The night the window broke its own record, then broke its word

English clubs spent 3.46 billion pounds and sent a British record fee across Manchester. Then, in the two hours after the 11pm buzzer, two agreed deals fell apart and left Chelsea, Everton and Monaco staring at each other across the wreckage.

The 2026 summer window did not so much close as buckle. By the time the Premier League's 11pm deadline passed on Tuesday night, English clubs had committed a record 3.46 billion pounds in gross spending, comfortably beating the previous high of 3.14bn, with 475m of it transacted on the final day alone. The figures come from FootballTransfers founder Paul Macdonald, supplied to BBC Sport. They describe a market with no ceiling, only a clock.

The headline act was a 200-mile move that felt like a defection. Enzo Fernandez left Chelsea for Manchester City for 125 million pounds, equalling the British record set twelve months earlier when Liverpool paid the same for Alexander Isak. Sky Sports and ESPN both reported a five-year contract. The Argentine had told Chelsea he wanted to go more than three months ago; the club set a bid deadline a fortnight out and held to it. Chelsea banked an 18m profit on the 107m they gave Benfica three and a half years ago, a modest return on a player of that stature and a sign of how completely the Stamford Bridge trading model now governs football decisions.

There is a symmetry to where he landed. Enzo Maresca, Fernandez's head coach at Chelsea for a year and a half until December 2025, is now in the City dugout, appointed on 29 June to replace Pep Guardiola after a decade and costing around 17m in compensation. He inherits the two domestic cups, the most expensive midfield reconstruction in the sport's history, and two wins from two.

And then the deadline passed, and the evening turned strange. Chelsea had spent the day executing a plan: sell Fernandez, replace him with Lamine Camara of Monaco for 47m. Sky's Kaveh Solhekol, who drove the coverage, reported that the agreement was written, signed and subject only to a medical, with a six-year contract waiting and the player booked to fly into London. Monaco had been willing to sell a first-team midfielder because they believed they were about to receive 40m from Everton for Folarin Balogun.

That Balogun deal wobbled. The striker travelled to Merseyside and something in the medical gave Everton's doctors pause. Reporting from RMC Sport and Get French Football News described a failed medical; Monaco and the player's camp insisted he was fit, having played through the World Cup with a minor problem. Everton went back and renegotiated the terms. Monaco, suddenly comfortable again that the money was coming, informed Chelsea in writing that they were withdrawing from the Camara agreement. That notification arrived after 11pm.

Then came the last turn of the screw. Shortly after midnight, with the deal sheets still running and Everton believing they had their striker, Balogun changed his mind and pulled out. Everton were described in Sky's reporting as stunned. So Monaco kept both players, Chelsea got neither, and Everton, having already sold Beto to Fiorentina for 15.4m, went to bed with Thierno Barry as their only recognised centre-forward.

The detail that matters most is what Chelsea did next, which was nothing. They held a contractual option to cancel the Fernandez sale if the replacement fell through. They chose not to use it. Sky reported the club described Monaco's conduct as extraordinary and deeply unprofessional, and honoured their side anyway. It will be relitigated every time Chelsea's midfield looks light between now and January, and it has left a live grudge between two clubs who must talk again in four months.

Zoom out and the window's shape is clear enough. The money moved toward two poles: Manchester City rebuilding for a new manager, and Liverpool spending 123m on Bradley Barcola to replace a departed Mohamed Salah. Four of the five largest transfers in Premier League history were completed in this single window. Tottenham spent 302m and have started the season with two defeats, no goals and bottom place. Ipswich Town, promoted in May, spent 171m. This is the first window run under the league's new Squad Cost Ratio regime, which replaced PSR in November on a 14 to 6 vote and caps squad spending at 85 per cent of revenue with a six-point deduction waiting at the red threshold. The first assessment checkpoint arrives in October. Somebody is going to fail it.

What the numbers cannot capture is the sense that the deadline has stopped functioning as a deadline. Deal sheets extended completions by two hours. A signed agreement was torn up after the buzzer with no consequence. A player who had passed a medical walked away at half past midnight. The transfer window is supposed to be the one moment in football where the paperwork binds. On Tuesday night it was a suggestion.

Messi closes the international book, and then scores four

Six weeks after losing a World Cup final, Argentina's most capped player and record scorer said goodbye to the shirt. Two days earlier he had produced the best individual night of his MLS career.

On Monday, Lionel Messi announced on Instagram that he had played his last match for Argentina. He is 39. The statement was drafted on 21 July, two days after the World Cup final, and he said the death of his father Jorge on 8 August made him more certain of it. He leaves with 207 caps and 125 goals, both national records, alongside the 2022 World Cup, the 2021 and 2024 Copa America titles and Olympic gold from 2008. He also holds the World Cup records for appearances, 34, and assists, 12, and is the oldest outfield player ever to start a final.

