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Vera Pauw is “a bit concerned” about Louise Quinn’s fitness as the Republic of Ireland look to put a losing start in the Women’s World Cup behind them against Canada. A 1-0 defeat against tournament co-hosts Australia in Sydney last week was compounded by Quinn suffering a foot injury, with the defender touch and go to face the Olympic champions in Perth on Wednesday. She lightly trained on Monday and was put through her paces in their final practice session on Tuesday, but Pauw revealed “plan B is ready” should Quinn unexpectedly fail her fitness test. “We’re a bit concerned but we think that she can play,” the Ireland head coach told a press conference. “It’s an injury that is not very straightforward and it’s relying on how she reacts (during) training. Plan B is ready.” The Girls in Green go into their next match knowing a defeat would spell the end of their hopes of qualifying for the knockout stages in their historic maiden World Cup campaign. “Winning starts with not losing,” Pauw said. “If you play a game like this against an Olympic champion, I have to stay realistic but it’s clear that if we want to go through in this group, we need a result. “If we win, we have it in our own hands. If we have a draw then we depend on other results. “Canada is a very, very experienced team and they know how to have patience in getting their results. They often get their results in the later stages so that shows they have the trust to keep on going.” But Kyra Carusa feels Ireland can take heart from their battling performance against Australia, where they rallied after Steph Catley’s second-half penalty without being able to find a way through. “Those last few minutes of the Australia game did light a fire under us and show this 90-plus minutes that we have in us and the dangers we have in us throughout an entire game,” Carusa said. “That’s definitely something we take away from that game. We are reliable and have that endurance and longevity to make sure we come up with a result at any minute in the game.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

Matt Duffy's Glove Broke

The US women’s national team take on the Netherlands in their second group stage match of the 2023 Women’s World Cup, after kicking off the tournament with a 3-0 triumph over Vietnam.

It's easy to watch Lionel Messi play in the United States, but dressing like him is a bit more difficult.

England forward Lauren Hemp feels the Lionesses have moved on from their Euro 2022 triumph and are determined to refocus attention on their World Cup campaign. Manchester City’s Hemp started every game for boss Sarina Wiegman during an historic run that ended, one year ago Monday, with England lifting their first major trophy at Wembley, igniting unprecedented interest in women’s football across the UK. As a result of injuries and retirements, the England boss’s World Cup squad features seven players who were not part of that monumental match, while Rachel Daly, last summer’s left-back, is a forward for this competition. Asked if it was fair to place sky-high expectations on her largely changed side, Hemp said: “I think, as a team, yes that happened last summer, what a fantastic summer it was, but obviously it’s a new summer now, new challenges. You’ve seen in games in this tournament that anything can happen, but we’re ready for each one. “So yeah, it’s exciting to be a part of but obviously it’s a massive tournament where anything can happen, so as a team we’re just focusing on each game as it comes.” Norfolk-born Hemp, 22, was speaking from the palm tree-lined Central Coast Stadium north of Sydney, home of the A-League’s Central Coast Mariners and the Lionesses’ training base for the remainder of the tournament. After beating Haiti 1-0 in their opener, England will now play Denmark in the New South Wales capital on Friday before travelling to Adelaide to face China in their final group game on Tuesday. There were 49 places separating world number four England from Haiti, but they are just nine clear of their more familiar European opponents Denmark, who Hemp said feature “a very big attacking threat” in ex-Chelsea forward Pernille Harder. The Lionesses began their Australian adventure on the Sunshine Coast before travelling to Brisbane for the Haiti match, and have now settled into the beachside town of Terrigal, New South Wales. The full squad took part in Tuesday’s training session, which was attended by approximately 2500 locals, mostly school groups, with many sticking around for autographs and pictures with obliging players – though a strong contingent were also hollering for Wiegman herself to pay them a visit. The England boss has demanded her side be more “ruthless” after Georgia Stanway’s retaken penalty was the only goal against Haiti. Hemp said: “I think we are all working really hard in training to make sure we are being more clinical, creating more chances and obviously getting our goal percentage higher. “But we know it is something we need to improve on and we are working really hard as a team to make sure we are ready for the next game. We will be raring and ready to score some goals. “We have seen in games that we are capable of doing that, so it’s not like we have not scored before. We are all capable of scoring. It is just about making it click and getting those connections working. “I think obviously being at a World Cup is new for a lot of us – a lot of us have never been to one before. It’s across the other side of the world and I’m not making excuses but it’s important that each game we build on and we’ve seen that last summer, so we’re more than capable of doing that.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Erik ten Hag says Manchester United are making progress in striker search Palace boss Roy Hodgson ‘really sad’ to lose Wilfried Zaha to Galatasaray Premier League chief ‘not too concerned at moment’ about Saudi Arabia rise

Why Turkish sensation Arda Guler will not feature in Real Madrid's upcoming pre-season friendly against Man Utd.

Chelsea are prepared to sell central midfielder Conor Gallagher this summer providing their valuation of the 23-year-old is met. West Ham have verbally expressed an interest while Tottenham and Brighton are also keen.

Manchester City have told Bernardo Silva their decision over a transfer out of the club this summer amid interest from Barcelona & PSG.

Liverpool youngster Fabio Carvalho has spoken about his relationship with Jurgen Klopp.

