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Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund can hold off on providing evidence in the antitrust battle between the PGA

Caleb Love has decommitted from Michigan and is back in the transfer portal, so where could the former UNC Tar Heels star land now?The one thing that we know is that Caleb Love isn't going to play another minute for UNC basketball. The former 5-star guard who was instrumental in leading the...

Former Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott still hasn't found a team yet. Here's where one slightly sketchy source thinks he'll end up this offseason.The Dallas Cowboys parting ways with Ezekiel Elliott was one of the most obvious outcomes this offseason. People would have placed...

Arizona Diamondbacks starting pitcher Zac Gallen did something that only Randy Johnson has done, albeit unintentionally.Zac Gallen has been everything the Arizona Diamondbacks could have hoped for. The team is exceeding expectations early on this season, sitting near the top of the NL West stand...

Pep Guardiola says revenge for last season’s semi-final heartache fuelled treble-chasing Manchester City as they sealed a place in the Champions League final in style against Real Madrid. A June 10 clash with Inter Milan in Istanbul beckons after a spectacular display of skill, strength and nous at a rocking Etihad Stadium against the reigning champions on Wednesday. City drew 1-1 with Champions League kings Madrid last week and ran out 4-0 victors as Bernardo Silva’s brace was complemented by an own goal from Eder Militao and substitute Julian Alvarez’s effort in a stunning last-four display. The 5-1 aggregate triumph felt particularly sweet after City’s 2021 final loss to Chelsea was compounded by last year’s agonising semi-final exit to Madrid. “Listen, I had the feeling these last days that we had a mix of calm and tension to play this type of game,” Guardiola said of that heart-breaking late 6-5 aggregate extra-time loss last term. “After 10 or 15 minutes, I had the feeling that all the pain that we had during one year from what happened last season was there today. “It was so hard and tough last season when we played quite similar to today and I remember Toni Kroos gave an interview saying they could have lost 10-1 or 10-2 at the Etihad. “Kroos is one of the best players I have ever seen and trained and when he says that it means we were there and it was really tough losing the way we lose. “In that moment, we had to swallow poison and football and sport always gives you another chance. “When the draw was Madrid, I said ‘yeah I want it’. I wanted it because I think today everything was there – the energy we had from a year of being criticised as players for not having character when we lost because it was football. “Today it was there and I’m pleased for the whole organisation – for the chairman, owner, staff and especially all the players because we accepted the defeat and today we were there.” City are overwhelming favourites with bookmakers to beat Inter, just as they are to lift the FA Cup against rivals Manchester United seven days before that date with destiny in Turkey. We had to swallow poison and football and sport always gives you another chance Pep Guardiola Guardiola’s men are also odds-on to complete the treble, which they can kick off this weekend by wrapping up the Premier League title against Chelsea. “We are one game away from winning the Premier League for three years in a row, and we have been in two Champions League finals and one semi-final,” he said. “That is consistency. I always put the example of being Carabao Cup winners for four years in a row. That means the level of this team. “There is one incredible detail in this team that I’m so proud of – they are so humble. It doesn’t matter the competition, they take every game seriously because they are so humble. “I hate arrogance in sport, the moment that you believe you are something you are not. These guys have not done this for many years and today we got the reward they deserve. “A final against an Italian team, people will say we are favourites and that is the worst that can happen but we have time to prepare and now we focus on Chelsea because we have to try to close the Premier League as soon as possible because we have to prepare for United and Inter Milan.” As for dethroned champions Madrid, manager Carlo Ancelotti had no arguments with City’s progression. “I think that tonight Manchester City deserved to win because they played better than us,” the Italian said. “Last season was different. This season they deserve to reach the final and fight for the final. They were better than us as we were better than them last season.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Tao Geoghegan Hart to have hip surgery after Giro d’Italia crash Matt Fitzpatrick excited by challenge of ‘brute of a golf course’ for US PGA West Ham boss David Moyes looking to conquer AZ Alkmaar again

The Cowboys spoke in circles around the details of Micah Parsons' future contract, but one thing is clear: he's getting that money.The Dallas Cowboys may not have many playoff wins to show for it, yet one could still say on paper they have one of the most talented rosters in the league...

The Spurs won the NBA Draft Lottery and the right to select Victor Wembanyama and a mural artist may have manifested it all into existence.The San Antonio Spurs have picked No. 1 overall in the NBA Draft just twice since 1985. The last two times that they did, however, the franchise ended up wit...

