‘Now it’s the girls’ dream’: Mara Gómez on becoming Argentina’s first trans footballer

Gómez made her professional debut this month, and wants to break barriers in a place where football and identity are entwined

To get a call up to your club’s first team is every Argentinian boy’s dream. Or so the traditional tango goes.

“Now it’s the girls’ dream … too,” Mara Gómez, who became the first trans footballer to play in a top-flight Argentinian league earlier this week, tells the Guardian. Gómez signed a contract with Villa San Carlos in the recently professionalized women’s Primera División, after years of journeying through the amateur leagues.

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Paolo Rossi: Italy’s World Cup hero whose quick feet earned redemption | Nicky Bandini

The forward’s goals made him a national hero in 1982 after a two-year ban threatened to destroy his playing career

Paolo Rossi scored more than 150 goals in his career but if you wanted to understand the brilliance of a player whose death at the age of 64 sent Italy into mourning on Thursday, it may be enough to watch the one he grabbed in the 1982 World Cup final.

Or, more realistically, perhaps a slow-motion replay. The Italy striker does not appear to have position on his West Germany opponent Karlheinz Förster as Claudio Gentile prepares to send in a cross from the right. Only with repeat viewings does it become clear Rossi has started his run a frame or two sooner, building velocity, anticipating the delivery before it has even been dispatched. He beats Förster, and his own team-mate Antonio Cabrini, to the ball by a fraction, heading in from close range.

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Against all odds: South Sudan’s daring drive on women’s football

The country’s FA is launching an ambitious strategy for a sport that has been considered a taboo for girls

South Sudan gained independence in 2011 and its history is so short that it is a regular low-scoring answer on the popular quiz show Pointless. Much less trivially, for a majority of its existence the country has been in civil war, with peace and a new national unity government in place only from February of this year.

For a country clawing its way back from the devastating effects of a conflict that has seen hundreds of thousands killed and 1.5 million internally displaced, where nearly half of girls are married by 18, child marriages are increasing and sexual violence was used tactically during the war , it would be easy to assume that football, let alone women’s football, would be nonexistent.

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‘Singing and dancing to their deaths’: football’s forgotten tragedy

In 1971, an Old Firm derby at Ibrox ended with the death of 66 fans as they celebrated a late goal. John Hodgman survived the terrifying crush and, 50 years on, asks how Rangers avoided taking responsibility

Rangers and Celtic, the dominant Glasgow football clubs, go back a long way in their sectarian hatred. The deep and violent rivalry between the traditionally Protestant Rangers and Celtic’s overwhelmingly Catholic support continues today, with total segregation at clashes between the two sides, known as the “Old Firm”.

Born a Protestant in 1947 and raised by Catholics in Glasgow, I had something of a conflicted childhood. Catholic kids had chapel and a separate education, while my birthright decreed I that was sent to Sunday School and got to wear my blue scarf to see “the Gers” at Ibrox Park every fortnight.

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Papa Bouba Diop, Senegal’s World Cup hero and FA Cup winner, dies aged 42

  • Former midfielder dies after reportedly suffering long illness
  • Diop played for Fulham and Portsmouth after 2002 heroics

Papa Bouba Diop, the former Senegal midfielder who scored the first goal of the 2002 World Cup against France, has died at the age of 42.

World football’s governing body posted a tribute to Diop on Twitter. “Fifa is saddened to learn of the passing of Senegal legend Papa Bouba Diop,” Sunday’s statement read. “Once a World Cup hero, always a World Cup hero.”

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Diego Maradona’s personal doctor denies responsibility for death

Leopoldo Luque in tears after officials search his home and office in Buenos Aires

Diego Maradona’s personal physician has denied responsibility for the former footballer’s death after police raided his home and surgery on Sunday, seizing laptops, medical records and mobile devices.

Argentinian media reported that police were trying to establish if there was negligence in Maradona’s treatment and that searches of premises belonging to the neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque were carried out as part of an investigation into involuntary manslaughter.

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Director Asif Kapadia: ‘Diego and Maradona were two different people’

Film director recalls the long and rocky road to meeting the mercurial subject of his film

Football is a huge part of my life. I was 14 when Diego Maradona scored the two goals against England – the hand of God and the wonder goal. Despite the first goal, I always thought he was the best player in the world. I’ve always been a fan of outsiders, rebels.

Everyone wanted to be Maradona. He was the global phenomenon. The pope wanted to meet him. Fidel Castro would sit and listen to Diego tell a story.

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‘It’s like my old man died’: Argentinians flock to palace for Maradona goodbyes

  • Thousand queue to pay their respects to national hero
  • Tears, football chants and tributes ring out for El Diego

The death of Diego Maradona brought Argentina to an almost complete standstill on Thursday as the nation turned its gaze to the Casa Rosada presidential palace where thousands of people queued up to file, slowly, reverently and one-by-one, past the iconic footballer’s coffin.

Tears and sobbing could be heard from the mourners of all ages and classes who had gathered from the early morning to pay their respects to Maradona as his body lay in state. Among the lamentations, football chants rang out, chief among them: “¡Olé, olé, olé, olé, Die-go! Die-go!”