Bets that artificial intelligence will revolutionize Corporate America and deliver riches to the biggest companies behind it will

When word came through that Kylian Mbappe was available this summer, Manchester United were surprisingly quick to insist they weren’t interested. The Old Trafford club are actively looking for a forward and are one of very few clubs that could afford the 24-year-old’s fee and wages. It has been insisted to The Independent that the United hierarchy are similarly willing to make separate funds available for Harry Kane should he become buyable, so they would surely see the commercial logic in securing Mbappe. Instead, they have no current interest this summer and don’t see that changing. It was similar with Arsenal, especially as their budget isn’t as big as United’s. This is one of many contradictions to Mbappe’s career that has left both Paris Saint-Germain and the player’s camp considering a world-record offer from Al Hilal in the Saudi Pro League. It is difficult not to think it would be a waste; a needless squandering of a football great’s limited years in his physical prime, even if it is only for a season. This is not to besmirch the Saudi Pro League itself, before you even get to all of the other debates about how it is used politically by Mohammed Bin Salman. That is another warranted discussion in this, in how Mbappe himself would be politically used. This is not too much different from Qatar's ownership of PSG now. It is more that he would be outside Europe, outside the Champions League. The Saudi Pro League is aiming to be the second-best in the world after the Premier League, but it is clearly nowhere near there yet. It may have attracted a lot of headlines for its transfer business this summer, but it’s going to take a long time for that to translate into an actual audience. The legacy just isn’t there. The executives of one major broadcaster already confided this summer they would have no interest in paying for rights. The Saudi Pro League is still a football backwater, if a lucrative one. And yet it could well play host to a prime season for one of the greatest footballers who ever lived. If that currently feels like an exaggeration given Mbappe’s career so far, it is how he is looking at things, and it plays into this contradiction. While many footballers aren’t too bothered about the history of the sport, that isn’t the case with the 24-year-old. Mbappe is one of those obsessed with the lore of the game, and has consequently become obsessed with his own legacy within it. Those who know him say he was more anguished than most realised to lose the World Cup final in December, because that would have meant equalling Pele in winning his first two finals. This is how he sees his career. It is also why a move to Arsenal appeals, since he likes the idea of delivering such a great football institution to their first title in 20 years. The same outlook explains his ultimate ambition to become one of Real Madrid’s great names, alongside Alfredo Di Stefano and his boyhood idol Cristiano Ronaldo. He could instead play against the Portuguese for a season in Saudi Arabia, just when they were supposed to be going in opposite directions – and even if it is en route to Madrid. Ronaldo would not have even considered that at the same age. It could well end up ‘Mbappe: the lost year’, no matter what he wins. Many in football would say that already applies to his time at PSG, mind. The Qatari sportswashing project are so likely to win the French league every season that it isn’t really seen as a proper feat and barely has much of a global audience. It also means such a great player only features in about eight consequential fixtures a season. If even that. All of this as Erling Haaland has made himself a global megastar in the Premier League, scoring in front of a TV audience of hundreds of millions every week. Mbappe must surely envy that. In some ways, though, it isn’t a contradiction at all. That is for the same reason it just wouldn’t have been a consideration for Ronaldo. The game is very different than it was even in 2009. That point in its history was still the end period of an era where there was a remaining vitality to the European game. Clubs of genuine legacy and stature such as Lazio, Parma, Valencia and Borussia Dortmund would have at minimum been in the same financial sphere as one of the best players in the world, and at least offered him an option. It was only a decade before that point that Real Betis broke the world transfer record. This was a period where people could genuinely talk of the “big five” leagues. That description is now an irrelevance. The economic evolution of the game has meant it is now just the Premier League and a handful of other clubs in western Europe. They have just been buttressed by what is essentially a state competition in the Saudi Pro League, that in many cases offers a necessary financial counterbalance. This is the true cost of a Champions League that is itself becoming a closed shop and a Premier League that is becoming a Super League. This is what the global audience wants to see. And, without any checks or balances from football’s authorities, it could well mean not even getting to watch Mbappe for a prime season. A final contradiction is that the Saudi Pro League may further fall into this. For all the necessary sportswashing criticisms of the competition, the other side of it is that the country’s sporting authorities are legitimately trying to build a sustainable – if super-funded – league. They want it to become the next best league after the Premier League, and the plan was to go from great old names like Ronaldo to that next tier of good quality players like Ruben Neves in order to offer that substance. That has happened quickly but Mbappe would represent a drastic acceleration. Maybe too quickly. As excited as Al Hilal have been about the prospect of the signing in the weeks they have sounded it out, that isn’t quite shared within the rest of the Saudi Pro League. There is an argument it would look bad if he just departed for Madrid after a season, and that it would then leave a vacuum. The league would already be looking to constantly catch up with one season it had. And what a season it might be for Mbappe, even if one argument within his camp that these years will mean his career will be able to go on for longer. It is not like he has been suffering the physical rigours of the Premier League in his early twenties. It may all play into him becoming a Real Madrid legend, in exactly the way he wants. It might just play into something bigger too. Read More Kylian Mbappe’s Al Hilal transfer could spark chain reaction affecting every top club in Europe World-record bid made for Kylian Mbappe as PSG exit looms PSG attempting to hijack Bayern Munich’s bid to sign Harry Kane Erik ten Hag says Manchester United are making progress in striker search Premier League chief ‘not too concerned at moment’ about Saudi Arabia rise Football rumours: Premier League clubs scramble for Kylian Mbappe

US-born basketball player Kyle Anderson will play for China at next month's FIBA World Cup after obtaining Chinese nationality, Anderson and the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) announced Monday.