tickets and just deduct it from the monies you get from FIFA after the World Cup.

“So there’s no excuse to say we didn’t have money to buy tickets and then we didn’t have camps. These are the kinds of things that the people of Nigeria don’t question. In the US, they would be questioned. If the US Soccer Federation was doing the same things, the US Soccer Federation would have to answer to it.”

The coach also faulted the NFF for failing to maximise FIFA-approved staffing provisions, noting that while FIFA allows up to 22 technical staff members, Nigeria travelled with only about 11.

“So if FIFA will pay bonuses for up to 22 people, why didn’t we have 22 people? I didn’t have an analyst and I scout. Listen, the US has a scout in Europe, watching teams play in these exhibitions, in case they face them at the World Cup,” he explained.

“We didn’t even have scouts going with us to Australia. I didn’t even have anybody to scout games. If we got out of our group, I didn’t even have anybody to scout games in other groups. Everything I had to do was on videos and what I could pick up online.”

Sports

EPL: Berbatov Names Team That Can ‘Surprise’ Arsenal In Title Race

Published

3 days ago

November 25, 2025

Editor

Former Manchester United striker, Dimitar Berbatov, has named the team that could “surprise” Arsenal in the Premier League title race.

The Gunners are now six points clear of second-placed Chelsea, thanks to their 4-1 demolition of Tottenham on Sunday.

Mikel Arteta’s men could extend that lead to nine points, when they travel to face the Blues this weekend.

Berbatov has now said he expects Arsenal to be “really tested” over the hectic festive period and says their title credentials will become clearer in the New Year.

“Of course Liverpool are low in the table and Man City are dropping points, but there are other teams like Chelsea who can surprise people,” Berbatov told ESPN.

“Six points is a good cushion but in the Premier League it’s nothing and can go very quickly.”