The timing is worth sitting with. Argentina lost the final in New Jersey to Spain, 1-0 after extra time, to a goal from Ferran Torres. Messi finished as the tournament's second-highest scorer and made the Best XI. There was no decline to point at and no injury to blame. He decided a sixth World Cup was the end of the road and closed it himself rather than waiting to be closed out. A 2028 Copa America appearance has not been formally ruled out, but nothing in the statement invited that reading.

Club football, meanwhile, is going rather well. On Saturday night Inter Miami beat CF Montreal 7-1, a club record for goals in a match, and Messi scored four of them and assisted a fifth. Two were direct free kicks. It took him to 927 career goals, to 74 free-kick goals, third all-time, and to 98 for Inter Miami. He is the 19th player in MLS history to score four in a game, and reached 20 multi-goal MLS matches in 72 appearances, faster than anyone before him. The win also ended a five-game winless run, which was the actual point of the evening. He now leads the Golden Boot race on 18 goals and 10 assists, and is chasing a third straight MVP.

UEFA moves to prosecute the FIFA president

A plan to sell a fifth of the World Cup's commercial arm to private investors has been withdrawn. The war it started has not been.

The most consequential football story of the week involves no players. FIFA proposed creating a private commercial vehicle, FIFA Forward Enterprise, to run World Cup commercial operations, and selling a 21 per cent minority stake at a 20 billion dollar valuation to raise roughly 4.2bn. The lead investor was to be Thrive Capital, run by Joshua Kushner, with JP Morgan involved. Member associations were offered 40m dollars each over four years to approve it, on a 53-day deadline.

All 55 UEFA members rejected it unanimously and threatened to withdraw European teams from every FIFA competition, which put the Women's Under-20 World Cup in September, the Under-17 tournament in October and the 2027 Women's World Cup in Brazil directly at risk. Concacaf's 41 nations also refused, citing the artificially short deadline and the absence of any review.

FIFA folded. On 27 August, UEFA published a statement from its national association representatives confirming that FIFA had committed in writing to withdrawing the scheme irrevocably and permanently, and that the boycott threat was suspended. The same statement called the affair a profound failure of judgement and an abuse of presidential power, said the trust required to hold the FIFA presidency has been broken and cannot be restored, and committed the signatories to backing alternative candidates should Gianni Infantino seek re-election.

Sky Sports reported the same day that UEFA is preparing criminal proceedings against Infantino in Switzerland for criminal mismanagement under Article 158, and has filed in the Southern District of New York to subpoena FIFA and its banks. Kushner, speaking publicly on Monday, said Thrive had failed to appreciate the political dynamics of global football. Aleksander Ceferin has called the proposal a shady, opaque backroom deal. The tournaments are safe. The presidency is not.

Liverpool spend 123m to fill a hole Salah left

Andoni Iraola's first window emptied the dressing room of its landmarks and replaced them with one very expensive winger.

Liverpool completed the signing of Bradley Barcola from Paris Saint-Germain on Monday, one day before the deadline, for a total Sky Sports put at 123m pounds: 106m guaranteed plus add-ons, on a five-year contract. It is the second most expensive signing in the club's history behind Isak. French coverage frames the same deal at around 140m euros rising to 145m, and reports it as the largest sale in PSG's history, beating the 90m Neymar fee, and the biggest fee ever paid for a player leaving Ligue 1. Lyon, his first club, collect around 4.9m in solidarity payments. Reporters Mark McAdam and Lyall Thomas had the 120m agreement in principle on 29 August; PSG had been asking 145m.

The scale of the churn at Anfield is what makes the fee legible. Mohamed Salah left on a free for Trabzonspor in August, ending his contract a year early by mutual consent after a season in which Arne Slot dropped him, and departing as the club's third-highest scorer with 257 goals in 442 games. Ibrahima Konate and Andy Robertson also left on frees, Konate to Real Madrid. Curtis Jones went to Inter for 30m on 21 August after 16 years, and Harvey Elliott joined Valencia on loan on deadline day. In came Barcola, Jeremy Jacquet from Rennes for 72m in July, and Lucca Brughmans from Genk for 30m, immediately loaned back.

Jamie Carragher, on Sky, put the obvious question about fit: he called Barcola a great player but a left winger, which is a polite way of noting that Liverpool already have Cody Gakpo there. Which brings us to the loose end. ESPN reported that Liverpool rejected an 80m bid from Manchester City for Gakpo, who was understood to be open to the move, and that City then pivoted to Ndiaye. He is still a Liverpool player. He will not be a quiet one in January.