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Diego Maradona: the achingly human superstar who embodied Argentina | Marcela Mora y Araujo

Maradona was a perfect representation of the human ability to be contradictory, to convey ugly and beautiful at once

“A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possesses at least two things besides: gratitude and purity” – Friedrich Nietzsche, on love, perseverance, and moving beyond good v evil.

Diego Maradona said that when you’ve been to the moon and back, things get difficult. “You become addicted to the moon and it’s not always possible to come back down.”

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Diego Maradona, one of the greatest footballers of all time, dies aged 60

Argentina, Naples, and the world of football were in mourning on Wednesday at the death of Diego Maradona, in many people’s eyes the greatest player of all time, following a heart attack. He was 60.

The Argentinian president Alberto Fernández, who declared three days of national mourning, said that Maradona had taken his country to the “highest of the world” with his virtuoso performances in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. “You made us immensely happy,” he wrote. “You were the greatest of all. Thanks for having existed, Diego. We will miss you all our lives.”

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Manchester United hit by ‘sophisticated’ cyber attack but say fan data is safe

  • Club ‘shut down affected systems’ in response to hacking
  • United ‘not currently aware of any breach of personal data’

Manchester United have been hit by a cyber attack on their systems but say they are not “currently aware of any breach of personal data associated with our fans and customers”.

The club, who host West Bromwich Albion at Old Trafford on Saturday, confirmed the hacking on Friday evening and said all systems needed for the match remained secure.

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Maradona laughing and responding very well to brain surgery, says doctor

  • Argentina great in intensive care after operation
  • ‘He laughed, looked at me, grabbed my hand’

Diego Maradona is showing signs of improvement after undergoing an operation for possible bleeding on the brain.

Dr Leopoldo Luque, the 60-year-old Argentinian’s personal physician, has said that Maradona “laughed” and “grabbed my hand” a day after the procedure.

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Diego Maradona to undergo brain surgery in Argentina

  • Argentina legend has a subdural haematoma
  • His personal physician says procedure is ‘routine surgery’

The former Argentina captain and World Cup winner Diego Maradona will undergo surgery for a subdural haematoma, a blood clot on the brain, his personal physician said on Tuesday, after he was admitted to hospital in La Plata, about an hour from Buenos Aires. Maradona coaches the local club Gimnasia y Esgrima.

The operation was expected to begin on Tuesday to address the condition, which is a pool of blood, often caused by a head injury, that can put pressure on the brain.

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England legend Sir Bobby Charlton is diagnosed with dementia

  • Manchester United great, 83, has disease
  • Charlton lost brother and fellow World Cup winner Jack in July

Sir Bobby Charlton, widely considered to be England’s greatest ever footballer, has been diagnosed with dementia.

The 83-year-old, who was England and Manchester United’s record goalscorer until recently, has the disease, the Telegraph said, with his wife, Lady Norma Charlton, content for his condition to be made public in order to help others with dementia.

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America’s superteam: Megan Rapinoe and WNBA star Sue Bird announce engagement

  • Couple have been together after meeting at 2016 Olympics
  • Football and basketball stars are also prominent activists

Two of America’s best athletes are getting married after Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird announced their engagement.

The couple boast an impressive list of achievements. Rapinoe has won two World Cups and an Olympic gold medal with the US national team, and picked up the Ballon d’Or Féminin for the world’s best women’s player in 2019. Bird, meanwhile, is one of the greatest basketball players of all time. This month, the 40-year-old won her fourth WNBA title to go alongside her four Olympic gold medals with Team USA. She has also carved out a successful career in Russia, winning five EuroLeague titles with Spartak Moscow and UMMC Ekaterinburg.

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‘Lack of shame’: Robinho affair highlights Brazil’s rape crisis

Top club Santos signed a contract – now suspended – with the former Brazil striker who was convicted of rape in Italy in 2017

A public debate over sexual violence and rape culture has erupted in Brazil after one of its leading football clubs tried to recruit a convicted rapist to lead its attack.

Santos Futebol Clube – which has produced sporting legends including Pelé and Neymar – announced the highly controversial signing of the former Manchester City striker Robinho on 10 October.

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Cristiano Ronaldo tests positive for coronavirus, Portugal confirm

  • Juventus forward is ‘without symptoms, and in isolation’
  • Remaining Portugal players all tested negative on Tuesday

The Juventus forward Cristiano Ronaldo has tested positive for coronavirus, the Portuguese Football Federation has confirmed.

The 35-year-old is said to be “doing well, without symptoms, and in isolation”, with no further positive tests reported in the squad before Portugal’s Nations League match against Sweden on Wednesday.

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Transfer deadline day 2020: Telles signs for Man Utd, Guendouzi joins Hertha – live!

How many properly good centre-backs are there in the entirety of the Premeer League? The current standard is remarkably low.

Chelsea/West Ham: Meanwhile West Ham are interested in Fikayo Tomori on loan. Chelsea really need to shift a centre-back now that Rudiger is staying.

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