The peak that Pep Guardiola has been building this club towards, and a point that European football has long been leading towards. Manchester City have not yet won the Champions League or the treble, but they passed the most difficult challenge in eliminating the defending champions, and did so with a 4-0 victory that went beyond easy. The first half-hour was perhaps Guardiola’s finest spell of football in Europe, and maybe the best ever by an English club on this stage. It will surely be seen as the statement performance should City go and finally lift the trophy in Istanbul, as they reach the stage for the second time. Real Madrid, of all clubs, were humiliated. The entire game has been left trailing in City’s wake. Internazionale are going to need something close to a miracle to beat them, such is City’s level. It is why so many referred to this as the real final. City ended up reaching Istanbul without much of a struggle of all. They have only gone behind in games - in any competition - three times in the last four months. This just never looked like being another of those. From the very start of the game, City came out ferociously determined to ensure they couldn’t possibly have a repeat of last season’s elimination. It was a storm. The manner they came at Madrid, and the way that Thibaut Courtois initially performed miracles of his own to stop them, briefly made it seem like it was going to be another one of those nights. City just came with so much force they utterly blew that away. It instead became one of the club’s great nights. It wasn’t all about that force either, irresistible as it was. The game was ultimately cut open, and effectively decided, by the most remarkable finesse from Kevin De Bruyne. After an opening period where City had looked to pummel Madrid with crosses towards Haaland, the Belgian then played the most divine reverse pass to just put Bernardo Silva into space to drive the ball past Courtois. The goalkeeper this time had no chance. It was the least Bernardo deserved for his performances of late, and he soon had more. Madrid again buckled under the pressure. Bernardo headed home. That was it, after just 37 minutes, but it had felt done long before that. A 76th-minute Eder Militao own goal only added insult to punishment for Madrid, as City played around and through them. Julian Alvarez then wrapped it up to turn a comprehensively convincing victory into a humiliation. It was maybe the defeat that had long been coming for Madrid. It was always going to be City that subjected them to it. The fans were joyously doing the “Poznan” as their players just enjoyed possession in that way Guardiola demands, the very dance a reminder of earlier times when the club had started this journey under this project but still weren’t on stages as grand as another Champions League final. It was joyous. That should also provoke more complicated discussions, that very few people really like to have as they are enjoying shows like this. Any discussion of best-ever English performances in Europe really needs to bring in context like the fact this is an Abu Dhabi state project, that has also become the most lavish sporting project ever seen. It is why this incredible level of superiority was as inevitable as that City goal in the early stages. Even the randomness of cup football can’t withstand it indefinitely. Guardiola has been able to reach a point of perfection, from perfect conditions, and an infrastructure almost built to him. This is brilliantly intelligent planning. It is also obvious, and the sort of thing very few other clubs can afford because they just don’t have the backing over that time. That time also explains modern football. The story of the modern game is really that, around 15 years ago, a group of autocratic states motivated by an acutely regional rivalry looked at football and saw it as powerful new area of expansion. This, similarly driven along by the sport’s embrace of western capitalism, has led to the long-term distortion. Is this good for the sport? No one can deny it’s good to watch, although often at a level that goes beyond sport as a competition. This was certainly an illustration of that. It was never a contest. The European champions were humiliated. New European champions are about to be crowned. That’s all part of the show. It’s also part of wider political ambitions, that do bring in questions about sportswashing and human rights records. There's also the context of those charges brought by the Premier League, and how this return to the Champions League final would also have been the club's return to Europe had the Court of Arbitration for Sport not overturned Uefa's punishment in 2020. None of this should be taken as sympathy for Madrid. They have been one of the most responsible factors in the football landscape looking like it does. The game was for so long disproportionately influenced by their demands. The world they created just got out of their control, and they have now been considerably brutalised by it. City’s rise just continues that process, though. For the last 40 years, football has been increasingly financially staggered and stretched, with the top end getting narrower and narrower. Every few years, fewer clubs can win. State ownership has taken that to new extremes. Guardiola has taken this City to extremes. Another treble now awaits, but this is the most triumphant of all. City aren’t there yet. But, like so much else with the game right now, it feels inevitable. Read More Man City’s greatest Champions League night, Real Madrid need Jude Bellingham and five things we learned Man City vs Real Madrid player ratings as Kyle Walker dominates Vinicius Junior Bernardo Silva’s unique talents lead Man City’s evisceration of Real Madrid Five things we learned as Man City thrash Real Madrid to reach Champions League final Man City vs Real Madrid player ratings as Kyle Walker dominates Vinicius Junior