Spain closes: Madrid stand still, Barcelona register at the buzzer

Jose Mourinho wanted a midfielder and a left-footed centre-back. He got neither, and said so through intermediaries rather than in a press conference.

Real Madrid did no deadline-day business at all. Journalist Jose Felix Diaz reported that the club had closed the window, with Mourinho's requested midfielder unavailable because Barcelona had already taken Rodri, and Inter refusing to sell Alessandro Bastoni. Eduardo Camavinga attracted Premier League interest and Raul Asencio was made available; both declined to leave. It caps a window in which Madrid still spent around 225m euros, their heaviest since 2019: Yan Diomande from RB Leipzig for a club record reported between 125m and 140m, Marc Cucurella at 55m, Denzel Dumfries at 20m and free transfers for Konate and Bernardo Silva.

One Madrid player did move, and it is a homecoming. Dani Ceballos signed for Real Betis on a free in the early hours of Wednesday, a three-year deal to June 2029, at the club that developed him between 2014 and 2017 before Madrid paid 16.5m for him. Fabrizio Romano confirmed it with the phrase he reserves for done deals. Betis had to clear salary-cap room to register him.

Barcelona finished theirs on Wednesday morning by registering Gabriel Jesus, signed for around 10m euros plus variables on a deal to 2029, and goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic, bought from Fenerbahce for 2m plus 500,000 in variables. Both cleared La Liga registration with room to spare, which is not a sentence Barcelona have been able to write in recent summers, though club reporting notes the limits were less severe rather than absent. Livakovic had been close to a loan back to Dinamo Zagreb had it failed.

Elsewhere, Atletico Madrid took Jonathan David on loan from Juventus with a 25m euro purchase option spread over four financial years, giving Diego Simeone a third senior centre-forward behind Julian Alvarez and Alexander Sorloth. And Sevilla closed 27 operations across the window, 16 of them exits, and did three on the final day: Felix Correia from Lille, Lucas Stassin from Saint-Etienne and Youssouf Fofana from Milan, registered five minutes past midnight.

Serie A bought the whole squad on credit

Loans with options, loans with obligations, loans with buy-backs. Italy's window closed at eight o'clock on Tuesday evening and almost nothing about it was permanent.

The single biggest Italian deal of deadline day was Jonathan Rowe from Bologna to Atalanta, reported by Gianluca Di Marzio as a 40m euro package built from a 5m loan fee, a 30m obligation to buy and 5m in bonuses, and by Sky Italia as 35m plus 5m. Juventus took Nick Woltemade on a season-long loan from Newcastle and Pape Matar Sarr from Tottenham on a 2.5m loan with a 27.5m right to purchase, while sending Jonathan David to Madrid. Lazio brought in Albert Gudmundsson from Fiorentina on loan with a 12m to 13m option, having already borrowed Davide Frattesi from Inter, who has now scored in both his league appearances for them.

Fiorentina ran the busiest desk in the country and moved both ways at once: in came Pedro Goncalves from Sporting on a 2.5m loan with a 22.5m option and Willy Gnonto from Leeds, out went Moise Kean to Como on loan. Como also signed Robert Sanchez from Chelsea on a season loan filed, per Italian reporting, 40 seconds before the deadline.

The loudest Italian story, though, is about a deal that did not happen. Roma chased a wide forward all summer for Gian Piero Gasperini, first Jamie Leweling of Stuttgart, then Luiz Henrique of Zenit at a proposed 5m loan and 30m option. Alfredo Pedulla reported an acceleration on the second and Corriere dello Sport reported a preliminary 35m agreement on the first, which then died because, in the paper's words, the bureaucratic machinery of medicals, contracts and signatures could not complete registration in time. Neither arrived. Roma also walked away from Gittens and successfully resisted bids for Manu Kone. Gasperini leads the table having scored eight and conceded none, and still does not have the player he has asked for across two seasons. Eurosport's window verdicts had Inter and Roma joint top on eight out of ten and Napoli bottom of the big clubs on 4.5.

Leverkusen spend 60m in the closing week, Dortmund react to a knee

Germany's window shut cleanly on 1 September, and the two most interesting moves were made by clubs solving very different problems.

Bayer Leverkusen were the biggest spenders of the final week. Guela Doue arrived from Strasbourg on a five-year deal to 2031, for a fee reported at 30m euros fixed rising to around 36m, though one German outlet puts the ceiling at 37.5m. The Ivory Coast right-back, brother of PSG's Desire, played all four of his country's World Cup matches. Sporting director Simon Rolfes said the club had strengthened excellently at right-back. On the same day Leverkusen brought Moussa Diaby home from Al-Ittihad for a reported 30m, on a contract through 2031, four years after he left a club where he produced 49 goals and 48 assists in 173 games. Diaby said he did not hesitate for a second. Their reward was a 3-2 defeat at newly promoted SV Elversberg.

Borussia Dortmund's deadline-day loan was a direct response to an injury. Giannis Konstantelias, signed from PAOK this summer, scored on the stroke of half-time against Hamburger SV on 29 August and tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee seven minutes into the second half. The club confirmed it the next day. Sporting director Lars Ricken said the news hit them hard. Two days later Dortmund took Ethan Nwaneri, 18, on a season-long loan, with Ricken describing him as a very talented and technically gifted midfielder. Bundesliga's own coverage explicitly linked the two events.

Elsewhere: RB Leipzig signed Marc Guiu, 20, from Chelsea on a five-year deal for a reported 15m pounds and borrowed Neil El Aynaoui from Roma. Hamburger SV had the busiest final day, taking Fabio Vieira permanently plus Zakaria El Ouahdi and David Moller Wolfe. Union Berlin sold Ilyas Ansah to Hull City in a reported club-record sale. Per Sky Germany's Florian Plettenberg, Borussia Monchengladbach took Nicolas Kuhn from Como on loan with no option, and SC Freiburg paid Karlsruher SC around 7m plus bonuses for Louey Ben Farhat and loaned him straight back.

Lille bank 165m in seven days. Marseille sell and do not buy

France closed at 19:59 on Tuesday. Two clubs used the window in almost opposite ways, and both are now interesting for it.

In the space of a week, Lille sold Ayyoub Bouaddi to Manchester City for 100m euros and Matias Fernandez-Pardo to Newcastle for a figure reported variously as 60m, 65m and 66m. The Bouaddi deal, struck on 26 August, was reported as the largest sale by a Ligue 1 club to a foreign club, and Sky renders it as 86m pounds: 81.3m fixed plus 4.3m. City called it the most expensive teenage signing in Premier League history, beating the 58.9m Manchester United paid for Leny Yoro. Bouaddi is 18 and Moroccan and said he has watched City for years. Lille, under first-year head coach Davide Ancelotti, reinvested a fraction of it on Ayase Ueda from Feyenoord at 15m and a loan for Dilane Bakwa, who scored against PSG two days after arriving. They sit joint second.

Marseille did the reverse and it is close to a crisis of stock. Their only summer arrival was Timothy Weah from Juventus for 14m on 1 July. Out went Quinten Timber to Crystal Palace for 20m, Leonardo Balerdi to Roma on loan, Facundo Medina to Leverkusen for 23m, Mason Greenwood to Fenerbahce for 39m and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to Deportivo. Head coach Bruno Genesio, who crossed from Lille in the summer, said before the deadline that three or four players would need to leave before the club could register one or two arrivals. Per L'Equipe, Marseille now plan to sign two free agents outside the window, a goalkeeper and the 33-year-old Karl Toko Ekambi, who has accepted what the paper called a derisory salary. President Stephane Richard went on RMC on Wednesday to say the club is not for sale but is open to new investors alongside Frank McCourt.

The best small story of the French window was the tug of war over Malick Fofana. Sunderland had terms agreed at around 35m euros; Crystal Palace hijacked late with a reported 39m; negotiations restarted; Fofana ended up back at Sunderland's original numbers. Lyon's own regulatory filing, published Wednesday, gives the total as up to 35m euros, being 30m plus 5m in bonuses, with a 12.5 per cent sell-on. Sunderland majority shareholder Kyrill Louis-Dreyfus flew to Lyon to finish it before the English 1am cutoff. Lyon then used their post-deadline joker slot to sign Keito Nakamura from Reims for up to 20m. PSG signalled through RMC's Fabrice Hawkins that they were done, and L'Equipe reported Ousmane Dembele has agreed a two-year extension to 2030, still unsigned.

MLS shuts its own window today, and Miami changed the coach first

The 2026 secondary window ran 13 July to 2 September, the first time in two decades that it has stretched into September. Roster freeze follows on 9 October.

The most consequential MLS move of the week was not a player. Inter Miami appointed Cristian "Kily" Gonzalez as head coach, replacing Guillermo Hoyos, who stays on in an interim capacity until work permits clear. Hoyos took over when Javier Mascherano stepped down in April, months after winning MLS Cup, was made permanent after the World Cup break, started with 19 points from a possible 24, then went five without a win. Gonzalez is from Rosario like Messi, won 56 caps for Argentina, played for Valencia, Zaragoza and Inter, and played alongside Messi in Argentina's 2005 qualifiers. Asked whether Messi influenced the appointment, Hoyos said he has the influence players of that stature naturally command.