There was a player whose goals were designed to transform Manchester City into Champions League winners. It wasn’t Bernardo Silva. “Bernardo has never been a top scorer,” shrugged Pep Guardiola in March, after one of his favourite footballers had scored at the Etihad Stadium for the first time since August. He sounded utterly unworried. Silva, as he said then, “is unique”. He was aggressive presser, rhythmic passer, the man who could speed the game up or slow it down, the player he has used as everything from the most unconventional of left-backs to a false nine but who could be relied upon to make everyone else play better. But then, after five goals in 51 games this season, came two in a quarter of an hour. Against Real Madrid. In a Champions League semi-final. Only Lionel Messi and Robert Lewandowski had scored twice against Real on this stage before, but they are more frequent scorers. Silva had delivered a winner of sorts against Carlo Ancelotti’s side in a similar occasion last year; but that was a first leg, and a 4-3 scoreline was overturned. Not this time. On City’s greatest European night, amid Real’s evisceration at the Etihad, he is the man who powered them to a final where they will be favourites. It can go wrong from here – the abiding lesson of Guardiola’s City in the Champions League is that it always can – but they will never have a better chance. They may never have a better team, either. The half-time statistics – 13 shots to one, 72 per cent possession to 28 – were stark, the final scoreline – 4-0 – still more so. This was Real, after all, perennial kings of Europe. And if there was something studied and strategic about their slow start, the team playing the long game allowing City to attack, if the intention was they may grow into the game after the first 20 minutes, Silva instead scored in the 23rd, and then the 37th. There was something symbolic in his opener, in the identities of the pair Kevin De Bruyne bisected with a wonderful pass. They were the men whose precision was at the heart of Real’s dominance of this competition over the past decade. There was perhaps a yard between Luka Modric and Toni Kroos but De Bruyne threaded the ball between pass masters. Suddenly, Silva was free in the penalty area. He steered his shot past Thibaut Courtois. The Belgian had done his best impression of Superman, with twin saves from Erling Haaland headers, but he was powerless to stop this. Yet if the Norwegian has given City another dimension with his aerial ability, the unexpected element was that the man to score with a bullet header was Silva, all 5ft 8in of him. After Ilkay Gundogan’s shot was blocked by Eder Militao, the ball flew up obligingly for Silva. Good fortune or positional instinct? Whichever, the finish was unerring. Rewind to March and Guardiola had suggested Silva’s contribution could not be judged by statistics. And yet a double meant that, of Silva’s last eight club goals, three had come against Real in Champions League semi-finals. He is the small man for the big stage. Guardiola, as he inferred, rarely judges players on their goal tallies. Perhaps he may deem that Silva’s real masterpiece in this season’s Champions League was his performance against Bayern Munich at the Etihad; it was an example of how to press three players at once which, in turn, shows the selflessness Guardiola loves. There was further evidence of it. Subdued as Real were, Vinicius Junior offered the possibility he could provide the explosive to alter the game. Gundogan was booked for fouling the Brazilian as he threatened to burst clear. But sliding in on him from the other side, in a pincer movement, was Silva. A man for many a job was tasked with helping Kyle Walker patrol Vinicius. If Silva is a central midfielder press ganged into a variety of other roles, he may be the best defensive right winger around. Guardiola has tried many a formation in his time, from the inspired to the overly experimental, but City defended in a conventional 4-4-2 shape, freeing up De Bruyne to raid in support of Haaland. The stamina of Silva and Jack Grealish, the flair players with the lungs of long-distance runners, permitted it. Go back to 2019, to what proved the title decider against Liverpool and Silva ran 13.7km in a tour de force. That willingness to keep on moving may yet bring his departure. There is an almost annual question if he will leave City; Barcelona seems to exert a siren call, though they invariably lack the funds to purchase a player of his class. But Silva has enough of an attachment to City to name his dog after John Stones. The defender’s name echoed around the Etihad after Eder Militao’s own goal put City 3-0 up. Unless, of course, they were paying tribute to Silva’s dog. He could be one exhausted animal because, long after a semi-final was settled, the man still running was Silva. Real Madrid could not keep up with him; perhaps his four-legged friend cannot either. Read More Man City vs Real Madrid LIVE: Result and reaction as brilliant City cruise into Champions League final Man City’s greatest Champions League night, Real Madrid need Jude Bellingham and five things we learned Man City vs Real Madrid player ratings as Kyle Walker dominates Vinicius Junior

Diamondbacks pitcher Zac Gallen hit a bird with a warmup toss. It did not survive.

The Atlanta Braves are expected to be without Max Fried and Kyle Wright until late July at the earliest. Who could they trade for?Alex Anthopoulos is a smart general manager. He's unlikely to overpay for a rental option, especially at pitcher. Hurlers are unpredictable, for the most part. L...

As per usual, plenty of eyes will be on “America’s Team,” the Dallas Cowboys this upcoming season. Here are five games they must win if they want to prove they are legitimate Super Bowl contenders.With the NFL schedule being released this past week, fans are now able to look ah...