On the player side, Miami added the 19-year-old winger Riquelme Fillipi from Palmeiras through 2029-30 on a U22 Initiative slot, and bought an international roster slot from New England for 200,000 dollars. The Chicago Fire signed Johan Gomez, Anzor Mekvabishvili and Andreas Hanche-Olsen from Braunschweig, Craiova and Mainz. Seattle's has already paid off: Dejan Joveljic, bought from Sporting Kansas City for 6m dollars cash on 25 August as a Designated Player through June 2030, scored twice on debut in a 2-2 draw with Chicago, only the second player to do so for the Sounders. Atlanta United paid a reported 18m dollars for Breel Embolo, and LA Galaxy added Hirving Lozano, Sergi Roberto and Kyogo Furuhashi while selling Gabriel Pec to Cruzeiro for a club record.

The Rumour Mill

The window is shut, so everything below is either a free agent who can sign tomorrow or a January story that started this week. Certainty is labelled on every item.

Julian Alvarez to Barcelona. Concrete interest, deferred  On 1 September the Argentine told Atletico Madrid sporting director Mateu Alemany he was staying, turning down both Barcelona and a serious Arsenal push. Chief executive Miguel Angel Gil Marin said his personal dream was for Alvarez to remain. The follow-up, reported Wednesday by Santi Ovalle of El Larguero, is that Barcelona will come back in January 2027 or the following June, and that they signed Gabriel Jesus cheaply precisely so that the money earmarked for a marquee number nine stays in the bank. The obstacle is structural rather than financial: Atletico will not negotiate with a domestic rival at all, and Al Jazeera reported their asking price at around 150m euros. Nothing is agreed and nothing can be until the winter window.

Cody Gakpo to Manchester City. Bid rejected, on ice  ESPN reported an 80m pound City bid turned down by Liverpool, with the player understood to favour the move before City redirected the money to Iliman Ndiaye. The arrival of Barcola on the same flank does not obviously help Liverpool's argument for keeping him.

Lamine Camara to Chelsea. Agreement signed, then withdrawn  Covered in full in the lead. The relevant forward-looking fact is that Chelsea sold their first-choice holding midfielder and signed nobody to replace him, which makes this the cleanest January storyline in England, and that relations between Chelsea and Monaco are now badly damaged.

Mauro Icardi to Lazio. Offer made, paused  Icardi is a free agent and can sign at any time. Lazio, through president Claudio Lotito and sporting director Angelo Fabiani, made an offer. His agent Elio Letterio Pino said on Wednesday that Fabiani had been very kind and the possibility was real, but that they had decided to stop and wait a moment. Pino added that Icardi wants a two-to-three year project rather than the biggest cheque, and revealed that Juventus also made an approach about January. Sky Italia reported the Lazio offer was rejected as insufficient. Alfredo Pedulla has been tracking it. Treat the whole thread as live but stalled.

Roma's missing winger, second attempt. Both targets dead, January priority  Eurosport's post-window audit describes the squad as short for three competitions and the wide forward as the priority in January. Corriere dello Sport also took the trouble to debunk a widely shared story that Roma had chartered a plane to Germany for Leweling. They had not.

Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Marseille to Juventus. Unresolved at the deadline  Juventus were still working on a loan with obligation as late as 31 August, per French club reporting. He had already turned down Newcastle. Moving him would unlock room on a wage bill Marseille badly need to reduce.

The free agent market, which never closes. Available now  Karim Benzema, 38, mutually terminated his Al-Hilal contract on 31 August after eight months and 16 games, squeezed out when the club breached the foreign-player limit. Sports Illustrated reports a European return is effectively blocked because it would void a 23m dollar-a-year Saudi Pro League ambassador deal, leaving Al-Ittihad, Al-Shabab or retirement. Paul Pogba was released by Monaco when his contract expired on 19 August. Renato Sanches had his PSG contract terminated. Also unattached: Dani Carvajal, 34, training with the Spanish federation after 451 Real Madrid appearances, David Alaba, Sergio Ramos, 40, who has still not retired, Riyad Mahrez and Raphael Guerreiro.

And the smaller threads. Milan bid 20m euros for Tiago Gabriel of Lecce against a 30m valuation and were rebuffed, per a single Italian source, so treat that lightly. Celta Vigo coach Claudio Giraldez says his side still need a centre-back, which they now cannot sign until January. Hicham Boudaoui of Nice has an 8m euro proposal from Al-Ittihad, whose window is open. And Everton, having watched Balogun walk away at half past midnight, will spend four months linked with every striker in Europe.

Premier League

Nine clubs began the season with a new manager, the most since 1946-47, and two matchweeks in the early evidence is that the reset has been kinder to some than others. Manchester City won 4-1 at Crystal Palace on Friday with two goals each from Erling Haaland and Rayan Cherki, and two assists from Phil Foden; Palace's consolation was a Gianluigi Donnarumma own goal. Maresca praised Cherki's work off the ball, specifically for containing Adam Wharton. Cherki called his own performance so-so and said he played badly in the first half, which is not the standard reaction to a match-winning brace. Manchester United came from behind to beat Ipswich Town 5-2 at Old Trafford with a Bruno Fernandes hat-trick and a Bryan Mbeumo goal, though the second United goal was a Jacob Greaves own goal that arrived off a Harry Maguire handball and was allowed to stand under the letter of the law. Michael Carrick was determinedly unexcited afterwards: his side have not cracked it, he said, and there is a long way to go.

The strangest ninety minutes were at Stamford Bridge, where Chelsea led Brighton 3-0 inside 32 minutes through Romeo Lavia, Pedro Neto and Joao Pedro, and then finished the match with 25.6 per cent possession, the lowest figure Chelsea have recorded. It ended 4-3. Joao Pedro scored and then put through his own net against his former club, Cole Palmer restored the two-goal lead and Pascal Gross scored in the sixth minute of stoppage time. Xabi Alonso said his team started playing with the result rather than continuing to play. Enzo Fernandez did not feature, for reasons that became clear two days later, and Moises Caicedo came on and lasted about eleven minutes before going off injured, with Alonso saying only that the player's feeling was not the best and scans would follow. As of this morning no result has been published.

At the other end of the mood spectrum, Tottenham are bottom. Two games, two defeats, no goals scored, and a 2-0 home loss to Newcastle in which Anthony Elanga and Yoane Wissa both scored again, both having underperformed under Newcastle's previous management. The home crowd booed at full time. Roberto De Zerbi's assessment was blunt: they are not a team yet. A club that spent 302m pounds this summer is entitled to expect more than that by September.

Liverpool are 13th and winless after a 2-2 draw with Nottingham Forest at Anfield in which the underlying numbers were alarming: 0.25 expected goals against Forest's 1.29, and no big chances created at all despite 63 per cent of the ball. Alexander Isak and Victor Munoz scored, a Florian Wirtz goal was ruled out for offside in the build-up, and Forest have now gone five without defeat against Liverpool.

The season's genuine surprise sits third: Hull City, promoted through the play-offs, have won both games without conceding, the second of them 1-0 at Coventry City through a Liam Millar counter-attack on 82 minutes, on the day Coventry played their first top-flight home game in 25 years. Hull are also carrying ten injured players, the most in the division, which makes the record harder to sustain than to admire. Elsewhere, substitute Wilson Isidor won it 1-0 for Sunderland against Fulham, a stoppage-time James Tarkowski header rescued a point for Everton at Bournemouth, and Dominic Calvert-Lewin equalised as Leeds United drew 1-1 with Brentford.

La Liga

Both giants are perfect and Barcelona lead on goal difference alone. Barcelona beat Rayo Vallecano 5-2 at the Camp Nou with braces from Lamine Yamal and Raphinha, which answered a question Hansi Flick had been asked before kick-off. Yamal had gone 154 minutes without a goal after a hamstring injury ended his last club season and a World Cup that yielded one. Flick's reply was that everyone is worried about him, that he played a World Cup after an injury, and that he has had three weeks of holiday. Real Madrid beat Malaga 4-0 at the Bernabeu through Jude Bellingham, an own goal, Kylian Mbappe and a stoppage-time Arda Guler finish, with Trent Alexander-Arnold impressing from right-back in Jose Mourinho's reshaped side. Raphinha leads the Pichichi race on five, Mbappe has four.

The round's real texture was elsewhere. Racing Santander, up after 14 years, won 3-2 against Elche through a Yassir Zabiri hat-trick, their first top-flight victory since 2011-12 and the end of a 23-match winless run in the division. Deportivo La Coruna beat Valencia 3-1 at Riazor for their first top-flight win in eight years, on an afternoon when supporters' groups ended a 40-day standoff with the board by entering in orange shirts, observing complete silence for eleven minutes and erupting in blue and white at the twelfth. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, 37, has scored in each of his first three games since returning. And Real Betis lost 5-2 at Levante, a result that turned the Spanish press on Manuel Pellegrini with unusual force, Marca describing the defence as a complete liability ahead of a Champions League campaign. Betis host Real Madrid on Saturday.

The week's best oddity came in stoppage time at Anoeta. Real Sociedad goalkeeper Alex Remiro hurt his shoulder keeping the ball in play and was treated on the pitch, which under a rule introduced at the World Cup requires the treated player to leave for a minute, and where that player is the goalkeeper requires the coach to nominate an outfield replacement or lose the captain by default. La Real did not know the procedure. Referee Orellana Cid ordered captain Igor Zubeldia off, booked him for protesting, then dismissed manager Pellegrino Matarazzo and a member of staff. Matarazzo said afterwards that he was in shock and had said nothing wrong. The federation's Competition Committee gave him a one-match touchline ban on Wednesday, so he will not be in the dugout for the advanced fixture against Celta Vigo on Thursday.

Bundesliga

Germany started a week later than everyone else and immediately produced the weekend's best story. SV Elversberg, from a Saarland village, played the first Bundesliga match in their history and led Bayer Leverkusen 3-0 before winning 3-2. Lukas Petkov scored the club's first Bundesliga goal and took 40 per cent of the man-of-the-match vote; the assist came from Francis Onyeka, who is on loan at Elversberg from Leverkusen, and the second goal from Cole Campbell, signed from Dortmund this summer. Seven Elversberg players made their Bundesliga debut. Leverkusen's two new 30m signings had not yet arrived.

There were two hat-tricks on the opening weekend. Yuito Suzuki scored three in 26 minutes as SC Freiburg beat Werder Bremen 4-1, and has already beaten his four-goal total for the whole of last season; he insisted afterwards that he simply tapped all three in and thanked the players who passed. Younes Ebnoutalib scored all three Eintracht Frankfurt goals in a 3-3 draw at Union Berlin, a striker who managed five league appearances last season after a knee injury. Bayern Munich opened their title defence by beating Stuttgart 5-1 with two Joshua Kimmich assists, and RB Leipzig won 3-0 against Borussia Monchengladbach in Martin Demichelis's first match in charge.

The disciplinary story belongs to Borussia Dortmund. Samuele Inacio came on against Hamburg and was sent off three minutes later for a studs-up challenge, then threw a bottle at the club crest on his way down the tunnel. The DFB sports court banned him for two matches on 31 August, ruling him out against Hoffenheim and Paderborn. Schalke 04's return to the top flight after three years lasted 63 minutes before Ron Schallenberg was dismissed, and ended 3-0 to Augsburg.

Separately, and handled carefully by the German press, Jamal Musiala missed Bayern's opener. He collapsed twice in pre-season and was diagnosed with absence seizures caused by a neurological dysfunction, brought on by a change in medication. He has returned to team training after that medication was adjusted, has said there is no additional health risk, and Vincent Kompany says he is reacting well and will be in a squad again with medical guidance.

Serie A

Six clubs have six points from six and Roma lead them all on goal difference, having scored eight and conceded none. That is almost entirely one man. Donyell Malen has five goals in his first two Serie A appearances, a hat-trick against Fiorentina in which Paulo Dybala supplied three assists, then two more in a 4-0 win at Lecce on Monday. Gasperini's side have played 120 minutes of football and produced a top-of-the-table position out of them.

Two results ran against the grain. Napoli lost 2-1 at home to Como, Massimiliano Allegri's first defeat since taking the job and a tactical win for Cesc Fabregas, with a Stanislav Lobotka equaliser disallowed in the 95th minute for an offside in the build-up. And Fiorentina lost 3-0 at home to newly promoted Frosinone on the day the club celebrated its centenary, with Baggio, Batistuta and Rui Costa in the stands and the team whistled off. Fiorentina are bottom with no goals scored and seven conceded, and Fabio Grosso's first weeks have gone about as badly as they could.

Two structural stories are worth more than the scorelines. The first is that VAR has effectively disappeared from Italian football: under new designator Orsato there have been zero on-field reviews across the opening two matchdays, against four by the same stage last season, under a directive to whistle fouls rather than contacts and to use silent checks. Il Fatto Quotidiano, which has been most critical, also notes the suspension of the Open VAR transparency programme, and lists three contested non-interventions already.

The second is at Inter, where Piero Ausilio left on Wednesday after 28 years, by mutual agreement, with Dario Baccin promoted to chief sport officer. Ausilio had been sporting director since 2014 and oversaw three Scudetti and three European finals; the sticking point, per Sport Mediaset's Orazio Accomando, was contract length rather than money, with Inter offering only one year beyond 2027. Ausilio said that after 28 unforgettable years the most difficult moment had arrived. Napoli, meanwhile, announced on 1 September that Scott McTominay has a mild benign arrhythmia and will undergo a corrective ablation procedure, with a return expected after the late-September international break.

Ligue 1

The five-time champions are twelfth. Paris Saint-Germain have two points from two matches and have twice come from two goals down to draw, first at Rennes and then at Lille, where Vitinha scored in the first minute of stoppage time and Marquinhos in the fifth. Olivier Giroud, at 39, assisted both Lille goals. The finish produced a referee row still running this week: Eric Wattelier publicly defended the added time, saying Lille's goalkeeper had stayed down, that he had booked their left-back for time-wasting and had warned both coaches to expect four minutes minimum, and dismissed the backlash as part of the football circus.

The only club with two wins is Monaco, who beat Marseille 2-0 at the Stade Louis II through a brace from the young forward Paris Brunner, the individual performance of the round. Paris FC beat Nice 3-0 for Liam Rosenior's first home league win, and Nice have still not scored a goal this season despite an almost entirely rebuilt attack including Elye Wahi on loan. At Rennes, Djibril Sidibe of promoted Le Mans came on and was sent off roughly thirty seconds later for a late challenge, in a match that lasted 106 minutes and finished 3-2 to the hosts, Esteban Lepaul scoring twice including a stoppage-time penalty. Lepaul has three goals in two games and is being talked about for a first France call-up. That call is now Zinedine Zidane's to make: the new national coach names his first squad at 18:00 on Friday 18 September.

Major League Soccer

Messi's four goals were the headline, but the record being set this season belongs to Nashville SC. Their 4-0 win over FC Cincinnati on Saturday, with goals from Sam Surridge, Hany Mukhtar, Bryan Acosta and Ahmed Qasem, took them to 52 points from 22 games, the best 22-match start in MLS history. Their 16 wins already match the club's full-season record with twelve matches left. B.J. Callaghan's side lead Inter Miami by ten in the East.

In the West, Vancouver Whitecaps are running the club's best ever season, on 43 points from 21 after a 3-0 win at Sporting Kansas City in which Thomas Muller scored twice. Goalkeeper Yohei Takaoka recorded his 46th clean sheet, an MLS-era club record. Sporting Kansas City, by contrast, have 15 points from 22 and a goal difference of minus 34. Elsewhere, Robert Lewandowski equalised for the Chicago Fire in the 82nd minute at Seattle, cancelling out a Joveljic brace, and San Diego FC beat the LA Galaxy 3-1 with Hirving Lozano scoring his first Galaxy goal against his former club.

And the awkward continental story: for the first time in the modern Leagues Cup era, no MLS club reached the semi-finals. All four survivors are Liga MX. Toluca play Leon in Houston tonight and Club America play Monterrey in Los Angeles, with the final on Sunday.

Ceballos goes home. Dani Ceballos rejoined Real Betis on a free early on Wednesday, signing to June 2029 at the club that developed him. Fabrizio Romano confirmed it.

Sunderland and Bournemouth go to Europe. Sunderland are in Europe for the first time in 53 years and Bournemouth for the first time ever. Both drew Milan in the Europa League, Sunderland away on 10 December and Bournemouth at home on 22 October. Crystal Palace enter the same competition as reigning Conference League holders, drawn away to Lyon and at home to Real Sociedad.

A Europa League tie without a stadium. The mayor of Leuven has refused permission for Union Saint-Gilloise to host Israeli champions Hapoel Be'er Sheva on 22 October, citing public safety, even behind closed doors. Union use Leuven because their Brussels ground fails UEFA standards. UEFA says the host must find another venue, with a decision due within days.

The WSL grows to 14. England's Women's Super League begins on Friday with Birmingham City and Crystal Palace up as WSL2 champions and runners-up, and Charlton Athletic through a penalty shootout play-off. Manchester City defend a first title.

Spain stops for three weeks. FIFA has merged two international windows, so La Liga pauses for 22 straight days from 19 September to 10 October, its longest such break in recent history. The Nations League begins on 24 September, with England against Spain in the opening round.

Ballon d'Or set for 26 October. The ceremony falls about a month later than last year's, with Ousmane Dembele the reigning winner. No shortlist has been published. In a World Cup year, the credentials to beat are Rodri's Golden Ball and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia's Champions League top-scorer and player-of-the-season double.

All times Pacific. There is no international break this week; the next runs 21 September to 6 October. Where a league had not published kick-off times, the slot is marked TBC rather than guessed.